The Year of Chasing Dreams (18 page)

“Too much artificial light from cities blocks them out. But out here you can see them all. Makes a person feel small and wanting.”

As he talked she was absorbing the profound truth of this night: She no longer had to remain in the dark. She could be free of it. He raised up on his elbows, pointed, and named a few of the constellations.

“I’m impressed,” she said, regaining her composure. “But I don’t know how those early stargazers saw those images. I can’t.”

“Because the stars
talked
to them, told them about other lands and adventures to be had. And the stargazers believed the stars, so when they roamed far away, they looked up and saw the same star images in the night skies looking down on them as they saw at home. It probably brought them comfort. So they named the stars into constellations. Makes sense, don’t you think?”

His words raised a lump in her throat. The same night sky had hovered above the earth for eons. Stargazers sought and found order in chaos, a place and a purpose under heaven. It
made her think of Tennessee and the ones she loved. “Thank you for bringing me here, Garret. Lets me see how beautiful the world is … here and at home.”

He chuckled. “
Life
is beautiful.”

It is with you
, she said inside her heart.

He looked down on her. “You’re beautiful.”

“You’re daft,” she said, using the Aussie word for crazy.

“You once told me you’d come with me on walkabout. Do you still want to do that?”

“That was a while ago. I—I mean, yes, I’d like to see the world with you, but just now, I have to go home.” The feeling was suddenly intense.

He took a deep breath. “I want to come with you. I can’t just let you go away from me, Eden. Do you think Ciana would let me camp on her property? Maybe in the barn you told me about? I can work.”

Eden’s heart thumped with the sudden uptick of the unexpected, like a box found under the Christmas tree after all the other presents were opened. “You’d come to America? With me?”

“I’ll need a visa. Can apply for it soon as we get back to Sydney.” He pushed her bangs off her forehead.

“But a walkabout takes time. You can’t see the States in only a few months.”

“We’ll worry about that part when I get there. We can be together, that’s what’s important. We’ll figure out the future.”

Brimming tears smudged the stars above him until they melted into glitter. “Ciana will welcome you. I know she will. And you can meet Jon and Alice Faye, all the horses—”

He pressed his fingertips to her lips. “I take that as a yes.”

She wiggled her arms up from the warmth of the bag and hugged his neck, laughing. “Yes. Yes. A hundred times yes!”
Her mind started racing. “Soon as we get to your house, I’ll email Ciana.” A week in the outback had completely cut Eden off from communications. “It’s still yesterday in Tennessee. I can’t get used to this time difference.”

“And you don’t mind sleeping out here tonight, roughing it?”

“Not with all those stars watching over us.”

He kissed her, drew back, cupped her face in his palm. “I love you, Eden. And tonight I want to make love to you, here under the stars of my country. And when we get to America, I want to make love to you under those stars too.”

She gave her answer wordlessly by partially unzipping the sleeping bag to make room for their bodies to move more freely together. “Don’t forget about the moon,” she whispered, parting her lips to receive his kiss. “Shouldn’t the moon have equal time?”

Ten thousand miles away from New South Wales, Australia, Ciana drove home on a narrow, dark county road toward Bellmeade, a line of trees on her left, open fields on her right. She could tell that her left headlight was burned out, but because it was so late, she pretty much had the road to herself and wasn’t concerned about oncoming traffic. The moon flirted with moving night clouds. She’d been at Abbie’s baby shower, and was still basking in the party’s glow, where it had seemed as if every woman from the expansive family of relatives had been stuffed into the church’s basement.

The room had been decorated with balloons and banners, and tables had overflowed with gifts. All kinds of appetizers—savory, hot, chewy, spicy-sweet—had been spread across banquet tables, along with cake and cream puffs and fruit for
dipping in a small fountain dripping warm chocolate. On a beverage table sat containers of coffee, sweet tea, and punch.

For a minute, after walking in, Ciana had keenly felt Arie’s absence, but Patricia quickly pulled her into the circle of friendship and spoke freely about her daughter. “She would have loved this. It is a night for happiness.”

Abbie wore a coral-colored linen dress, her big belly protruding. She grumbled about being the size of a heifer, but she looked radiant. She also announced a long-held secret—she and Eric were having a boy. He would be named Aaron, the closest they could come to Arie’s name, which they would have chosen if the baby had been a girl.

“So much for offering Abbie my old dollhouse,” Ciana said as she drove the dark road. Maybe she could donate it to the Pediatric Oncology floor where Arie had volunteered and taught art classes. It had been good to be around Arie’s extended family, good to laugh and share stories, and keep her mind off her problems. The sudden glare of headlights almost blinded her in the rearview mirror.

Behind her she saw another truck coming at her fast. It was dark colored, a bar of hunting lights mounted across the top of the cab, and riding on oversized tires. Irritated at the driver’s lack of consideration, she stepped on her accelerator, but her old truck couldn’t deliver the speed she needed to outdistance the one behind her. The truck drew closer. Her pulse shot up, and irritation gave way to concern. She tapped her brakes, hoping to signal the driver to go around her. But he didn’t slow. If anything, he came faster. She moved onto the shoulder of the road, half on, half off the asphalt. The shoulder jarred and shook her truck, rattled her teeth, forced her to fight to keep her steering wheel straight.

She honked her horn. The truck didn’t pass, didn’t back
off. Fear wedged in her throat, gave way to panic as she realized that the driver wanted to force her off the road. Desperately, she glanced right, saw empty fields flying past with ravines trenched into rain runoff gullies, and telephone poles evenly spaced. If she hit a pole, the front end of her truck would cave. If she went into a gully, she could flip.

Ciana felt the truck behind tap her bumper, making her jerk forward, almost causing her to lose her grip on her steering wheel. Her bumper was hit a second time. She couldn’t hold on much longer, dodging poles and gullies at this breakneck speed. She gritted her teeth.

Another quick glance ahead and to her right. She saw an upcoming turnoff and a closed gate, an entrance to a field for farm equipment. Driving through the gate would destroy her truck, but she would also avoid a ravine, spread the impact across the grille, and instantly slow her speed. With sudden determination, Ciana turned the wheel and drove onto the turnoff, letting the other truck shoot past her. With her hand on the handle of the door, she lay as far down across the seat as her seat belt allowed and struck the gate. With an earsplitting sound of metal on metal, her truck hurtled through the steel barrier, and with a momentum that shoved most of her engine into the cab. The truck stopped with a lurch. The heat of the engine scorched her legs. She gasped for breath, tasted metal-tinged smoke. Her mind screamed,
Get out!

She somehow struggled out of her seat belt, tumbled through the door she’d thrown open and torn off its hinges by the impact, rolled across the ground. She panted, her lungs on fire, lay back against the hard cold dirt. Ciana knew she was hurt, and she was alone. She closed her eyes and lost consciousness.

Ciana was sitting up in the ER, on an exam table, her midsection tightly wrapped, and wearing a gown that gaped in the back, when her mother and Jon barreled behind the curtain. “Hey, you can’t barge in here,” a doctor barked. But there was no stopping her visitors.

“I’m okay,” Ciana said, bursting into tears. She put her arms around Jon’s neck.

“What happened?” She heard raw fear in Jon’s voice.

“I’m doing an exam here,” the doctor interrupted crossly.

“When you didn’t come home …,” Jon said. She winced with the pressure of his arms on her sides and he quickly drew back.

Alice Faye stepped forward, her face pasty white, and peered into Ciana’s eyes. “Oh my God, honey …”

“I’m all right, Mom.” She was woozy from the pain medication the doctor had given her, and she was shaking from cold and from shock.

“How’d she get here?” Jon asked the doctor.

“Ambulance brought her in. Some farmer found her in his field about four a.m. He called 911, stayed with her until the paramedics arrived.”

She was in an emergency clinic attached to a small hospital on the outskirts of Windemere, near the interstate. The ER was tiny and, except for Ciana, without patients.

“I think my truck’s totaled,” Ciana mumbled, still dazed, and unable to let go of Jon.

“How bad is my daughter hurt?” Alice Faye turned to the doctor.

The doctor’s demeanor became patient and compassionate. “Just got her X-rays and scans. There’s a broken rib that I’ve wrapped, and some burns on her arms, but she was wearing boots, and they protected her legs. Some cuts, already stitched, and she’s going to bruise and be pretty sore from head to toe. But all in all, I’d say she’s pretty lucky. No organs damaged. I’ve given her a shot of antibiotics and pain meds. I’d like to check her in overnight for observation.”

Together Alice Faye and Jon said “Okay” at the same time that Ciana said “No way.” She looked at their anxious faces. “I want to go home.”

“It’s just observation,” the doctor said. “You blacked out. Have a good night and I’ll sign you out in the morning.”

Ciana struggled to scoot off the table.

Jon stopped her. “Whoa. Don’t be stubborn. Do what the doc says.”

“Mom, my clothes are over there.” She pointed to the things she’d been wearing.

“Ciana—” Alice Faye started.

“I will walk out naked if I have to.”

The doc exchanged glances with Jon and her mother. “I can’t hold her against her will. And she seems capable of making her own choices.”

Jon flashed her an angry look, but he nodded.

“I’ll write her a pain prescription, and you can take her home. She should see her regular doctor in a couple of days, or”—he turned to Ciana—“or sooner if you have abdominal swelling or serious pain.”

“I’ll make sure she does,” Alice Faye said, wiping her eyes on a tissue handed over by a nurse.

Ciana started off the table, but the doctor stopped her. “Not so fast.”

“You said I could go.” Waves of nausea washed over her.

“Nurse, bring a wheelchair.”

“I can walk,” Ciana started, holding the gown closed behind her, but another look from Jon silenced her.

The nurse rolled a wheelchair over and Ciana was helped into it. She knew she couldn’t manage by herself at the moment. She felt battered and no longer up to arguing.

The woman settled Ciana in the chair, handed Alice Faye a paper sack with Ciana’s torn and filthy clothes, too damaged to be re-worn, so she had to wear the hospital-issue gown home. The nurse pushed the chair to the door.

Jon jogged ahead and brought Alice Faye’s Lincoln to the entrance and to a stop in front of the chair. With help, Ciana eased into the backseat. Jon leaned over her, snapped her seat belt, stole a kiss, brought her back to herself. She was safe now. The pain meds were working their magic. She felt numb and floaty. She leaned into the seat. “Happy to ride in this old tank,” she said, drifting on the current of the drugs.

“That old truck of yours needed to be gotten rid of years ago.” Alice Faye’s voice quavered.

Ciana was glad her mother was blaming the truck. Jon caught her eyes in the rearview mirror. His look was dark as thunder, and questioning. She shook her head slightly to say
Not now
. And so silently she shared with him that what had happened had not been an accident.