He laughed out loud. "Huh. You're brave." Then he glanced at her sideways with keen eyes and added, "What really happened?"
He thinks I'm brave! A glow better than the heated air enveloped Gillian.
"I slipped," she said. "I went into the woods, and when I got to the creek-" Suddenly, she remembered why she'd gone into the woods. She'd forgotten it since the fall had put her own life in danger, but now she seemed to hear that faint, pathetic cry all over again.
"Oh, my God," she said, struggling to sit upright. "Stop the car."
Chapter 4
He went on driving. He didn't even pause. "We're almost home."
They were nearing the turn ontoMeadowcroft Road . Gillian tried to grab for one of the brown hands on the steering wheel, and then looked at her own hand, perplexed. Her fingers felt like blocks of wood.
"You have to stop," she said, settling for volume. "There's a kid lost in those woods. That's why I went in; I heard this sound like crying. It was coming from somewhere right near the creek. We've got to go back there. Come on, stop!"
"Hey, hey, calm down," he said. "You know what I bet you heard? A long-eared owl. They roost around here, and they make this noise like a moan, oo-oo-oo."
Gillian didn't think so. "I was walking home from school. It wasn't dark enough for an owl to be out."
"Okay, a mourning dove. Goes oh-ah, whoo, whoo. Or a cat; they can sound like kids sometimes.
Look," he added almost savagely, as she opened her mouth again, "when we get you home, we can call the Houghton police, and they can check things out. But I am not letting a lit-a girl freeze just because she's got more guts than smarts."
For a moment, Gillian had an intense longing to let him continue to believe she had either guts or smarts.
But she said, "It's not that. It's just- I've already been through so much to try to find that kid. I almost died-I think I did die. I mean- well, I didn't die, but I got pretty cold, and-and things happened, and I realized how important life is..." She floundered to a shivering stop. What was she saying? Now he was going to think she was a nut case. And anyway all that stuff must have been a dream. She couldn't make it seem real while sitting in a Mustang with her head wrapped in a towel.
But David flashed her a glance of startled recognition.
"You almost died?" He looked back at the road, turning the car ontoHazel Street , where they both lived. "That happened to me once. When I was little, I had to have this operation-"
He broke off as the Mustang skidded on some ice. In a moment he was in control again and turning into Gillian's driveway.
It happened to you, too?
David parked and was out of the car before Gillian could gather herself to speak.
Then he was opening her door, reaching for her.
"Gotta get all this ridiculous stuff out of the way," he said, pushing her hair back as if it were a curtain of cobwebs. Something about the way he said it made Gillian think he liked her hair.
She peered up at him through a gap in the curtain. His eyes were dark brown and normally looked almost hawkish, but just now, as their gazes met, they changed. They looked startled and wondering. As if he saw something in her eyes that surprised him and struck a chord.
Gillian felt a flutter of wonder herself. I don't think he's really tough at all, she thought, as something like a spark seemed to flash between them. He's not so different from me; he's-
She was wracked by a sudden bout of shivers.
David blinked and shook his head. "We've got to get you inside," he muttered.
And then, still shivering, she was in the air. Bobbing, being carried up the path to her house.
"You shouldn't be walking to school in the winter," David said. "I'll drive you from now on."
Gillian was struck speechless. On the one hand, she should probably tell him she didn't walk every day.
On the other hand, who was she kidding?
Just the thought of him giving her a ride was enough to make her heart beat wildly.
Between that and the novel feeling of being carried, it wasn't until he was opening the front door that Gillian remembered her mother.
Then she panicked.
Oh, God, I can't let David see her-but maybe it'll be all right.
If there was a smell of food cooking, that meant it was okay. If not, it was one of Mom's bad days.
There was no smell of food as David stepped into the dim hallway. And no sign of life-all the downstairs lights were off. The house was cold and echoing and Gillian knew she had to get David out.
But how? He was carrying her farther in, asking, "Your parents aren't home?"
"I guess not. Dad doesn't get home until seven most nights." It wasn't exactly a lie. Gillian just prayed her mom would stay put in the bedroom until David left.
"I'll be okay now," she said hastily, not even caring if she sounded rude or ungrateful. Anything to make him go. "I can take care of myself, and- and I'm okay."
"The he ... eck you are," David said. It was the longest drawn out 'heck' Gillian had ever heard.
He doesn't want to swear around me. That's cute.
"You need to get thawed out, fast. Where's a bathtub?"
Gillian automatically lifted a stiff arm to point down the side hall, then dropped it. "Now, wait a minute-"
He was already there. He put her on her feet, then disappeared into the bathroom to turn on the water.
Gillian cast an anguished glance upstairs. Just stay put, Mom. Stay asleep.
"You've got to get in there and stay for at least twenty minutes," David said, reappearing. "Then we can see if you need to go to the hospital at Houghton."
That made Gillian remember something. "The police-"
"Yeah, right, I'll call them. As soon as you're in the tub." He reached out and plucked at her dripping, ice-crusted sweater. "Can you get this off okay? Do your fingers work?"
"Urn..." Her fingers didn't work; they were still blocks of wood. Frost-nipped at least, she thought, peering at them. But there was no way he was going to undress her, and there was also no way she was going to call her mother. "Urn..."
"Uh, turn around," David said. He pulled at her sweater again. "Okay, I've got my eyes shut. Now-"