July Thunder. Rachel Lee

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СКАЧАТЬ drifted overhead painting fantastic pictures in white and gray. The bark of a dog in someone’s backyard reminded him of Buddy, his golden retriever, already old when Sam married Beth, who departed in his sleep one dark night.

      He missed Buddy, too, missed the friendship and companionship of his warm, furry body and soft brown eyes. Maybe it was time to get another dog. Maybe that would settle his heart down again.

      A dog he could risk. A woman, never.

      But God was not done with him, either. She reached out her hand and turned his day upside down.

      There was a battered old car pulled over on the county road about a mile out of town, sitting forlornly on the grassy shoulder, just inches from a drainage ditch. Behind it was a large orange rental trailer, one tire flattened.

      The sun was playing tricks, and Sam could barely make out that there was a figure behind the wheel. Hurt? Man or woman? He couldn’t see anything except the silhouette of a head.

      The driver probably had everything he owned in that trailer and didn’t want to abandon it beside the road, not even long enough to drive to town for help. Sam keyed his radio and notified dispatch of the problem. They promised to call for a tow.

      Leaving his roof lights flashing, Sam climbed out of his car and went to tell the motorist help was coming. It was not until he stood right beside the open driver’s window of the car that he realized who he was looking at.

      A fist seemed to slam him in the solar plexus as he looked at a man he hadn’t seen in nearly fifteen years.

      “You!” he said.

      Icy-blue eyes met his, set in an austere, deeply lined face that was surrounded by the snow-white mane of long hair and a beard. The man looked like a prophet of old, and his gaze held the same fanatical zeal. He pushed open the door of his car and climbed out, standing tall and straight.

      But Elijah Canfield didn’t say a word. He hadn’t spoken to his son but once in all these years, and that once had been to strike the deepest wound he had ever given Sam.

      Sam couldn’t speak, either.

      The two men stood staring at each other, strangers with an old, anguished history between them. Sam felt hatred simmering on the hot pavement between them, buzzing in his head like angry bees. But it wasn’t his hate; despite everything, he had never hated his father. But his father had hated him. Still hated him.

      In response, Sam felt despair rising in him, a choking, agonizing hopelessness. For a few seconds he thought he was going to lose the battle. Then, in an instant, all the painfully constructed defense mechanisms slammed into place. Distancing him. Turning this old man into just another stranded motorist.

      “There’s a tow truck on the way,” Sam said.

      Elijah nodded once, briefly, a bare acknowledgment. But still he didn’t speak.

      Of course not, Sam thought, looking past his father to the mountains beyond. Elijah hadn’t spoken to him in so many years other than to condemn him that he probably couldn’t even manage a civil word anymore. Simple human courtesies such as “how are you?” and “thank you” could no longer fill the silence between them. It was too late.

      It had been too late for a long, long time. Sam bowed his head for a moment, battering down a surge of feeling, then looked at Elijah again with the chilly gaze of a stranger. “I’ll wait until it gets here.”

      Then he turned and went back to his car, slipping inside behind the wheel, grateful that his suddenly unsteady legs didn’t need to support him any longer.

      Sometimes, he said silently to God, you have a nasty sense of humor.

      And for a few moments, he almost thought the hills laughed back at him.

      “Mary?”

      Mary McKinney held the phone closer to her ear. “Yes?”

      “Fred Taylor, Taylor’s Auto Body.”

      “Oh, hi, Fred. What’s the bad news?” But she didn’t care. At least this bad news would distract her from her other unhappy thoughts. Funny how the past could sometimes be more vivid than the present. She’d spent all day since the accident trying to put it back where it belonged.

      “Are you sure you don’t want me to call your insurance?” Fred said hesitantly.

      “That bad?”

      “The bumper has to be replaced, and the tailgate is really bent. I don’t think we can straighten it, so we’ll probably have to get a whole new door assembly. Taillight assemblies, paint…well, you’re not gonna like it. But the car’s almost new. You ought to have it fixed the way it was or it’s worthless. The bank wouldn’t like that.”

      “How much?” she asked.

      He quoted a price that caused her to straighten abruptly.

      “That much?” she said, appalled. No way was Jim going to be able to pay for that, not after working at the mine for little more than a month. But neither could she afford it herself. A schoolteacher’s salary didn’t stretch that far.

      “Let me call your insurance,” Fred said. “They’ll work it out with the other insurer and it won’t cost you a dime.”

      She was tempted, sorely tempted. But it might cost Jim Wysocki his insurance, and without insurance, he wouldn’t be able to drive, even to get to work. Biting her lip, she fought down a sense of panic. What was she going to do without a car? “Is it drivable?”

      “Not now.”

      “How long would it take to get it drivable?”

      “At a minimum, five days. I have to order parts, and there’s a lot of work to do just to get that far, never mind the paint.”

      Well, of course, she thought miserably. It was only what she deserved. “Let me get back to you, Fred, okay?”

      After she hung up the phone, she sat staring out the window. Across the street, someone was moving into the small house, a man with incredible white hair. A couple of people were helping him. It crossed her mind that she ought to wander over and offer to help, too, but she felt too stunned. Too…depressed.

      Jim wouldn’t be able to pay for the repairs. She wouldn’t have a car to drive, which meant she wouldn’t be able to go visit her aunt this weekend. That troubled her, because Nessa was seriously ill, undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. But it was no more than she deserved, she reminded herself. No reason her life should be easy when she had destroyed someone else’s.

      With a heavy sigh and a heavier heart, she picked up the phone and called Jim Wysocki. He was just getting ready to go on his shift at the mine.

      “Oh, jeez, Ms. McKinney,” he said when she told him the bad news. “Oh, jeez. I can’t pay for the whole thing at once. Half. I could do half. And maybe pay the rest in installments over the next couple of months?”

      Paying half would wipe out her savings. But apparently it would wipe out Jim’s, too. Her shoulders sagged. She could have insisted on going to the insurance company, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that. She would СКАЧАТЬ