Winter's Journey Read online

  Winter’s

  Journey

  By Kathryn Meyer Griffith

  A suspenseful romance and murder mystery

  ~

  For my husband, Russell, who once also traveled the snowy roads in a big truck.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Winter's Journey

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Winter’s Journey

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  Other books by Kathryn Meyer Griffith:

  Evil Stalks the Night

  The Heart of the Rose

  Blood Forged

  Vampire Blood

  The Last Vampire (2012 Epics EBook Awards Finalist)

  Witches

  Witches II: Apocalypse

  Witches plus bonus Witches II: Apocalypse

  The Calling

  Scraps of Paper-1st Spookie Town Murder Mystery

  All Things Slip Away-2nd Spookie Town Murder Mystery

  Ghosts Beneath Us-3rd Spookie Town Murder Mystery

  Witches Among Us-4th Spookie Town Murder Mystery

  What Lies Beneath the Graves-5th Spookie Town Murder Mystery

  All Those Who Came Before-6th Spookie Town Murder Mystery

  When the Fireflies Returned-7th Spookie Town Murder Mystery

  Egyptian Heart

  Winter’s Journey

  The Ice Bridge

  Don’t Look Back, Agnes

  A Time of Demons and Angels

  The Woman in Crimson

  Six Spooky Short Stories

  Human No Longer

  Dinosaur Lake (2014 Epic EBook Awards Finalist)

  Dinosaur Lake II: Dinosaurs Arising

  Dinosaur Lake III: Infestation

  Dinosaur Lake IV: Dinosaur Wars

  Dinosaur Lake V: Survivors

  Dinosaur Lake VI...coming in 2021

  Memories of My Childhood

  Christmas Magic 1959 short story

  *All Kathryn Meyer Griffith’s books can

  be found everywhere in eBooks, paperbacks and audio books.

  Chapter 1

  THE RINGING PHONE JOLTED her awake. Reaching for the receiver in the dark, she glanced at the alarm clock and inched up in the bed until she was sitting. Who’d be calling her at 6:30 in the morning?

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Loretta Brennan?” a genial, female, and businesslike voice asked.

  “Yes,” she answered, still half asleep.

  “This is National Carriers. The trucking company?”

  “Yes, I know who you are.”

  “We were given your name by one of our regular drivers, Chad Amory, as someone dependable we could call on at the last minute. He said you owned your own truck. That you were an excellent driver. Chad was supposed to take a load of oranges to Cheyenne, Wyoming, today for us but something personal came up and he can’t do it. Would you be interested?”

  “Oranges to Cheyenne...today?” She woke up in a hurry. National Carriers was a large company with an exceptional reputation for paying their drivers good money as well as picking up the tabs for permit fees, insurance, tolls, and best of all, cutting their people per diem expense checks on the road. All of which was pretty rare these days.

  This could be her big break. She’d been praying to get on with a company like National Carriers for months, but they had plenty of owner-operators and could pick and choose their drivers. And until now they hadn’t chosen her.

  Then she remembered the weather forecast from the night before. “Isn’t there supposed to be a snowstorm up that way in the next few days?” The news had said it was going to be bad. Rain. Ice. Lots of snow. Smart drivers wouldn’t risk their lives on icy roads, but those drivers probably didn’t have a huge balloon payment due on their trucks in two weeks like she did, or a mortgage payment coming up soon. Her local routes wouldn’t pay enough to keep her from losing her truck and the house.

  “So they say. But, being oranges, the load has a tight deadline, and it has to go today.”

  “What’s the deadline?”

  “They need to be there by Friday,” the woman said.

  Loretta whistled under her breath. Wyoming was three states away. Getting there by Friday with the approaching storm was close to impossible. Just accepting the job would make her wonder if she were in her right mind.

  “It’s top pay, though, and there’s a big bonus if you get it there on time.” The woman rattled off a couple of amazing dollar amounts and Loretta’s heart raced. The pay and the bonus would not only pay off her bank loan and her mortgage but give her living expenses for the next month. After the run she could even afford to take a week off to be with her daughter, Tessa. It was almost worth the risk.

  Besides, there was no other way she could get the kind of money she desperately needed in the next fourteen days.

  No, it’s too dangerous. Inwardly she gasped, realizing the route was also the same one her husband, Jed, had taken that last time.

  She took a deep breath. There was no way she could drive through a blizzard on the same roads—the same time of year—that her husband had died on. Yet, she really had to have that money or she’d lose everything she and Jed had worked so long and hard for. She needed this chance with National Carriers. Getting on with that company could change her life. It meant security and a good future.

  Loretta paused for so long, fighting a silent battle of what she should do, that the woman on the other end of the line finally interrupted. “Mrs. Brennan? I need an answer now. Do you want the job or not?”

  The words came out slowly. “Yes. I’ll take it.”

  “Good.” The woman was pleasant again as she gave Loretta the details. Loretta listened half in shock that she’d accepted and half in growing excitement. She focused on the fact that afterwards, all her money problems would be solved, and the worry she’d been carrying for years began to slip from her tired shoulders.

  She was going to Wyoming.

  An hour later in her kitchen, fully awake and dressed, she took a deep breath of the sweet air coming through the open window, then finished her coffee. Strong with lots of milk and sugar, the way Jed had also liked it.

  She closed her eyes and sighed. Jed. There he was again, or the ghost of him anyway lurking in the shadows of her mind, his form a misty outline, his loving expression pulling at her as usual. He wouldn’t let her forget him. She opened her eyes to chase the memory away.

  Beyond the window the Oklahoma day was cheerfully sunny. The world and all it had to offer beckoned, and she suddenly longed to feel strong arms around her, warm kisses on her lips, to feel protected and cherished again. Jed had been gone over two years now and she was lonely.

  She rose from the chair and poured another cup of coffee. Maybe it would help clear her head. Today she needed a swimming pool full of it.

  For a moment, she caught her reflection in the cabinet’s glass door. She was close to thirty, but her sister, Cherie, said it was hard to tell because she had an earthy beauty that aged well. Those were Cherie’s words. Loretta smiled and tilted her head to the side. The green-eyed woman in the glass, tall and slender, who was wearing a lemon yellow T-shirt and snug jeans, smiled sadly back. No jewelry, no wedding ring, and barely any make-up. The woman in the mirror’s name was Loretta and she looked like
her, but she wasn’t.

  These days Loretta was just a mother and a businesswoman who owned and operated a Kenworth conventional eighteen-wheeler she affectionately called Baby Blue. She did it all on her own and she was proud of it. She and Jed had financed Baby Blue four years ago, and after one more payment it would be all hers. Unfortunately, it was a huge balloon payment. One she didn’t have. Yet.

  She fingered the thick crimson braid she wore down the back of her neck. She’d been thinking of cutting her hair short. Should she? Could be it was time for a change. She should cut it and stop dwelling so much on memories of her dead husband...but a new haircut wouldn’t help her forget Jed.

  She walked away from her reflection and stuffed the last bite of cinnamon roll into her mouth, still thinking about the job.

  I have to be crazy to have taken it. For a moment, she thought of calling National back and saying she’d changed her mind. Then she rubbed her eyes and shook her head. She needed that money. She needed that job. She didn’t call.

  Instead she waited at the table for her daughter to come downstairs. They took walks together in the mornings before Tessa went to school. It was their special mother-daughter time that not even Loretta’s job interfered with.

  She’d seen other drivers lose their families to the road too many times. They were gone so much they had no family life (and eventually no family), nothing besides sitting behind the wheel and clocking in the miles and hours. They ended up alone and that wasn’t going to happen to her. Family was more important and nothing was more cherished to her than Tessa, except maybe keeping a roof over their head and food in their stomachs. Loretta had to leave within the hour to make the Wyoming trip, so today the walk would be a short one.

  Paws, one of her three cats, rubbed up against her leg and she stroked her behind the ears. Most people, when they saw the animal, couldn’t believe a cat could get so large. Then they’d see her other two cats, Sweetpea and Precious, and their eyes would widen further. The tabbies were the size of small pumas. People joked it was something she must be feeding them. Not so. It was genetic. All three were from the same litter. Their parents had been big cats, too, and they loved to terrorize the other neighborhood cats and get into mischief.

  The cats never listened to her. Jed had been the one they minded.

  Upstairs, she could hear her daughter moving around. She looked at her wristwatch and hoped Tessa was hurrying. Loretta was ready. She’d completed her paperwork, set up her logbook for the trip, and made sure one last time that her out-of-state driving permits and most recent truck inspection papers were in order. The blue zippered pouch lay on the table beside her.

  After she told Tessa about the new job and they had their walk, she’d drop Tessa at her Aunt Cherie’s and get on her way.

  Loretta admired the view outside the bay window into the back yard. She was lucky to have a sister like Cherie. She’d never be able to take overnight or out of town jobs without her. She didn’t like to leave Tessa alone too much, but leaving her with Cherie was different. Tessa loved her aunt and Cherie didn’t charged for babysitting.

  And there was the money issue again. Money wasn’t just needed to exist. Tessa was so smart. She liked computers, and technology was expensive. No matter what their finances, Loretta was determined that Tessa would have what she needed and that she keep Tessa’s education fund growing. The child wanted to be an archaeologist someday. That took college and college took lots of money.

  Tessa clumped down the stairs two at a time and rushed into the kitchen bundled up for their walk. The girl, a carbon copy of her mother in looks and temperament, was delicate boned and small for her age. She’d never get as tall as her mother.

  “Let’s go,” Tessa announced eagerly. “I can eat breakfast when we get back.”

  After Loretta put her jacket on, the two of them stepped out into the chilly, cloudless day and started down the path into the woods behind their house.

  “Honey,” Loretta said, “I’ve taken a job driving to Wyoming this week. It’s great money plus a bonus I couldn’t turn down. There’s a snowstorm coming. It could be tricky.”

  Tessa turned and looked at her mother as she dodged a hanging tree limb. “Wyoming?” The expression of surprise on her daughter’s face alerted Loretta to the fact that Tessa remembered where and how her father had died.

  “I know. But we need this money. I don’t want to go that far away, bad weather and all, but I have to.”

  Tessa understood. She always understood. “How long will you be gone?”

  “I hope to return in about a week.” She caught the open disappointment steal across her child’s face and added, “Or less. You’ll stay with Aunt Cherie. I already cleared it with her.”

  “You can’t get there and back any faster?”

  “Sorry, no. You know the rules. I can only drive a ten-hour shift at a time when I’m running single, and then I have to take a mandatory eight hours to sleep.” It would take half the time if she had someone with her. She could drive straight through, napping while her partner drove and driving when her partner slept. But she had no partner.

  She’d thought at times about hiring someone, but after Jed’s death she’d needed time alone to heal and later it seemed almost a betrayal of his memory. Besides, until this job she hadn’t really needed another driver. Now she wished she wouldn’t have been so shortsighted and hired someone. I could sure use you on this one, Jed.

  “It’s okay.” Tessa grinned. “Just be careful. You’re all I got.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll try to call you each night and get home as quickly as I can.”

  Again Loretta wished she could afford a laptop for the truck so she’d be able to e-mail Tessa from the road. It was on her list—at the bottom—of things to buy as soon as she had the money. There were other things they needed more, like braces for Tessa. Loretta’s insurance wasn’t that good. It had big co-payments and no dental.

  At least she had a cell phone, but it was an older model and didn’t always work if she was out of roam range. In certain areas she couldn’t always get a signal.

  Breezes riffled the trees. Tessa chattered on for a while about what she was going to do in school that day. Loretta listened at first, but after a few minutes her mind wandered to the journey she had to make.

  Out of nowhere, another feeling of foreboding rushed over her. She’d felt the same way before Jed’s last run to Cheyenne. She’d had a bad case of the flu and couldn’t go with him and—

  “You’re really worried about this trip aren’t you,” Tessa asked. The girl knew her too well.

  “No. Oh, a little.” Loretta hugged her child to her side as they strolled through the trees. “But it’ll be all right, honey. I’m a good driver. I’ll be home before you miss me.”

  Shaking off the premonition of doom, she frowned and sent the bad memories away. She refused to dwell on the things that might happen.

  The fall foliage was so stunning it took her mind off the ice and snow that might be awaiting her up north. They’d already gone past the halfway point and were aimed toward the house. Tessa picked leaves from the trees. She was collecting them in an album between cellophane pages for her science class.

  Back in the kitchen they took their jackets off.

  “What do you want for breakfast?” Loretta went to the cabinets.

  “Just cold cereal.”

  “You sure? I could make pancakes or French toast? We have enough time if I make them real quick.” Which wasn’t true, but Loretta couldn’t help herself. It was over compensation. Another thing she had to stop doing.

  Tessa gave her a look that said it all. “We’re in a hurry aren’t we?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Raisin Bran will be fine. I’ll get it.” The girl took the box and a bowl from her mother’s hands, collected the sugar and milk, and sat down at the table. She was an independent little thing and didn’t want anyone to do anything for her she could do for herself.


  Bent over her cereal bowl Tessa’s head gleamed strawberry red from the sunlight. Her daughter had combed her hair already so Loretta pulled rubber bands out of a kitchen drawer and braided it. At eleven, Tessa was a little old for that, but for some reason she let her mother fix her hair like she had when she was younger.

  Tessa looked up at her. “You know you’re not good in the snow, not good on ice.” The unspoken message being: Don’t wreck. Loretta knew that her dying behind the wheel was one of her daughter’s greatest fears.

  “You know I’ll be extra careful.”

  The girl pushed her bangs off her thin forehead and nodded. Her jade-colored eyes were on her mother. “I’ll hold you to it, too.” The next second Tessa was up and in Loretta’s arms, hugging her tightly.

  It was rare for Tessa to be so demonstrative when her mother was leaving. So Loretta knew how concerned she must be. Her fear over losing her mother, since she’d lost her father, was almost an obsession. “If it starts to snow, I’ll drive slower. If there’s a blizzard, I’ll pull over. I promise.”

  Tessa pulled away. “You better.”

  Loretta noticed the time. “I need to get you over to your aunt’s. Are you about ready?”

  “I know, you’ve got places to go, a deadline and a delivery to make. My mother the truck driver.” She tossed her head and grinned again. “I’m done. I’ll clean up for myself and we’ll go.”

  “You’re such a good kid.” Loretta grinned back.

  While Tessa washed out her bowl and spoon, dried and put them away, Loretta went upstairs and gathered her bag of clothes and necessities. Then back in the kitchen she filled a large thermos with hot coffee and prepared a bag of fruit, candy bars, and donuts for the week. She loaded everything into the sleeper of the truck beneath the bed. It was much cheaper taking munchies along instead of buying them on the way. She plopped a Panama hat with a feathered band on her head, added Tessa’s suitcase, and they were set to go.

  Bad weather ahead or not, she couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful morning to begin a job. She loved autumn. The crisp air, heavy with a tart mustard scent and taste that made her feel achingly alive, vibrated around her. It made her want to go out and conquer the world. A feeling she’d been missing for a long time.