Borders of the Heart Read Online Free PDF Page B

when he awakened.
    She watched him drifting as his eyelids fluttered. He wanted to reach out to her, but he couldn’t move. And then he felt a hand on his shoulder.
    “Excuse me,” the doctor said.
    J. D. sat up quickly and wiped at his mouth. “You done already?”
    He shook his head and the ponytail wiggled. “She had a nasty graze wound on her shoulder. A little lower and she’d have a broken clavicle or a punctured lung.”
    “She going to be okay?”
    “She’s very lucky; that’s all I can say.” The man handed him a prescription. “Fill this at the pharmacy. Pick up some clothes, too. Shoes, sweats . . . she can’t wear what she has on.”
    J. D. got a Coke and stood in line at the Walmart pharmacy until a lady who spoke with a German accent took the prescription. She said it would be twenty minutes, so he grabbed some sweatpants, a T-shirt, and sandals that looked like they would fit Maria. He sat on a little metal bench near the pharmacy and watched people walk the aisles looking for Depends and Ensure and diabetic supplies. He noticed a blood pressure device around the corner and put his arm in. His pulse rate was 66. Blood pressure 106 over 70. Not too bad considering his family history and all the Big Carl cheeseburgers he had eaten in Tucson.
    His cell rang. It was Dr. Mercer.
    “A car just pulled up. The girl is scared. You’d better get over here.”
    Maria was talking in the background.
    “Is it Border Patrol?”
    “Don’t ask questions. Come to the back of the building. Hurry.”
    J. D. put his Coke and the clothes on the metal bench and ran to his truck. The store was only a couple of minutes from the doctor’s office, and as soon as he came in sight of the building, he saw a maroon Escalade parked sideways in two handicapped spots near the front. Definitely not Border Patrol.
    The driver’s door was open, and as he drove past, he spotted a computer between the front seats. He continued to the back exit and parked. He tried the door—locked—then peeked in a window, but the shades were drawn.
    The pop-pop of automatic gunfire clenched his stomach. He couldn’t move. Then someone screamed. He pounded on the door and Maria ran out and leaped into his truck.
    J. D. called for the doctor.
    “Get in!” Maria yelled.
    Stunned, he jumped in and gunned the engine, spinning loose gravel and sand. The Escalade was still in front, door open.
    “You speak English?”
    She couldn’t stop shaking.
    “Okay, talk to me. Who was that guy?”
    “He’s a bad man. Sent by another bad man.”
    “Why? What have you done?”
    He turned at the Walmart parking lot, but she waved him toward the road. “No, don’t go here. He’ll find us. Keep driving.”
    Instead of heading to the interstate, he went south on Route 80 and floored it. He guessed his blood pressure had risen. She kept looking back. When J. D. pulled out his phone, she grabbed it.
    “Don’t call the police!”
    “That doctor risked his life to help you. The least you could do is send the police.”
    “No police.”
    He shook his head. What in the world had he gotten himself into?
    They passed houses and pecan trees and several farms, then slowed when they hit St. David. They were almost to Tombstone when he took a right along a little country road he knew intersected with Route 90. Slocum had sold cattle to a man near here and showed J. D. a loop back to the interstate. Then J. D. remembered a checkpoint they’d have to pass through and decided against it.
    “What are you doing?” she said when he turned in the middle of the road.
    He told her about the checkpoint. “You have your papers? A passport?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “No way he’s going to find us out here,” J. D. said. “Now tell me about this guy. Who is he?”
    “He is very bad.”
    “Where’s he from?”
    “He lives in Herida. Where I’m from.”
    “And why would a guy from your town want to kill you?”
    Silence.
    He pulled off the road and