But he was already sliding into the passenger seat. The tension in his body seemed to vibrate through the truck. Alex took her own seat and glanced in the rearview mirror. At least Lori didn’t seem concerned by Kieran’s silence. Just as she couldn’t be aware of the inhuman nature that drove him.
Alex was still the only person within five hundred miles who knew that secret.
“I heard on the radio that there may be bad weather up ahead,” she said briskly as she started the engine. “We’ll drive as long as we can. Don’t worry, Lori, we’ll get you and Kevin safely to Calgary.”
* * *
Alex gunned the motor again as Kieran pushed the truck from behind, wind-driven snow whipping around them in a blinding mass of white.
“So much for four-wheel drives,” Alex muttered. The truck settled back into the ditch, stubbornly uncooperative.
Kieran’s head emerged next to her window. “We’ll have to keep trying,” he said. His hair was soaked with snow melted by his exertions, and his breath rolled away from his face in long, ragged plumes. “How are Lori and the boy?”
“Don’t worry about us,” Lori said from the back. “Kevin’s still sleeping. It would take more than this to wake him up.”
Lori was being very calm, Alex thought. It had been Alex’s lapse in judgment that got them into the ditch, and Lori hadn’t made a single complaint. Five hours of driving behind them, near midnight, freezing cold, and in the middle of nowhere, but Lori had probably suffered far worse.
And Kieran, at least, was immune to the weather. He stood in the middle of nature’s worst and claimed it for his own like some elemental god, black hair lashing in the wind.
He was beautiful.
A handful of snow crystals blew through the gap in the window, bringing her back to reality. “All right,” she said. “We’ll try again.”
Kieran nodded and circled back to the rear of the truck. Alex adjusted the rearview mirror to watch as he braced himself and prepared to push.
Light caught at the edge of her vision. The truck rocked once and stopped. Kieran vanished.
Headlights. She was seeing headlights, coming along the road from behind.
She shut off the engine and waited as the car drew up alongside them. Four letters were clearly stenciled on the side of the vehicle: RCMP. Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The provincial equivalent of local police and highway patrol.
Her heart performed the cliche of stopping for several seconds. She looked frantically in the mirror for Kieran, but he was still out of sight.
The officer made his way from his car to the trucks wielding a flashlight, hat pulled low and coat buttoned high. Alex pulled her own muffler farther up and rolled the window back down a crack.
“You okay, ma’am?” the officer said, peering into the car. The flashlight beam washed over Lori and Kevin and settled at the level of Alex’s waist. “Looks like you got a bit stuck here.”
“My fault,” Alex quipped, managing a smile. “I’d hoped to make it to the next town and pushed a little too far for this kind of weather.”
He nodded with a grimace of sympathy. “Happens to the best of us. You’re from the States, are you?”
He’d have seen her plates, so there was no point in denying it. “Yes.” She nodded toward Lori. “Visiting friends.”
She waited for him to make some comment that would reveal he had suspicions, or recognized her, but he only nodded again and glanced back at his car. “Well, it’s a good thing I came along. I’m just going home myself. I know there’s a motel about four kilometers down the road. I’ll get you out of here and take you by.”
Alex clenched her teeth together to keep them from chattering. “I’d appreciate that, Officer.”
“My pleasure, ma’am. Just let me get set up here.” He touched the brim of his hat and walked back to his car.
Kieran, where are you? Alex leaned across the passenger’s seat and stared out the window. He’d been right to hide, but Lori was sure to start wondering where he’d gone.