Kathleen Creighton: One Christmas Knight

But then Pop had had his heart attack.

“Of course, you can’t leave him.” Mirabella had been astonished her mother would even think of it. And with characteristic decisiveness had promptly added, “I’ll go there instead.”

It was only later that she’d acknowledged the squeezing sensation in her chest that had prompted her to say it, and to recognize it for what it was: pure panic.

And it was only now that she could admit to herself that the real reason she was so anxious to get to Pensacola had nothing to do with Christmas, or even her father’s heart attack. She was having a baby, dammit. And like countless women before her, she wanted someone wise and nurturing to guide her through the experience. In short, she wanted her mother.

Jimmy Joe wasn’t dwelling on the problems ahead, the blizzard in Texas, or even a little boy in Georgia sulking about missing his daddy. Although it didn’t make him happy to have to admit it, he couldn’t seem to get the uppity red-haired pregnant woman from California out of his mind.

She had to be crazy, that’s what it was. Plumb crazy to think she could drive that pretty silver car of hers through a Panhandle blizzard all alone. And in her condition! What was she tryin’ to do?

He thought then about that little boy waiting for him to come home, and he thought about the sweet little daughter he’d never even gotten a chance to know; and in the depths of his easygoing soul he felt the stirrings of unaccustomed anger.

What in the name of heaven is she thinking of? he wondered as he pointed his big blue Kenworth down the I-40 on-ramp, pumping his way methodically through the gears. Didn’t she know how precious a gift she was carrying?

He tried hard to be fair, figuring she must have thought she had good reason to be doing what she was doing. But he could have told her it wasn’t worth it. As far as he was concerned, no reason was good enough to risk a child’s life. He wished he had told her when he had the chance. Now it was too late.

Once he was rolling along with the asphalt ribbon unfolding nice and smooth in front of him, Jimmy Joe picked up his mike, thumbed the button and said in his growly CB drawl, “Westbound, what’s it look like back your way? What’sa story on that Texas blizzard? Come on.”

He listened to static for a moment or two before he got an answer. It sure wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

“Uh…looks like they gonna be closin’ ’er down, here, pretty soon.”

Somebody else broke in with a groan. “Ah, hell, don’t tell me that.”

“That’s what they’re sayin’. Shuttin’ ‘er down at Tucumcari. Ain’t lettin’ nobody through.”

“Oh, man…”

“What I hear, ain’t nobody comin’ through the Panhandle.”

“I just come up twenty-five,” somebody else said. “Dry and dusty down that way.”

“Hell, that don’t do me good. I gotta get to Nashville!”

“That’s just a crime, you know it? Shuttin’ down a whole damn interstate for a little bit a’ snow.”

“Shoot, Texas don’t even know what a snowplow is.”

“Ain’t that the truth?”

The chatter went on, but Jimmy Joe didn’t join in. He hung up his mike and listened to all the bitching and complaining, which he mostly agreed with. But he was still thinking about that redhead in the Lexus, wishing he had some way to warn her. Wishing she had a CB so he could talk to her, at least let her know what she was driving into.

Mirabella couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. She’d rolled right through Albuquerque without any problems, if you didn’t count a couple of idiots in pickup trucks driving like kamikazis, and some bewildering lane changes in a construction zone. She did see a little bit of snow going through the mountains on the other side of the city-just a light dusting on the junipers, not even enough to look pretty. And she did feel a twinge of indecision as she came up on the turnoff to 1-25 south. Last chance. The thought flashed through her mind. Last chance to change your mind, Bella.

But the road was dry and the skies were clear, and she was moving along normally, which is to say well over the speed limit-Mirabella preferred to think of speed limits as “guidelines,” anyway. So she sailed on past the turnoff, set her cruise control at seventy-five, and popped her favorite chambermusic tape into the deck. As part of her campaign to imprint her unborn child with a taste for good music, she turned the volume up high and settled back for the long haul.

At this rate, she told herself smugly, she would easily make it as far as Amarillo tonight-maybe farther. After that it was only another thousand miles or so to Pensacola. Okay, that did sound like a lot, but hey, she had two days. She could still make it by Christmas night. She would make it. She’d made up her mind. And when Mirabella made up her mind to do something, she did it.

Not long after that, everything came to a halt.

Now what? thought Mirabella. According to the last mile marker she’d paid any attention to, she was still at least a hundred miles from Texas, and, it looked to her, a lot farther than that from the nearest snowflake.

Right about now she should be approaching the town of Santa Rosa-barely a speck on the road atlas that lay open on the seat beside her-where she’d planned to make a quick potty-stop. Her back was aching and her legs had developed an alarming tendency to go numb, but she’d figured on pushing ahead another fifty miles to Tucumcari before taking a real break. Which she was never going to make if it kept going like this. What, she wondered irritably, was the holdup, anyway? It had to be an accident of some kind. Dammit, just her luck.

Then she noticed that trucks were beginning to pull over and park along the shoulder of the interstate, in a long, grumbling line that stretched back toward Arizona as far as she could see in her rearview mirrors. That struck her as a very bad sign.

The traffic lanes were moving, though, still creeping slowly but steadily along. And now up ahead she could see flashing lights, and state troopers waving lighted batons like semaphores. It appeared the two lanes of traffic were being merged into one, then directed toward the nearest exit ramp. Mirabella didn’t see any signs at all of an accident. She began to get a queasy feeling in her stomach.

When she got to the first state trooper she stopped and rolled down her window. Raising her voice above the oboe solo in Albinoni’s Adagio, which was issuing full blast from her tape deck, she said in an imperious tone, “Excuse me, officer, what’s the problem? Why is the highway closed?”

The young Native American trooper first gave her an impatient look, then did a double take and came ambling over. He leaned down to the window, started to speak, then interrupted himself and instead said loudly, “Ma‘am, could you turn that down, please?” Mirabella turned off the tape player. “Thank you. Ma’am, since you haven’t been listening to your radio, I guess you probably don’t know. The interstate’s closed at the Texas state line. They got blowing snow, icy roads and zero visibility through the Texas Panhandle.”

“But that’s a hundred miles from here,” Mirabella protested. She couldn’t believe he was serious. Snow? Impossible. It was so nice here.

But the trooper was straightening with an air of finality and a shrug. “Got to close it somewhere, ma‘am-preferably somewhere people got a place to stay. Tucumcari’s full up. Santa Rosa’s the next stop down the line. Unless you have business between here and the line, I’m gonna have to ask you to exit here, ma’am. Move along, now…thank you. Exit to your right, please.” He pointed toward the off-ramp and waved her on with his lighted baton.