No Fault of Mine

Chapter One

I gripped the steering wheel as if my life depended on it.

The sounds of terror still echoed in my mind: the squeal of tires on pavement, the blaring of horns, the horrid sound of crushing metal as his car slid into a guardrail and careened off the road, and the screams—the screams of my son.

How long ago did this happen? It seems like minutes instead of hours.

Brandt, my nine-year-old son, lay asleep across from me, his head resting against the window. Panic had drained him of whatever strength he'd had left. I hoped he'd sleep until we reached my sister in Vancouver, Washington.

I released my right hand from the steering wheel and tried to work the stiffness out of it. It wasn't until then that I realized I hadn't considered my body's needs. I turned toward the lights on the horizon, hoping that something was still open at this ungodly hour. I needed to pee and buy something laced with caffeine.

The town was less than I'd hoped for. It was a dusty one-street desert town in central Washington on some nondescript two-lane state road in the middle of featureless fields of yet-to-be-harvested grain. I turned into an all-night, two-pump gas station at the town's edge. A single light on a pole next to the road and another above the door penetrated the darkness sufficiently to see paint chips clinging to the building's clapboard siding, alluding to better days.

The scene bagged a camera, raising a sting of regret about what I'd left behind in my haste to leave my home in Idaho.

I scanned the parking lot for anything that seemed out of place. A pickup with a mismatched driver's side door was parked on the side of the building. Nothing seemed to be stirring besides the distant headlights of an approaching vehicle from the west.

I left the car running, pressed the lock button on the fob, and entered the deserted store. A tall man with quarterback shoulders rested lazily against the counter. A sweat-stained cap with a faded feed-store logo was pulled low over his forehead. He tipped his head slightly in my direction as the door closed behind me.

"The coffee's that way," he said, pointing to the back of the store with a casual flip of his wrist.

I found the restroom with relief and finished with a splash of water on my face. I wasn't surprised to see dark bags under my eyes and a stare that made me wonder if the woman I was looking at had any life left in her. I pulled my hair back and saw a face that a vacation at a spa couldn't restore to the smoothness of my twenties. My hair was also distressed.

When had my bounce disappeared? When had the wave in my hair turned to straw?

The cowboy was right. I found the coffee carafe next to the rack of day-old pastries along the store's back wall. I selected a 20 oz styrene cup and filled it with the brown liquid that had been sitting on the warmer for most of the night. I grabbed a bag of mini-pretzels and dumped my purchases on the checkout counter with a couple of bills.

"Traveling far?" The cowboy asked and picked up my cash.

"The coast," I said. In-landers referred to any destination west of the Cascade Mountains as the coast.

"Oh," he said as he pulled change from a drawer. "Leaving God's country for the streets, lights, and frolic of the great metropolis?"

"Riverview," I said without thinking and immediately regretted my slip. I certainly didn't want to leave a trail.

"I lived there once," he said, handing back my change. "I decided I wanted open country and blue sky to work under, not a paper mill enclosed with iron, tin, and tar." Riverview was a blue-collar town with a deep-river port, exporting steel, lumber, logs, and paper to China, South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines.

"Faced with those two choices," I said, stuffing the change into my pocket, "I think I would've made the same decision." I turned to leave and added a very casual "thanks."

"If it hadn't been for that decision ten years ago, little lady, you wouldn't have crossed my path this night."

I stopped. Something he said or the way he said it caught my attention, like the smell of freshly baked coffee cinnamon rolls.

Was it his tone of voice? His words? It was something about him...maybe sincerity or earnestness, perhaps.

I looked hard into his eyes; his irises were as black as charcoal. The corners of his mouth edged upward, forming a playful gesture that hinted he was enjoying himself. He leaned toward me, and if it weren't for the counter, I think he would have touched me.

"I figure you're running away from someone or something...," his eyebrows knitted, and he added, "not toward someone or something."

I straightened my back against the shock of his words and said, "I don't know what you're talking about." His intrusion into my private life frightened me. Or was it the shock of his insight into my plight?

"I have my reasons." He relaxed, raised to his full height, and said, "I've seen plenty of people pass through here. Fear breeds desperation, and desperation births recklessness. Why else would you be on this godforsaken road to nowhere?" He removed his cap, finger-combed his black-as-night hair, and replaced his cap.

"You seem to know a lot about me," I said with condescension.

"Not to be too creepy, I know you left your car running but locked the doors. I know you were in a rush to find the ladies' room, suggesting you've been on the road for a while, and your choice of food and drink suggests that you're planning to drive through the night to Riverview."

"Okay," I said with a classic bubble-head shake; I was annoyed and wanted him to know it.

"And your back bumper cover fell off as you turned in here." I followed his pointed finger and felt my face redden as I saw a bumper cover matching the color of my car under the light next to the road.

"I think we're done here," I said briskly, trying to maintain whatever decorum I could. I was glad when I heard the door shut behind me.