Destiny's Highway Read online

  Table of Contents

  Excerpt

  Kudos for Lane Pierce

  Destiny’s Highway

  Copyright

  Story

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  She drank sodas

  and flipped through magazines while she waited for news of a change in his condition, but she couldn’t really concentrate on articles. What the last two days had given her was a lot of time to think and reflect.

  The motorcycle accident had devastated her. Could love, finally found, be so easily swept away? She was not a person to pray for things, but there were no atheists in foxholes either. The time had come.

  Some days the whole world was the color of Luke’s cobalt blue eyes. No matter how much they got of each other, there was room for more. She’d learned not to hide passion or to be embarrassed by whatever lustful consideration might cross her mind.

  Wanton, shameless, insatiable. Danielle was all of those things. They were terms that accompanied unbridled desire, lust…and yes, love.

  Any act or emotion might start the jungle drums beating through her veins and result in the buffeting waves of pleasure when Luke took her to bed. The woman she had become was due to one special man and his gentle touch.

  Most of Danielle’s tuna fish sandwich and bag of chips remained on her tray when she slid it into the plastic flap that read TRASH in the hospital cafeteria. She walked to the nearby elevator and pushed the up button. She looked unkempt but didn’t really care. All that mattered was if Luke were to suddenly wake up.

  Kudos for Lane Pierce

  Winner of:

  Another Realm Editor’s Choice Award, 2006

  Whisper’s Pack a Punch Award, 2009

  SQ Magazine’s Best Short-story Award, 2012

  Horror Novel Review’s Best Fiction Award, 2013

  Lakewood Historic Society Annual Award, 2014

  Destiny’s Highway

  by

  Lane Pierce

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Destiny’s Highway

  COPYRIGHT © 2016 by Jay Seate

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Kristian Norris

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Champagne Rose Edition, 2016

  Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-0964-4

  Published in the United States of America

  How would she manage if he didn’t recover? Her hands trembled at the thought.

  Danielle’s last forty-eight hours had been spent in Luke’s room or on a corner of the couch in a waiting area down the hallway. She couldn’t do anything but keep a vigil, hoping somehow he would awaken, and with time, everything could be as it had been between them.

  He’d never said much about his family, only that they were a thousand miles away. He’d become closer to her than anyone, and she to him.

  She drank sodas and flipped through magazines while she waited for news of a change in his condition, but she couldn’t really concentrate on articles. What the last two days had given her was a lot of time to think and reflect.

  The motorcycle accident had devastated her. Could love, finally found, be so easily swept away? She was not a person to pray for things, but there were no atheists in foxholes either. The time had come.

  Some days the whole world was the color of Luke’s cobalt blue eyes. No matter how much they got of each other, there was room for more. She’d learned not to hide passion or to be embarrassed by whatever lustful consideration might cross her mind.

  Wanton, shameless, insatiable. Danielle was all of those things. They were terms that accompanied unbridled desire, lust…and yes, love.

  Any act or emotion might start the jungle drums beating through her veins and result in the buffeting waves of pleasure when Luke took her to bed. The woman she had become was due to one special man and his gentle touch.

  Most of Danielle’s tuna fish sandwich and bag of chips remained on her tray when she slid it into the plastic flap that read TRASH in the hospital cafeteria. She walked to the nearby elevator and pushed the up button. She looked unkempt but didn’t really care. All that mattered was if Luke were to suddenly wake up.

  ****

  There was nothing highbrow about Danielle Swain and Luke McCall’s first encounter a few months earlier.

  She was at a crossroad in her life the day she sat in a booth of a roadside café, the kind of joint with greasy plastic-laminated menus and reasonable handwritten prices. Other than the fact that her serving of bacon looked as if it might still be fighting for its life, the food was satisfying, the coffee was strong, and Danielle liked the earthy waitress with the yellow stained uniform and the order pad on her hip.

  Danielle had paid her bill and was getting up to leave when the little bell over the door jingled. A ruggedly handsome guy strutted in changing her mind about immediately leaving. She wasn’t sure why she was so fascinated, other than because she’d been on the road a couple of days and hadn’t had discourse with any male for much longer.

  The young man sat in a booth facing her. His magnetism was palpable. Should they have reason to talk, she could have predicted where things would lead. This guy was no local. They were apparently both on the road for their own reasons—dates with destiny.

  Danielle began to fantasize. Sex could be rewarding at times, but she tried not to sleep with anyone she hadn’t fallen for, meaning she hadn’t slept with a living creature except her cat for a very long time. She watched the way the stranger’s hands moved and knew she would seem a fool if he noticed.

  From her roadside café booth, she smiled at the stranger only slightly, but then turned her face to the dirty window and idly watched vehicles pass until the waitress sauntered up with her change. She had no excuse to occupy the booth any longer.

  She pulled a lock of dirty blonde hair away from her forehead and got up. She was wearing an Oklahoma City Thunder T-shirt, cut-off jeans, and sandals. Her large breasts swayed with a sensual rhythm when she walked. For once, she hoped a certain stranger would notice.

  The man looked at her as she passed. She thought about saying something to him like, “You’ve made my day,” but kept silent.

  Don’t ask for trouble, even if he does look like a male model.

  He might have mistaken her for a hooker if she tried to be coy or cute, even though this eatery was a long way from a city, and it wasn’t a big truck stop. He was just some guy on the road, headed somewhere, but in no big hurry—much like herself—so she sucked up her thoughts and left the café no worse for wear, but a bit titillated, nonetheless.

  That day had been the beginning of Danielle’s new life. What followed brought a mix of emotions as she recounted her day and night in the desert lands of New Mexico.

  ****

  Bammmm! Rattle-rattle…flop-flop-flop-flop…

  Danielle held tight to the steering wheel, maintaining control as she edged her car onto the gravel shoulder of the highway. “A frigging flat tire.” The words seethed through her teeth.

  Just moments ago she’d been thinking about the open road with nothing to slow he
r down, heading west on a ribbon of highway across the prairie toward a new beginning. Now the next chapter of her life would be the inconvenient nightmare of a half day spent on asphalt blacktop that looked as hot as the tip of a cigarette.

  She called roadside assistance on her cell. They promised a tow truck from the little burg forty miles ahead. They further projected a wait time of an hour. While the semis shook her home-away-from-home, high-mileage, low-safety car as they barreled by, she abandoned her lightweight auto for higher ground until help arrived.

  She sat on a dusty rise a good twenty feet from the highway and watched the sparse traffic pass, wishing she was wearing long pants so every vehicle with a male behind the wheel wouldn’t slow down to gawk. She could picture one of them barreling into the rear of her economy car.

  A motorcycle roared down the highway. When it got close to the abandoned car, it slowed and then stopped. Danielle checked her purse to make sure her pepper spray was handy. Then she recognized the rider. It was the hunk from the café. She reminded herself to breathe normally and try not to blush.

  He called up to her. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine, thanks. Just waiting for the tow truck. Should be here any minute.”

  This could be kismet, she thought with the fantasies she’d entertained in the café and then him tooling along like a white knight on his way to some adventure. But she didn’t mess with strangers, even if one made her heart go pitter-pat.

  “Okay, then. Hope you don’t have to wait long.”

  He hesitated, then climbed back on his machine and was off with a wave of his hand. Captain America riding out of my life. A brooding Marlon Brando on a poster, motorcycle and all, came to mind. If it had been some other time and some other situation, who could say…

  The wait for the tow truck turned into an hour and a half as she watched the sky morph from blue to an arresting orange. At least she had motorcycle man to think about. Another half-hour passed before she saw the truck. She figured she looked like a lonely scarecrow as she waved from her perch before starting down the gulley and back up the shoulder.

  The truck pulled over and stopped in front of her car. Danielle had lived long enough to know that being thrown into an interactive situation with a stranger could be uncomfortable if not downright scary, so she was relieved to discover the driver was female, although it took a moment to realize it.

  A husky babe with frizzy hair stepped down from the cab. An orange shirt and blue jeans covered her massive frame.

  So few people look good in orange.

  It was one of the reasons they use it in so many prisons. An embroidered patch on the driver’s shirt advertised the name Edwina. She looked Danielle over.

  Danielle could see herself reflected in the woman’s dark sunglasses, reminding her of her skimpy T-shirt and cutoffs.

  Edwina grunted at Danielle, and then looked at her car’s left rear end.

  “Tore that puppy up good. Got a spare?”

  “Just a donut,” Danielle said. Edwina looked at Danielle and waited. “I’d rather be towed to the town up ahead than drive on the donut.”

  The woman nodded and sauntered back to the cab of her truck. Obviously the strong, strapping, silent type, Danielle reckoned. The driver lowered the truck bed, threw a chain under Danielle’s car, and went to work.

  Danielle stood by uselessly while Edwina did her thing. When the car rested safely on the flatbed, Edwina motioned for Danielle to climb up into the passenger side of the truck. The two women headed toward the sinking orange ball in a multicolored sky.

  A whole day shot, Danielle silently lamented as they bounced along the highway past a sea of scorpion-infested, scrub brush surroundings. She tried small talk, but Edwina stuck pretty much to one-word answers, although she did sneak an occasional glance at Danielle’s breasts, a look she might have expected from a man.

  She wished the truck cabin was a smoother ride. Besides making her boobs jiggle, her bladder began to whine for relief.

  They traveled the forty miles in relative silence.

  “Where you headed?” Edwina asked.

  “Los Angeles.”

  “Don’t guess you know any movie stars?” Edwina asked.

  “No. I’m going there for the first time.”

  A couple of buildings popped up signaling the outskirts of a small town. “Town’s called Crosshairs. Only station in town’ll be closed,” Edwina said out of the side of her mouth as her beefy wrist hung over the steering wheel.

  Danielle’s eyes clouded with concern. “How about lodging?”

  “Best bet’s the Cactus Motel,” Edwina advised.

  Judging by all the boarded-up storefronts in the little burg, it looked as if the appropriately named Cactus Motel might be the only place in town. Danielle figured she’d be lucky with just a clean bugless bed, a soda pop, and sandwich.

  Dusk grabbed hold of the landscape as the driver pulled into a closed gas station.

  Edwina spoke. “The numbnuts who worked the station nights just up and walked off in the middle of a job. Wasn’t ever what you’d call real friendly. Drank too much. Still, nobody to replace him so you’re stuck till morning.” And after a moment of silence, “Edwina Fulbush’s the name. My friends call me Pinky.”

  She stuck out her right paw, and Danielle shook it.

  “Danielle,” she said.

  “You gotta sign some papers before you take off,” Edwina said.

  “Sure. Whatever you need.” Edwina had opened up enough to let Danielle know her IQ at least matched the speed limit on the highway.

  As her vehicle was unloaded, she wondered if this dilapidated establishment even had tires in stock. But rather than disturb the frizzy behemoth from her duties, she didn’t ask. She was sure Edwina would rather be doing something besides unchaining her three-wheeled—down from four—economy job.

  Like wrestling a grizzly bear, maybe.

  When the unloading job was done, Danielle thanked Edwina, signed the paperwork, and grabbed her duffle from her trunk as the remaining light from the west turned the sky to lavender.

  On the front of the motel, the neon letter C had burned out so “Cactus” read “actus.” After five minutes of admiring the waiting room’s decor, a man who could have been straight out of a Rob Zombie movie appeared.

  Black strands of hair were plastered to his scalp, while blackheads fought for control of his nose. He shuffled to the counter from a back room where America’s Got Talent was blasting from a television. Since all the rooms were available, he handed Danielle a key to 101.

  She pictured Anthony Perkins handing Janet Leigh the room key next to the office so he could watch her undress through the wall. But the guy seemed more interested in Talent than her. At least that was a relief.

  Danielle opened the door to the room and switched on the light. The glare reflected off cheap brown paneling and exposed framed art prints bolted to the walls. The spotted, garish lime shag carpet stretched across the room like an untended lawn belonging to some universe with a different color spectrum. Some of the wall panels had splits in their surfaces—from years of fists or heads being thrown against them, she imagined.

  “Yuk,” she said. She was no Town and Country connoisseur, but she recognized decorating from hell when she saw it. Cheap rooms always smelled of feet and spermatozoa mixed with stale cigarettes and sweat, but it didn’t matter. She just wanted a shower.

  But first, she checked for peepholes burrowed into the wall adjacent to the office.

  After her shower and threadbare towel-down, she pulled a fresh shirt and a pair of shorts out of her duffel. The sound of a semi-truck noisily shifting gears growled along the highway that doubled as the burg’s main street.

  When she opened the door, the curtain of evening had faded to the darkest purple. Twilight had deepened into night. She regretted not having had the chance to put two hundred miles of sagebrush behind her.

  And she regretted not exchanging phone numbers with motorcyc
le man.

  Down the street, a drunk staggered along the sidewalk. A mercury-vapor streetlamp shed a fuzzy yellow light on him. He appeared to have a good start on some serious shit-face.

  As Danielle saw it, she had two choices: To look for a place to grab a bite, or to eat a package of cheese-flavored crackers from her bag, pull the covers over her head, and try to tune out everything until the sun came up. Without the wheels of escape, her sense of adventure had taken a fatal blow. This was no country for old women—or young ones, either.

  While she ate her crackers and slapped at the bolted-to-the-wall TV trying to get better reception, there was a knock on the door. She looked out the window from the edge of the plastic curtain. She could see the backside of a fairly large butt but couldn’t see who it belonged to. She cracked the door.

  Before her stood Edwina. No keys this time. And she’d slipped into something which wasn’t orange and didn’t have her name written on it.

  “I called Burl, what works at the station,” she said. “He says to come down at eight in the morning, and he’ll slap a tire on.”

  “Thanks, Edwina. That was nice of you.”

  She stood in the doorway nearly filling it, a blank expression on her round face. Danielle got a bit queasy, feeling like Edwina might have a hankering to knock the snot out of her, or worse.

  “Can I do anything for your trouble?” Danielle was prepared to tip her for this piece of news about her pending escape from Crosshairs.

  “Got any beer?” she asked.

  “Afraid not. Haven’t had the chance to run to a liquor store.”

  “I got some,” she told Danielle and displayed a six-pack of Lone Star she’d sneakily hidden behind one thigh.

  “I appreciate the gesture, but I’m just going to go to bed and get some rest.”

  “There’s nothing much to do around here but drink and party,” Edwina continued.

  “I can sure see that.”

  “Café’s closed. I got some snacks on my car seat.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll manage with your good will.”