One Christmas Knight

Chapter 5

“You got one of those new anteaters? Man, that is one ugly truck. ” “Bet you wish you had one as ugly. ”

I-40-New Mexico

Mirabella was hearing voices. Mostly men’s voices, but now and then a woman’s, too-strange voices, mumbly and scratchy at the same time, sometimes far away and crackly, other times loud and clear, as if whoever it was talking was standing right next to her. At first she ignored them, hearing but not really registering the sounds, the way you do when you fall asleep with the TV or radio on. Gradually, though, words began to filter into her consciousness, then string together in a way that made some kind of sense.

“East a’ Tucumcari.”

“Couple a‘ county mounties come through here ’while ago with their lights on. Don‘ know where they was goin, but they was hurryin’. ”

“Dry and dusty to the Texas line.”

“They gonna open ‘er up sometime fore Christmas, or what?”

“Uh…they’re sayin‘ maybe noon, that’s what I heard.”

“One helluva mess. Got more’n a hunnerd accidents ‘tween here and Amarillo. Got rigs off to the side, four-wheelers ever’where… ”

“Where’n hell they keepin‘ the snowplows?”

“Ah, hell, Texas don’t waste snowplows on the Panhandle…”

Along with a return of familiar discomforts, full awareness brought the realization that, yes, she was in a bed in an honest-to-God truck, a huge blue eighteen-wheeler belonging to one Jimmy Joe Starr, a genuine Georgia redneck who happened to have healing hands and dimples and a smile like an angel’s, assuming the angel spoke with a Southern accent and looked like a young Robert Redford.

And what she was listening to wasn’t a TV, but a CB radio. Which meant, since she hadn’t heard a peep out of it last night, that Jimmy Joe must have turned it on. And since she couldn’t imagine he would turn it on without a reason, that meant he must be listening to it. Out there, right now. He was here in the truck with her, just beyond the curtain.

That thought zapped through her with a tingle that must have been adrenaline, because she felt the way you do when you’ve been jolted awake too suddenly-weak and trembly, heart beating way too fast. She was lying there blinking, thinking about that, trying to make sense of it and feeling scared and disoriented, when the reason for all her inner turmoil stuck his hand through the crack at the edge of the curtain and knocked on the side of the sleeper.

“Hey,” he called softly, “you awake in there?”

“Yeah, I’m up,” she called back in a husky, too-eager voice that betrayed that for the lie it was, struggling to get her feet around so she could at least make a stab at sitting up.

“Mornin’.” The curtain was pulled back and Jimmy Joe’s face appeared like a ray of sunshine. “How you doin’?”

“Okay,” she responded airlessly; in her present position even sarcasm was beyond her.

He drew a small plastic bottle from a pocket in the sleeveless, down-filled nylon vest he was wearing over his Georgia Bulldogs sweatshirt and held it out to her. “Thought you could do with an eye-opener. Get your blood sugar pumpin’.” He was wearing his heart-melting smile, which Mirabella, not being a morning person even at the best of times, was in no mood to appreciate.

“I don’t know where I’d put it,” she muttered, eyeing the orange juice with revulsion. She felt like a dead whale that had lain out in the sun too long-in other words just about ready to explode. Plus she’d slept with her contacts in, so her eyes felt like two tennis balls, and her tongue was so furry she knew she must have a horrendous case of morning breath. The last thing she wanted was a sexy, adorable guy anywhere within ten yards of her, so she was not thrilled when Jimmy Joe plunked himself down beside her, completely ignoring warning signs that were usually sufficient to send close family members diving for the nearest cover.

“Just a sip,” he said, as if he were addressing a three-year old. “Then I’ll walk you in so you can wash up, if you want. Come on, now-upsy-daisy.”

How does he do it? she wondered as, groaning, she allowed him to hoist her upright. Why do I let him do it-treat me like a contrary child, or worse, a helpless female? In her former life she would have flayed alive any man, no matter how attractive and charming, who’d dared to try such tactics with her. She’d spent most of her life perfecting the defenses and signals to ensure that those who did try were few and far between. So what was it about this man?

She sipped orange juice on autopilot while her analytical mind chewed on that anomaly. She knew it couldn’t just be his kind eyes and sleepy little-boy smile; she’d never been vulnerable to that sort of thing, and in fact usually found extremely handsome men to be pretty much of a turnoff. More likely, she thought, it had something to do with him being way too young for her, and therefore no threat to her sexually-rather like a lioness’s tolerance of the immature males in her pride. That, combined with her own vulnerability in her present condition, and the uniqueness of the circumstances.

Yes, she thought, satisfied with her conclusions. That would explain it.

It did cross her mind that she just might have come up against a man with a will equal to her own, but she rejected that idea. As far as Mirabella was concerned, such a man did not exist.

How does she do it? Jimmy Joe wondered, gazing at her as she drank and then licked the juice glaze from her lips. How can she look so doggone beautiful after the night she had?

He’d sat and watched her long after she’d fallen asleep literally under his hands, finally free to marvel all he wanted to at the old-Burgundy shine of her hair, the delicacy of her bones, the way her skin seemed to glow from inside like his mama’s good china when you held it up to the light. Free to touch, with a mettlesome finger and breathing temporarily forgotten, one strand of hair that lay along the curve of her jaw and pooled in the hollow of her neck, and daringly lift and stroke it behind the fragile sculpture of her ear.

She’d stirred, then, so that his fingers had brushed against her warm cheek and intersected the flow of her breath as it sighed from between her barely parted lips, and he’d been shocked by the stirring of response in his own body.

He’d squelched it immediately. It had seemed wrong to him; a violation not only of her trust in him, but of some indefinable quality-he wasn’t sure what it was-something about the way she looked with one childlike hand pillowing her cheek and the other resting with maternal protectiveness on the side of her swollen belly. Innocence? How could that be? Or…purity? And yet, he thought he’d never in his life seen anyone so overwhelmingly, breathtakingly female.

Which was confusing, because while part of him had been ashamed of his body’s jolting acknowledgment of that femininity, something else in him had found it downright exhilarating.

He’d pulled the comforter over her and left her then, but hadn’t gone back to the truck-stop café, although he knew he would have been more comfortable there. Instead, unable to bring himself to leave her, he’d turned off the light in the sleeper and drawn the curtain and settled into the passenger-side seat with a book and a pillow. He’d made pretty good headway in the new Tony Hillerman mystery he’d picked up in L.A., even dozed some off and on before full daylight and the comings and goings of his neighbors had roused him.

On a quick trip into the truck stop for a cup of coffee and to use the John he’d heard rumblings about the road opening up, so he’d made the coffee to go, picked up the bottle of orange juice for Mirabella and hurried back to his truck to see what he could find out from the CB. He’d expected she would wake up, with all the noise from the radio and slamming doors and all, but she hadn’t, and he’d listened for a good half hour before he was convinced the news coming out of Tucumcari was more than just wishful rumors, and he knew it was time he was going have to wake her. Wake her, say goodbye and send her on her way.

Now, sitting beside her, watching her drink the juice he’d brought, he felt the same protective feelings welling up inside him that had kept him watching over her all night. Last night those feelings had made a certain sense to him-enough so that he hadn’t thought to question them, anyway. This morning, though, they were doggone confusing.

“No more,” she said, shoving the juice bottle blindly in his direction. “I really have to go-now.” Her eyes had lost their unfocused, waking-up look and now held a bright glaze of distress.

“Okay, easy now, I’m gonna get you there,” he said soothingly, reaching past her to set the bottle on the recessed shelf at the head of the bed. “What’d you do with your shoes?”

“I don’t know. I kicked them off, I think.”

He found them in the folds of the comforter and knelt to help her into them, noticing that they went on easily enough. He remembered that swollen feet at this stage of the game were not a good thing, so that eased his mind in one small way.

“There you go,” he grunted as he got to his feet. “What else d’you need? Your pocketbook?” She was already wrestling with the sleeves of her coat. He helped her with that, found her purse and hooked the strap over his shoulder, then bent to get an arm around her and hoist her to her feet.

“It’s okay, I can make it,” she protested. “You don’t have to help me.” To Jimmy Joe her breathlessness sounded not so much cranky as desperate. Hearing it, he did as she asked and let go of her, and after hovering anxiously for a moment, went to open the door for her instead.

“I heard the CB,” she said as she eased herself between the seats, moving like a rig backing into a loading bay. “Did I hear right? Did they say the road’s going to be…opening soon?”

She’d paused, apparently to catch her breath, so he pulled the door closed again to save the heat. “That’s what they’re sayin’ ’Bout noon, looks like.”

“What time is it now?”

“Goin’ on eleven. Plenty a’ time, if you want to wash up…have some breakfast.” He pushed the door open, stepped onto the running board and held out his hand to help her down.

But she’d spotted his pillow and paperback on the seat; he could see her looking at them with that little pleat of frown wrinkles between her eyes as she squeezed by. She transferred the frown to him as she took the hand he’d offered and asked, not with gentle concern but in a sharp, accusing tone, “Did you get any sleep?”

Jimmy Joe couldn’t help but grin, she sounded so much like his mama. “I dozed some,” he said, easing her down to the ground. “Mostly I just read.” Then he had to laugh; the way she glared at him, you would have thought he’d confessed to spending the night in a honky-tonk bar. “It’s okay. Hey, I like to read.”

“You do?” For some reason that seemed to surprise her. Then she shook herself-or maybe it was a shiver as the cold wind hit her-and said, “Oh, that’s right-I saw your books.”

They’d turned and started slowly walking together toward the truck-stop café, and since she seemed to have forgotten he still had her hand, he kept it and tucked it into the bend of his elbow and covered it with his to keep it warm. Looking down at her, he could see that her nose was turning pink and her face had a pinched look to it, and he knew she would go faster if there was any way in the world she could. That high-plateau wind cut like a razor-you could smell the snow in it. To keep her mind off it he picked up the thread of the conversation they’d been having about books, asking her in a polite way if she liked to read.

Her shoulder nudged against him as she shrugged. “I’ve never been much of a reader. It’s not that I don’t like to read-it just seems like I always have too many other things to do.”

“Yeah? What do you do when you want to just…you know, relax?”

“Relax?” She made it sound like a word she’d never heard before. Glancing down at her, he saw that she was frowning again, thinking about it.

He didn’t pursue it, just shook his head and said, “I guess I can’t imagine not readin’. Probably because my mama used to read to me, from the time I was too little to remember. She read to all of us kids. You know…startin’ with those little picture books with animals in ‘em, then Mother Goose and Dr. Seuss, all the way through the Little House books and Tom Sawyer and Treasure Island. Seems like there never was a time we didn’t have a book goin’.”

The wind caught her hair suddenly, and unfurled it like bright red party streamers around her face. She grabbed at it, gathered it in one hand and held it while she looked up at him, squinted an eye shut and asked, “How many of you were there? You mentioned your sister…”

“Three sisters, three brothers.”

She gasped. “Seven! My God, how did she find the time?”

“I don’t know,” said Jimmy Joe with a shrug. “She just did.”

For a few moments she didn’t say anything, just walked along with her head down, her hair caught up in her hand. He felt her take a deep breath. “My mom read to my sisters and me, too. I don’t know why it didn’t take with me.” She let go of her hair then, and shook her head as if saying to the wind, Go on, have your way with it, I don’t care! He saw her face light up with some intense emotion he didn’t know the name of-something fierce and joyful and proud-and she said, “I’m going to read to my baby though. I’ve been buying books, all sorts of books. Mother Goose and Dr. Seuss and those little picture books with animals in them.” And suddenly she laughed.

Jimmy Joe wondered if it was the first time he’d ever heard her laugh. He knew it was the first time he’d heard her laugh that way-a sound as merry and as good for the heart as sleigh bells on Christmas morning.

It also occurred to him that it was the first time he’d heard her talk about her baby like that-as if it was a real live person and not some kind of condition. He wanted to hear more, ask her some questions, like whether she wanted a boy or a girl, and what she planned to name it, and whether the kid’s father was going to be around to help her walk the floor at two in the morning. But they’d reached the truck stop’s double entrance, and there was nothing for him to do but hold the doors for her, first the outer, then the inner, and he had to really hop to it to get there before she did. And he was sorry.

Inside, she left him with a distracted wave and made a beeline for the bathroom. He watched her go, then went to see if he could find them a table in the café. As it turned out, he didn’t have any trouble; with the word out about the road opening, the drivers’ section was emptying out fast. There was a stirring in the air, a buzz of energy like the revving of diesel engines, all those drivers itching to be on the road again-most of them, like him, heading home. He felt it too, the restlessness, the building up of energy inside him, the pull of loved ones waiting and watching for him. But for him there was something else, too; kind of an uneasiness, as if he was leaving something unfinished, something undone. Something important.

While he waited for Mirabella to come out of the bathroom, he ordered coffee-regular for himself, decaf for her-then thought about calling J.J. He still had hopes of making it home by late Christmas Day if he drove straight through without stopping. But he didn’t want to get the boy’s hopes up until he was safely through the Panhandle, so he didn’t make the call.

He was scowling at the menu when Mirabella joined him. It was starting to be a habit, he thought, the way she would show up at his elbow, taking possession of the space around him so that suddenly even the air he breathed seemed filled with her-her presence, her scent, her energy.

She looked different this morning. She’d scrubbed her face and pulled her hair back and fastened it on top with some kind of clip in a way that made her seem even younger than she had before. Not the old-fashioned movie star now; more like a high-school cheerleader. But it was more than that. It seemed to him there was a new kind of quietness about her…

But it wasn’t until she was easing into the booth across from him that he finally put his finger on what was different. It was her arrogance, that uppity tilt to her chin that was missing. And that worried him.

The first thing she said to him was, “How come you’re not on the phone? Aren’t you going to call your son and let him know you’re on your way?”

Which reassured him some, being the sort of bossiness that he’d already come to understand was just her basic nature. So he smiled and said, “Naw, I’ll wait a bit. Like to make it through Texas, first. Then I’ll know I’ve got a shot at gettin’ home by Christmas.”

She nodded and looked quickly down at her menu, but not before he caught a glimpse of shadows in her eyes. That and the tiny quiver of her mouth made him ask, even though it wasn’t any of his business, “What about you? You got folks waitin’ on you?” Like a husband, maybe? That would explain it, he thought, if she was tryin’ so hard to get to him, to be with him for the holidays. He could almost understand that.

“My mom,” she said, still looking down at the menu. She swallowed and added, “And my dad,” in a whisper he could barely hear.

Then he wondered why talking about her daddy made her choke up so, but poking into people’s business, getting them to spill their personal secrets wasn’t something he’d had much experience in or felt comfortable doing. So all he said was, “They’re in Pensacola, you said?”

She glanced up at him and cleared her throat, and he could tell she was back on steadier ground. “Yes-Pensacola Beach, actually.”

“Oh, man.” Feeling for her, he shook his head, picked up his coffee and took a cautious sip. “That’s more ’n a thousand miles. You’re not gonna make that by Christmas.”

She looked at him and he could see the fury in her eyes, wanting to argue with him, not ready to accept it yet. Funny, how clear the workings of her mind were becoming to him, like words and pictures printed on the pages of a book, because somehow, as if he’d known her all his life, he knew what a careful planner she was and how she hated it when things’ didn’t work out her way.

“I thought… if I can just get through Texas-”

Jimmy Joe put his coffee mug down and reached for her hands. He took them and held them gently, making his voice gentle, too, saving all his steel for his eyes the way he did when he needed to get something straight with J.J. once and for all, and no room for dispute. “Don’t you even try it. You take it easy, now, y’hear? Your mama and daddy, they’ll understand. You know they’d rather have you late a thousand times than have any harm come to you or that baby.”

Oh, Lord, he could feel her fighting it. Feel it in the tension in those small-boned hands, see it in the anger burning dark in her eyes. How she did hate to give in! But then he saw the fire in her eyes cool behind a glaze of tears he knew she would die rather than shed, and she took a breath with a quiver in it and let it out along with the words, “I know.”

He waited a moment more before he released her hands. As soon as he let them go she straightened and used them to smooth invisible strands of hair away from her face, which he knew was just a way for her to get her poise back. It seemed to work, because her voice was steady when she went on, “I really wanted to spend this Christmas with my dad. He just had a heart attack-”

“Oh, Lord,” said Jimmy Joe. “I am sorry.” He was thinking of his own daddy, dead long before his time, and the second heart attack that had been his last. It was not an uncommon way for a man raised on Southern cooking to go.

“He’s going to be okay,” said Mirabella firmly. “But he can’t travel, obviously. My mom was going to come and stay with me until after the baby…but she can’t leave my dad, so that’s why I thought I’d go there instead. But I couldn’t get a flight on such short notice, so then I figured I’d just drive. Plenty of time, right? Or so I thought. And now…here we are.” She held out her hands, gamely smiling. “Looks like it’ll just be me and Junior this Christmas.”

Jimmy Joe laughed, although his heart was hurting for her. “Hey, you know, this kinda reminds me of a movie I saw once-funny as the dickens-about this guy tryin’ to get home for…Thanksgiving, I b’lieve it was.” He kept on talking-glib as a traveling preacher, telling her about all the crazy things that happened to the poor guy in the movie, wanting only to make her feel better somehow-until the waitress came to take their order.

While they waited for the food to arrive they tried talking about movies some more, but it was hard to find enough common ground to base a good discussion on. Jimmy Joe liked action movies and slapstick comedies, the kind Mirabella called “brainless.” She went for the type of films critics cooed over and nobody else had even heard of, until somebody in one of them got nominated for an Academy Award. That, and movies based on Shakespeare’s plays and Jane Austen’s novels, which always put Jimmy Joe straight to sleep. Then they found out they’d both seen every Walt Disney film ever made, and got into an argument about which was the greatest cartoon feature of all time that lasted all the way through breakfast.

The waitress came and refilled their coffee cups, slapped down the check and hurried away with a distracted, “You folks have a safe trip, now.” Silence fell. Jimmy Joe reached for the check, but Mirabella got there first.

“Let me buy you breakfast,” she said, although she didn’t sound nearly as bossy as he’d grown accustomed to. “It’s the least I can do, after all you’ve done for me.” She watched him with quiet, unreadable eyes.

Every Southern-bred instinct in him wanted to refuse, but he could see it was important to her, so even though it caused him embarrassment to do it he gave in and let her take the check. He sipped his coffee in uncomfortable silence while he watched her fish in her pocketbook for her wallet, then haul out a bottle of Tylenol and shake a couple into her hand. She swallowed them down without looking at him, but she didn’t have to, or say a word, either, for him to know she was hurting again. He was starting to recognize the signs.

She opened up her wallet and took out a couple of dollar bills and tucked them neatly under her coffee cup, then gave him a bright look and said, “Ready?”

Jimmy Joe said, “Let’s roll,” and scooted out of the booth ahead of her so he would be ready to give her a hand-if she would let him. He had a funny feeling in his chest as if he’d gotten a wad of food stuck way down deep in his esophagus, right under his breastbone. It was the kind of lump he got when J.J. was sick and he had to leave him anyway; the same lump that had been there when he’d left the hospital after visiting his daddy for the last time. He told himself the lady really wasn’t any of his business, that she was just a passing stranger he’d happened to lend a helping hand to, and now it was time to go his way and let her go hers.

He was a little surprised when she took the hand he offered her and let him help her out of the booth. She let go of it in a hurry, though, and tugged the silky sweater down over her belly and fooled with her hair and her pocketbook in nervous little gestures as she said in a voice as bright and false as her smile, “Well, I guess this is goodbye.”

He shook his head. “I want to see you to your car.”

“I, uh, have to make a stop first.”

“That’s okay, I’ll wait.”

He tried to avoid it, but she pressed some money into his hand and went off to the rest room one more time, leaving him no choice but to wait in line at the cash register. In a way, though, he was glad to have something to do so he wouldn’t have to watch her walk away from him, moving as if every bone in her body hurt.

When she came out he was waiting for her near the main entrance. He gave her her change, then held her pocketbook for her while he helped her on with her coat. He thought how natural it was beginning to feel to help her like that, and how she seemed to be getting used to having him do it.

They made the slow walk to her car without saying anything. It was still cold, with a slate-gray overcast that looked like snow. But the wind smelled of fuel and the air vibrated not with thunder but with the indescribable roar of several hundred big diesel engines growling through their gears as they headed out onto the highway like giant beasts joining a vast migration. Hearing that sound, seeing the rigs moving slowly past him, Jimmy Joe could feel his heart begin to beat faster.

She unlocked her car with a little gadget on her key chain that chirped like a cricket when she pressed on it. He reached past her and opened the door for her and then stood so he was shielding her as well as he could from the wind while she eased in under the wheel, stuck the key in the ignition and fired it up. All this, while he was being careful not to touch her and she was being just as careful not to look at him, and both of them were wondering who was going to be the first to say it.

“Well,” she said, her voice sounding dry and breathless, “at least it started, huh?” She looked up at him then, with dark, fierce eyes, almost as if she was angry with him about something. Funny how he knew that wasn’t it at all.

“You got enough gas?” he asked, dragging it out even though he was restless and anxious to be on his way.

She glanced at her gauge. “Half a tank. I thought I’d fill up in Amarillo.”

He nodded and straightened, looking out across the roof of her car. “Well, then. Guess you’re all set to go.” He took a deep breath and ducked back down like somebody bobbing for apples in a barrel of water. “You take care now, y’hear? Drive safely.” His voice sounded garbled to him, as if maybe it was coming from under water.

“I will.” She sounded impatient, a little annoyed with him for doubting her. Then she gripped the wheel with both hands, and as if it was the hardest thing she’d ever done, looked up at him and croaked, “Ah…thanks. For everything. For…you know, letting me use your sleeper, and…everything. It was really nice of you.”

“No problem.” He cleared his throat. “My pleasure…” And he could tell by the ghost of a smile that quivered the corner of her mouth that she knew how close he’d come to saying “ma’am.”

She squinted up at him, still thinking about smiling but not quite doing it. “I hope you make it home to your little boy in time for Christmas.”

“Yeah,” said Jimmy Joe. “Me, too. And I hope your daddy gets to feelin’ better real soon.”

She laughed on a shaky breath. “Yeah, me, too.” Then, reaching out for the door handle, she said, “Well…okay. Thanks. Again. See ya. Oh-and Merry Christmas.”

“Yeah, you have a Merry Christmas, too.” After that there wasn’t anything to do but stand back out of the way and let her shut the door. He hung around while she fiddled with the radio and heater controls, then gave him a wave through the window to show him she was on her way. He waved back and watched her head out across the parking lot toward the four-wheeler exit and the highway beyond.

It was when he’d turned to walk back to his truck that it occurred to him that after all that, neither one of them had said it. Neither of them had said goodbye.