The Virgin of Small Plains Read Online Free PDF

“Shhh. Go back to sleep.”
    “Is somebody having a baby? There hasn’t been a car wreck, has there?”
    He didn’t even bother to turn around to shush her, but just kept on going.
    Abby retreated to her bed. At least she had tried to warn Mitch. He
had
to have heard her!
    Holding her breath in suspense, Abby squeezed her eyes shut and prayed,
Please
!
    When she saw light through her closed eyes, she opened them. But then, when she realized it was headlights coming up their driveway, she knew they’d lost their chance. The only good news was that she wasn’t also hearing anything to indicate that Mitch had been caught by her dad. He must be hiding in the house. Or maybe he was already running home.
    Oh, no! Through the snowstorm, without his shoes or coat…
    Abby turned her face toward the ceiling, feeling horrible. She felt disappointed, mad, sad, scared, nervous, worried about Mitch, guilty, every bad feeling she could possibly have. Why did love have to be so
difficult
?

    Mitch dived into the dark medical supply closet seconds before Abby’s dad pushed open the door from the kitchen. Light from approaching headlights flooded the dark rooms as somebody drove up to the entrance to the doctor’s office. For several moments, Mitch stood frozen in the dark, trying to catch his breath without anybody hearing him gulp it into his lungs. Abby’s voice, calling “Dad!” had scared the hell out of him. Now, he cringed at the sight of the long sliver of light that came in at the edge of the supply closet door. He hadn’t dared to close it all the way, since that might make noise. Would Doc notice it was ajar?
    Oh, God, he thought, what if Doc had to get something in the supply closet?
    Desperately, he stared around, but saw only open shelves, including the one with the box of condom packets. They looked like a bad joke now.
Ha ha. Not tonight, sucker.
    Mitch’s heart pounded so hard in his ears that he felt deaf. As through a percussive din, he heard doors slam outside, then the outside door to the office opened, and then he heard the voices of men. With a shock that felt like a kick to his stomach, he recognized them.
Jesus H. Christ,
it was Rex’s dad and Patrick.
Oh, great!
Was his own dad coming next?
    Feeling as if he had little left to lose, since they were bound to catch him, Mitch inched closer to the crack of light. He might as well take a look. But what he saw shocked him more than his own predicament did: Preceded by Doc Reynolds, Rex’s dad and brother were carrying a naked girl down the hallway, coming right toward him.
    Doc stopped in front of the supply closet door and then flung open the door of the examining room opposite it.
    “Put her in here,” he told them.
    The father and son turned into the first examining room.
    As they did, they turned their burden so that her long hair hung down over their arms, and her face was revealed to Mitch.
    His breath caught in his throat, and he thought,
My God, she’s dead!
    Instinctively, he stepped back to get away from what he was seeing, but he could still see her. Her eyes open, she seemed to stare right at Mitch for an instant before they moved her face from his line of vision.
    And then, belatedly, a jolt went through him, and he thought,
I know her.
    Through the blood pounding in his ears, he heard Quentin Reynolds say, “Lay her down on the floor, Nathan.”
    “The floor, Quentin?”
    Rex’s dad sounded angry, aggressive, but then, he almost always did.
    “You’ve got to put her someplace,” Abby’s dad said with a kind of heavy patience. “Lay her down.”
    “Why not on the examining table?”
    “Put her on the goddamned floor, Nathan!”
    In the supply closet, Mitch’s whole body jerked in surprise at the doctor’s tone. He had never,
never
heard Abby’s dad curse, or even talk like that to anybody.
    “Keep your shirt on, Quentin,” Nathan Shellenberger said.
    There was a pause, and then Mitch heard Doc say, “Patrick, go wait in the