Page 34 of We Redeemed the Rain

I tried the ranch phone again.

“Hello you’ve reached Meadowbrook Ranch?—”

I hung up and slapped my phone onto the console. Out loud, alone in the car, I berated Meadowbrook Ranch.

As I sat, filing through my options, the phone buzzed. A Texas number.

Relieved Jesse was calling me back, I rushed to pick it up, my voice hurried and breathless.

“Hello?”

“I’m callin’ for a Ms. Thompson. Is this her?”

I sucked in a breath.

The voice launched my memory into the past. It was him, as surely as my heart was beating.

A shiver passed over me at the uncanny moment of recognition and emotion gripped my throat. Maybe someone else wouldn’t recognize a voice from so long ago. But my brain loved sounds—craved and categorized them. Something abouttonein all its forms demanded my attention.

I groped around for my voice. “Y—yes. This is Bea Thompson.”

My brain was malfunctioning, completely ensnared on one thing:he’s still at Meadowbrook.I wanted to squeal with excitement and faint with nerves.

“I’m callin’ from Meadowbrook. Wanted to check in on you ‘cause I kind of figured you’d be here already based on what Jesse said. It’s gettin’ late.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m—I’m lost.”

“Where are you? Try to explain it and maybe I can walk you through gettin’ here.”

“I don’t, uhm, I don’t”—think, Bea—“actually know. I passed Comfort a while back.”

“Alright.” He clicked his tongue. “If you passed Comfort you should be just ‘round the corner, assumin’ you came in the right way.”

“Um. I don’t know how to say this…” Before I could find a better way to break the news, I blurted. “I’m stuck.”

“I’ll try to help you navigate. Sometimes the maps are?—”

“No. I mean, my car is physically stuck in deep, thick mud that feels like chocolate pudding.”

The cuss word was distant, like he’d moved the phone away as he said it. “Where?”

It all came out in a rush of hot, disgusting humiliation. “I am on what Ithoughtwas Farm Road 821. But, as it turns out, it’s not. Or at least I don’t think it is. I keep trying to back out, but my tires are just spinning and spinning and I don’t really know what to do. I was thinking about walking but I can’t even see out my windows.”

“Whoa, whoa. Slow way down, ma’am. We’ll get it figured out.”

The build-up of this moment made me feel emotionally shaky. “I could just spend the night here and you could get me in the morning.”

“Spend the night in your car?”

“Yeah?”

“No guest of Meadowbrook is spendin’ the night on the side of the road. Just let me get my rain jacket, and I’m comin’ to get you, alright?”

My voice wobbled. “I feel awful! I’m so sorry! I can totally find a bear and ask him to eat me.”

The motion on the other line stopped. There was a slight laugh. “I’m sorry—what?”

“I was offering to march into the woods and just rid you of the problem.”

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