A Knight In Rusty Armor. Dixie Browning
again. I’ll heat us some soup.”
She didn’t look much better, Trav concluded some twenty minutes later. She was wearing the same clothes, but different shoes. At least her feet and her hair were dry. Her hair, straight, thick and shoulder length, was some smoky color that wasn’t exactly brown and wasn’t exactly blond. At least she was no longer shivering.
“Find the aspirin?”
“Yes, thanks,” she croaked. “Sorry to be such a nuisance.”
“No problem,” he said as he dished up two bowls of vegetable soup and dug out a tube of saltines. “A bad cold’s nothing to sneeze at.”
Trav waited as she stared at him for about six seconds, and then she groaned. Either her health had taken a sudden turn for the worse or she had a low tolerance for bad puns.
Over the light supper he had a chance to study her. She was younger than he’d first thought. He’d been right about her eyes, though. They were gray, with a hint of green, like Spanish moss after a rain.
He had a funny feeling those clear eyes of hers weren’t quite as transparent as they looked, though. He could read her only up to a point. Enough to know she was hurting. Enough to know she was scared. Enough to know she was hiding something, but as to what it was, he didn’t even want to know.
He did know she was wilting fast. Probably used the last of her strength beating the hell out of her old clunker—for all the good it had done.
“By the way, I called the garage. They can’t get to your car until morning. Washout just below Frisco has everything south of here blocked, and there’s a cut just north of where we left her that’s blocking traffic until they can get a road plow in.”
“Her?”
“Your, uh—car?”
“Oh. That her.” She nodded and winced, as if even that small action put a drain on her resources.
“I’m not sure how much you know about the lay of the land, but Frisco’s the village just south of where we are now. Hatteras is the next one down the line,” he explained. “Technically it’s more west than south, but most people think north and south when they picture the Banks.”
She nodded again, but he could tell he wasn’t getting through. In fact she looked just about ready to fall face first into her soup bowl.
“Ma’am—Ru—why not turn in? They say sleep’s the best medicine for a cold. While you’re sacked out I’ll go retrieve whatever else you need from your car. With my four-wheel-drive, I ought to be able to get through.”
While he was at it, he’d clean the thing out in case it didn’t make it through the night. It wouldn’t be the first time a vehicle had disappeared without a trace.
“Keys in my purse,” she said, her voice momentarily improved by the hot soup and coffee. “May I try to call Moselle again?”
“Be my guest.” He didn’t think much of her chances. Even if she made contact, it wasn’t going to do her much good with the road washed out.
She stood and gathered up her bowl and cup, looking lost and helpless. Against every grain of common sense he possessed, Trav found himself wanting to take them out of her hands, wanting to take her in his arms and promise her that everything would be all right. He held back, partly because he was in no position to promise her anything, partly because, like every other serviceman, he’d been trained to avoid anything that could possibly be construed as sexual harassment.
But mostly because the temptation to hold her, to reach out to her, was so strong. He didn’t trust his instincts where women were concerned.
He looked her over and reached the conclusion that she was a lot stronger than she looked, despite appearances. There might be shadows under her eyes and a droop to her pale lips, but somewhere underneath that fragile exterior he had a feeling there was a solid core of steel.
“I think you’d better hit the sack, ma’am. I changed the sheets this morning. If you need more covers, look in the locker at the foot of the bed.”
Personally, he liked to sleep with the windows open year round. Under the circumstances that might not be a good idea.
For the next two days Trav found himself playing reluctant host to a stubborn, close-mouthed, suspicious woman in a small, bare house with only one finished bedroom and a few mismatched pieces of furniture. It was not a comfortable situation, but he didn’t see what choice he had. If his guest had a single social grace, she must have left it hidden under the floormat of her car, which by now was probably buried under a few tons of sand and salt water.
At last report, one tow truck was stuck in the washout south of Frisco, another one had been caught on the wrong side of the S-curve, north of Chicamacomico until the road crews could scrape the highway. And that would take a while because a section of the Oregon Inlet bridge, which had been damaged and rebuilt a few years ago after a barge slammed into it in a storm, was showing signs of sinking again. Heavy equipment was being held back until they could get a ferry up and running.
Life on the Outer Banks wasn’t always easy, but of all the places Trav had been stationed in his twenty-year career—Alaska, Hawaii, Connecticut, the U.S. Virgin Islands, not to mention all the places he’d lived as a kid, following his old man—he’d never found one that suited him better.
Mostly the woman, whose full name was Ruanna Roberts according to the registration on her car, slept. It was just as well. Trav had things to do, and he didn’t need any more delays.
He stopped by the exchange and picked up extra milk, extra coffee, a few more cans of soup and a supply of aspirin, just in case. While he was out he bought some groceries for Miss Cal, fed her chickens and walked her dog. After listening to her comments, mostly unflattering, about the government, old bones and cable TV, he loaded her porch with firewood and drove home.
Ru was still sleeping, but the coffeepot he’d left half-full was empty and unplugged. Evidently she hadn’t slept all day. It felt odd, having someone else in the house. Not necessarily bad, just odd.
Get used to it, Holiday. With any luck at all, you’ll be sharing quarters on a permanent basis.
Feeling a familiar tug of emotion, he put through another call, reached Sharon, took a deep, steadying breath and asked to speak to his son.
“Matt’s in school.”
He’d forgotten the time difference. There was a long silence, and then, “How come whenever I call, he’s never available. If it’s not school it’s soccer practice. If it’s not that, he’s sleeping over with a friend. Give me a break, Sharon. He’s my son, dammit.”
“I see you haven’t changed. If you don’t get your way, you resort to swearing. Maybe it’s better if I don’t let you meet him at all. I don’t think you’d be a very good influence.”
“Oh, and I suppose Saint Andrew is a great influence,” he jeered. Trav had never even met the man. For all he knew, Andrew Rollins was an ideal role model, but dammit, Matthew was his son, not Rollins’s. Trav had never even spoken to the boy, much less seen him. He still found it hard to believe that for the past twelve years he’d had a son, and until eleven months ago he hadn’t even known about him.
Damned if he wasn’t tempted to threaten her again with a lawyer, but if he knew Sharon—and he did, having been married to her for a few miserable years a long time ago—that would only get her back up. As she’d been quick to point out the first time he’d mentioned joint custody, the law would side with her. At the time he’d been a bachelor living in rented rooms, and she was able to provide a home and a stable family. “Three guesses which side social services will come down on,” she’d taunted.
Trav had bitten his tongue and reminded himself that she’d been the one to get in touch with him after all this time, to tell him he had a son.