Page 40

FIFTEEN

Kit took in the tidy row of buses , clutching Cullen around the shoulders as much as she dared while keeping the baby sandwiched between them.

They’d stumbled upon a transportation lot for the school district.

The management must have been unable to relocate the vehicles before the expanded evacuation.

In their hurry they’d left the gate unfastened, or maybe they’d intended to move more out but had run out of time.

Not much of a theft risk. A stolen school bus was not a prize for looters.

Tot was frighteningly still, and Kit wanted to urge Cullen on, but the man was already likely near his limit, as was she. Her arms felt numb, her fingers barely able to hold on to Cullen and the baby. If conditions didn’t change quickly, there would be no saving any of them.

Cullen carried them to the nearest vehicle and set them down. It was a shorter one, a small mini bus that seated ten or fewer passengers. The paint was chipping and there was a massive dent in the side, so it was probably awaiting repair. Her arms trembled around the baby.

“Tot?” she whispered. The baby’s eyes were closed, and she thought she felt the slight rise and fall of her breathing, but Kit was shivering so hard she couldn’t be sure.

Before she’d even considered how to gain entry into the nearest vehicle, Cullen had found a strong stick and pried open the double doors with some remaining store of strength.

He supported Kit and Tot inside and laid Tot on the first passenger seat to examine her while Kit struggled to keep the light from her penlight steady in her tremoring fingers.

Her headlamp had disappeared during the tunnel escape.

“Tottie, it’s okay now, sweet pea,” Cullen said. “We’re in a nice toasty bus. We’ll get you warmed up in a jiffy, and I’ll find more cookies for you, okay? As many as you want.” Tot lay silent, though her face was puckered as if she would cry.

Please cry , Tot.

He stripped off the baby’s damp clothes until she was naked save for her diaper, and then pulled off his own wet jacket and T-shirt. His muscled torso was rippled with goosebumps, but he drew her to him, chafing and rubbing the child to warm her.

“Come on, Tottie. Let’s hear a scream, huh? Blow out my eardrums, why don’t you?”

From the corner of her eye, Kit spotted a sweatshirt draped over the driver’s seat.

“Here.” She pulled it over both Cullen and the baby.

He continued to rub and coo at Tot, edging up and down the aisle to help generate some warmth. His worried gaze found Kit. “I can hotwire it, maybe. Get some heat going?”

The comment broke through her sluggish brain. She limped to the driver’s seat, and her heart skipped up to a joyous rhythm as she spied what she’d hoped for.

“No need. The keys are in the ignition.” Small town.

Small-time security. She jammed the key forward and cranked the engine.

It rattled and wheezed, then died after a moment or two.

She swallowed the panic. “Come on, baby. You can do this.” The second attempt yielded no better result.

Teeth ground together, she forced herself to pause, wait, and relax her stranglehold on the wheel before she tried again.

The engine coughed to life. The most beautiful sound in the world. She swallowed the lump in her throat and flipped on the heater to maximum. Her muscles would hardly obey.

Cullen’s massive sigh echoed her own relief. They’d been spared yet again. But there had been no sound from Tot. Had she gotten too cold to recover? “How is she?”

Cullen continued to joggle. “Moving a little more, I think.”

She nodded. “Give it a few minutes to warm, then come sit up front and I’ll blast the vents.”

When he did move to the first-row passenger seat a few minutes later, she angled the heat to blow directly on them.

It took a long while before the warmth penetrated her own frozen fingers and toes, painfully overcoming the chill.

She couldn’t feel her hands, arms, nose.

Her face was wooden where it wasn’t stinging and throbbing.

They sat in silence, absorbing the blessed warmth, Cullen murmuring endearments to Tot. Still no crying, but the movement gave Kit hope.

She took the phone he passed to her. Her hands re sponded as if she were wearing oven mitts, and she almost dropped it. “No bars.”

He huffed. “Unbelievable. Figures the moment we get a signal, my brother calls while we’re fully occupied trying not to drown. Typical Gideon. He has the worst timing of anyone I’ve ever met.”

She chuckled. “Do you realize you called him a galoot?”

“A well-deserved title in his case.”

She was still too cold to engage in much conversation as the bus engine rumbled. The transportation yard was silent and eerie in the shrouded moonlight.

A soft burp from Tot made them both smile. Cullen looked down at her through the neck of the sweatshirt. “You good, Tottie?”

Tot reached a hand up through the gap and grabbed his chin.

Kit felt like cheering, but her battered senses wouldn’t allow it. “I have an idea.”

“I’m all ears.”

She thought it over again. What would it hurt if it failed? They were barely alive as it was. But if it succeeded ... “Buckle up, Cullen.”

He raised a brow. “Can you drive this thing? Oh wait. Dumb question.”

“Yes, it was, but you’re forgiven, and yes, I can drive this. I can drive anything.”

“Your knee?”

“Painful, but it’s better now that I’m warmer.

” Despite the heat beginning to seep into her frozen flesh and Tot fingering Cullen’s scruffy chin, they were still far from safe.

The bus was only a respite until they could find more significant shelter.

She put the vehicle in gear and eased it across the lot and through the gate, then turned left in the direction of the tunnel.

“Retrieving our gear?”

“Practical, right? Before we check out the trailer park?”

He gave her a thumbs-up. “Beats me having to hike back and do it.”

No doubt his body was depleted after hauling her and Tot to the transportation yard, but new hope laced his tone. She felt it too. With heat and wheels, they had a slim chance. Gratitude buoyed her spirit as she forced her bruised legs to work the gas and brake.

The bus rattled along the grass, kicking up rocks and clouds of ash. When they arrived back at the salvage yard, Cullen extracted Tot from under the sweatshirt and delivered her to Kit while he retrieved the supplies.

She propped Tot on the seat next to her since her jeans were soaked, thrilled that Tot was more her animated, baby self.

“You are a tough customer, Tot. Like your mother.” Annette was a survivor.

Maybe she’d been able to elude Nico, find someone to help her, someone who wouldn’t turn away when things got hard.

Someone like Cullen. That she depended on Cullen was scary. That he might have come to depend on her was terrifying.

He interrupted her thoughts with his return.

“It’s all wet, but the duffel bag’s contents are okay.” Cullen removed an outfit from Tot’s supply and slid the bag underneath one of the seats before he took over her care. “I’ll change her while you see if you can find something dry for yourself.”

She wanted to say she could wait, but he was right. Wet clothes in these circumstances could be a death sentence. With the engine running, she pulled the last bagged items from her pack, sweats and a long-sleeve tee, a pair of undies and socks.

Cullen sat next to Tot and waved Kit down the aisle. In the wider back seat, she managed to pull on the clothes. Honestly, was there anything more comforting than dry clothes and socks? It made it palatable for her to ease on her wet boots again.

“Your turn,” she said to Cullen as she returned to the baby.

She heard his stifled groan as he pulled on his clothes in the same rear area.

“If this bus had a hot shower, I’d pay rent to live in it,” he said.

“That’s why I have a sleeping setup in my rig.” Had , her brain silently corrected with a slice of fresh pain. “I’ll start over again,” she muttered savagely.

“What?” Cullen said.

“Nothing. I’ll drive us to the trailers, see how far we get. There’s a solid half tank of gas, thank goodness.”

He fiddled, one handed, with his phone.

“What do you think Gideon caught of your conversation?”

“Enough to know I called him a big galoot.”

She giggled. “And he heard our location. That’s a biggie for a galoot.” Someone knew where they were. One other living soul, but it was enough to comfort her, somehow.

Cullen sniffed. “So now that we’re out in the open, we got no signal. I will never understand all these invisible Wi-Fi and satellite beams. At least the bus runs without ethernet technology or whatever they call it.”

“Yes. Give me a good old-fashioned combustion engine any day.”

“Hear! Hear!” He buckled his seat belt and held Tot to his shoulder. “All right, Kit. Full speed ahead.”

“Full speed” was barely a five-mile-an-hour crawl since she had to avoid obstacles both visible and cloaked by the ashen blanket.

The bus headlights did an adequate job, and she only had to leave the asphalt twice to skirt large rocks that blocked the way.

The town Archie had told them about extended in the distance to a cluster of houses on the ridgeline, far enough away that she dared not attempt it with the bus.

As far as Cullen could tell, no lights shone in those residences anyway, indicating they’d been evacuated.

Nearer was the trailer park Cullen had spotted, at the end of a swooping gravel path that ended in a half-inundated parking lot. The water swirled and pooled, thick with floating branches and sludge. No vehicles.

Beyond that were several rows of well-maintained trailers that backed up to a woody hillside. All dark. The ones closer to the parking lot were partially submerged, but the remaining dozen had been spared. No cars here either that she could detect.