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“We’ll cut you some slack this time,” Wes said, meeting the boy’s eyes in the rearview. “You can’t be held responsible for questions you ask when you’re still half asleep.”

“I won’t do it again,” Carter promised earnestly. “Can we still get a Happy Meal?”

“We can probably still make that happen,” Hannah said. “Are you hungry now, or can you wait until the next stop?”

She checked the dashboard clock. Barely ten thirty.

“I can wait,” Riley said, rubbing her eyes.

“Me too,” Carter agreed. “Can we have a snack, though?”

“Yes,” Hannah said. “Let’s all go use the bathroom again, and then we’ll find something in the snack bags we packed.”

Wes pulled off at the next exit, another gas station with a restroom and a strip of scrubby land behind it. While he topped off the tank and walked Kodi along the edge of a narrow, snow-covered trail, she took the kids inside, supervised handwashing and bathroom breaks, then had them tromp along the path for a few minutes to burn off the residual crankiness of interrupted naps.

By the time they got back to the truck, Wes was loading Kodiak into his crate again.

“How’s he doing?” she asked, helping Carter climb back into his booster.

Wes shrugged, closing the crate door gently. “I’d like to say great,” he said. “But he’s still not himself. I was hoping he’d turn a corner by now.”

“Proper healing takes time,” she said. “For bodies and minds.”

She wanted to add that he, of all people, should have given himself that grace years ago instead of trying to burn his pain out by destroying everything good in his life. But she bit the words back. This was not the time. Maybe there would never be a time.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what the vet keeps saying too. It’s just hard, you know? Being on the outside, watching him hurt, and not being able to fix it.”

Tell me about it, she thought.

She remembered too clearly the helplessness after his parents were shot, watching him spiral. She had wanted so desperately to make it better, to carry some of the weight. He hadn’t let her.

“It’s hard to be patient when someone you care about is hurting,” she said instead, meeting his gaze steadily.

Something flickered there. Understanding, maybe? Regret? It passed too quickly for her to be sure.

“Would you like me to take a turn behind the wheel?” she asked. “You’ve been driving a long time.”

“I’m doing fine,” he said. “I don’t mind.”

“Okay,” she said. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

“Thanks.”

“Can I eat another snack now?” Carter asked, voice full of hope.

Hannah turned her attention deliberately away from Wes and back to the two reasons she was in this truck in the first place.

“Absolutely,” she said. “How about one of the bento boxes we packed? Grapes, cheese, crackers?”

“That sounds good,” Riley said. “That’s what I want too.”

She handed them the snacks and the moment between her and Wes slipped away.

The next few hours passed more quickly than she would have imagined. When the kids finished their snacks, she turned sideways in her seat and read aloud from the book she’d grabbed at Morgan’s recommendation, about a boy who befriends a dinosaur who needed to get back to the North Pole before an evil hunter found him. Both kids leaned forward, completely engrossed.

Even Wes seemed to be listening, if the small smile that tugged at his mouth during the funny parts was any indication, though his eyes stayed on the road as the weather gradually worsened.

By the time they crossed into Utah, appropriately enough passing a town called Snowville, the storm had found them in earnest. The landscape outside was mostly flat, dotted with low, dry scrub and the occasional cattle ranch.