Lilies and Lies (3 page)

“Are you OK?” The shock of the impact had Gunnar's heart pounding. Through the cloud, he glimpsed a waterfall of wavy reddish hair. His stomach lurched as fragments of what had transpired melded into a complete thought.
Maddie's in the truck.
Maddie…

“I'm fine, but Maddie—”

“Stay back,” Gunnar bounded over dumped boxes and shattered glass, toward the truck…toward Maddie. “Hold on to Axle.”

“I've got him, Uncle Gunnar…” Kyle's voice was filled with all the amazement of someone who'd just witnessed the unveiling of the eighth wonder of the world. “Wow, does this mean I don't have to finish my homework?”

 

 

 

 

3

 

A scream buzzed through Maddie's head, and it took a moment to realize the voice belonged to her. She opened her eyes to a cloud of smoke, and as the vapors thinned, she stared down into the gaping pit of an oil bay. The left driver-side wheel of the delivery truck had plunged through the opening, saving her from crashing into the back wall of Gunnar's shop. But now, the truck was hopelessly jackknifed with her trapped inside. She felt as if she was on a roller coaster, crested at the summit and about to plunge into an abyss. Panic rose like a tidal wave.

“Kill the engine.”

Maddie turned in slow motion, as if mired in a murky swamp, to find Gunnar at the driver's window. His words failed to compute as she lifted a hand to her forehead and winced. The thrust of the crash with the poor blue car that now sat crumpled along the wall must have caused her head to bump the steering wheel. It throbbed in unison with her galloping heart. Somewhere close, a dog yowled in deep, throaty protest.

“The fumes are going to choke us.” Gunnar reached through the window and turned the key in the ignition as he called, “Hush, Axle.”

The dog's barks halted immediately. While the truck's motor died a slow, clunky death, the room grew airless as the inside of a vault. Music drifted from some far-off place.

Maddie's head throbbed.

“Maddie, are you OK?” Gunnar's voice broke through as if from miles away.

“I'm…” She touched her forehead once more, felt a knot beginning to rise and winced at the sharp stab of pain that stole her breath. Even as she spoke, her voice sounded as if it whirled from the depths of a tunnel. “I'm so sorry, Gunnar. I tried to stop, but the brakes…they wouldn't cooperate. I don't know what happened.”

“Let me get you out of there.” He rounded the car to open the passenger door. It protested with a shriek of metal on metal. “You'll have to scoot this way. Can you manage?”

“I think so.” The seat was facing downhill, like a black-diamond ski slope, and a grip of fear clutched at Maddie as the truck rocked while Gunnar leaned in. The smell of smoke choked her. Was the vehicle in danger of bursting into flames? She splayed a hand across the dashboard. “Wait, I'm going to fall.”

“It's OK. I've got you. I won't let you fall, Maddie.”

Gunnar wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and she was vaguely aware of the scent of him as it broke through the smoke…a blend of soap and oil and the grime of a hard day's work.

As he tugged, she scooted until she came to the edge of the seat. Then Gunnar lifted her into his arms and carried her away from the pit before setting her gently on the ground. With her feet firmly on concrete once again, her mind began to clear. She glanced up into Gunnar's grey eyes, now hard as granite with displeasure…or perhaps a measure of worry. The way his gaze narrowed reminded her of the mess she'd just caused.

“Th-thank you.” Her throat burned as if it had just been filed raw by sandpaper. She wrenched her gaze from Gunnar to scan the destruction. A wave of mortification—sheer horror—struck her and she pressed a palm to her mouth as the words came in a halting murmur. “Oh—my—goodness. What have I done?”

“Don't worry about that now, Maddie. Here, you need to sit down, get some ice on that bump.” He placed his hand beneath her chin and titled her head back, then gently side to side. The room whirled and she closed her eyes tight for a moment, before allowing them to slip open once more. Gunnar studied her as if she was a fish that had flopped up onto the shore. His breath, minty with gum, warmed her cheek. “I don't see any blood though, no cuts, so that's good, at least. But you're really pale.”

A kid loped up to join them. He seemed vaguely familiar, but Maddie couldn't quite place where she'd seen him before. He looked a lot like Gunnar, only blond where Gunnar was dark, and brown-eyed to Gunnar's grey. But they shared the same slope of a nose and chiseled edges along either side of their jaw that met at a deep cleft nestled squarely in the center of their chin. He surveyed the damage as a chocolate lab panted at his side. Both tilted their heads in the same manner, as if viewing the rude arrival of an alien spacecraft. The kid covered his mouth with one hand and his voice was muffled as he exclaimed, “Wow, look at Mrs. Johnson's car. She's gonna freak.”

As the kid's words washed over her, Maddie had an odd thought that he and Gunnar were cut from the same mold but colored with different crayons. Unbridled laughter suddenly bubbled up from the pit of her stomach. That was funny, wasn't it…thinking of Gunnar colored with a crayon? The room began to whirl once again as the kid's voice floated by once more.

“Is she OK, Uncle Gunnar? She looks kind of wild-eyed. And that bruise…”

“Get one of the ice packs from the first-aid kit. I don't think we need to call 911. I assume they're already on the way. I hear sirens. Someone must have seen the wreck and placed the call.”

Sirens wailed, all right, and as they closed it, the shriek pierced like an ice pick. A quick, shaky glance toward the street told Maddie that cars had begun to pile up as people rubber-necked to get a glimpse of what had happened. Great, just great. Was that Mr. Robertson from the convenience store crossing the street? And Mrs. Tilson from the bakery?

“I'm OK.” Maddie struggled from Gunnar's grasp even as the ground swam beneath her feet. Suddenly, nausea made her feel as if she were being tossed along a storm-crazed sea. The room morphed to a walk-in freezer, though sunshine streamed through the gaping hole the truck had made when it crashed through the brick facade. What had once been two separate work bays was now crudely transformed to one…a beast with a gaping, toothless mouth. “Let me go. I should call my mom before she hears about this on the street. I don't want her to worry.”

“Sit down, first. I'll phone Hattie.” Gunnar's hand was warm in hers.

Maddie breathed a sigh of relief as he settled her into a chair and then eased in beside her. The carousel she was on slowed a bit, but a chill continued to surge through her, gaining strength. Gunnar wrapped an arm around her shoulders as her teeth began to chatter, drawing her close to ease chills that coursed from her neck to her knee caps. “There, that's better.”

Maddie closed her eyes, praying for the room to stop spinning. Her throat tightened as flashbacks of the crash played like a slow-motion news reel through her mind. Bile burned through her belly as she choked, “I demolished your shop.”

“You sure did.” Gunnar's voice held steady, calm, with a slow, southern drawl. “But I have insurance. It can be fixed…eventually.”

“But, your business, that blue car…”

“Yeah, I'll have to phone Mrs. Johnson, too. Kyle's right—she probably
will
freak out when she hears the news.”

“Mrs. Johnson—
Vera
Johnson?”

“That's right. We'll break it to her gently…if that's possible.”

“Great.” Maddie groaned. She thought the car looked familiar, and now she knew why. Old Blue, as the car had long-ago been nicknamed, was ancient—most likely as old as Vera Johnson herself. The woman was a pillar of their church and had also been Maddie's fifth grade teacher. Maddie could almost hear the pepper-haired woman's voice as she sat in the dusty old classroom of Clover Cove Elementary so many years ago, admonishing Maddie to please hold her tongue as the class worked through a grammar lesson. Mrs. Johnson often narrowed a gaze over her tortoise-rimmed spectacles while pointing a finger and stating in a flat, agitated voice,
‘Maddie Cutler, your mouth overflows like Niagara Falls…'

So what if the statement held a hint of truth?

“Don't worry about that now.” Gunnar studied Maddie, his gaze filled with concern that chased the chill away. “I'm more worried about you. Does your head hurt much?”

“I just feel a little woozy.”

“Anything else?” His free hand slipped over her with impossibly gentle butterfly strokes, down each arm and up one side, then the other, to flutter over her ribcage. “Does any of this hurt?”

“No.” His touch sent a bonfire of heat through her, and she turned away from him, wiggling from his grasp before he caught wind of the effect he had on her. “My ego is hurt more than anything. Wyatt tried to warn me about the brakes.”

Gunnar's gaze narrowed and his lips flattened into a thin line that deepened the cleft in the center of his chin. “Warn you how?”

“He said they were loose, but I insisted on taking the truck anyway because Marcus needed supplies for the Oak Street project. The problem didn't sound serious, so I didn't think much of it.” She was rambling, but she just couldn't seem to help herself. Tiny jolts of electricity raced along her spine at the thought of Gunnar's touch. “Wyatt asked me to drop the truck off here when I was finished so you could check the brakes. That's why I was headed this way. I almost made it without incident. Almost…”

If she hadn't stopped at the hardware store to copy the keys, everything might have been just fine. So this was her fault…every bit her fault. The keys stabbed into her hip through the front pocket of her jeans like a cruel reminder of her transgression.

Again, her gaze drifted to bricks scattered across the concrete, boxes of supplies toppled and tossed, and poor Old Blue, whose rear fender looked like a convoluted slinky. The delivery truck jackknifed nose-down in the oil bay, a bumble bee diving into a honeypot. Tears filled Maddie's eyes as reality took root.

“Here you go, Uncle Gunnar.” The kid named Kyle returned, shaking a disposable ice pack so the gel inside activated. He tossed it to Gunnar and then paused to do a slow sweep of the room. “This is crazy-weird.”

“Yes, it is. Bring me my cellphone from the workbench over there.” Gunnar motioned. “Careful you don't step on any glass.”

“Boy, I sure know what I'm gonna write my English essay on now. Do you think Mrs. Clompton will even believe this? Maybe I should take some pictures as proof. Can I use the camera on your phone?”

“Settle down, cowboy. I have to make a call first. Go out to meet the paramedics. Tell them Maddie bumped her head and they need to come take a look at her.”

“Cool. I can help direct traffic, too. Look at all the people out there. It's almost like opening day at the county fair. You're gonna probably be in the newspaper, Maddie. There's Mr. Juno from the Clover Cove Times. He's interviewing Mrs. Tilson.”

That elicited another groan. Maddie pressed a hand to her mid-section as Gunnar placed the ice-pack across her forehead and lifted her free hand to hold it in place. “Hold it steady, Maddie. It will keep the swelling down until the paramedics get you to the hospital.”

“I'm not going to the hospital.”

“Sorry, but you're trumped on that point.”

“Story of my life.”

The kid handed Gunnar the phone and Maddie cringed as Gunnar punched in a number. He waited for the connection, and then turned slightly away from her as he spoke in a hushed voice. She leaned in to eavesdrop on the conversation, and felt like a five-year-old all over again.

“Wyatt, it's Gunnar over at the garage. I need you to head this way. There's been an accident. Yes, Maddie's fine…just a bump on her head that looks like it might play into a concussion. The paramedics have just arrived, and I'm sure they'll want to take her in for a look-see. Yes, they're just walking in now. The truck? It's…well, I'm sorry to say it's going to need more than a brake job now.”

A slight pause, then Maddie heard Wyatt's response as his muddled voice spilled over the line. The words were unintelligible from where she sat, but his tone spoke volumes.

Sure, she'd had a set of keys copied at the hardware shop, but it didn't matter now. She'd never drive another delivery truck again. God sure had an ironic sense of humor.

****

 

“Wow, this is a mess.” Kyle loped through the door of Gunnar's office, a slice of pepperoni pizza in one hand. It wasn't exactly the dinner at Pappy's that Gunnar had promised, but Anthony Moretto had been kind enough to deliver the pizza himself when he heard about the accident. The extra-large stuffed crust coupled with two slices of cheesecake ought to tide Kyle over until they made it home. “What are we gonna do now, Uncle Gunnar?”

“Is your homework finished?”

“Yes, sir. Mrs. Johnson helped me while you talked to the insurance adjuster. She said it kept her mind off the calamity. That's a cool word, isn't it? Mrs. Johnson always uses those kinds of words. She says a brain is only as large as its vocabulary, and you have to stretch things to stay smart.”

“Good point.” Gunnar rummaged through the tool box on the back counter for a hammer. “Now that Sam has moved the delivery truck to the last bay, next to the Mustang, we can get to work on the damage tomorrow. And Mrs. Johnson's car has been towed away, too. You can take this broom and sweep up while I hang a tarp along the bay entrance. We won't be able to shut the doors for these two units until the frame is fixed, so a tarp will at least keep the moisture out if it rains tonight like the forecast predicts.”