The Breaking Point (3 page)

D
ECEMBER
19, 2003

11:15
A.M.

DARK
.

Cold.

Pain.

Each sensation whispered over Renee, drawing her into awareness, away from the stillness.

“No …”

Did she speak the word or just think it? Either way, it seemed to echo through her, a sound as brittle and frightened as any she’d ever known.

Her eyelids dragged open, and she blinked against the brightness, battling the fog that seemed to fill her mind as well as her vision. But what she saw didn’t make any sense.

White. Everything was bathed in white. There was a suffocating blanket of it outside the truck, where snow blew and swirled.
And inside the truck … the white was there, too. On the windshield … in the air …

As Renee’s dazed eyes focused, she saw why Snow was piled on the dashboard, on her lap, and every time she exhaled, a white puff filled the air. She drew a deep breath, but as the frigid air flowed into her lungs, she was seized by a fit of coughing that racked her body.

As she struggled to breathe, she realized how cold she was. So cold she couldn’t stop shivering. “G … Gabe?”

A flash of red and white came into view, and she pulled back just as Bo vaulted the seat backs and landed half in her lap, half on the floor. His frantic tongue bathed her face, and Renee grabbed at his front paws as they raked her shoulders.

“Bo,
no!
Down!”

True to his training, the husky sat with a thump on the floorboard at Renee’s feet. But he leaned into her, his two-colored stare fixed on her—one blue eye, one brown—like a child seeking comfort after a nightmare. Renee dug her cold hands into his fur, scratching his neck, trying to comfort him even as she struggled to understand what had happened.

Her gaze roamed the cab of the truck … and realization seeped in. They’d gone over the edge of the road. The momentum of their spin had slammed them right through the wall of snow and ice at the road’s edge. They must have gone down the mountainside …

As the reality of their situation hit her, she turned with a jerk. Sweet relief made her weak when she saw Gabe. Though he was unconscious, puffs of white hanging in the air near his mouth bore blessed testimony to the fact that he was breathing.

“Gabe?” She reached for him, then halted when pain stabbed through her, sucking the air from her lungs, making everything go faint. She drew in shallow gulps of oxygen, fighting to stay conscious.

She reached again, frustrated with her sluggish motions, as though trapped in some slow-motion segment of a movie. She crept her fingers along until they found Gabe’s wrist and searched, pressed …

Yes! A pulse. When she felt it pound, strong and steady, she let herself cry.

Thank You, God … thank You …

She leaned her head back against her seat, staring up at the ceiling of the truck cab, then looked down at Bo, who watched her every move. “It’s not crushed or caved in at all.” She felt the ceiling. “We must not have rolled. Well, that’s a blessing anyway.” She shifted her gaze and grimaced. The front of the truck was another story. It looked as if it had been put in some gigantic trash compactor. Clearly it had taken the brunt of their landing.

They must have slid down the side of the mountain, taking out some of the small trees in their path. The front of the truck was accordioned back to the cab—but not into it, thank heaven, or she and Gabe might well have been crushed. Their legs surely would have been.

She glanced at Bo again and saw that his safety harness had been torn, though whether from the accident or from him chewing it through, she couldn’t be sure. She nudged him off her feet and flexed her toes, feet, ankles, and then her knees. No injuries—at least not that she could feel.

Just then a gust of wind blasted the side of her face, and she shivered. Where was
that
coming from? She turned, searching … and stared. The window in the passenger door was gone; jagged remnants were all that remained. The wind and snow were taking full advantage of the opening. Hence the little drifts of snow here and there in the cab.

“No wonder I’m so cold!”

Bo cocked his head, ears pricked, as though agreeing with her wholeheartedly. She lay her hand on the dog’s broad head.

“I’m glad you’re okay boy and that you’re awake—” Emotion clutched at her throat, choking her. She pressed her forehead to the top of Bo’s soft head. “It helps to have someone to talk to.”

Bo rewarded her whispered admission with a quick lick. She rubbed his ears, then straightened, looking at the shattered window. “I’ve got to cover that up, boy. Which means I need to move.”

This wasn’t going to feel good. She forced her aching body into action, though the response was far slower than usual. Her fingers groped for the release on the seat belt, but it eluded her. Muttering her irritation, she shifted—then gasped at the pain that jabbed through her. She grabbed at her side, groaning, pressing her hands to her ribs. They must have been bruised by the seat belt when the truck hit bottom.

At least she hoped they were only bruised.

One thing was for sure, she needed more room to maneuver. She nudged Bo with her foot. “C’mon, boy, into the backseat.” He resisted for a moment, then hopped across the wide console between the seats and moved to his blanket. He circled twice, three times, and then plopped down with a long-suffering grunt.

Renee inched her hand along the seat belt and fingered the catch, trying to stir up as little pain as possible. She let out a relieved breath when she pressed the release, and the seat belt snapped free. She pushed it aside and leaned toward Gabe, grimacing at the ugly gash on the side of his forehead. Blood trickled down his pale, still face.

Jesus … Jesus …

Even as the prayer escaped her frantic heart and flew skyward, her shaking increased. Blinding panic sparked to life somewhere deep in her gut, jumping and growing like flames in a stack of tinder-dry wood. Suddenly the cab felt as if it were closing in on her, and a chilling, wailing scream was filling her mind. She sat back, pressing her spine into the seat
back, forcing herself to take deep, even breaths. With each puff of white as she exhaled, she repeated one fierce word: “Calm … calm … calm …”

She wasn’t sure how long it took until her pulse resumed a more or less normal beat, but when it finally happened she sighed. If only she could stop shaking. It was partly nerves, partly the aching cold that seemed imbedded in her very bones.

And shock … it could be shock …

She pushed the grim thought aside, then swiveled to kneel on the seat and reach to the floor of the backseat. Amazingly, though he never took his eyes off her, Bo stayed where he was. She grabbed the strap of the canvas duffel bag with their clothes and supplies for their winter search-and-rescue training exercises. They’d joined the organization a few years ago, and though she enjoyed all she learned, Gabe had embraced it with unbridled enthusiasm. Search and Rescue was the perfect setting for his think-through-all-the-angles mindset.

As Renee tugged the bag toward her, she remembered her reaction when Gabe insisted they always needed to keep the search-and-rescue bag with them when they traveled in the winter. She had cast her gaze to the ceiling, making no effort to hide her disdain. He was, as usual, being overly cautious, hyper-vigilant. Why on earth couldn’t the man just relax and have a good time?

Now …

She glanced at her unmoving husband and her throat caught. She swallowed back the wave of panic struggling to take over.
Steady, Renee. Don’t fall apart now.
She looked at Bo. “Thank heaven he ignored me and listened to his instincts, eh, boy? He sure was right about this.”

Bo’s steady stare never wavered.

“I know, I know; it’s too bad he isn’t awake to hear me say that.” She turned back to the bag. “Wouldn’t he just love to hear me admit I was wrong.”

Heaven knew he seldom heard those words from her. In fact, Renee thought, allowing herself a small smile, hearing her admit she was wrong might even make their nosedive down a mountain worthwhile. For Gabe, anyway.

She reached out to stroke the back of her husband’s hand where it lay, so very still, on the console. “I’ll tell you when you’re conscious, Gabe. I promise.”

Returning to her task, she tugged the bag until it landed in her lap. The increasing tremor in her hands made it a challenge to jerk the zipper open, but she finally succeeded. She pulled out gloves, a scarf, a hat, snowpants, each item making her feel like a giddy child on Christmas morning.

At the bottom of the bag were a blanket, an assortment of imperishables—chocolate bars, protein bars, dried fruit, nuts, water—and a large baggie with a dozen or so pocket heat packs. She cast another look at Gabe’s still form. She’d told him those packs were probably just a way for the sporting goods stores to make money on people. But he pulled one out of the package and shook it, then handed it back to her. Amazingly, the tiny envelope generated serious heat.

Gabe had been the epitome of smugness as he took the packet from her and flipped it in the air. “One of these little babies will last as long as twenty hours.”

Twenty hours. God willing, they wouldn’t need them for that long.

Her numb fingers fumbled with the extra clothing as she pulled the snowpants and a long-sleeved fleece top over her clothes. That done, she stuffed a few of the heat packs into her pockets, placing the rest back in the bag. As cold as it was now, when night fell it would only get colder. Better to save the heat packs until they really needed them.

Thankfully, warmth was coming back into her body. Remarkable what an extra layer of clothing could accomplish. With a fortifying breath, she reached under her seat for the
small first-aid kit they stored there. Within minutes she had Gabe’s wound cleaned and dressed, careful not to move his head in case there was any kind of neck injury. Relief whispered through her when she saw the bleeding on his forehead had stopped. As carefully as she could, she eased a knit cap over his thick hair.

Renee settled back in her seat, hugging herself. Now what? She glanced down at her purse and then, though she knew it was useless, reached down and pulled out her cell phone. Closing her eyes, she prayed for a miracle, then hit the power button. But when she opened her eyes what she saw on the LCD display was what she always saw on this section of road: No Service.

Teeth clenched, Renee tossed the phone back in her purse. She’d always teased Gabe that if they had trouble, it would probably happen on this stretch, where not even the booster antenna brought in a signal for their phones. “Just wait and see,” she’d told him. “We’ll be stuck in the middle of nowhere and have to hoof it for help.”

For once, she wasn’t the least bit happy about being right.

A blast of cold air and spitting snow hit her, and she took a quick look at her window, then at Bo. “I’ve got to find a way to block that wind, boy.”

The tip of Bo’s tail wagged. Obviously he agreed. Too bad he didn’t have any ideas to offer. She peered into the backseat, then grabbed a ragged towel and Gabe’s ever-present roll of gray tape.

“Duct tape,”
she heard his long-suffering voice correct her in her mind. He hated it when she called it gray tape, though she’d explained time and again that that was what her dad called it, so it only made sense she called it that as well. After all, the stuff was gray …

A scene flashed through her mind. She and Gabe couldn’t have been married more than a few weeks when she’d first called it gray tape. He looked at her, eyes wide, mouth open,
as though she just spit in his mother’s soup or something equally unforgivable.

“It’s called
duct
tape, Renee.”

She wrinkled her nose, peering at the roll of tape in her hand. “Doesn’t look like a duck to me.”

He stared at her, then a wry smile lifted his lips. “Duct tape, with a
t.”

“Oh, of course, that makes so much more sense.”

He had laughed then, and she joined him, throwing her arms around his waist and snuggling close. He looked down at her with such tenderness and ended the debate as he always did back then—back when things were so much simpler, so much easier to understand—by enfolding her in his arms and silencing her with a kiss.

Renee bit her lip.
We used to have so much fun …

Shaking off the melancholy creeping over her, she turned to the window and got to work. It took longer than she liked to get it covered, but the band of pain that had taken up residence around her midsection wouldn’t let her work more than a few seconds at a shot. When she finally finished, a thin sheen of perspiration was on her face. She was shaking again, and the thought she’d been avoiding forced its way into her mind.

Shock … I could be going into shock …

As though sensing her anxiety, Bo moved then, stretching out on top of the console and pressing his side into her. She leaned against him, grateful for the dog’s warmth, and rubbed her hands up and down her arms, fighting her emotions.
Don’t cry. It just makes it harder to breathe. Besides, you can’t afford to lose the moisture.

Renee gave a small laugh. None of this was the least bit funny, but she couldn’t help it. That last thought had sounded so much like Gabe, in all his oh-so-practical glory. He was rubbing off on her, and for once, that was a good thing.

Pillowing her head on Bo’s back, she looked at Gabe, then
laid a hand on his shoulder, struggling to draw encouragement and strength from the steady rhythm of her husband’s breathing.

And yet, as they lay there in the shrouded silence of the truck cab, she couldn’t help but wonder,
Is this where it ends, Father?

Renee pressed her burning eyes against her arm, refusing to surrender to the grief that hung at the back of her heart. Grief for all that could have been … all that should have been.