Wide Spaces (A Wide Awake Novella, Book 2) (6 page)

I beat my fist on the steering wheel and cursed loudly. I yelled some more because I just needed to. I pulled over into an abandoned lot and laid my head on the steering wheel.

I had an awful feeling that I was right and she wasn't on the main roads.

And then my cell phone rang.
I gasped and picked it up. "Emma!"

"Mason," a familiar voice crawled through the line, sounding upset.

"What do you want, Adeline?"

"I called Emma." I could hear her fast breaths. "
Something happened."

"Why the hell did you call Emma?"

"To…mess with her. Piss her off. Tell her about us."

Ice raced through my veins. "You what?" I said, dangerously low.
"Us? There is no us!"

"I got fired today."

"I don't care."

"I got fired because they found pictures of us in my office."

"Pictures…of us?"

Adeline and I had one date. One. It was before Mom's accident,
back when I was that stupid teenager who haunted me in more ways than one. We had gone to one of my friend's parties. Adeline went to school in the town over. I couldn't remember any pictures taken of us there, but who knew. That was the only way she could have pictures of "us". I was drunk that night and all I really remembered was that Adeline kept trying to drag me up to the rooms and I kept refusing. I told her that I wasn't looking for a girlfriend and she said she didn't care; she just wanted to have a good time that night. A
really
good time. And then my stupid teenage hormones caved, like an idiot. We had sex in the laundry room of my friend's house, of all places, and I regretted it about as quickly as it had begun.

She acted like it was no big deal.
I never called her again because in my mind, we didn't have a great time and we barely said two words to each other the whole night. All she wanted to do was grind against me and beg me to dance with her. When I tried to ask her about what she was going to do that summer, she said she didn't want to ruin the moment with talking, just dance. I knew then my mistake had been grave and figured she wasn't that interested in me either. I thought would never hear from her again.

But I did.

When the texts came too frequently for me to ignore anymore, I told her as nicely as I could that I wasn't interested and for her to move on to someone else. That we just hadn't meshed.

She tried calling a few times a day after that, so I started leaving my phone at home… I sucked in a quick breath as I remembered. I had completely forgotten about th
at. I left my phone at home the night of Mom's accident because of Adeline…

"Mason? Can you hear me?"

"I hear you," I growled. "And I still haven't heard a good reason for why you called Emma." I closed my eyes tightly, my guts twisting. "If she got angry because of what you said, didn't come home because of it and got hurt in the storm, I'll—"

"That's what I'm trying to tell you." Her voice was small."I didn't say anything to her about us. I just called an
d as soon as she picked up and said hello, there was a lot of screeching and noise. I think she may have wrecked her car or something."

My breath caught painfully. "Where was she?"

"I don't know."

"Why are you calling me?"

"I wanted to tell you. I just wanted you, Mason. I wasn't trying to hurt her and wasn't going to. I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I just wanted to make your life hell."

I hung up. I was not going to argue abou
t what happened back then. If Adeline could call me, then I could call Emma.

I dialed, but
she didn't pick up. I jerked the truck into drive and barely looked before jamming the gas and heading back down the road. I had no idea where Emma would have gone if she was angry with me about Adeline, but Adeline told me Emma had gotten in an accident. I couldn't think of anything Adeline would have gained from confessing that.

I
had
to find Emma now.

I shook my head violently. Could I real
istically blame Adeline for Mom's accident and now Emma's, if that was the case? No, but she sure as hell had a hand in it.

I rounded the c
orner to Emma's neighborhood and passed her house. There were no flares lit and I felt my eyes sting. Oh, God, please. Don’t let this happen…

All the breath left me at once when I looked at the clock and saw how late it was.
It was almost time to meet the deputy, but there was no way I was going back there without finding Emma. I just…couldn't.

And then I remembered that he had a family waiting for him, too. They were probably worried abo
ut him. I'd make one more sweep and then meet him, but I wasn't going home. He could forget that.

I came to the end of the subdivision and started to turn right toward town, but stopped. I looked left, toward the
road near the bridge. Emma had almost lost her life there once and Andy had taken his own life there. I didn't think Emma would go there, even if she was angry with me, but I felt my hands turning the wheel left and my foot pressing the gas anyway.

When I came to it, it was as I expected. No cars were there, no tracks, but that didn't matter since the snow
covered it right back up. I drove over it and started looking for a place to turn around. I stopped and backed into a driveway. As I looked to the right to check for someone coming, I saw headlights. I waited, rubbing my face in anguish. I pressed my forehead to the steering wheel and closed my eyes so tight they hurt.

I couldn't bear the thought of not finding her tonight. My guts twisted painfully. At first, I thought I'd throw up from it. My eyes stung behind my eyelids and I reali
zed my body was preparing me for the worst. I ripped off my seatbelt and got out, almost slipping with my leap from the cab. I kicked at the back tire and beat my gloved fist on the side of the truck. It didn't matter, the fabric ripped and it stung, but I kept hitting it until it hurt so bad that I knew the skin was ripped to the bone.

I stood there in the snow that had seemed to die down a little and listened to the quiet. The eerie quiet that
snow provides settled around me, pushed in me and through me. I knelt down and let my aching fist rest on the snow to ice it. The quiet was practically yelling it was so silent. I slowed my angry breathing and tried to think, tried to find the answer that I knew I would regret later for not getting right.

I
looked around at the snow-covered trees and land. I had been wrong. My body hadn't been preparing me for letdown. It felt not like I should give up, but that I should listen. I should pay attention, let my fear ebb away, and focus. Just like I used to tell Emma.

Never give up. N
ever let your fear and frustration cloud your focus.

I sighed, pulling my now numb hand from the snow. I stood and looked out at the road. The headlights were still sitting there and hadn't come past me. I hadn't been paying attention. I watched carefully. They weren't moving, but were muted behind all the haze the snow created.

And the snow and wind was picking back up again. It was stupid, I knew, but I let the hope creep back in that this was a sign of some sort, that the calm that had taken me over was letting me find the girl I was in love with.

I
squinted at it before climbing back into the truck and making my way to it a little faster than I should have. The hope glowed in my chest. The car was facing my way so whoever was in there was coming towards town. The front end was wrapped around a tree, but the lights still shown on both sides. The car was completely covered in snow.

I swung the truck around to park by the ditch and jumped out. I couldn’t make
out the car with the way it was, but I knew, I just knew it was Emma.

I
slid when I ran down the ditch and felt the freezing snow seep into the back of my jeans, but I got up, ran up the slope, and around the car to the driver's side door. I could hear music faintly, but the car was off. I knocked, but heard nothing. I furiously wiped away the snow from the window and door, but it was iced over. I bit into my fist to stop from smashing it through the window.

I cursed and
growled all the way down to my soul, hating that everything had to have an obstacle. I searched for something to smash the window with, kneeling in the snow and shoving my hands down through it trying to find the ground. When I literally reached pay dirt, I pushed around, looking for a limb or rock. The snow was up to my upper arms and they were already turning numb.

I couldn't find a single thing to grab, so I labored back through the snow
y ditch and opened my toolbox in the back of my truck. My numb fingers poorly gripped a wrench and I made it back to the car on adrenaline alone because I was fading fast. My arms were numb and my legs were too, and wet. I knew it wouldn’t be too long and I'd be useless and in trouble myself.

I went to the back window to keep the
flying glass from Emma in the front, reared back with as much force as I could muster and rammed it straight through the ice and glass. I sliced my arm when my hands went through the window with the force, but didn't even have time to look at it. I kept hitting until the entire window was gone and then kept beating down the side of the car to shatter the ice around the door so I could open it and get her out.

It fell
almost soundlessly to the snow. I used my shoe with numb toes inside to kick and shove the snow aside enough to wedge the door open, which took some time. When I finally got the door open enough to get in, blasted with her music that was still playing, I crawled in and there she was. My heart was leaned over in that seat, pale as the snow that raged outside, and blood on the side of her head.

My heart was fearful, but my body knew what to do as it reached out to touch her. She was ice cold.
"Emma?"

My fingers were too numb to feel her pulse. My breath made thick fog, so I knew hers should, too. I watched closely, holding my breath so as not to mistake it for hers as I palmed her cheek.

"God, please…" I groaned and closed my eyes, unable to look until I begged. I closed them tighter and then opened. I watched and waited. When the barely there puff of breath came from her parted lips, I'd never been so grateful of anything in my life.

I undid her
seatbelt and pulled her through the middle console to me in the backseat. With her in my lap, I kissed her ice-cold face and neck over and over as Royal Teeth played in the background. But I didn’t have time to catch my breath. I had to get her to the hospital and hope to hell they had enough power to do what needed to be done.

I pushed the door open as far as it would go and slipped out from under her to get out. She moaned and I stilled. "Emma?" I palmed her cheek once more. "Baby?"

She moaned again and whispered her words. "Mason…the heater's on." She tried to pull at her jacket.

I
didn't laugh. I knew that hallucinating was a bad sign when it came to hypothermia. I leaned over and hoisted her up into my arms as gently as I could muster. I trekked through the snow as fast as my legs would go, which wasn't very fast at all in the thick snow. When I finally reached the passenger door, I leaned her against the side of the truck just enough for me to get the door open. I stepped up on the rung and hoisted with everything I had left. She barely cleared the edge of the seat and I thanked the big guy for me getting her in the first try. I pushed her butt with my hand until she was clear.

I was spent. The cold was
too much. My legs were no longer just numb, they were painfully so. I pushed her legs into the floorboard and shut the door. Leaning on the truck side, I made my way to the driver's door and gingerly climbed in. I had left the truck running and moaned feeling the heat on my hands as I put them in front of the heater.

I pulled Emma to me, setting her head and shoulders in my lap to try to keep her warm as I drove. My
cold feet didn't want to cooperate, but I forced them to press the pedals and go. I needed to get there fast, but couldn't chance us getting in an accident. We'd never make it if something happened now.

Cautiously
, I crossed the bridge and turned back onto the main road. My hands shook the entire time and I clamped my mouth shut to stop my teeth from banging. Emma's teeth didn't chatter and that scared the hell out of me. She didn't shiver, which meant severe hypothermia had set in. I drove a little faster.

When we got closer to town
, I noticed the snow had let up a bit. By the time we reached the hospital, we weren’t the only ones in the ambulance bay looking for help. I got out and pulled Emma from my side of the truck into my arms. She fell limply, not once opening her eyes or making a sound. I ran, leaving my door open and the truck on.

I kissed her head as I made it past the door because I knew they were going to take her from me. And I wasn't her husband yet, if she even wanted me to be anymore, so they wouldn’t
tell me a thing about her progress.

"Hey! Help me. Please," I called and the same nurse who I'd seen earlier came around the counter.