“Yeah, you have a Merry Christmas, too.” After that there wasn’t anything to do but stand back out of the way and let her shut the door. He hung around while she fiddled with the radio and heater controls, then gave him a wave through the window to show him she was on her way. He waved back and watched her head out across the parking lot toward the four-wheeler exit and the highway beyond.
It was when he’d turned to walk back to his truck that it occurred to him that after all that, neither one of them had said it. Neither of them had said goodbye.
Chapter 6
1-40-New Mexico
One radio station on the whole dial, and it had to be playing Christmas music. Then Mirabella remembered it was the day before Christmas-Christmas Eve. What else would they be playing?
She just didn’t want to believe it was Christmas Eve. How could it be? It didn’t
A shiver went skittering down her spine. Okay, she thought, this is just a
But there
“‘We three kings of Orient are;/Bewing gifts we traverse afar,”’ Mirabella sang lustily in her off-key baritone, attempting with sheer volume to dispel the loneliness and depression that was slowly but surely creeping in around her heart. “ ‘Field and fountain, moor and mou-oun-tain,/Following yonder star./O
“Sorry, sweetheart,” she said with a soft and rueful laugh, rubbing at the mushrooming bulge just below the right side of her rib cage. “Bad idea, I know. Wish I’d brought along some James Galway or Pavarotti tapes, but I didn’t think about it. So I guess the best I can do is…” She pushed a button and the radio’s automatic tuner settled on the only available station, which blared forth a lush and throaty, “Blu-blu-blue Chriss-mas.” She settled back in her seat and sighed. “Elvis.”
Although really, she told herself, things could be a lot worse. After all the fuss, the road was “dry and dusty,” as she’d heard the truckers on Jimmy Joe’s CB radio call it, with not so much as a flake of snow or a smidgen of ice that she could see. Traffic was heavy but moving right along, and she was sure that whatever problems they’d been having through Texas-well, they must have gotten them cleared up or they wouldn’t have opened the road, would they? Of course not. Plus, she was feeling much better after Jimmy Joe’s back rub and a good night’s rest, and the Tylenol seemed to be helping because her back didn’t ache nearly as much.
At this rate, she told herself optimistically, she would be in Amarillo in three hours, and maybe, just maybe, she could find a flight going…anywhere. Somewhere
When Mirabella put her mind to something, she didn’t give up easily.
Jimmy Joe was glad to be back on the road. It felt good, even knowing what he was heading into, watching those miles roll by, knowing every mile marker he passed put him that much closer to J.J. and home.
And he thought about his own house-a real nice house about a mile down the road, solidly built of red brick, with a big front porch and white trim and a nice big sunny kitchen, and great old oaks and pine trees for shade. He’d done a pretty good job with it, too; made it nice and homey for J.J., filling up the rooms with books and pictures and things he’d brought back from his trips, interesting things from all over the country. Navajo rugs and Acoma pottery, and a big old bed he’d found up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, hand-carved from four-hundred-year-old walnut trees.
He was happy there, and so was J.J. And when he had to leave, well, there was the old place and a grandmama right down the road, and you couldn’t ask for better than that. No, sir.
He said to himself, Jimmy Joe Starr, you’re a lucky man. Couldn’t ask for more than you’ve got, and that’s a fact.
When it came to families, he’d always thought it was too bad everybody couldn’t have one like his. They weren’t perfect, nowhere near it, with his daddy dying so young; and his mama could be tough as nails sometimes. And there was his sister Joy Lynn’s two divorces, which was something of a family record, and brother Roy who liked his beer a little bit too much, and his youngest brother Calvin who’d dropped out of high school and never had learned how to work a lick or hold on to a job.
But there was a lot of love in the family in spite of nobody being perfect. And when the holidays rolled around, or somebody’s birthday, and the whole bunch got together-and there would be babies crying and kids running underfoot, and the womenfolk gathered in the kitchen all talking at once, and the men outside arguing politics or throwing a ball around if the weather was good, and the older kids playing hide-and-seek or hunting turtles in the woods behind the house-then he knew how good he had it.
Then he knew-oh, how he knew-that he was lonely.
Much as he hated to admit it, it was the truth. No matter how much he loved his kid, or how great his mama was, or how much he enjoyed his brothers’ and sisters’ company, there were times when it wasn’t enough. Times when he would come in off the road and walk into his house and hear his footsteps echo in a kitchen that smelled of nothing but “empty,” and his big old hand-carved bed seemed cold, and way too roomy for one person. Times he would even feel envious watching his brothers and sisters bicker and squabble with their mates. It had been a long time since he’d had anybody to argue with over breakfast about something as foolish as Walt Disney movies.
Suddenly, clear as a bell, he could hear Mirabella saying that, hear the fierceness in her voice, the joy in her laughter. He could see her face, too, the sparkle in her gray eyes, her nose turning pink, and the wind in her hair…
His heart went