Page 50 of The Trip of a Lifetime

‘Look, we’re in a race. All we’ve been doing is begging rides and help from strangers. It’s just more of that.’

‘I know, but this is slightly different without cameras on us. As much as I get a bit fed up with Noah in my face all the time, I suppose there’s a kind of safety in it.’

‘Chuck is a sweet old guy and listen, Erin, I’m with you. Nothing will happen.’

‘Okay, then. It will be good to feel as if we’re doing something, I suppose.’

Chuck was indeed a sweet old guy and Erin settled in the back of his truck with Sam in the front. They talked about their race so far and the places they’d seen.

‘So how long have you two been sweethearts?’ he asked them and Sam chuckled. Erin was about to correct him but Sam got in there first.

‘Since school,’ he said. ‘I first saw her over the coloured pencils in the classroom and knew she was the one.’

Erin snorted with laughter in the back but couldn’t stop the smile appearing. She was glad Sam couldn’t see her in the dark.

‘That’s sweet,’ Chuck said. ‘I met my wife at school too. So, are you guys married?’

‘No,’ Sam said quickly. ‘I keep asking but she hasn’t forgiven me yet for a stupid thing I did.’

‘Not with another woman?’ Chuck sounded shocked.

‘God no, nothing like that. I just made a bit of a blunder when we first met. Said something stupid. I regretted it instantly.’

‘That’s a long time to hold onto a grudge, missy. I don’t get you young folk these days. You overcomplicate things. He loves you, I’ll bet you love him, so just get on with it and don’t waste time on silly stuff.’

Erin was silent in the back and Sam seemed to have shut up in the front too.

‘That’s good advice, Chuck,’ Sam said finally, but all traces of joking had disappeared from his voice.

They covered a lot of ground fairly quickly and Erin began to relax a little in the hope that Sam was right, they might catch the others up in Winnipeg and could continue on with their race.

Erin must have nodded off because a shout, a sudden sharp movement of the car and then the bang of her head hitting the side window woke her up. Somehow they were off the road, down a bank of grass, and had come to a stop near a clump of trees.

‘Erin, are you okay?’ Sam’s voice came from out of the darkness. He sounded urgent but shaken.

‘Fine,’ she said quickly, although her head hurt and when she touched her fingertips to her forehead she found a little blood there.

‘Chuck?’

Sam was untangling himself from his seat belt and leaning across to where Chuck was slumped over the steering wheel.

‘Oh my God!’ Erin said. ‘Is he? I mean is he…?’

A groan came from the old man then and Sam helped him to sit upright. From the glow of the dashboard, Erin could see he was clutching his arm and it looked to be hanging low at an odd angle.

‘It looks like you may have dislocated your shoulder,’ Sam said. ‘Do you have a phone? I need to call for help.’

Chuck did have a phone in the glove compartment and he got Sam to ring his son who he said would come and get him, take him to the ER.

Sam moved Chuck’s seat back to give him some more room and placed his jumper rolled up under Chuck’s elbow to support his arm. With the internal light now on in the truck, the old man looked grey.

Erin got out and said she was going to stand by the edge of the road, conscious that they might be hidden by the trees. Sam grabbed her arm as she went past him.

‘You’ve hurt your head,’ he said, concern etched on his face. ‘You said you were fine.’

‘I am, it’s nothing,’ she said.

‘It doesn’t look like nothing.’