Riding the Hammer Lane Read online

  As I traveled down Highway 330 toward Melbourne, with Colton ever present on my mind, I started to take notice of a car that merged in front of me. My speed was up to an even double nickel, but I slowed it to fifty to keep as much distance between us as possible. I had learned to trust my gut early on in my line of work, and that vehicle made me feel uneasy. It was one of those newer model Suburbans with paint as white as the freshly driven snow and surely had all the latest safety features, including lane departure alerts, but it was all over the damn place, lurching between lanes as soon as it pulled onto the highway.

  In the ten months I’d been at this job, I’d seen my fair share of drunk drivers, or Willy Weavers in CB lingo, and it always dumbfounded me to think how stupid someone could be to risk their own lives and those on the road around them by drinking and getting behind the wheel. But the way the SUV before me kept crossing the dashed white line made me think something else was going on.

  I kept a close eye on it and was just about to reach for my cell phone to call on the Iowa State Troopers to give them a heads-up when the car took a sharp turn off the right shoulder. It slid down a short embankment and plowed straight into a snowbank. My heart jumped up into my throat, and I immediately slowed to a stop, putting on my hazards. I grabbed up my cell, ready to call 911, but let out a sharp curse when I saw I had no bars. I was in a total dead zone. There was no traffic coming or going that early in the morning to flag someone down, either. My next option was the CB radio.

  “Breaker. Anyone listening, I need someone to send emergency services to Highway 330. I’ve got a slide-off. It’s shiny side up, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.”

  “Rooks?” It was Colton. Just hearing his voice calmed me a little. “What’s your 20?”

  “Ten miles outside Melbourne.” I let him know the mile marker. “Get on the horn and send someone out, pronto.” Without waiting for a reply, I grabbed my coat and jumped down from my rig.

  I started running as soon as my boots hit the ground and threw on my Carhartt as I went. The sound of a crying child hit my ears before I even got to the car, settling a heavy stone of dread in my stomach. Squinting against the glare of the early morning sun, I opened the back door on the driver side.

  There was a little girl strapped in a car seat, not much older than my three-year-old nephew, Brayden. Her curly black hair was up in two high pigtails, and she was wearing a red-and-green Christmas dress with black patent leather shoes on her feet. Tears streamed down her terrified face, but from the quick glance-over I gave, she looked wholly unhurt.

  “It’s going to be okay. I’m here to help,” I tried to tell her over her sobs. I closed the door to keep the cold out and turned my attention to the driver seat.

  There was a woman slumped forward, being held back by the seat belt. Her long black hair hung down in her face like a curtain. There didn’t appear to be any damage to the windshield, but the airbags had been deployed and were in the process of deflating. I hoped the snowbank had softened the impact.

  Opening the door carefully, I found that the driver was completely unconscious. I didn’t smell any alcohol at all in the air, and I had no idea what had caused her to drive off the road. Either way, I knew she needed help.

  When I had first learned Devin and Maria were going to adopt and I was going to be an uncle, my sister invited me to join her at a CPR class she was going to take. Following the first aid steps in a classroom with a bunch of strangers and plastic dolls had detached me from the reality of believing I’d ever have to use those techniques in real life. I had to take a second to pull in a deep breath, reset, and remember what I was taught as I stood by that wrecked SUV.

  With a trembling hand, I reached up and shook the woman’s shoulder. “Ma’am? Can you hear me?” No response. I set my fingers, already cold from the December chill, under her jaw and found no pulse.

  “Shit. Okay. Okay.” Where the hell was that ambulance Colton was going to call? I shook out my shoulders to get my head back. “Get after it, goddammit,” I whispered harshly to myself.

  I unbuckled the woman’s seat belt and eased her down to the ground with my hands under her armpits while the little girl in the back seat continued wailing. Kneeling on the icy asphalt next to her, I checked the lady’s pulse one more time just to be sure and still didn’t feel anything. I laced my fingers together and started chest compressions just as the sound of a heavy engine came into earshot.

  My breath came out in quick, foggy puffs as I counted like I was taught. The main focus of the class I took was chest compressions only, as it was just as effective for saving a life as the mouth-to-mouth technique in certain situations, and so I kept going. For some reason, knitting popped into my mind and it helped me keep the beat better than the “Stayin’ Alive” song. Knit, knit, purl, purl. It seemed like such a dumb thing to imagine, but I was not about to knock something that was actually working.

  I was so intensely focused, I did not realize someone had come to stand right next to me until I was caught in their shadow. I looked up to see Colton. An outline of light edged his figure where he stood, shielding me from the glare of the sun. I wanted to jump into his arms, but I literally had someone’s life in my hands, so I did not stop pumping.

  “Eddie, what do you need me to do?” he asked in a breathless rush.

  I nodded my chin in the direction of the Suburban behind me. “There’s a little girl in there. I think she’s okay, but she’s probably scared out of her mind.” I panted the words. Fatigue was starting to set in.

  There was a click behind me as Colton opened the car door and unbuckled the kid. She stopped crying almost immediately. I glanced over my shoulder to find Colton taking off his jacket, bundling the girl into it, and holding her close. “You’re all right, darlin’. Eddie here is helping your momma.”

  Her subsiding sniffles were suddenly drowned out by approaching sirens, and I huffed out a relieved sigh. In a matter of seconds, Colton and I were surrounded by a bevy of first responders. Paramedics took over for me, and I moved to get out of the way. Colton helped me to my feet with one hand while holding the little girl on his hip. We watched as the woman was put on a stretcher, then wheeled to the back of an ambulance. A flood of relief washed over me when I saw her eyes flutter open right before the doors closed.

  I looked at Colton standing next to me, hardly believing he was really there. He turned toward me when he noticed me staring. A smile ticked up the right corner of his mouth.

  “Hi, Rooks,” he said softly. He patted the girl’s back and pulled his giant coat around her a little tighter to ward off the chill.

  “Hi,” I replied. The adrenaline that had been spiking through me only moments before began retreating, leaving an ache in my arms and shoulders. My knees felt weak, too, but I chalked it up to seeing Colton again after so long.

  A state trooper came over and introduced herself as Officer Camden, then took my statement. She asked me to describe what had happened, and I gave her every detail.

  “It’s a good thing you were there, Mr. Brooks. The EMTs just radioed to say it appears the driver had a cardiac arrest. You saved that woman’s life today,” Camden said.

  I could see Colton out of the corner of my eye. His handsome face was awash with an expression of undeniable pride, and it made my stomach do a funny little flip-flop.

  “I was just doing what anyone else would have done.”

  She gave her head a shake. “It would surprise you to hear how few people take the kind of initiative you did.” Turning her attention to Colton, she pulled the coat back to reveal the girl’s tear-streaked face. “As for this little one. What a brave kiddo you are!”

  “She told me her name is Kiara,” Colton said. “And she’s the bravest. Isn’t that right?” Kiara managed a smile. Another officer walked to us with a blanket and gave it to Camden.

  “Well, Kiara, you sure have been through a lot today. How about we get you over to the hospital where your momma is?”
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  She nodded and let Colton hand her to the trooper. He put his coat back on, and we watched as Camden put the girl in the back of her cruiser, which had been outfitted with a car seat. People bustled around us, when only minutes before the road had been so quiet. A nervous energy rattled through me after all the excitement had passed, and my hands began to tremble. I shoved them in my pockets and looked up at Colton. He stood a few inches taller than my five foot ten.

  “Wanna get out of here?” I asked him.

  “Absolutely. I think you deserve a nice hot coffee after all this.”

  We walked back to my truck, which was still rumbling in park with the driver-side door flung open. The door alarm dinged its soft repetitive warning. I was about to pull myself up into my seat when I felt Colton’s hand on mine. He tugged me back to the ground and wrapped his arms around me when I turned toward him. I sank into the embrace instantly; it was like a missing part of myself had finally returned to me.

  “I missed you,” he said, nuzzling his face next to mine. His beard scratched along my jaw.

  I held him tight. The scent of him—spruce, cedar, nutmeg—filled my senses. God, he smelled so amazing. “I missed you too.” I missed every damn thing about him.

  He held me a few seconds longer. The shaky tension thrumming through me from the accident bled away, and I felt nearly back to normal when he let me go.

  We got back into our rigs and drove the rest of the way to the coffee shop we were originally traveling to. Clouds had been edging in for the first few hours after the sun came up. They were darkening and threatening snow, but had yet to produce any flakes by the time Colton and I found a table with our drinks in hand.

  The first sip of my two-sugar dark roast wrapped around my soul like a warm Christmas afghan. With the taste of coffee on my lips and Colton sitting across the small cafe table from me, it felt like all was right with the world. He’d hung his jacket over the back of his chair like I did, and I was able to get a proper look at him for the first time in ten months. His beard was a little longer, with a sprinkle or two of gray hair, and he had a new tattoo on his right forearm, barely visible where his red-checkered flannel was rolled up. But overall, he looked just like I remembered.

  “Eddie, back there, that lady—”

  I shook my head and cast my eyes down to the paper cup in my hands. “It was nothing, really.”

  “It was not nothing. It was one of the most heroic things I’ve ever seen. You’re amazing.”

  I blushed. Being in the spotlight wasn’t my favorite thing in the world. “I was just in the right place at the right time. You were in my head, helping me do what needed to be done.”

  Colton was about to take a sip of his drink, but he brought his cup down. “I was?”

  “Get after it,” I answered. “I adopted it as my own motto. You have no idea how many times it’s helped me out there.”

  Colton grinned. “Guess I’ve been with you this whole time, haven’t I?”

  “You’ve been on my mind a lot,” I admitted. I rubbed my thumb around the rim of the white plastic lid on my venti. “Have you thought of me at all?”

  Colton was quiet until I brought my gaze up to him again. “Constantly.”

  A shiver ran through me. “Did you come back on the road so you could find me?”

  He shook his head slightly. “You were so eager to get on the highway to see the country, to follow your passion, when you were in my class. It made me remember why I got into the business in the first place. Teaching is a big part of my life, and I know I’ll go back to it eventually, but hauling has been something I’ve loved since I passed my CDL at eighteen. It’s hard to put it into words, but the road called to me, just like it has for the last ten years.”

  I completely understood what he was saying. For how lonely it sometimes was, I always felt the draw of the highway during each of my assigned Hometimes.

  “Finding you out here was the best Christmas surprise I could have ever gotten,” he finished.

  “I was thinking the same damn thing,” I said with a smile.

  Our conversation quickly fell into a comfortable back-and-forth of catching up and sharing what had happened in our time apart. He asked how my family was doing; I asked about the new batches of students he’d had after I left. He told me about a wildfire that swept through the mountains near the academy during a particularly dry summer; I told him about a herd of about three hundred whitetail deer I’d seen that blocked I-380 north of Iowa City for almost an hour and a half in October.

  Our coffees had been drained dry by the time I realized we’d been talking for nearly two hours. The way we reconnected was almost as if we’d never been away from one another in the first place. But I quickly realized I still had a pickup in Marshalltown.

  “Shit, I have to go,” I said, looking at my phone.

  “Want me to ride with you?” Colton asked, standing to throw our trash away.

  I wanted that more than anything. “You don’t have any freights today?”

  Colton shook his head as he shrugged into his jacket. “I’m yours all day.” He threw me a wink that made me lose my footing. I righted myself gracelessly somehow, without falling out the coffee shop door, while he chuckled behind me.

  Our trip to Marshalltown was a quick fourteen-mile drive, and I made it right on time for my appointed load-up. I’d put Colton’s Christmas present in a cabinet before he’d climbed up into the passenger seat beside me, and I tried to decide the best time to give it to him. Waiting for the trailer to be filled was typically the longest process a trucker encountered on their job, so we had some time to burn. Colton and I had some ideas of ways to make the best of the wait, besides gift-giving, though.

  After I had backed up to the loading dock and put in all my e-signatures, Colton and I rushed to close the curtains on all the windows, including the windshield. Our clothes were off in record time. The mattress in my cab was not much bigger than a single, but we made it work, just like we did back in the beginning. Colton took me apart slowly until I shattered under his big, skilled hands. He gave me exactly what I needed, and I reciprocated just as vigorously. It was as intense as it had always been between us, but this time seemed different. It was deeper—in every iteration of the word.

  We lay in each other’s arms, breathless and sated, after we’d found our release. Colton held my lean frame against his bigger one in the close confines of my cot and ran his fingers through my shaggy hair. It was so nice just to be with him, to be held by him. I knew that no matter how far away we might travel from each other or how long we might spend apart, we’d always come back together. We would always have this. He would always have me, heart and soul. I loved him and I had since the start.

  The quiet surrounding us on my cramped cot wouldn’t last long, though, that Christmas. My load-up was almost finished, and I was starving. I could hear Colton’s stomach rumbling too.

  “I’m hungry,” I said, looking up at him from where my chin rested on his chest.

  He smiled. “Worked up an appetite, huh?”

  I poked his side. “I’ll have you know I haven’t eaten all day!”

  Colton chuckled and squirmed away. I’d found his ticklish spot. “I actually happen to know a great little diner not far from here,” he said, sitting up. “They have a traditional Christmas dinner they serve for all the truckers who can’t make it home for the holidays. All the fixin’s and as many dinner rolls as you want.”

  It sounded positively amazing, and my stomach voiced agreement. I pushed myself up alongside Colton and shimmied into my boxers and jeans just as he was buttoning up his flannel. We squeezed our way to the front of the cab, and I pulled back all the curtains. After buckling up, I noticed it was dark outside already. The snow that had been on the verge of falling all day finally made an appearance in softly falling flakes.

  I checked the corporate Brisco app on my phone for freight finalization. A minute later I had the signal to roll out, and we were back
on the road. Making my way to the restaurant, Betty’s Diner, was easy with Colton’s directions on the mostly deserted streets. When I turned a corner on the outskirts of Tama, I could immediately see where we were headed; the diner was impossible to miss. There was a large dirt lot that was jammed with semis, some with trailers, some with empty flatbeds, and some bobtail. The restaurant itself was packed as well and was glowing with a warm and inviting light shining through large plate-glass windows. I could see sparkling garland and felt stockings decorating the walls behind the booths and tables.

  Finding a spot to park was a little tricky, but there was an area near the back of the lot just big enough for my rig, so I slid right in. Colton jumped down from the cab when I parked, and I took the opportunity to grab his present before I got out as well. I met him on the passenger side after locking up.

  “Colton, wait a minute. I’ve got something for you,” I said. I suddenly felt sheepish as I held out the gift bag for him.

  He looked surprised and said, “I didn’t get you anything.”

  Snow fell around us silently, catching in his hair like wedding-day confetti. I took a step closer while continuing to hold out the present. “You did, even if you didn’t realize it. You’ve given me so much.”

  He reverently took the bag from my hand, his gaze never wavering from mine. Then he looked down, letting out an uneven chuckle when he saw the gift bag. He began pulling the scarf from the bag and I held my breath. I’d never given something I had knitted myself to anyone before.

  I grabbed the empty princess bag from him and folded it nervously. Colton unrolled the scarf gently, then held it out to look at it in the light from the streetlamps. Running his thumb over the cable-knit pattern, he blinked twice before bringing his gaze up to meet mine.