Vicki Thompson: Boone's Bounty

“Yep,” Josh replied. “Bob, he is, too.”

Shelby glanced over at Josh sitting in his car seat, proudly wearing his San Antonio Spurs jersey. She should have dressed him in something less identifiable, but he loved that jersey. And of course, she couldn’t risk ending up marooned in a snowbank, not with Josh in the car. What had she been thinking?

Josh stared in fascination at the patrolman. “Do you gots a gun?” he asked.

“Yes, son, I do,” the officer said solemnly.

“My daddy gots a gun,” Josh said.

Shelby felt sick to her stomach. She didn’t doubt Mason had a gun, but the thought of Josh somehow coming into contact with it scared the daylights out of her. “How do you know that, sweetheart?”

“He showed me it.”

Shelby closed her eyes briefly, as if that would block out the ugly image. If she needed any more reasons to keep this child away from Mason, there was a huge one. A gun and a three-year-old. She shuddered.

“I hope your daddy keeps that gun locked up good and tight,” the patrolman said. “Guns are not toys.”

“The policeman is absolutely right, Josh,” Shelby said. “You must never touch a gun.” And if she had anything to do with it, he’d never get the chance again. She glanced back at the officer. “I want to thank you for preventing me from doing something foolish. I wasn’t thinking clearly a moment ago. Trying to go over that pass tonight would be suicide.”

“Bob and me, we never seed any snow before,” Josh offered.

The patrolman peered into the car. “You got a little dog in there named Bob?”

“No,” Shelby said. “Bob is Josh’s special friend, and he’s very talented. He can make himself invisible.”

“Ahhh.” The patrolman nodded solemnly. Then he glanced at Shelby. “There’s a motel and café back down the road about three miles. Maybe you could wait it out there.”

Shelby didn’t remember the place, but it sounded better than driving to Santa Fe. “How long will it be before the road’s open, do you think?”

“Hard to say, ma’am. If I was you, I’d try to get a room for the night. They’re not fancy, but they’re clean.”

Shelby took a shaky breath. She didn’t know for sure that Mason was following her, but she had a bad feeling he was. All he would have had to do was ask her apartment manager where she’d gone. The manager had been on his way into the building just as she and Josh were leaving, and Josh had blurted out that they were going to Yellowstone to ride horsies. She hadn’t remembered to tell Josh it was a secret.

Still, she had a head start on Mason, so the motel was probably a safe bet for tonight. Besides, it wasn’t as if she had a lot of choice. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll try that. And thanks again.”

“No problem. Just doing my job, ma’am. ’Bye, son.”

“’Bye, Mister Policeman.”

Shelby gave the officer a smile before rolling up the window. Then she waited for him to step aside before she guided the car around in a half circle. Fortunately no one else seemed to be coming up the road.

Three days ago—it seemed like three years—Mason had called to say he was coming over the next morning to take Josh to the zoo. Something about the arrogant way he’d announced his intentions instead of asking Shelby if that was okay put her on alert. He’d been dropping hints for weeks that if the courts didn’t grant him custody, he’d take Josh anyway.

The longer she thought about his brusque tone during the call, the more she became convinced that Mason didn’t intend to bring Josh back. So she’d rented a car, hoping that would throw Mason off a little, packed some clothes for her and Josh, and left town.

“Where’re we goin’, Shebby?” Josh asked. “Back home?”

“No, not home, Josh. But we can’t keep going up the mountain road because there’s too much snow. So we’ll stay overnight in a motel and try again tomorrow morning, okay?”

“Okay, but when are we gonna get to Yellowstone? You said, Shebby. Bob wants to see geezers.”

“Geysers, Josh.”

“Yeah, those. And we’re gonna ride horsies there, right?”

“That’s the plan.” She should change the plan, but Josh was so excited she didn’t have the heart, at least not yet.

“Bob, he knows how to ride horsies real good. He’s gonna teach me.”

“Good thing Bob knows so much, huh?” Shelby said. Right about now she wished Josh’s imaginary friend really existed, and that he was about six-five, weighed two-fifty and could bench-press his own weight.

“Bob, he knows this much.” Josh spread his arms wide. “A whole bunch, is what Bob knows.” He glanced at Shelby, as if he expected her to contradict him. “Right, Shebby?”

Shelby smiled. No matter how scary life got, she took heart from this little bundle of sunshine sitting in his car seat next to her. He was unsinkable. And so damned normal, with his love of basketball and his imaginary friend. A child psychologist might say the imaginary friend had made an appearance at this particular time because of what Josh had been through recently. That could be true, and if so, she was impressed with the way the little boy took care of his own needs.

She glanced over at Josh. “Right. Bob is awesome.”

Josh nodded. “Awesome. When are we gonna see geezers?”

“Well, first we have to go all the way through Colorado, and then most of the way through Wyoming. But before we do that, we have to get over this mountain, and we can’t do that until tomorrow morning.”

“’Member that song about a mountain? The one we singed in school?”

“Sure. Want to sing it?”

“Yep.” Josh launched into a close approximation of “She’ll Be Comin’ ’Round the Mountain.”

Shelby joined in, helping him through the parts he’d forgotten. How she loved this little boy. Long ago, in spite of herself, she’d begun to think of him as her own child. He even looked like her—same blond hair, same blue eyes. Patricia hadn’t ever seemed to have time for him, especially after she’d divorced Mason.

And during the breakup of Patricia’s marriage, Shelby’s parents had been so busy worrying about Patricia, their favorite child, that they hadn’t seemed to have any concern left for Josh. And now all three of them were gone—her sister and both her parents.

Shelby’s chest tightened as a nick of pain touched her heart, like the whisper of a very sharp knife that barely cuts the skin but is capable of dealing a killing blow. It was a warning sign that she needed to shut down her emotions, and fast. Ever since the boating accident four months ago that had claimed her parents and Patricia, Shelby had kept a tight rein on her feelings. She had Josh to think about.

Josh stopped singing as Shelby pulled into the parking lot of a small motel with a café nearby.

“Is this it?” he asked.

“This is it.” Shelby surveyed the rambling building, which was in definite need of a paint job. Her parents would have turned up their noses at the accommodations, but Shelby was grateful for anything reasonably clean. Quite a few cars and trucks were gathered in the lot, and she hoped she wouldn’t have any trouble getting a room.

And she definitely wanted one. Driving all the way back to Santa Fe was too risky. The lights shining through the café’s windows made it look cozy in the gathering gloom brought on by the heavy snowfall. The thought of a hot cup of coffee beckoned to her, but she turned the wheel left and parked in front of the first unit of the motel where an orange neon sign in one corner of the window read Office. In the opposite corner was another neon sign in blue that said Vacancy.

Shelby sighed with relief.

“They don’t gots no swimmin’ pool,” Josh said. “Bob was gonna go swimmin’.”