CHAPTER 12
It took ten terrifying minutes on bumpy dirt roads to get off the mountain, and another ten to wind our way into the nearest town. I spotted its name on a sign as we approached. Elizabethton, Tennessee. I had been there once, and knew it was about an hour from Boone by car. It was a small town, but larger than Boone, and close enough that I probably needed to be careful about being seen.
It was Wednesday, the fourth day I should have been considered missing. For all we knew, my face was plastered on milk cartons and televisions all over the country.
Our first stop was to fill the gas tank on the motorcycle. Nathan picked up a local newspaper and we scanned it for any mention of me, Gran, or Alec. We found nothing. Nathan took that as a good sign.
I didn’t know how to take it. I wasn’t really missing, but what if I were? No one cared? No one was looking for me? It was like faking your death to see how many people would show up at your funeral, and no one did.
My mood lifted when Nathan suggested we stop by the diner across the street to eat before we went shopping. After he parked, he pulled his baseball cap out of the backpack and placed it on my head.
I held back my protests as he stuffed my ponytail underneath it and tucked a chunk of stray hair behind my ear. When he stepped back to admire his work, I put on a face of indifference and pretended that his touch hadn’t done weird things to my pulse. His eyes, when they lowered to mine, sent it into overdrive.
“There,” he said, sounding satisfied. “If your face is all over the news, hopefully no one will recognize you. Keep your head down. Don’t make eye contact.”
Dee’s Café was a quaint country restaurant that boasted the best buttermilk biscuits in the south. No more than a dozen tables were squeezed into the small room and, at this hour on a weekday, all but two were empty. A bar surrounded the service area and open kitchen, where four retirees sat on stools, enjoying their coffees.
Aside from the bubbly red headed middle-aged waitress, who called Nathan sweetie and me honey and told us to call her Pam in one breath, no one noticed when we entered. We ordered two coffees, two orange juices, and an assortment of pancakes, eggs, bacon, country ham, potatoes, and of course, the famous biscuits.
Nathan’s eyes twinkled when I glanced up after devouring a plate of pancakes. “Want some more?” he asked.
I suspected he was making fun of me, but I didn’t care, and moved on to the bacon. Then the biscuits. They really were the best I had ever eaten. It didn’t take long to clean my plate, and I sat back with a satisfied sigh.
Nathan looked up from his scrambled eggs. “I was wondering when you were going to come up for air.”
I suppressed a laugh and eyed his plate pointedly. “I’ll dig into what’s left of yours too if you’re not careful.”
He made a noise that might have been a laugh, but sounded like a snort, and shoveled one last bite into his mouth. He leaned back and looked at me triumphantly. A smile was close to breaking out on his face, but not quite. He was good at the almost-smiles.
On cue, our waitress appeared out of nowhere. “Can I get you anything else?”
Nathan’s eyes slanted from her to me. He hooked an eyebrow.
“None for me,” I said.
“No, thank you,” Nathan added.
She set the check on the table with a wink and said, “Please come again.” Innocent enough, but I know I didn’t imagine her eyes lingering on Nathan longer than necessary before she walked away. It seemed I wasn’t the only one who found him attractive, which was kind of gross, considering she was probably old enough to be his mother.
He had been preoccupied with digging the money out of his pocket, and didn’t notice. He took another sip of coffee, and slid out of the booth. He took the check and money to the register, where a second younger waitress greeted him. I was slammed by a pang of jealousy as I watched them chat casually while she rang him up.
What in the hell brought that on?
It took only a moment of reflection to realize the answer. He was nice to total strangers, while I got bossed around, talked down to, and teased. Though improved from the first night, he still treated me worse than a stranger—like I was a nuisance to him, like I was the last person he wanted to be stuck helping...and I hadn’t even asked for his help.
I was scowling at him by the time he returned. Again, he didn’t notice.
He told me that the second super-friendly waitress had given him directions to a discount store where we could get everything—clothes, supplies, and food—all at once. It was only three blocks away, and we were there in no time.
Nathan said we could hand wash our clothes in the sink, so we picked up a travel pack of detergent. We both still picked up some additional outfits. I made sure to get a few cold-weather appropriate shirts and added a pack of granny panties to the cart when Nathan wasn’t looking. I was desperate for clean underwear, but drew the line at washing them in the sink in front of him.
We got some quick and easy meals that could be prepared with only a microwave. We weren’t able to get much since we had to fit everything in the backpack. Nathan said that if we had to stay more than a few days, we would come back for more. I was glad he didn’t think we would have to hide out long. He still had to check in with his base to find out what they knew, but he was optimistic when we returned to Dee’s an hour later to use their payphone.
It was in the corner near the restrooms, mostly out of view from the other patrons. Nathan got through and asked for a person named Travis. While he waited, I took the opportunity to use the restroom. When I returned a few minutes later, he was deep in conversation, his voice low.
“No, I haven’t figured that out yet.” He looked up as I sat on a nearby stool. His eyes stayed on me as he nodded along with whatever was being said on the other end. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “I’ll call in a few days.”
He hung up and cast me a sideways glance.
“Well?” I asked.
He stared at the phone without answering. Finally, he fed it a few coins and hit a string of numbers. I heard the soft ringing through the receiver as he waited…and waited.
The tension that radiated off him took on a life of its own, hung over me like a storm cloud waiting to burst wide open. He hadn’t asked for privacy, but I felt like an intruder, and looked out the window, pretending to be enthralled with the traffic on the road, as a machine voice came on the line and prompted him to leave a message.
A muscle in his cheek twitched as he hung up without a word. He didn’t look at me as he stormed outside, and I had to hurry to catch up to him.
“Nathan, what’s going on?”
“They didn’t know anything.” He put on his helmet and helped me with mine. “They’re going to look into a few things. I’ll check back with them later this week.”
I wanted to ask him who the second call had been to, but I held my tongue. Whatever that call had been about, it had him irate, and if I had learned anything about him the past few days, it was to steer clear of him when his nostrils were flared.