Every Waking Moment

“Were you there when your mother burned her hand?”

“She burned her hand?”

Emma hadn’t mentioned the injury to Max. There seemed little point in making up a story to cover something he hadn’t noticed.

“You didn’t know?” Preston said.

“Maybe I was at the library with Juanita.”

Not the library. The park. Emma remembered well, because she’d been so grateful that her son was gone during her last big argument with Manuel.

“Who’s Juanita?” Preston asked.

“My nanny.”

“You have a nanny?”

“Yeah. She’s from Mexico,” he said proudly.

“Does she speak English?”

“No. She speaks Spanish like me and my dad.” Max had used the same kind of superior tone Manuel often adopted when speaking of his heritage, but if Preston was aware of the change, he didn’t react to it.

“I see. What about your mommy? Does she know Spanish, too?”

Max hesitated. Until the morning they’d left San Diego, and Juanita had shown up late, Emma had been careful around him. She wasn’t sure her son knew the extent to which she could both speak and understand Manuel’s native tongue, but finally Max said, “Sometimes.”

When I need to, Emma thought smugly. Manuel had tried to alienate her from his people, but it was his people who had made her escape possible. His people and the enigmatic man beside her, whose rare but gorgeous smile she already knew she’d never forget.

“WE HAVE A PROBLEM,” Preston said.

Emma’s nerves grew taut as she searched his face. They were only fifteen minutes from Ely and dinner. So close. But her escape had been ill-fated from the start. First Manuel hadn’t flown to Mexico as planned. Then she was pulled over by the CHP. Then she found that cop circling her car this morning and had to beg a ride from a complete stranger.

Instinctively, she craned her neck to look through the back window, expecting to see Manuel bearing down on them. He’d told her she couldn’t escape him. He’d promised that if she ever tried, he’d come after her, no matter how far he had to go, no matter how long it took. And she believed him. But except for the slower-moving RV Preston had passed only a few moments earlier, they were alone on the road.

“What kind of problem?” she asked, trying to stem her sudden deluge of fear.

“The engine’s overheating.”

The engine had been running a little hot while she was driving, too, but she’d thought that was more or less normal. They were traveling through the desert, after all, relying heavily on air-conditioning, which tended to tax the system. She’d assumed the van would be okay, especially since Preston hadn’t seemed concerned when she’d mentioned it earlier.

Evidently, that had changed. “How bad is it?” she asked.

He frowned as he applied the brake. “The gauge is showing red. We have to pull over.”

The tires crunched as they parked on the gravel shoulder.

“We’re getting out?” Max said eagerly.

“For a few minutes,” Emma told him, and glanced at her watch. It was after six. Considering the amount of insulin she’d given him at their last stop, he’d be going low if she didn’t feed him soon. And they’d already eaten most of their snacks. “You don’t happen to be a mechanic, do you?”

“I know stocks and bonds,” Preston said. “Not cars.”

Stocks and bonds. Somehow that seemed too yuppyish for Preston Holman, but Emma’s worry about their situation curtailed her surprise. “What do you think could be causing the problem?”

He bent over to pull the lever that would release the hood. “I’m guessing it’s the water pump.”

“That’s not good. If it’s the water pump, the van will only overheat again once we get back on the road.”

“Exactly.” He looked behind his seat and located a gallon of water. “At this point, I’m just hoping we can make it to Ely.”

“Then what?”

He brought the water into the front and opened his door. “I’ll have to get it fixed.”

Emma frowned. “But if Ely’s anything like the towns we’ve passed, they might not have a garage.”

“Ely’s got nearly five thousand people. There’ll be a garage.” He sounded tense, impatient.

“It’s after six o’clock,” she said. “The repair place, if there is one, will probably be closed.”

“Then we’ll have to get a motel.”

Damn. A motel meant they wouldn’t be continuing on tonight, and she didn’t feel she’d gone nearly far enough from where she’d almost been picked up for grand larceny. Not to mention California and Manuel….

“You’ll take us with you when you go on, won’t you?” Emma hated to press her luck. She knew Preston wasn’t any happier about the delay than she was. For whatever reason, he was in a big hurry to reach Iowa. But she had to ask.

He stepped out, not answering.

“Preston?”

It was the first time she’d used his given name, and she knew he’d noticed when he replied, “What was that, Emma?”

“You heard me,” she said, refusing to pander to his dark mood.

His eyebrows gathered as he glanced at Max, who was already clambering out the other side. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll take you as far as Wendover and put you on a bus.”

Sighing, Emma watched him go around front and open the hood. When he bothered to be nice, it was almost impossible not to like him. But Preston wasn’t nice very often.

He’s really been through the wringer….

Whatever happened to Preston Holman had definitely left a mark.

WHEN THEY LIMPED into Ely more than an hour later, Preston’s nerves were shot. They’d had to stop every few minutes to let the engine cool, which turned what should’ve been a short drive into something interminable. They were hot, irritable and hungry. Because he’d had to get under the hood so many times and didn’t want Emma or Max to see the gun he’d hidden there, he’d tucked it into the waistband of his jeans, where it was digging into him. And Max’s pleading to stop, to eat, to unfasten his seat belt or go home had become a litany. Preston couldn’t wait to be rid of his passengers. Fair or not—maybe because they were to blame for the other unsettling emotions he’d experienced today—he held them responsible for this recent trouble. He shouldn’t have let Emma and Max ride with him. He’d known they’d be a problem.

“There’s a garage,” Emma said, pointing helpfully as he stopped at one of the few traffic signals in town.

A blue corrugated metal building on the left boasted a red-lettered sign that read Mel’s Auto Repair. But the garage doors were down and the office looked empty.