Be Mine at Christmas(53)
Author: Brenda Novak

“A storm’s moving in,” Brent said as she tied her shoes. “I don’t think you want to go back out, not without warmer clothes. How did you get here?”

Wasn’t it obvious? “I walked.”

“From where?”

She looked up at him. “Dundee.”

“No kidding? That’s a hike!”

“If you could tell us where you’re trying to go, we could take you,” Ken volunteered. “I’ve got a four-wheel drive.”

Of course he did. He had everything. Like every other American.

But that was her brother and his anger talking. Cierra didn’t want to let Ricardo poison her mind, too. She was just so…scared. Since her parents died, nothing had been right.

“That was on the note,” she said with a wry smile.

The one called Ken blew out a sigh and scratched his neck. “I see. And you can’t remember the address?”

She told them as much as she could recall, but it didn’t help.

“That fork you mentioned—that could be anywhere between here and Dundee,” Ken said. “We’d need more information in order to find it.”

Cierra couldn’t give them more information. She remembered some of the numbers on the note but not the words. They were too foreign to her. The English tutor Charlie had hired had focused on teaching her to speak. Writing was supposed to come later.

No one knew there’d never be a later….

“Do you have any other options?” Brent asked. Other options? She wasn’t familiar with that particular word but the context helped her understand. She’d been right about these two. They had no sense of what it was like to live with no safety net. She was tempted to tell them her only other “option” was to go back to Guatemala City and sell herself on the streets. But she wasn’t sure they’d believe her. And if they did, they’d pity her—or think she was a whore they could use themselves. Maybe she was breaking the law by staying in this country, but she’d come here legally. She hadn’t wanted Charlie to die.

She had a right to survival, didn’t she? She also had the right to protect her sisters from what they’d become if she couldn’t send money….

Even if she didn’t have that right, she would answer to God. Or the immigration office, if they caught her. Not these strangers who, by virtue of where they’d been born, were so much luckier than she.

“Yes, I do have another…option,” she lied. “Thank you. I will go.”

Ken and Brent followed her out of the room. “Can’t we take you?” Ken asked.

She didn’t have the strength to walk back to Dundee. And yet it was her best hope of finding an alternative position. Maybe she could be a maid, or a dishwasher, or a cook for one of the businesses she’d seen. Despite all the anti-immigration sentiment, Americans still hired illegals because they worked so cheap. And no one could cook as well as she could. Her brother had told her that a million times. “Yes, por favor. If you would be so kind. I will go to Dundee.”

The good looking one, Ken, seemed vastly relieved that they’d found a solution. “No problem. Take this.” Grabbing a heavy coat from where it had been tossed over a stack of boxes, he shoved it at her.

She hesitated. “This belongs to you, no?”

“Yes, but I’m fine. I won’t need it.”

When she still made no move to accept the coat, he took her hand and insisted she grab hold. “We’re not leaving until you put it on.”

Thinking she could give it back when she got out of the truck, she did as he said. It hung on her, came almost to her knees, but she was so grateful for the added warmth she ducked her head to zip it up just so they wouldn’t see the depth of her relief.

“Let’s go before the storm gets any worse,” Brent said, and she hitched her purse over one shoulder as Ken led them out through a garage that, like the cabin, was stuffed with boxes.

“You are moving away?” If so, he had a lot of belongings. What could possibly be inside so many boxes? “Moving in. I just bought this place from my stepfather,” Ken explained. “I’ll be staying here until I decide where I really want to live.”

“It is nice,” she said, but her response was absentminded. She was no longer thinking about the cabin or the boxes. She was thinking about Ken’s scent on the coat and how it made her pulse race. But that was childish. He wasn’t the movie star from High Noon she admired so much. He lived in a completely different world and, after he dropped her off, wouldn’t give her a second thought. He didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was what she’d find once she reached Dundee.

It was getting late, almost dinnertime. The valley was already buried in snow. And—she looked up in the sky—more was on the way….

CHAPTER THREE

WITH SO MUCH SNOW hurtling down, it wasn’t easy to get off the mountain, even in an SUV. Had Cierra attempted her walk from Dundee any later in the day, she would’ve frozen to death—and wouldn’t have been found until the snow began to melt. Ken couldn’t believe she’d survived so long as it was.

While he drove, she sat rigidly in the passenger seat.

Sensing his attention when he glanced at her, she offered him another of her formal smiles, the kind that hid every thought behind it. He and Brent had both tried to talk to her, but she either pretended not to understand the question or she answered in vague terms. After an hour in the car, time spent creeping around each hairpin turn, they knew no more about her than they had at the cabin.

“Where do you want me to drop you off?” he asked as they finally rolled into town. He’d decided he wouldn’t worry about her. He had his hands full with Russ and the changes going on in his own life. And she wasn’t his problem. They didn’t even know her.

Nibbling at her lip, she eyed the buildings they passed until she noticed the drugstore. When she pointed halfheartedly, he had the impression that she’d picked a totally random location, which was crazy. Something or someone had brought her, or coaxed her, to Dundee. Surely she couldn’t be as friendless and destitute as she seemed. As soon as her friend, or whoever she’d been hoping to see, realized she hadn’t shown up, they’d come looking for her, and all would end well, right?

“Here?” He pulled to the curb.

“Sí. Gracias.”

When she unzipped his coat, apparently to return it, he caught her arm. “No. Keep it. I insist.”