AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It’s hardly as serious as that,” Silas shot back before he could analyze why, exactly, he cared.
On the first truly sunny day in mid-April, just as Silas looked forward to not freezing in the wind for a change, Jessica canceled on him to go shopping with friends. Bummed to miss out on the prime weather but figuring he should cancel on Meg, too, he swung by her house to let her know plans had changed only to see her already on the steps, waiting for him. His swift little uptick of gladness turned to dismay when he cut the rumbling engine and stepped out. Clearly she’d been crying.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said before he could even ask, dodging him to reach for the roll bar of the Jeep and hoist herself in. She wore a T-shirt for the first time since fall, and Silas had forgotten, over the long winter, how pale her skin was, how quickly it blushed in the sun. She’d pulled her hair back in a ponytail today, and something about the foresight of this told him that she anticipated these rides as much as he did.
“Where to?” he asked, after explaining Jessica’s absence, which didn’t seem to deter her.
“Not the Frostee.”
Okay, then.He knew exactly what today called for.He turned the engine over, and when the Jeep rumbled to life, he headed in the direction of the river, then swung onto the first unmarked road he saw.
“Deciding to test your luck, I see,” Meg called over the engine. She had to lean close to be heard, and when Silas glanced at her he caught the hint of a smile on her face.
It kind of made his breath catch. “Something like that.”
The road was dirt, and bumpy as hell, just like Danny had warned. Worse, the steady incline was muddy with rapidly melting spring runoff. They lurched along, Silas sometimes shifting all the way down to first to get up and over the deep ruts in their path, sometimes pushing the Jeep to thirty, forty miles per hour on the straight stretches, to see just how well she could handle the uneven terrain. More than once Meg, usually much more daring these days, reached up and grabbed the roll bar again for stability. The sight made Silas dislike himself a little: he’d never been the kind of guy who felt the need to impress a girl with machismo. Neverlikedthat kind of guy, either.
“We won’t get stuck?” she asked him, over the sound of the engine and the wind.
“We’re fine,” he told her, though in truth he gritted his teeth on every sharp rise, holding his breath as the Jeep’s new tires spun for an instant before engaging the muddy road and jerking forward, propelling them up the hills. Behind them, mud churned up in their wake, and before long, the backs of their shirts and jeans were specked with dark stains. As they drove, it grew colder from either the ever-increasing elevation or the waning afternoon light, or both. Silas reached behind him and tossed his sweatshirt to Meg, who pulled it over her head without argument.
“Where does this road go?” she asked almost twenty minutes later. He didn’t blame her for wondering. The forest rose up thick on either side of the single-lane dirt drive, which was now swinging in a long arc west to east to west again, snaking back and forth as they wove their way up into the mountains overlooking town.
“I don’t know,” he answered, but he kept going. For the adventure of it, not because he loved Meg sitting shotgun. Not to keep his mindoff Danny stuck at the station, while he, Silas, entertained his girl. But because from just a bit higher, the view would be spectacular.
But Meg frowned, just slightly, for the first time since they’d started off, so he forced himself to add, “Do you want to head back?”
She couldn’t hear him over the revving of the engine, so once they had hurdled the next bump in the road, he reached over, his hand touching her leg to get her attention.
She jumped. She recovered quickly—Silas felt the muscle above her knee relax almost as quickly as it had tensed—but her reaction brought his eyes from the road to her face. They stared at each other for no more than a second, but it was long enough to remind Silas of every weighted moment that had ever passed between them, anddefinitelylong enough to send them off course. Silas felt the Jeep jerk to the right as the tires caught a particularly deep rut. His eyes flew back to the road, his hands tight on the steering wheel, but it was too late. They lurched forward abruptly before sinking into a ditch at the edge of the road, undercarriage-deep in a puddle of mud, the tires spinning uselessly.
“Silas!”
“Shit!”
He swung his gaze back from the muddy ditch to Meg’s face, which didn’t exactly look pleased. His face flushed with embarrassment, but something more, too; getting stuck was his fault, for sure, but he’d only taken this road to cheer her up, to try to get her mind off ... whatever it was.
“Can we get out?” she asked.
Silas pressed down on the accelerator experimentally; if the tires continued to spin in place the Jeep would only sink in deeper. The engine revved ... and sure enough, down they sank. He eased his foot off the pedal, lowering his forehead to the steering wheel with a groan. Beside him Meg climbed out of the Jeep, clearing the deepest section of the ditch with a cautious side step and hop. Her feet sank in the mud anyway.
“Wait. What’re you doing?”
She turned impatiently. “I’m going to find some flat stones we can lay behind the back tires.”
He wanted to protest, if only to maintain an illusion of control over this situation, but she was right. If the rear tires gained some traction he might be able to back out of the rut. He jumped out on his side. Lacking Meg’s penchant for grace, he stumbled, catching his balance just before tripping headlong into the deepest section of the puddle. “Shit,” he repeated, this time in a low hiss just under his breath. This whole mess was starting to feel a lot like karma, for enjoying Meg’s company maybe more than he should.
She didn’t have to come,he reminded himself. And it wasn’t Silas’s fault Cairns spent all his time at the station, or that Jessica couldn’t pass up a girls’ day in town.
Five minutes later they’d laid a decent row of rocks, as well as an eclectic assortment of broken branches, in the Jeep’s path and were ready to try again. Meg stood to the side as Silas slid back into the driver’s seat. He held his breath and attempted to inch backward. The second he accelerated the tires spun uselessly again.
“Stop, stop!”
He waited while Meg came forward to reset the path of stones. This time she took less care to avoid the mud. By the time she reached the Jeep her shoes were coated in it, her jeans wet to her knees. She shoved the branches back under the tires and retreated again, giving up on her clothes completely; she just sloshed right through.
“Okay,” she called when she’d reached the other side of the road.
The second attempt worked better, and the Jeep achieved almost three feet before sinking back into the mire. Silas hopped back out and crouched down by the tires, surveying the extent of the damage. They had only a few feet to go, but now the Jeep was encased even deeper in the mud than before. Shit, shit, shit!
