Page 12 of Codename: Dustoff
CHAPTERSEVEN
These damn small towns, and all the stupid mountains that surround them. When the weather gets to acting up, you can be buried in minutes. White outs happen frequently up in these parts—even if it melts by the next day in most cases.
“Did you go sliding off the road because you still have a burr in your britches from this morning?”
I heard a voice from a pair of headlights behind the sheriff’s car. Emmett’s face came into view as he approached the side of my car. There’d been a smart assed comment on my lips, but seeing him standing there, that devil may care smile on his face, and snowflakes disbursed through his hair, made that snotty comment melt right on my tongue.
“Hi?”
“Are you okay?”
I could only nod. This whole day just got stranger. His eyes swept across my face and down my body. Whatever he saw in that brief assessment must have signaled that even though my car looked a mess, I was completely fine.
A tall, bearded guy carried his towing chain from the front of his car, and took a stroll around my car before affixing the hook to my back bumper.
“Y’all will need to go have a seat in the sheriff’s car. Stubs, I need you to signal me.”
“I’m going to help Finn get your car out. Then we’ll give you a ride back into town and figure out what the damage is to your car.”
He ambled to the back of my car holding his arm up as if to tell that Finn guy not to start towing yet. The sheriff extended his hand to me, helping me navigate the snow and the embankment. I watched his eyes track from it to the dog tags hanging on my rearview mirror that caught the reflection of the truck’s headlights.
“Thank you for your service,” he said, as he helped me walk to his SUV.
“Shouldn’t I be thanking you?” I asked. “Since you too are in the service of protecting.”
“Keeping watch over a two stoplight town is a little different.” He chuckled. “But thank you anyway.”
“Likewise.”
Emmett turned towards me and gave me a thumbs up. I didn’t know if he’d overheard the conversation and was proud I’d avoided “resisting” or if he gave me a thumbs up because Finn started to pull my car out of the snow. Whatever the reason, that stupid thumbs up sent my whole circulatory system into overdrive. If it was possible for blood in your veins to smile, that’s what mine was doing.
* * *
To add more insult to the progression of the day, the front of my car was all banged up. I’d need some guy named Larry Flynn to take a look at it. I couldn’t take it to anyone in either my town or any neighboring town for that matter, because I learned on our drive back to town that the bridge was out, which meant I had to spend the night in Barren Hill.
“Looks like the resort doesn’t have any rooms.” Gemini put her cell phone down on the table, apology written all over her face. “The snowstorm.”
They’d ushered me into a booth in the back of the restaurant, which was perfect given I desperately needed to stretch out my leg. All I wanted to do was take my prosthetic off for the night, sit in a warm bath, and take a pain killer. The pain morphed from mildly annoying to overpowering.
“I’m going to see what Penn can do,” she announced, dialing another number. “Shit he’s not picking up.”
“I thought he was getting married around this time?” Emmett asked her.
She nearly dropped her phone in panic.
“I don’t think so…let me check my calendar.” Her fingers tapped furiously on her cell phone screen, “No, Valentine’s Day. Jesus, Emmett. Don’t scare me like that!”
Emmett and Finn drifted away from the table, getting pulled into different conversations from people at the Tavern. To my surprise, while taking in the ambience of the restaurant, Emmett donned a chef’s apron and started working behind the grill.
“He cooks?” I asked Gemini who was focused on sending what appeared to be a text message on her phone.
“Who? Emmett? Yes. That’s his job?”
“I can’t believe he is a restaurant quality chef, with one arm.”
She smiled, putting her phone down on the table.
“You can go back there. He won’t mind.”