Free Hunted by Beverly Long Page B

road.
    “This is worse than I expected. It’s coming down so fast.”
    “Yeah. If I had to guess, I’d say a couple inches an hour. We’ll be okay,” he said, assuring her.
    She wasn’t so sure. The only consolation was that anyone following them was battling with the same snow and likely wasn’t handling it as well as Ethan.
    They drove for a couple more miles when in the distance Chandler saw flashing lights. At first she thought it might be police or fire trucks, but as they got closer, she saw it was a big snowplow.
    How was there going to be enough room on the road for both of them? She held her breath as Ethan inched his big truck over. She expected the plow to keep going but it slowed and the driver waved at them to stop. He leaned out of the cab of the plow.
    Ethan rolled down his window. “Hey,” he said.
    The driver wore overalls and had a stocking cap pulled low on his head. He was at least sixty. “Road is closed fifteen miles up ahead,” he yelled. He was still difficult to hear over the wailing wind.
    Chandler leaned forward in her seat. “Closed? Totally?”
    “Yes, ma’am. We might have been okay if not for the wind picking up. Denver and everything two hundred miles west is socked in. I’m on my way home. They’re pulling the plows off the road.”
    She had to get to Denver. “How long before the road is open again?” she asked.
    “Depends on when it stops snowing,” the man said. “Last I heard, this is supposed to keep up for most of today.” He wiped his gloved hand across his mouth where ice crystals were quickly forming on his gray mustache. “Next side road to the left takes you into Wheatland. That’s where I’m headed. You might want to follow me. Bessie here will blast through anything that’s blocking the road.” He patted the side of the noisy beast lovingly. “Not much there but at least you’ll be off the road. Dot’s is open 24/7 and you can probably hunker down there and ride out the storm.” He raised his hand and waved. “Good luck,” he yelled. He pulled his head back inside the cab of the snowplow and raised the window.
    Ethan rolled up his window and looked at her. “What do you think?”
    She couldn’t think. She was too tired. Too worried. “What do you think Dot’s is?”
    Ethan shrugged. “If we’re lucky, a nice little restaurant with great food and a wine list. If we’re not, a gas-station-convenience-store combination with hot dogs that have been rolling around in some machine for eight hours. In either case, I’m assuming there’s heat. And quite frankly, that’s probably our biggest need right now.”
    “We’ve got blankets,” she said.
    “And they will help but we’ll still need to use the heater if we are stalled on this road for any length of time. I’ve got less than half a tank of gas left. We’ll eat through that quickly.”
    The smart thing to do was to follow the snowplow. But that meant going backward. Losing time. And she had this horrible feeling that time was not her friend.
    But she’d be risking her life if she insisted they stay on the road during a blizzard. Risking Ethan’s life. “Let’s follow the snowplow.”
    Turning around on the snow-covered highway took just a moment and they easily caught up with the snowplow. The orange beast cleared a path for them, all the way up to the front door of Dot’s Diner. It was a stand-alone building with a metal frame and a row of windows across the front.
    The lights were on and Chandler could see people inside. “I’m guessing no wine list.”
    Ethan nodded. “Probably a meat loaf special.”
    “Will Molly be okay out here if we go inside?” she asked.
    “For a few minutes.” He reached under his seat and pulled out a leash for the dog. “I’ll let her out for a minute to do her thing.”
    Chandler waited while the dog inspected several piles of snow before deciding which one to yellow. She peered out her window. The snow was beautiful, really. If it wasn’t