Chapter 10

Luke woke up the next morning. He went into the kitchen. "Morning Dad."

Holden looked up. "Hi Luke. How did you sleep."

Luke shook his head. "Not very well. You probably don't want to hear this, but I'm use to Noah being next to me."

Holden smiled. "I understand. When your mom and I broke up. It was very hard sleeping sometimes without her there. Why don't you have something to eat. Jack should be here any minute and we will start handing out those fliers."
////////////////////
Noah woke up. He had slept well, but had strange dreams all night. He threw back the covers to reveal quite the hard-on.

He didn't know why, but he couldn't get Jill's brother Luke, out of his mind. He remembered when he was younger, he had dreams of a girl's boyfriend. Craig Johnson. He was on the football team. He had thought that was strange, but these dreams weren't like those though. They were more vivid.

He saw himself kissing Luke. Making love by a fire and then they were in a kitchen, those were the most vivid of all.

Noah shook the thoughts from his mind. He got out of bed and got his crutches. He went to the bathroom, freshened up and then got dressed.
//////////////////
Jill was sitting on the sofa when Noah came in. "Good morning."

Noah smiled. "Good morning."

Jill got up to go to the kitchen. "If you sit at the table I'll get you breakfast."

Noah moved towards the table.

Jill came back with a plate of eggs and bacon. "I hope that you aren't upset about last night."

Noah looked at Jill. "Last night?'

Jill looked down at her hands. "My kissing you. I'm sorry."

Noah shook his head. "No, I understand. I saw the picture of your husband. It probably brought back memories The dancing and everything."

Jill sat down at the table. "I just wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable."

Noah began to eat. "I'm fine."

Jill smiled. "Good. I'm glad. You know there's not a lot to do around here, but maybe we can play some games. Do you like cards?"

Noah nodded. "Yeah."

Jill smiled. "My husband and I could spend hours playing cards."

Noah felt sorry for Jill. She had lost so much and had been so nice to him. They were going to be trapped there at least a few more days. What harm would it be to allow her to think of him as her husband? He could tell how much she missed him. Noah looked up at Jill. "Maybe we can listen to some more music."

Jill smiled bigger. "That sounds nice."
///////////////////////////
Luke sat at the table. "We spent all day putting up fliers and no one has seen Noah. There has got to be something that we are missing."

Holden brought a cup of hot chocolate over for Luke. "We are doing everything we can. Noah's body not being near that bloody rock at least let's us know that he didn't die in the storm."

Luke nodded. "We contacted everyone near Noah's truck. None of them had seen him."

Holden nodded. "Yeah. So he must have been picked up by someone passing through. I'm sure someone will see the flier and contact us."

Luke was deep in thought. "Unless, someone doesn't want us to find him."

Holden looked at Luke. "What are you saying?"

Luke began thinking out loud. "We called all the people near Noah's truck. Most of them were families. There was one old lady. She probably hadn't left the house in years and the other houses the ranger said were pretty far out and just summer houses. No one was in them. The ranger said he checks them periodically."

Holden sipped his coffee. "You think someone might have taken Noah to one of those places."

Luke shook his head. "No they are way up in the woods. Unless they had planned on kidnapping Noah. They wouldn't have bothered dragging him up there."

Holden leaned against the counter. "So where does that leave us?"

Luke thought some more. "There were four houses of people with no phone. There was no one at two of the houses. Hadn't been in months. The third was a family. I really couldn't see them having Noah there. The last one was a woman. Jill Schmidt. The ranger knew her and said that she had a radio but had cut it off to save energy and that was why we had to go see her. She seemed nice, she even offered us tea..."

Luke stopped in mid sentence and thought. Then he continued. "She was there all alone. She offered us tea, but she already had two cups out. If she was alone why would she need two cups?"

Holden chimed in. "You think..."

Luke got up and went to get his coat. "I had a funny feeling when we were leaving, but I wasn't sure what it was. That's what didn't seem right. I've got to get out there."

Holden got up. "Let me call Jack"

Luke shook his head. "I don't have time to wait for Jack."

Holden called after his son as he ran out the door. "Jack it's Holden. You need to get out here. Luke has gone out to Jill Schmidt's farm. He thinks Noah is there."

Coming Soon: Just in time
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Chapter 11