This Time Around Read online

  It was going to be a long trip.

  Luke turned onto the correct road, then checked on Walter—still fast asleep, despite the storm, loud music, and rumbling engine. The rain continued, the conditions deteriorating with each mile.

  “You’re going too fast.”

  Allie was being overly cautious—totally unlike her. But, hey, no one wanted to keep the car safe more than he did. He eased off the accelerator again.

  The wipers, even on the highest speed, could hardly keep pace with the deluge flooding the windshield. The road was windy, the mountain rising on one side and dropping off on the other. Rain pummeled the roof and thunder cracked nearby. At least the ruckus drowned out that ridiculous music.

  As if realizing that herself, Allie shut off the playlist.

  Luke drove on, one slow mile at a time, as Allie stared out the passenger window. He kept his gaze glued on the pavement, navigating the winding road carefully, fully aware that if anything happened to this perfectly restored car, the blame would fall squarely on him. He hadn’t fully considered that when he’d agreed to this little road trip. His palms grew damp, sticking to the steering wheel.

  One mile turned into twelve. This uncomfortable silence would be the death of him. Maybe he should attempt a civil conversation. Keep it neutral.

  “So . . . your grandparents have been married fifty years, huh? That’s something.”

  “They argue like two kids in a sandbox.” Her fond tone contradicted the words.

  Her grandparents were great, and they visited often. “Yeah, but then your grandma brings him a cuppa joe, and he pulls her down on his lap, and she tells him she’s too old to be pawed at like a teenager—”

  “And then they’re off to the races again,” Allie finished.

  Silence settled in once again, the conversation having reached a dead end. Luke gave it another go. “So, how’s Olivia doing? I don’t see her around town very often.”

  “Busy with the kids and fund-raisers and field trips.”

  “Have you babysat lately? Evan must be in kindergarten by now.”

  “He is. But Olivia hasn’t let me babysit since the Cocoa Puffs incident.”

  He tore his gaze from the pavement to glance at her. “What incident?”

  “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard. I thought everyone in the entire tristate area knew by now.”

  “Not me, I swear.”

  Allie was quiet so long Luke thought she was going to drop the whole thing.

  Then she spared him a look. “One night while I was babysitting over a long weekend, Evan decided to put Cocoa Puffs up his nose while I was changing Emma’s diaper. Ella saw him do it and screamed for me. But when I got to the kitchen, I couldn’t get them out, not even with tweezers. I knew he could breathe through his mouth, but still . . . I guess I freaked out a little.

  “I drove him to the ER, totally frantic, reminding him to keep his mouth open. Emma screamed the whole way because it was time for her bottle, and Ella kept asking if Evan was going to die.”

  Luke’s lips twitched.

  “At the hospital a nurse came into the room as I was searching for Emma’s bottle and dialing Olivia to break the news. The nurse gave me this condescending look as she gave Evan’s nose a hard pinch and told him to blow. Then he started wailing—just as Olivia picked up the phone, of course. Turned out he was crying not because the procedure had hurt, but because his Cocoa Puffs were ‘broked.’”

  Luke held back a laugh he knew wouldn’t be appreciated.

  “Try telling Olivia that though. She and Spencer came right home from their weekend getaway, and I haven’t been asked to babysit since.”

  His humor drained away. Olivia had always been Miss Responsibility while Allie was . . . well, she was Allie. She was impulsive and changeable and fun, which made her a great aunt. And he couldn’t help but be annoyed with Olivia for taking that away from her.

  Chapter 7

  Allie couldn’t believe she’d just relayed that stupid story to Luke. Reliving her Cocoa Puffs faux pas made her feel vulnerable, and that was the last thing she wanted to feel around Luke.

  “Anyway . . .” She hoped her upbeat tone glossed over her hurt. “I still get to spend time with the little rugrats, of course, and Evan learned not to block his breathing pathways with cereal.”

  “She overreacted. You didn’t do anything wrong. Just give her a little time.”

  Allie let out a humorless laugh. She wouldn’t hold her breath. The rain continued to pound the roof of the car, and a crack of thunder split the air. She glanced in the back seat for the hundredth time to make sure the dog wasn’t about to pounce. He was fast asleep, jowls sagging to the side.

  She continued staring at the passing landscape. They hadn’t passed a car in ages. Seemed like no one else wanted to meander the mountain roads during a thunderstorm. Go figure.

  Luke slowed the car. “Oh boy.”

  Allie’s gaze followed his. Up ahead a one-lane bridge spanned the river, water rushing over the roadway. It must’ve been raining for days up here.

  “Should we chance it?” he asked as they came to a stop, the car idling loudly.

  The water seemed only several inches deep, but still. “They say not to do that.”

  “Do you know another way around?”

  “No, but I don’t want to get washed away in a flood either.” Her voice was, perhaps, a little too sharp. More importantly, she didn’t want the car to get washed away in a flood. She could see the headline now: “Family Grieves Antique ’57 Chevy Washed Away in Flood (Daughter Missing).”

  “We’ll have to go around,” she said.

  “We’ll have to get over this river eventually, and all the other bridges may be flooded too.”

  “We have to try. Maybe your phone has a signal.”

  He took out his phone and checked. “Nothing. Not even a map.”

  Allie stared at the muddy water rushing over the road. “Well, we don’t have much of a choice. We can’t go that way.”

  He looked back at the bridge as a gust of wind shimmied the car. “All right.”

  He turned the car around on the narrow road and went back to the next crossroad, turning to make their way around. The road wound around a bit, then finally dead-ended at the river. “This might be harder than we thought.”

  “We are not going over that bridge. Go back to the main road. We’ll try another route.”

  But the next road wound around the mountain, going every direction. There were no roads to turn onto, and when the road finally straightened, Allie had no idea which direction they were going. By the time they arrived at her grandparents’ it would be the middle of the night. This whole trip was shredding her nerves.

  “This isn’t working,” Luke said. “We’re headed west and we need to go northeast. Maybe we should go back, take our chances with the bridge.”

  “And if the car gets washed away, are you willing to accept the blame?”

  “If the car gets washed away, neither of us will even be here.”

  “A pleasant thought. Just turn around. We’ll try another road.”

  When he came to a place with a pull-off, he did as she suggested. They continued on until they were on the winding part of the road again. A small hill rose to one side, and a short meadow descended on the other.

  Something pinged the windshield. She looked out the window, her gaze sharpening on the ground. “Was that . . . ?”

  Another ping sounded, this one hitting the roof.

  Luke looked as dismayed as she felt. “Hail.”

  The car. The beautiful, refinished body. The perfect paint job.

  Another ping sounded. “Quick, get under something!”

  “Sure, I’ll just pull into the nearest garage.”

  She pointed ahead. “The trees.”

  “That’s not enough—we need a building.”

  “Gee, I think we’re fresh out of buildings.”

  “Did you even check the weather before
we left?”

  “Could you please hold off the lecture long enough to find a safe spot for my grandparents’ prized car?” Her volume escalated with each word.

  The pings were coming closer together now, the hail bouncing off the pavement—off the hood of the car. Allie scanned the area for some kind of shelter. Come on, come on. Where was a gas station when you needed one?

  But they’d passed the last signs of civilization long ago.

  The pinging intensified. Allie groaned, her stomach churning. “They’re going to kill me.”

  Luke slowed, turning onto a one-lane road they might or might not have already driven down.

  “What are you doing? Our chances are better on the main road.”

  “I think I saw a shelter down here.”

  “We haven’t passed so much as a mailbox in over an hour. Go back.”

  “There was a lean-to or something down here on the left. I’m sure of it.”

  “A lean-to. Great. I’m sure that’ll protect this mammoth-sized car from this hailstorm from hell.”

  But just ahead she saw it. Sitting back off the road in a grove of trees and scrub was a three-sided shelter, big enough to park a car.

  Thank God. Allie breathed a sigh of relief. “Hurry!”

  It seemed to take forever to navigate the muddy lane and pull under the shelter. As soon as Luke shut off the engine, Allie jumped out. Holding her breath, she searched the car for damage.

  A minute later she exhaled. The car looked fine as far as she could see. She met Luke around the front.

  He ran a hand over his face. “No damage on this side.”

  “Hard to tell under all this mud.”

  She sagged against the wooden studs holding up the shelter, the weight of responsibility easing off her shoulders one brick at a time. If she showed up at her grandparents’ with a dinged-up mess, her parents would never forgive her—or forget.

  The air was ripe with tension, the sharp words they’d spoken—and, let’s face it, their unresolved breakup—unforgotten.

  “We’ll take it through a car wash when we get closer.”

  Allie looked around the lean-to. Hail hammered the tin roof, creating a cacophony in the closed-in space. But the car was safe. That was all that mattered.

  She stretched her legs while Luke returned to the car. By the time he unloaded Walter, the hail had changed back to rain.

  “I’d better take him for a walk.” Luke disappeared into the woods, Walter lumbering behind on a leash.

  Allie took another walk around the car, checking for any dings they might’ve missed, and was relieved not to find any.

  Luke returned a while later, joining her on the horizontal board along the back wall. Walter flopped at his feet and began snoring almost immediately. “How long should we wait?”

  Thunder cracked and the rain picked up, pounding the roof. “It could start hailing again. We should wait until the storm stops.”

  “Without a weather app, we have no idea how long that’ll be.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Well, I’m not risking the car.”

  “Okay . . . Well, we also have no way of reaching your folks to let them know what’s going on.”

  That one hit hard. They’d think the worst, of course. Allie had driven the car over a cliff or managed to get herself abducted by aliens—car and all. She hated for them to believe she’d failed, but it would be even worse to prove them right.

  “It can’t be helped. Maybe the storm will pass quickly.”

  But even as she said the words, she stared up into the gray abyss. The air was thick with the smell of rain, and the sky seemed like it might storm for about, oh, another year or two. It was already almost five, and they still had many driving hours left to go.

  She sank to the cement pad and pulled out her phone to amuse herself with Candy Crush. A few minutes later Luke sat down and pulled out his own phone. The rain continued, Walter snoring nearby, the wind battering the shelter.

  Allie checked her watch for the hundredth time. It felt like they’d been here forever. It was now going on seven o’clock—darned her late start—and it appeared the storm might go on all night. She glanced around the space, mostly taken up by the car, where they’d no doubt have to sleep, just her and Luke and Walter.

  Her stomach wobbled uneasily. The tension between them was uncomfortable, and when she’d begged the favor, she sure hadn’t anticipated spending an entire night stuck in the mountains with him.

  Her stomach gave a rumble, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since one, but the sound of it was covered by the deluge of rain.

  “The storm’s not letting up,” Luke said.

  “At this rate we might be here all night.”

  “Maybe we should get settled.” He looked over at her. “I found a little cabin in the woods.”

  She perked up. A crackling fire. Food. Bed. People. “And you’re just now mentioning this? Was anyone home?”

  “Um, no, it’s empty. But there’s a key on the door ledge. Under the circumstances, I think we should help ourselves.”

  If someone was stupid enough to leave a key, she wasn’t going to argue. At least she wouldn’t be trapped in the car all night with Luke Fletcher.

  “Maybe there’s even a phone,” she said. “Or Wi-Fi.”

  He started to say something, then, as if thinking better of it, he closed his mouth.

  Whatever. Allie stood, pocketing her phone, visions of a crackling fire dancing in her head. “What are we waiting for? Let’s grab our stuff and go.”

  At the edge of the woods, Allie stopped abruptly, her duffel bag thunking against her leg. The structure, perched on a mound of overgrown grass, was roughly the size of a shoebox. Its raw timber walls were crudely cut, and a piece of wavy tin stretched over the top. The wonder wasn’t that someone had left such easy access to a key, but that they’d bothered to lock the door at all.

  She shook her head. “This is the ‘cabin’ you found?”

  He lifted a shoulder that was loaded down with his backpack and sleeping bag. His other hand held Walter’s leash. “Better than the car.”

  “Debatable,” she muttered, then hurried to catch up. “For the record, this is not a cabin—it’s a shack.”

  “It’s a hunting cabin.”

  A hunting shack. There would definitely be no call to her parents tonight. No roaring fire—and that was a real shame because it was a little chilly in the mountains, and now she was wet.

  At the door Luke reached for the key, then twisted it in the lock.

  “What if someone comes and catches us trespassing?”

  The door squeaked as it swung open, and he edged inside, brushing at spiderwebs. “No one’s been here in a long time.”

  She crept in behind him, scanning the room. He was probably right. Spiderwebs hung from the rafters in abundance. The cement floor was cleanish. A wooden bed—the kind you saw at summer camp—dominated the room. An upturned crate served as a nightstand. A broom made of—straw?—was propped in the corner. A hole in the far wall was, maybe, a fireplace. At least dry kindling was piled in the grate. She would have that fire after all.

  Her tomboy years were in her distant past. These days she traveled with her own pillow, and her idea of camping involved at least electricity and plumbing—speaking of which . . . She glanced around. Nope. No bathroom.

  Maybe it would stop raining soon.

  Luke set his things on the dirty mattress. Well, she assumed it was dirty. It was hard to tell when there was only one small window. Walter sniffed a corner and deemed it appropriate for a nap.

  “Well, at least we’ll be dry,” Luke said.

  She cautiously made her way to the fireplace and spotted a book of matches on the ledge. A fire would offer light, and she could hang her clothes to dry.

  There you go. Look on the bright side. Find the silver lining. She’d get through this long night somehow and before she knew it, she’d be pulling into her grandparents’
drive with a freshly washed Chevy, preening under their beaming gazes. Olivia who?

  Her gaze drifted to the bed—the very small bed—then connected with Luke’s.

  “You can have the bed. I’ll take the floor. Or I can sleep in the car if you’d rather.”

  Tempting, the idea of him squished up in the back seat with Walter. But lock or no, she didn’t relish the idea of being alone out in the middle of nowhere. Besides, the cold cement floor was punishment enough.

  “The floor is fine,” she said stiffly.

  While he unrolled the sleeping bag, she turned to the kindling. A little fire would cheer this place right up. The match lit on the first strike, and she lowered it to the sticks and dried leaves. The bundle quickly caught fire.

  “Nice of someone to leave us dry kindling.”

  “Allie, that’s not kindling, it’s a—”

  A large creature emerged from the sticks, hissing.

  Allie jumped, backpedaling to keep from falling. Someone screamed. Maybe her.

  The animal jumped from the kindling—er, nest—snarling at her.

  “A raccoon! It’s a raccoon!” Allie jumped onto the bed, eyes glued to the masked creature as it bared its teeth at her. Whoa, those were some pointy fangs. “There’s a raccoon in here!”

  “I heard you the first time.” Luke scrambled to the corner and wielded the broom. He swatted at the animal, who turned and hissed at him, striped tail swishing. Luke was only making the thing mad with those swats.

  “Get it! What if it has rabies?” She looked to Walter for help, but he hadn’t even made it to his feet yet. She scowled at him.

  “Open the door,” Luke said.

  The door. It was too far away from the bed. She’d have to get down—and get closer to the snarling creature. Kind of seemed like a bad idea.

  “Allie, get the door!”

  “I am!” Okay, she wasn’t, but she was working up to it. She eased to the end of the bed, eyeing the doorknob. Two steps away—three at most.

  “Sometime today, Speedy.”

  Allie jumped down, took the steps, and threw open the door. The movement caught the raccoon’s attention. It hissed at her, then gave chase. It was right on her heels! Allie screeched as she hopped back onto the bed.