Down the Hidden Path (17 page)

Miah winked. “Exactly. You want to drive home?”

His eyes turned to saucers. “Seriously?”

“Sure.”

A smile curved his face. “Okay.”

Miah gave him a quick lesson.

David tugged his stocking hat over his ears. “What’s down that way?”

“We used to call that the Hidden Path. If you follow it along the lake, you’ll pass a log cabin and if you keep going, there’s a cove. At the edge of the cove is a small graveyard from I don’t know how far back. We always joked that it was haunted.”

“Cool. Can we go there?”

Miah pointed at him. “You’re driving.”

He knew David was still mustering his courage to take the wheel, so he launched into another story. “One winter we had a really hard freeze and a deep snow. My friends and I were all out on the snowmobiles and we’d missed like two weeks of school. One of them got the bright idea to try to take the snowmobile across the cove.”

“Did he sink it?”

“No. He floored it and went straight across. Then, he decided that if the rest of us were real men, we’d follow him. Stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

“Did you fall in?”

“Nope. The water is shallow there, twenty feet, maybe. It was frozen solid. But that was a really dumb thing for us to do. Of course, it made us feel like men. Like we’d conquered the elements or something.”

“So, who’s in the graveyard?”

Miah turned to look down the path. “I don’t know. There are only eight stones. Some of them are hard to read.”

David grinned. “Haunted, huh?”

Miah shrugged. “So we thought. Once we were standing in the center making up stories about who was buried there and a tree branch fell right behind us.”

David laughed. “What did you do?”

“Went running and screaming like little girls.”

“That’s really funny, Jeremiah.”

Miah rubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah. It is. Keep it to yourself.”

“No promises.” David wrapped his fingers around the handlebars. “Ready?”

“Let’s ride.”

It seemed like they were gone forever when Gray finally saw them coming back down the trail toward the lodge. Her nose was starting to run and her hands tingled, frozen Popsicles at the ends of her arms. As the gleaming tan snowmobile angled toward her, Gray’s heart caught in her throat. David was driving.

She opened her mouth to yell for him to slow down, that he was going too fast. She quickly judged the distance between the snowmobile and the edge of the house. Too fast. Way too fast. They bounced and jostled as they drew near and the smile she’d seen on David’s face was now turning into horror. His eyes were fitted on the woodpile they were getting closer and closer to.

Jeremiah’s voice caught up to her first. He was telling David to slow down. He repeated it twice, but David was as frozen as Gray’s heart. Miah reached around him and grabbed the handlebars, but it was too late. There was no time to slow. Miah jerked the handlebars, but the snowmobile kept barreling forward. Cold fear shot down Gray’s spine, leaving her too weak to scream.

Miah grabbed David around the middle, shielding him as much as possible, and bailed off the snowmobile. They rolled and came to a stop, covered in white and both breathing hard as the snowmobile made contact with the corner of the woodpile.

Gray knew she’d screamed David’s name because she’d heard it, heard the terror in her own voice and was running to them before they stopped rolling.

She dove into the snow and found a down coat. She grabbed David’s shoulders, pulling him to a seated position. He coughed out a bit of snow. The two guys were a tangled mess of arms and legs, but Gray’s hands roamed freely, feeling for breaks as she went along.

David’s hand clamped on to hers. “I’m fine. Gray! I’m okay.” A gloved hand shoved her away.

Her fingers tightened on David’s shoulders just as Jeremiah was untangling his long legs.

“Sure you’re all right?” he said, dusting snow from both of them. He didn’t even sound upset.

Gray’s worry quickly morphed into fury. She turned to Miah. “What in the world were you thinking?”

Miah didn’t seem to have an answer, but his face tensed as he looked over his shoulder to find the snowmobile crashed against the woodpile.

Seeing it there, Gray realized just how close this was to a serious accident. She’d already learned how quickly an accident could turn into a tragedy. Fire shot into the pit of her stomach. “This isn’t the army, Jeremiah. He isn’t one of your new recruits. He’s a child. Barely twelve years old.”

She pulled David up from the snow so that he stood beside her. When his hand went to his head to remove his stocking hat, she saw the blood. “Oh no.” Gray gripped the sides of his face as he tugged the hat from his head. The blood had smeared, but she could see the inch-long cut above his brow.

“Come on, let’s get him inside.” Miah took David by the arm.

David’s hand went to his head. He turned a little pale when he looked
down to find his glove smeared with blood. “Did I ruin your snowmobile?”

Miah barely gave it a glance. “Nah. Just clipped the edge. She’s had worse.”

“I’m never driving it again,” David mumbled as the three of them made their way to the back door.

Miah stopped and tilted David’s chin to get a better look at the cut. “Sure you are. You gotta get back on the horse, kid. Maybe just don’t open the throttle quite so much next time.”

Next time?
Gray gave him a cold glare. If Miah actually thought there was going to be a next time, he was delusional.

As soon as the roads were clear and she could dig her car out, she was going back to Mr. Granger’s office to see what she could do about this whole thing. Miah wasn’t ready for this kind of responsibility. And since he wasn’t, that put David in danger here.

Miah still stood at the door, his fingers cupped around David’s chin. She wanted to hurry him along, but something made her stop. Jeremiah’s face softened as he looked into the eyes of his child. “Don’t be afraid of the snowmobile, okay, David?”

Gray’s eyes closed because she didn’t want to see this. Didn’t need to see this. It was a father instructing his son. It was a soldier giving advice to someone younger and with less experience. And under different circumstances, she could appreciate the gesture.

Miah used his hand to swipe away the remaining trickle of blood that had started to congeal. “In fact, don’t be afraid of anything.”

Oh good grief.

Just as they were stepping inside, none of them bothering to knock the snow from their feet, Caleb met them at the door. He took one look at David, then Miah, then angled to look out back. “Are you kidding me? You wrecked the snowmobile?”

“Shut up, Caleb,” Miah said as he shoved past him.

“Just great. Way to go, kid.” Caleb slammed the back door. “And they’re calling for more snow.”

Gray sat on the corner of Jeremiah’s bed. If more snow was in the forecast, she needed to reach out to Mr. Granger by phone. She cradled her cell and hoped the heating duct didn’t carry her voice. She dialed his number and when he answered, she launched into an explanation of the situation.

For a few moments, Granger was silent. “Mary Grace, I know this has to be difficult for you.”

She squeezed her eyes shut at the condescension in his tone. “This isn’t about me, Wilson. It’s about David’s safety.”

Was that a chuckle on the other end of the phone line? “So, you’re telling me father and son were out on a snowmobile and he got a bump on his head?”

Bile rose in her throat. “He could have died.” Why was no one understanding this? Bill and Angie had died just driving home from the airport. Was it really necessary for her to explain the parallels? Did no one get it? Life was precious. And fleeting. And where David was concerned, she wasn’t interested in taking risks.

“You’re being a bit dramatic, dear. I’d say that Miah’s interest in the boy shows his determination to become a good father, a good role model. Already they’re bonding. I think you should see this as a positive thing.”

“A positive thing?”

“Yes. Jeremiah is obviously trying to bond with his son.” There was a long pause. “Mary Grace, kids get hurt. It’s a natural part of life. Now if you’d told me Jeremiah had been drinking or there were . . . I don’t know . . . drugs involved, that’d be a different story. But right now all you’re telling me is David got hurt doing something any normal, red-blooded American boy might be doing.”

Tears filled her eyes. “Are you telling me I’m just supposed to stand by and watch as Jeremiah uses trial and error to figure out how to be a father—with David and his safety hanging in the balance?”

Granger sighed. “I’m pretty certain that’s what all mothers have to do.”

She hung up the phone, swiped the angry tears, and barely noticed the light tap on her door. “Come in.” When her voice cracked on the last word, she pooled her strength and painted on a smile.

David opened the door, but didn’t enter. “I bled through the other Band-Aid, so Jeremiah put this one on.” His voice was weak, and she was fairly certain the day’s events had taken what little spark she’d seen earlier and turned it into a wasteland. David fingered the wound. “He called it a butterfly bandage. He’s good at doing these.”

“Years in the military and helping raise three younger brothers.” Gray motioned for him to come in. She took his hand and pulled him onto the bed with her. “You doin’ okay?”

“I want to go home.” His fingers twisted on the down comforter.

Gray’s heart broke. “I know, sweetie.”

He pulled a deep breath and let it hiss through his lips. His cheeks were still rosy from the cold outside, maybe even a little windburned. He dropped his head on Gray’s shoulder. “But I don’t have a home anymore, do I?”

She tucked him beneath her arm. “You’ve always got a home with me.”

“Yeah,” he mumbled. And it sounded like such a hopeless sound, it mad
e Gray tighten her grip on him a little more. “I’m never riding a snowmobile again.”

“Well, that’s good because, honestly, I don’t think my heart could take it.”

“Is he going to make me?” He tilted out to look at her and Gray saw the little boy he still was.

“I don’t think so. He’ll have to get through me.” She offered a mock frown and her best mean look.

David’s face split into a smile, causing the gold of his eyes to dance. “Like that would be hard; you weigh about seven pounds and he weighs like five hundred.”

“Oh? This morning I thought I was a grizzly.”

“A skinny little emaciated grizzly.” He tapped the bandage, testing it.

She huffed. “Emaciated? Where exactly did we pick up that word?”

“Science class. Now he’s taking me fishing tomorrow because it’s supposed to be sunny in the afternoon.”

She tilted to look at David’s face. “There’s five inches of snow on the ground and they’re calling for more.”

David threw his hands up. “I know. There’s a winter storm warning. Another cold front is coming through and we’re going to get hammered by it tomorrow night.”

David did talk like a grown man sometimes; she had to smile. “Did you tell Miah?”

His eyes widened and he made a show of nodding his head.

“What’d he say?”

David rolled his eyes. “He pounded on his chest and grunted something about real men.”

Oh. “Fishing is pretty fun. I’m sure Miah will take hot cocoa and make sure you don’t get too cold. On another note, don’t worry about the snowmobile. I’ll talk to Jeremiah about it. I used to be pretty persuasive where he was concerned.”

“In high school when you two were friends?”

“Yes.” It seemed a lifetime ago. It
was
another lifetime. In that one, Gray and Miah had a connection the whole town recognized. If there was any shred of it left, if he still cared for her on any level, maybe she could convince him to take things slower with David. However, she knew Miah. And slow wasn’t something he was accustomed to. Where he was concerned, there was full throttle and hyperdrive. But somehow, she had to get through to him. After all, David was all that mattered.