Northern Moonlight (26 page)

When she was finally at his bedside, gazing
ethereally
into his frightened eyes, the dragon and its licking flames disappeared entirely, leaving him to exhale in relief.
 
As he held out his hand to touch her, he was struck by a warm pulsation deep in his chest.
 
To the naked eye, the fire was gone, but he still felt his heart caressed by an insistent heat.
 
With a knowing beam, Sabrina traced her fingertips in a heart-shaped motion over that precious organ, all the while warming him from head to toe with eyes that
radiated like
toasted almonds.
 
The d
ream ended there, with Gio
willingly surrendering to the foreign feelings it elicited.
 

When he woke up, a
sheen of
sweat bathed his body, soaking through his shirt and causing him to head imme
diately for a refreshing shower.  Gruffly, he cast
aside any a
nalysis of the peculiar reverie,
want
ing very much to start his day. 
As he pulled on a pair of beige khaki pants and matching shirt, he knew that he had to call Sabrina.
 
She had looked so sad when he left the night before, like a lost little girl with her big doe
eyes and slightly trembli
ng pink lips.
 
Groaning, Gio
felt a rush of distinct emotion at the mere envisioning of her.
 
Picking up the phone without a
nother thought, he dialed her seven
digit number and waited for her to answer.
 

By the
eighth
ring, he realized that her phone was going to ring off the hook, so he set it down with a disappointed grimace and got his fishing gear out of the closet.
 
After the
atrocious
night he had spent laboring to the bizarre dream that still reverberated in his head, he desperately needed some fresh air that the river and
its surrounding greenery could
provide.
 
He resolved to telephone Sabrina in the evening when he returned from his therapeutic
excursion.

Chapter 13

Precisely as Gio
was loading his truck to go fishing, Sabrina was dragging two carry-on bags into
her car.
 
She had no idea where she was going, but the spontaneity and mystery made her eyes sparkle with eagerness to
tackle
the open road.
 
Mentally running a checklist, she recalled leaving an enormous basin of water for Softy along with a trough-sized plastic container of dry food.
 
All she needed to do was tell Mrs. Benjamin that she was go
ing away and she could be gone!

Knocking on the woman’s door a hesitantly, hoping that the loquacious lady wouldn’t haul her into a lengthy conversation, she waited no more than an instant before the door swung open
.
There stood
the old wo
man in green sponge curlers and a polka dotted housedress.
 
Was she watching me from outside, waiting to see what I would do next?
 
Sabrina
wondered.
  Sometimes the woman was simply predatory.

“Hello Mrs. Benjamin.
 
How are you?”
 
She said
in a single breath
.
“Fine, dear, just fine…are you taking a little trip?”

“
Yes,” Sabrina replied quickly, “Yes, I
am, and I’d appreciate if you w
ould be so kind as to watch the house like you did when I was in Paris.”

“
Of course, dear.
 
But where are you going this time, Miss Vagabond?”
She pried.

“
Not Paris.”
 
She tried unsuccessfully to hedge the question that had no definitive answer.

But Mrs. Benjamin simply wasn’t having it.
 
“Not Paris, no not with such a scant amount of luggage, but where
are
you going?
 
Someplace local?”

“Yes!”
 
Sabrina responded, quickly concocting an answer.
 
“I’m going to visit my parents in
New York
.”

“
Oh, isn’t that nice?
 
A girl like you should see her parents more often.
 
They must miss you unspeakably!
 
I know that
my
own daughter and my son rarely ever come up to Vermont to see me.
 
Cheryl lives in North Carolina and compla
ins that it’s too far, and Wally
…”
 

Sabrina interrupted Mrs. Benjamin, knowing that this monologue could go on for hours if it weren’t stopped.
 
“You are so right, Mrs. Benjamin.
 
I
should
see my parents more…and I’d like to get there before dark…so bye, and thank you for taking care of the house!
  You’ll have a fruit basket on your doorstep when I return next week!
” Her voice
trailed off as she sprinted to her car, aching to get on the road and away from the staggeringly inquisitive
woman
who s
tared after her
.
 

Sabrina sighed heavily as she plopped down on the driver’s seat, knowing her travels would take her nowhere near
New York
, nowhere near any city.
 
And that was all she knew of her destination
.
 
Without a roadmap
, Sabrina was prepared for a
n
adventure to make her forget the fickle, non-committal man who
possessed her stormy heart.

It was not yet three
o’clock, so Sabrina estimated that she had plenty of time to stop at
the
bank and make a sizable withdrawal.
 
She didn’t like the idea of carrying excessive amo
unts of cash, but she need to
have the money liquid should an emergency arise on the road.
 
After withdrawing
several hundred dollars
from her savings acco
unt,
Sabrina made another quick stop at a convenience store for a bottle of ginger ale, bag of pretzels, and a banana to tide her over until a roadside dinner later on.
 
At the convenience store, she eyed some maps on a rack by the register, but firmly decided against purchasin
g one.
 
No,
she was embarking on a voyage of impulse, one where a road map had no place.

She tried to keep that ideal
firmly in mind as she boarded the vehicle, securing her seat belt in place and affixing her hands in a death grip on the steering wheel, determined to re
claim her independence
, foolishly surrendered to a man who would sooner jump through a hoop of fire than open his heart to a woman.
 
Well, she was through jumping thro
ugh hoops for him
.
 
As Sabrina stared at the dashboard, turning the key in the ignition, she felt the need for some musical companionship.
 
Not on a popular station, though, not where she would risk hearing a love song t
hat would remind her of Gio
.
 
Instead, she set the dial to the classical music channel, instantly relaxing as the wordless notes o
f a sonata filled the air.
 

Sabrina
maneuvered
her car around
one of
the many winding back roads she would encounter before making her way to the Interstate.
 
She almost laughed as she thought that she had no clue which direction on the highway she would t
ake.
 
West? North?
 
East?
She g
i
ggled aloud and felt butterflies rustling in her stomach at her ut
ter aimlessness.
 

When she finally reached the Interstate, she decided upon traveling eastbound.  This route would bring her into New Hampshire, at which point she would change direction to north.  Ultimately, she would reach the state of Maine.  With minimal stops, Sabrina estimated that she could be in Maine before night fell.  Traffic moved steadily along as Sabrina reluctantly switched the radio to a popular station and began to sing along.  She was in the middle of happily belting out the lyrics to a 1970’s disco hit when a huge animal suddenly darted into the road. 

Desperate to avoid a collision, Sabrina wrenched the steering wheel clockwise, guiding her car onto the shoulder of the road.  In order to do this, she had to cross hazardously over two lanes, as drivers behind her honked repeatedly.  Sabrina held her breath as the car slid crookedly onto the shoulder, narrowly missing a downhill entrance to a thickly wooded ravine.  With the emergency brake fully extended, she knew that she was out of immediate danger.

Daring to look over her shoulder, she was thankful to see that the moose had safely reached the other side of the highway and, while the drivers were frazzled by her sudden careening onto the shoulder, she had not caused an accident.  She touched her forehead to the steering wheel, breathing shakily as the realization of what could have just happened flooded her mind.  It was common all over New England for moose and deer to prance into oncoming traffic, but Sabrina had never experienced such a close call.  It was a terrifying episode that made her wary about continuing all the way to Maine.  More wild animals populated the area that she was poised to enter, and the same terror could be waiting for her just a few miles up the road.