Page 7 of Strike a Chord
She only stood there for another second before she nodded and ran to the front door.And yes, she locked it and made sure she locked the truck, too.
She nearly peed her pants by the time she found the bathroom and sat down, taking in the immaculately clean and very masculine bathroom.Browns and dark greens accented the space.Was the rest of his house this clean, too?
The relief nearly brought tears to her eyes, but nobody would be able to tell, she was so drenched from the rain, leaving puddles all over his floor and counter.
Normally, she would have mopped it all up, but Dax was probably already soaked to the bone outside, and what if Levi woke up and she wasn’t there?
So she washed her hands, just tidied up the drips off the counter with the hand towel and beelined it out of the house and back to the truck.
Dax, true to his word, seemed to stay under the eaves the whole time, but met her at the front of the truck again, when she exited the house.
She unlocked the truck with the fob and they climbed back in, both of them dripping.
Levi was still asleep, thankfully.
“Feel better?”he asked, hitting the start button for the truck again.
She exhaled and leaned back against the headrest.“Infinitely.”
“Good.”He did a two-point turn in his driveway, then headed back out of the gate, turning left on the road.A road with no streetlight and terrible visibility.But with Dax’s high beams on, the world didn’t seem nearly so bleak.She had no idea where she was, and they randomly passed farms, fields and the odd house for quite a while, taking the turns slowly in case an oncoming vehicle was driving recklessly.Soon enough, she started to notice familiar landmarks.
They were now in Parksville.Just another fifteen minutes and they should be home.
Traffic was chaotic even here, though.Probably because everybody had the same idea as Dax and was using the alternate route because the inland highway was clogged.
Her knuckles ached from how hard she gripped the door handle, even though Dax took no risks and didn’t appear to go even a kilometer over the speed limit.
But after her car not starting on the ferry, and the accident, Jennifer’s nerves were officially shot.She just wanted to get home.Get her son home and forget every minute of this day.
Well, maybe not the parts with Dax.
But definitely the rest.
“Heading into Qualicum pretty quick,” he said, his deep rumble like defibrillator paddles, shocking her back to life, to reality.
She nodded.“Okay.”
“It’ll be okay, you know,” he said, offering her a small, crooked smile but keeping his eyes on the road.“You’re both safe and will be home soon enough.”
Her breath escaped her on a stutter and she had to bite her bottom lip to keep it from trembling.The pain also helped keep the tears at bay.“I just … I just keep thinking about how bad itcouldhave been.”
“I know.And you will for a while.It’s human nature.We’re programmed for some reason to focus on the bad, on the negative.On all the possible terrible outcomes, rather than celebrate the good outcomes and manifest positive experiences.”
“Why is that?”
He lifted one big, broad shoulder.“If I knew, I’d be a millionaire.But if I were to guess, I’d say it’s a survival mechanism.Risk analysis.We think about all the terrible things that could happen to us, assess every angle, then do whatever we can to prevent those things from happening so that we live to see another day.Then, when something bad does happen, we analyze it from every angle so that nothing like that happens again, and we live to see another day.”
She exhaled deeply.“That makes sense.It’s just so …”
“Exhausting?Depressing?Anxiety inducing?”
“Yeah,” she breathed out.“All of the above.”
“And I’m sure having children just makes all of that a thousand times worse.Because you’re not only doing risk management for yourself, but for your child, as well.”He braked for taillights in front of them at a red light.“I know when my sister had kids, she stopped doing a lot of things she used to do.She doesn’t like crowds anymore.She doesn’t go to big concerts, or festivals.Especially not with the kids.She says that crowds are where kids go missing, and where terrorists drop bombs and she couldn’t imagine something like that happening to her children.Or her and her children ending up motherless.”
Yeah, all those thoughts coursed through Jennifer’s mind after Levi was born.And she definitely took more precautions and assessed which crowds were worth the risk joining, and which she’d rather avoid.She wasn’t as bad as Dax’s sister, but then again, she just had Levi.If she had more children, she’d probably implant tracking devices into all their skulls and make them wear a leash until they were eighteen.But Levi never left her side when they were out in public, even at ten.He was very good about sticking close by and he even still held her hand sometimes.
She knew those days were coming to an end very soon, though.
