Page 4 of The Cowboy's Christmas
Chapter Two
The north windscoured the highway ahead of Quinn’s truck, lifting the snow as quickly as it fell, creating mesmerizing swirls and eddies atop the dark asphalt. He was no stranger to winter driving. The area where he currently lived in Eastern Oregon wasn’t exactly known for its hospitable winter driving conditions, but this was a road he didn’t know, visibility sucked and although he’d yet to tap the brakes to check, he suspected the asphalt was slick. The storm he’d rather foolishly told himself he could beat had caught up to him. Maybe he should have stayed, but he needed time to process all the shit he hadn’t expected to feel during his sibling meet and greet. He was glad he’d connected with his brothers, but…
He let the unfinished thought sit. Just as he had when it had eased its way through his brain a few minutes ago. And a few minutes before that. He hadn’t expected to feel much of anything upon meeting Ty and Austin, other than curiosity, but he had, and he couldn’t put a name to it.
Yeah. You can. Confusion.
True. He’d been confused and surprised at the sense of having a bond to men he didn’t know. And maybe just a little pissed off that the chance to know his brothers had never been offered to him when he had been young enough for it to not be so freaking awkward. Kids got over stuff like this a lot faster than a guy in his thirties.
Pepper pushed herself to her feet in the back seat and rested her chin on his shoulder, sensing that he needed doggy comfort. Quinn absently lifted a hand to stroke the side of her wiry face, then slammed his palm back to the steering wheel as a truck lurched onto the highway in front of him, seemingly coming from nowhere.
Quinn automatically pumped the brakes even though he knew it was useless on the slick road. He wasn’t going to be able to stop, and he didn’t have time to swerve to avoid the flatbed pickup still spinning its wheels trying to get purchase. The best he could do was to aim toward the rear and brace himself for the collision.
When it came, his head snapped back, then came forward and smacked the steering wheel. Pepper hit the back of his seat, giving a yelp as the truck spun into the ditch, coming to rest facing the opposite direction from which he’d been traveling. Facing Marietta. A sign?
Quinn shook off the crazy thought as he pushed back from the steering wheel. Pepper scrambled up from the floorboards and jumped over the seat, working her way onto his lap, pushing her nose into his face.
“I’m good,” he said, putting a hand to his aching forehead, then twisting in his seat to see where the other rig had landed. It must have finally gotten purchase after the collision because it was now on the opposite side of the highway, looking remarkably unscathed. And thankfully both rigs were far enough off the road that traffic could pass. Small blessings.
Quinn turned his attention back to Pepper, assured himself that she was all right, then reached for the door handle. “Stay here,” he said.
Pepper gave him an “are you sure look” and he ruffled the hair on her neck before reaching for the handle, shoving his door open against the wind, and stepping onto the gravel at the edge of the road. Cold air tore over him, pelting him with ice crystals. He grabbed his open coat, pulling it shut as he looked for signs of life on the opposite side of the highway. He stepped onto the asphalt and almost went down as his foot slid out from under him. Black ice. Excellent.
The door of the flatbed opened then, and the driver got out, hunching his body against the wind before ducking his head and starting across the road to Quinn. He made it all of two feet before his feet came out from under him and he went down hard. Quinn thought he might have heard the man’s head hit the asphalt.
Shit.
He crouched low, battling the wind as he crossed the glare ice to where the man lay. He groaned and tried to push himself up as Quinn approached.
“I’ve got to move you,” Quinn said once he was at the guy’s side. All they needed for total disaster was for a freaking eighteen-wheeler to come barreling out of the storm and smack into them. “Can you get up if I help you?”
The guy, who was older than Quinn by at least two decades gave a slow nod, then said through gritted teeth, “I can try.”
But when Quinn put a hand behind the guy’s shoulders, he let out an agonized groan. “Ribs.”
“I’ve gotta get you off the road. Are you hurt anywhere else?” Since the man had been ambulatory before the fall, and the collision hadn’t been that intense, he didn’t suspect any kind of internal injury.
The man groaned again, squeezing his eyes shut against pain. “Do what you got to.”
Quinn worked his hands under the man’s arms, taking him by the shoulders and sliding him backward across the frozen asphalt to the gravel. The guy tried to help then, using his feet to push himself back as Quinn pulled. Once they were a safe distance off the road behind the truck, which, as far as Quinn could tell had suffered no real damage, he eased the man into a sitting position.
The older man wrapped a protective arm over his ribs, his chin on his chest. “Savannah is going to kill me.”
Quinn squelched the urge to tell the older man thathe’dalmost killed him. “How’s your head?”
“Probably concussed. You?”
“Probably not.”
The old man closed his eyes. “Sorry about this, Austin. I thought I had enough of a running start to get through the drift blocking the highway entrance. I hung up and when I gunned it, you came around the big corner.”
His words slurred a little at the end so rather than correct his identity, Quinn reached for his phone and dialed 911.
“No ambulance,” the old man muttered as Quinn gave the details of the accident.
“We’ll let the sheriff decide,” Quinn said after ending the call. He glanced at the opposite side of the road where the single headlight of his truck struck the trees at a crazy angle through the blowing snow. He could just make out Pepper’s face at the window. He turned to the older man.
“I need to put out some hazard markers.” Which he always carried in the winter, thanks to Jim Neary, his current boss, having had a hellacious accident on a nasty corner just outside of Jordan Valley.
