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Into the Fog

By Karen Randau

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MJ Goodrich sprinted to the end of the mile long driveway that edged her mother’s rural Oklahoma peach orchard, then ran in place while waiting for her new friend Kelsey. Since tardiness was out of character for Kelsey, a glimmer of concern flittered through MJ. Her palm grazed the ugly scar on her abdomen, a nervous habit gained from a life-altering injury.

Down the highway to her right, where she expected to see Kelsey, mist blurred her mother’s orchard and the woodland beyond.

Did Kelsey leave without her?

She pivoted to the left to check their usual route. The sight of an opaque wall of fog stopped her legs and tightened her neck muscles. "We could get lost in there. Fall off the bridge into the creek." She shuddered, massaged the scar on her abdomen, circled her head to loosen the muscles.

She hadn’t realized the town of Peach Blossom experienced such unsettling weather when she moved from Phoenix last month. Tornadoes, yes, but not impenetrable fog.

Her mother’s cellar promised protection from tornadoes. This kind of fog was just… well, it felt like a colony of killer bees swarmed inside her stomach. That reminded her to find someone to help move the bees from the attic to the orchard to pollinate the trees rather than buzz her awake every morning.

Another glimpse of the murkiness that obscured the bridge increased her tension. Kneading the scar didn’t help, so she shifted from worrying about fog and Africanized bees to stretching exercises. She’d learned not to let her muscles seize up when she served in Afghanistan with the Army Rangers a few years back, the worst and the best time of her life.

The thought almost had her grabbing the abdominal scar again. Almost. She needed to break that habit now that she was making a new life for herself.

With a deep breath, she stood tall on her right leg—all five-feet-six-inches of her—and stiffened her core, placed her hands on her hips, raised her left leg at a ninety-degree angle. “Rotate out,” her physical therapist had instructed while she recovered at Walter Reed Hospital. “Draw a circle in the air with your knee.”

Having repeated the exercise on both legs, still without Kelsey, she moved on to lunging stretches with a side bend, her dark ponytail slapping her face, wisps sticking to her lip balm. Engrossed in how good it felt to stretch her hips, glutes, and hamstrings, she startled when Kelsey stopped smack-dab in front of her and said, “Sorry I’m late.”

The woman’s red puffy eyes didn’t match her chipper tone.

MJ recognized Kelsey’s clothes from her last trip to Walmart: purple sports cap, a purple long sleeve top, and black capri running pants with a purple stripe down the side. Kelsey always matched. Unlike MJ, who straightened her orange running top over the phone wedged into the waistband of her blue running capris.

Kelsey rolled her head before draping a manicured hand on top to stretch her neck to the left, then to the right. “It’s been a rough morning. Ghosts from days past.” She aimed her face upward and sniffed the air, forcing a smile that showed even white teeth.

“I love Oklahoma, don’t you? Your mom’s orchard smells so good.”

MJ grinned, her chest puffing with pride about her mother’s business.

This could be an opportunity to find out where Kelsey lived, giving MJ someone to visit occasionally. She tried yet again to coax the info out of Kelsey. “It sure does. You’re not even a little out of breath when you get here, so I assume you don’t live far. Can you smell it from your house?”

“Nice try. Like I’ve said before, I don’t tell people where I live.” Annoyance had sharpened Kelsey’s tone. “But since I’ve been running this route ever since I arrived in Peach Blossom a few months ago, the distance is easy for me. Having someone to run with is an answer to prayer.”

MJ smiled but had to squelch the jealousy of God answering someone else’s prayers when he couldn’t bother with hers.

With her first step to the left, MJ again grimaced at the fog. She glanced at the less soupy air behind them and hoped she could talk Kelsey into changing their usual route.

“You must be tired of going the same way every day.” MJ tried to ease the anxiety in her voice. “What do you say about going that way instead? There’s a dirt lane I’ve been wanting to explore.”

Something sparked in Kelsey’s eyes that looked as uneasy as MJ felt. “I’ve been that way. Never, never again.” She took off toward the bridge—and the stomach rumbling fog in their tiny farming community outside Tahlequah, the home of the Cherokee Nation.

MJ hurried to catch up to her mysterious friend. “What’s down there that you didn’t like?”

“Nothing I want to talk about.” Kelsey picked up her pace.

They settled into a steady, if not rushed, rhythm down the middle of the road since they heard no cars and rarely saw them that early. MJ tried again for a more personal connection.

“Have you met any interesting men since you moved here?”

Kelsey harrumphed. “I’ve met men, sure. I have no interest, not because I don’t like men, but now isn’t the right time for a relationship or dating. You?”
“Nah. I’ve stayed away from men since …” She didn’t know how to describe what she’d been through or why no man would want her, so she let the sentence hang. Her stint in Afghanistan had ended in tragedy, followed by months of rehab at Walter Reed. Then she had fought for her management spot in the good-old-boys network of a Phoenix bank. Relief had washed over her when her sisters called to announce MJ was the best of the three of them to move to Peach Blossom to help their mother operate her orchard business.

“Since what?” Kelsey’s blond ponytail slapped her prominent cheekbones when she swung her head toward MJ. Her striking green eyes bore into MJ as she waited for an answer.

“Now who’s sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong?” MJ interrupted the ensuing silence by apologizing. “That was rude. The truth is, I don’t have time for men either. My mom is showing signs of dementia, so I moved here to help handle her peach business, but I’m more of a gofer than a manager. It isn’t a brilliant use for my MBA, but it’s better than what I was doing.”

“Hmm.” Kelsey squinted ahead, returning MJ’s attention to the approaching wall of fog and the possibility of falling off the bridge.

“Maybe we shouldn’t go in there.” MJ’s shoulders and gut tightened. She slowed her pace and grabbed Kelsey’s elbow to guide her toward the grass beside the road. “I never saw fog like this in Arizona. Did you experience it wherever you’re from?”

Kelsey shook her arm from MJ’s grasp. “I don’t tell people where I’m from, but I’ve seen plenty of fog. If you’re not used to it, I can see why it might scare you. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She stretched her long legs and sprinted away.
MJ stopped, confused. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t go.” Despite that, the reprieve eased the stiffness in her neck and shoulders.

Kelsey yelled over her shoulder as she disappeared into the fog. “It’s okay. I’m in the mood to be alone with my thoughts. See you tomorrow.”

“Don’t run in the middle of the road, okay?” An image of the bridge flashed through her brain. “Stay on the grass.”

Kelsey shouted something that MJ didn’t understand.

As she shifted toward the dirt path she’d mentioned to Kelsey, a silver sedan passed, followed by a black tow truck. Seconds later, brakes screeched, a woman screamed, and something crashed against metal.

“Kelsey!” She ran toward the narrow bridge that spanned Kingfisher Creek. “Please, God, don’t let anyone hurt her.” She couldn’t fail another friend. “Please let her have switched to running on the grass beside the road.”
Penetrating the fog, she lost her bearings and tapped her foot to find the grassy area at the edge of the road. Stinky body odor approached from behind. Bony hands clamped her arms like a cold vise and dragged her across the pavement until her legs pumped in mid-air. The fingers let go. Her body took a bumpy roll down a wet slope that knocked the air from her lungs. Grass and pebbles tore her sleeves, skinned her elbows. She tasted blood. Struggled to inhale. Landed in icy water from her knees down. When she tried pushing up, her arms were too weak to hold her.

In the distance, Kelsey pleaded. “No, please. My leg…” Something muffled her next words.

Blackness moved into the edges of MJ’s vision. Far-off male voices echoed gibberish. She wanted to yell to Kelsey that everything would be okay, but she knew nothing was okay.

* * *

“Hey.” It was a deep, silky voice. A warm hand skimmed her back. The hems of bootcut jeans touched brown work boots stained with oil. His joints popped as he kneeled beside MJ. When he leaned over her, a blond curl tumbled to his forehead.

She rolled to her side and tried to press herself up, but her arms still shook too much to hold her weight. As she collapsed, he supported her while moving her legs out of the water.

“You okay?” He stood, offering both hands to help her up, his smile revealing dimples and one crooked bottom tooth.

She grabbed his fingers, then remembered the frigid grip that had shoved her off the road. Was this the guy who ran down Kelsey? She tried to shift away from him, but the cold water had numbed her knees. Despite her best effort to stand on her own, she fell against him.

“Did you hit Kelsey?” The world swirled around her.

“What?” He wrapped his arms around her waist to keep her from sinking back to the grass. His clothes, callouses, and strength contradicted his art-gallery good looks with tousled hair and compassionate sky-blue eyes.

His spicy citrus scent reminded her of something she fought every day to forget, the scent that invaded her nightmares and sparked flashbacks. The second she thought she could stand on her own, she thanked him while twisting away and glancing up to see a pickup the color of sand dunes, with an open door and exhaust coming from its tailpipe.

Not a black pickup. Warm hands, not cold and bony. "He isn’t the guy."

“We have to find my friend.” A stride forward surged her with nausea. No way was she going to hurl in front of this cute stranger. More than cute, but her mind was too fuzzy to think of a better word. She braced her hands on her knees and sucked in deep breaths. “I think a car hit my friend.”

He placed a hand on her back. “You might have a concussion. Your head was on that rock over there.”

She followed his gesture, only then realizing that the fog had lifted. “What time is it?” The face of her smartwatch had cracked during her fall.

He removed his phone from a jeans pocket. “Seven fifteen.”

She sent him a surprised look. “I’ve been here a long time.”

He pinned her again with that compassionate, blue-eyed gaze, shifting his eyebrows upward before creasing his forehead. “What was that about your friend?”
“I think a car hit her. We were out for our daily run. She disappeared into the fog, and I heard a wreck followed by her cries and men’s voices.” She looked around. “Where am I?”

“Kingfisher Creek.”

She followed his peek at her legs. They were wet, muddy, trembling.

He unzipped his sweatshirt, shrugged it off, and draped it across her shoulders. “I stopped because…” He rubbed his furrowed brows as if struggling for the right word, then lifted a shoulder and shook his head. “Then I saw you and the crumpled railing, and I thought you were a deer until I noticed your orange top.” He averted his eyes from her chest.

The scent of engine oil wafting from his sweatshirt would have been okay, but the other thing infused in the fabric made everything inside her tighten. Spicy citrus. "Nope." She stood ramrod straight and handed it back to him, praying the smell wouldn’t spark another flashback. The band fell from her ponytail.

“Thanks, but I’ll be fine once I move again. We need to find my friend.” She scanned the area and tested her stability before crossing under the bridge and looking up at the bent guardrail the guy had described. Her stiff knees allowed a limping trot up the hillside to inspect it, the citrusy-smelling stranger close behind.

She clasped her hands on the crown of her head at the sight of Kelsey’s purple sports cap upside down on the grass beside the guardrail. Her throat constricted. She slumped forward and held onto the guardrail to keep from falling onto the steel beam, dropping her eyes to within an inch of blood spatter.

“Oh, no. Kelsey?” She straightened and rotated in all directions, then walked along the curve that the guardrail protected. Skid marks led to a twisted section of rail with a swatch of purple fabric wedged in a crease.

She glanced back at the stranger, swinging her arm toward the strip. “That’s the color of Kelsey’s running clothes.” MJ clasped her abdomen and gulped in several deep breaths. The weight of guilt from abandoning Kelsey earlier slumped her shoulders.

“We should get you to the health clinic.” His soft focus held concern before it sparked of something that caused him to stand straight and look away.

“I’m fine.” She gestured to fresh ruts in the mud below the guardrail. “Someone pulled something up the embankment. The car that hit Kelsey? A silver sedan drove past me, followed by a black pickup with one of those things on the back.”
“Things?”

She rolled her hand to help her think of the word. “Winch.” She ran down the path toward the creek, where a chrome bumper stopped her. He followed as she kneeled to examine the blood spatter on the metal.

“I’ll keep looking while you call 911,” she said.

She closed her eyes and lifted a silent prayer for Kelsey’s safety. When she dared to look, he stood watching with his phone to his ear, waiting. Something about him seemed familiar.

But what did she detect in his stare? Concern? Anger? Disbelief? A mixture of them all?

She couldn’t pry her attention away from those blue eyes rimmed with thick lashes.

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