Ahead of its July 28 release (pre-order now), I will preview Blood Track for my readers as part of my ongoing #SaturdayScenes initiative. Make sure you join my Reader’s Club to get the other free stories I offer to my subscribers, and to get further notifications regarding the release of Blood Track and future stories!

“View it as a pseudonym,” Dan tells me from behind the steering wheel. “Like your stage name. All the stars have one. After all, Jane McMurtry does sound a lot sexier than Jane Murphy.”

I keep thumbing the badge Energetix security mailed me, wishing I hadn’t opened the envelope until later. The badge shows a recent photo, but it lists my maiden name.

We’re carpooling to the airport, Dan and I, so I can drop him off for his latest business trip—to sunny Los Angeles, no less—while I head off to a morning meeting in Aurora four hours from now. This early drive is a bit painful, given the early hour and the snow that breaks the dark when shot through by the SUV’s headlights. But it’s economical, we convinced ourselves, plus it gives us a little more time together to talk and such. To make up for getting me up so early in the morning even though I don’t need to get into Denver this early, Dan drives my SUV while I sit in the back with Tahoe. I was supposed to sleep, but gave up on that after five minutes of rolling and swaying.

“Or you could view it as a pen name,” Dan adds, his attempt at humor with a vague reference to my English degree and not so vague recall of remarks he’s made in the past about how I should write a novel. Or my own memoir.

“No reason they can’t get it right,” I say from the back seat, where I sit with a fleece blanket over my lap, and an arm over the back of my seat so I can comfort Tahoe, who’s none too glad about this early jaunt of ours.

“Probably helps them reduce paperwork,” Dan replies. “You know those corporate types. Save money at all costs. All about efficiency.”

I don’t reply at first. I’m tired of his joking—can’t see where it fits inside a frigid, early morning. Besides, I know his strained levity amounts to nothing but preamble for what he really wants to talk about.

Instead of waiting for him to bring it up, I preempt him with, “This time I’ll call you. They promised I could. As often as I need to. Every step of the way. I made it a precondition to my coming in.”

He shoots me a quick glance through the rearview mirror. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“You know that don’t tell it true.”

Ahead the falling snow becomes a swirling sheet of white and halogen blue. Dan leans forward, as if an inch closer to the windshield will help him peer right through that near whiteout in front of him. He drives like that, hunched forward, hands gripping the steering wheel, saying nothing else. Only Tahoe’s occasional whining breaks the road noise of tires crunching on fresh powder.

The flurry diminishes a few miles down the road, and a glint of dim blue light breaks from the east. The GPS unit says to keep going straight. It predicts we’ll arrive in Denver International Airport in another fifteen minutes and nine seconds. How nice, all this precision we have at our disposal.

“How well did you know him?” Dan asks.

His question makes me teeter a bit. I see now it’s the question he wanted to ask all along. But I didn’t anticipate it, or more like it, didn’t want to think we’d need to broach the subject.

“You ask that like you already know the answer” I reply. And he should, having seen Joe and I kibitz a year or so ago, after my premature sprinting escape from a local rodeo venue. Besides, Joe’s and my story, how I rescued him, it’s been all over the news. Though it hasn’t played in a while, I suppose, not since before Dan and I married.

“First tour in Iraq, right?” Dan asks.

“Uh-huh.” I leave it at that. If he wants to dig around for more, he best get to shoveling.

“What’s wrong?”

“You tell me.”

“We don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to.”

“Me and Shadow, we found Joe first.” I swallow, like that will press down on what wants to erupt out of my gut and through my chest. “He was near all bled out.” There, my voice has cracked. Might as well tell the rest. “Had to use Shadow’s leash to stem the bleeding on one leg, and I used my belt for the other. What was left of it.”

I leave the rest unsaid. That I’d never seen anything like it. That I near passed out for all the blood. The gushing and spraying of it. That I cried through the whole thing. That I would have never imagined one day that would become my fate, two legs shredded off at the knee. That his leaving Iraq shook me. Because Joe Brenner being the strapping, blond, blue eyed Georgia boy that he was, who wouldn’t dream of raising some peaches with him after the bullets stopped flying, the bombs ceased exploding, and the soldiers started living normal lives. Yeah, that last part I best leave unsaid. No sense in worrying Dan with a wide-eyed girl’s infatuation.

“You two got close?” Dan says.

I nibble on the inside of my lip. “Never really had the gumption to reconnect with him. Found second hand he was dating. About to propose. Never got a chance to see him again until that rodeo. You was there.”

“Sounds like he made his way with things. Married, two kids.”

“You mean he got his act together a heck of a lot faster than me.”

“That’s not what I was getting at.”

I sniff and wipe off my nose with the back of my canvas shirt’s sleeve. “Sure.”

“Jane—”

“It’s alright, Dan. No sense in hiding it.”

“We all move at our own pace. And besides, your business is taking off.”

“Yeah, maybe best I don’t move too fast and go off shootin’ my bride and kids.”

He gauges his response for a few seconds. “You think he did it?”

“I’m just the tracker. I’ve told you that. I don’t theorize about or solve the case.”

“Yeah, right.” He shoots me a glimmering-eye look through the rearview mirror—the sort he aims my way right around the time he tells me I’m way smarter than I let on. That I could be—no, should be—an investigator. Go to school for it and such.

“War colors a man’s soul in a lot of dark shades, Dan. For all we know, yeah, he went off. Nice job with Energetix and all, boom, there he went. Working too much overtime, maybe, to get all them stock options.”

“Small world,” Dan says. “I mean, the Energetix connection.”

“Too small by far.” I say that knowing that even in spite of the Energetix legs I’m wearing and whatever other gadgetry tick-tocks inside me, I never had any idea Joe Brenner beat me into the program by—well, I don’t know by how long—but I can guess. At least two years.

Dan lets the topic drop, like he does when things are getting too tense. By the GPS readout, I can see we have another ten minutes to the airport.

“Given any more thought to the kids?” he says.

By that I know he means Elsa and Paco, those first two kids Allison and I spotted cowering next to New Mexico desert cabin. Even now I can see their eyes, imploring for help. I can see the dogs sniffing them, and Brownie giving them the seal of approval by sitting by them, looking up at me to say so. During the time I housed all twenty-two kids at my ranch, those two clung to me the closest. Both Allison and Cassandra suggested maybe Dan and I could foster them. I couldn’t fathom it. Not with all the demons I’m carrying. I didn’t think it fair to those kids to grow up with a basket case. Well, that’s how I rationalized it to myself.

“Tina keeps calling,” Dan adds. “Left another message. Kids asking about you and all.”

And wouldn’t it be a great thing if we took them in? Foster to adopt, if we want to push it down the full length of the field for a touchdown. Ms. Tina Calderon has kept at us for near the full time since the twenty-two migrant children were placed in homes. Elsa and Paco went to a good home—one of the best, in my estimation—a couple from my church. We see them from time to time on Sundays, and they seem to be doing fine. Except Tina claims they keep asking her if they can come live with Dan and me instead.

“Like I said before,” I reply. “Got my hands full.”

Dan nods. Without interjecting, he’s let me make the call. Hasn’t shared his opinion one way or the other. But he says, “I’ll support you whichever way you go.”

“Don’t want to have them the old fashion way?”

He grins through the rearview mirror. “I’ll have them whichever way you want.”

Over the next few minutes, I ponder that. I don’t know how to take it, whether as a positive or negative. For his part, Dan focuses on his driving. He takes the turnoff into the airport, and our conversation comes to an end. A couple of minutes later, he’s unloading his carryon and a small duffel bag, while I playfully push back on Tahoe’s snout to keep him in place. Dan and I hug, kiss, and he pulls me in again for a long, tight embrace. Then he smiles and walks off, turning once to wink and smile at me.

I allow myself to stand there and smile. I take in that moment, and let it linger long after he’s gone inside and the sliding doors have closed behind him. It feels good to have someone smile and wink at you. Only Tahoe’s whistling whimper brings me out of it. I climb behind the steering wheel and drive away.

Fifteen minutes later I’m sitting in an all-night diner, the kind that allows dogs and serves my favorite omelet ‘round the clock. But for the warmth and plush booth seats, I don’t enjoy it much. I stab my food while my mind strains not to go somewhere else—that bloody place where I knelt by a mangled Georgia boy and I whispered into his ear, “Hang on. I love you.”

He never told me if that helped or not. Never wrote to thank me. And I didn’t exactly go out of my way to check in on him, see what effect five words had.

Now I’m coming in, with my next version of Shadow. And inside I’m saying a similar prayer. “Hang on, Joe. Hang on till I can find you.”

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