Finn looked down into her face and waited for the dread and disbelief he’d been feeling, in varying degrees, since becoming shackled with Bonnie Rae Shelby. Instead, he remembered the way she’d looked after he’d kissed her, her lips all pink and swollen. He thought about her diving over the seat to claim the pillow with the case, the way she’d returned her gran’s phone by chucking it out the window, how she’d sung “Bohemian Rhapsody” and fallen asleep to his mathematical mumblings, all in the middle of a crisis. It made him curious as to how she would behave when she wasn’t overcome with grief, when her world wasn’t coming down around her ears, when she wasn’t stranded in a snowstorm with someone she’d only known three days—two and a half, actually.
He grinned and laid his head back down.
“You’re scaring me. Grinning like that, at nothing,” Bonnie mumbled.
“It wasn’t nothing. It was something.”
“Ha ha. Are we going to die in this Blazer?”
“No. But I can’t feel my left arm, and that place where you drooled on my chest has frozen solid, freezing my nipple in the process.”
Bonnie started to laugh and rolled away from him, sitting up and throwing blankets this way and that, looking for her hat. Finding it, she pulled it over her bedhead, yanked her boots on her feet and threw herself back over the front seat, like she’d done it a thousand times.
“Ladies first, and it’s not dark anymore, so no peeking out the windows. I’m going to test you on the color of my panties, and you better not know that they’re red with black skulls.” Bonnie pushed the passenger door open, snow falling from the roof onto the seat as she climbed out.
An immediate image of Bonnie in red panties decorated in black skulls filled Finn’s mind and he half laughed, half groaned.
“Skulls are not sexy,” he said out loud. “Skulls are not sexy.” He pulled on his boots, taking the time to lace them tightly, his eyes on his hands, keeping his focus from wandering outside. “Skulls are sexy, dammit, and my boots are still wet.”
He ran his hands through the strands of his hair and pulled it off his face with an elastic band he’d shoved into his pocket the day before. He folded up the blankets and the sleeping bag, righted the seat, and moved their gear from the front seat. Then he pulled on his beanie and climbed out of the Blazer after Bonnie.
An hour later, after a bit of recon, Clyde had a much better idea of where they were, along with the number of the exit they’d taken the night before. But another call for roadside assistance was unnecessary. As he made his way back to Bonnie and the Blazer, his feet frozen solid in his wet boots, a pick-up truck pulled alongside him, and an old man wearing a Cleveland Browns hat with furry ear flaps stuck his head out the window.
“That your vehicle stuck up there in the snow?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ve got chains. I can pull you out. Jump in.”
Finn was only a hundred yards from the Blazer, but he didn’t argue. When they pulled up, Bonnie climbed out of the Blazer, her face wreathed in a relieved smile.
The old boy in the funny hat knew what he was doing, and within minutes, with Clyde pushing, Bonnie steering, and the pick-up pulling, the Blazer was freed from the snowbank. Bonnie left the Blazer running, letting it warm as she and Clyde walked to thank the owner of the pick-up for his help.
“You folks lucked out,” he said, unhooking the chains and stowing them in the back of his truck. “You’re in the middle of Cuyahoga National Park. I usually wouldn’t have been out this way, but my sister and her husband own a farm just west of here, outside of Richfield. Her husband got sick last year and died, right out of the blue. I go check on her now and then.”
“I thought we were on I-71 last night, but from what I can tell we’re now on I-80,” Clyde said.
“Well no wonder nobody found you if you told ‘em you were on 71! I-80 intersects 71 a ways back. You must have headed down the turnpike in that blizzard and not even realized it.”
“It was pretty bad.” Finn extended his hand to the man, thanking him. Bonnie extended her hand as well, but the old man was in a talkative mood and kept his window down as he climbed into his truck.
“It was terrible! There were a lot of stranded motorists out last night. Kept the snow plows and the highway patrol busy, that’s for sure. I have one of those police scanners, and it was lit up all night with people needin’ help. There was even a report of an ex-con who they think mighta run-off with that little singer comin’ through here. You heard about that? When the call went out to the highway patrol you shoulda heard the buzz on that scanner!”
Bonnie stiffened beside him, and Finn felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. Run off? What the hell was going on? His assistance call would most likely have been transmitted to the local highway patrol. That made sense. But the rest of it didn’t.
“Cute little gal, that singer. Little blonde gal. I like some of her songs. Shelby’s her name. We got a Shelby, Ohio, too. Did you know that? I’ve got a cousin in Shelby.” The old boy started singing something about a big blue moon and big green mountains and a great big broken heart, apparently one of Bonnie’s songs that he was fond of.
“Well, my feet are cold, and my hands are too, so thanks again!” Ever the performer, Bonnie reached through the window and patted the old man’s shoulder. Finn just stood there, the ache in his feet suddenly the least of his worries.