Snowbound - Harlequin.com

JANICE KAY JOHNSON 155
pression pensive, but he couldn’t decide how she felt
about the idea of finally continuing the interrupted
trip.
The boys were intrigued by the snowshoes, a smaller,
lighter-weight version of the old standard, and did well
once they got the hang of lifting each foot.
The van was standard white, with the name and logo
of the school on each door. The snow hadn’t fallen as
heavily up here, deep under the trees, but that was the
only good news. The first problem was that the van
faced downhill on a steep curve, the second that it
canted to one side where a front wheel had gone off the
narrow road. If the road crew couldn’t help, they might
have to get a tow truck up here.
Maybe it was because he’d felt edgy all morning, with
the knowledge that something he didn’t want to happen
was inevitable, but standing up there in the snow with the
boys, studying the van, triggered a scene in his head too
vivid to be called a recollection, but too brief to qualify
as a flashback. It was like one of those ten-second videos
a person could take with a regular digital camera.
He and Diego had their heads under the hood of the
truck, which had lagged behind the convoy and broken
down. Iraqis gathered, probably just curious, but one never
knew. The couple of guys facing down the crowd had
their M-16s pointing at the ground, but out of the corner
of his eye John saw Larson’s hand holding the gun, his
fingers twitching as if he were typing a coded message.
John shook his head slightly, and the vision vanished.
It had been a meaningless scene; someone at the back
of the convoy had noticed they were missing and a