Chapter 30

© Copyright 2013 by Elizabeth Delayne



Maybe he’d stayed with Jamie later than planned. Maybe it was a little irresponsible on his part, but it had been hard, really hard, to walk away from her and the privacy they had been granted. He’d seen something in her, felt something with her, that was so much open and deeper than he’d felt before.

Cameras on, he thought, more aware than ever of the cameras around him.

“There you are,” Thessa jumped up as he climbed aboard the RV. “How’s Jamie?”

“Fine,” he said, and noted the impatience in her eyes and struggled with his own. He knew he was late. “She’s fine. Sorry I’m late.”

Words, he knew, that would be caught on film.

“Its okay.” Felcity held a paper him. “Our directions.”

He took them and tried to wrap his head around the mission--around something that should be easy at this point to take in and move on.

Head North.

“That’s it?”

Felicity shrugged and gestured toward the driver. “Bob wants to know which road.”

Head North.

“Are these the only directions we received?” Tyler asked.

“Came in when we got on the bus about thirty minutes ago,” George confirmed.

Tyler roughly rubbed his face. He’d put the competition out of his mind to focus on Jamie. It was time to get his head back in the game. “Ah ... The question is ... did we miss a message before that? Where’s the laptop?”

For a moment they stopped, then looked around. They’d been stationary for so long and living in a hotel. Their only time on the RV had been short trips. Even he hadn’t been checking online.

George found it under a stack of newspapers. Tyler sat down with it and logged on. He felt the crunch of time passing.

His own fault, he reminded himself. Even now he felt off kilter, distracted.

Focus. This time it was more than an order. It was a prayer. Help me focus. Help me let You be there for Jamie, trust You for the future.

As the screen came up, he rubbed his face again and sighed.

“Power’s down,” he muttered as the show’s app started to load. “Where’s the power cord?”

Someone found it. He couldn’t have said who. As he watched the app appear, felt the camera on him from the front and back, the laptop was shifted, and plugged in.

It was like riding a bike, he told himself. They would find their grove again, even dealing with the loss of Jamie’s presence. She was part of their team.

And that’s what it was. He missed her, even though he’d just been with her.

He said another prayer, this time for the team and their unity. The screen flashed with the show’s logo and he manovered the touchscreen’s mouse toward the flashing envelope. “Here we go.”

“Go where??” Thessa crossed over to sit in the chair beside him.

He angled the computer in her direction. “A list directions, in no order. The first one we have to figure out is one that’s heading north that fits in with us.”

Cameron walked over, looked down at the list. “Well, that’s easy.”

He pointed out the window at the interstate sign.

“I 35, 65,” Thessa read.

Tyler frowned. It was never that easy.

“Hey, Bob,” Cameron headed to the front of the R.V. Within minutes, it roared to life and they were on the road.

“We wondered if there was something we were missing,” George said, taking the seat across from Tyler. “Besides you and Jamie, of course.”

“I’m sorry, man. I wasn’t paying attention to the time.”

George held up his hands. “It wasn’t a dig. Privacy is a precious thing. We live in a culture that’s isolating itself with smart phones and apps, and honestly maybe that’s a lesson we all need to learn. To protect our privacy on one hand, and our relationships on the other.” He leaned back and looked thoughtful. “Seems like you did what was important.”

Maybe, Tyler thought as they head north, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a consequence.

Tessa frowned as she turned the laptop and began a series of sesinct moves from typing to clicking. Tyler watched the measured movement of her hands even as he remembered mistakes that had been made in the past.

Felicity sat down next to Tessa. “What are you doing?”

“Pulling up maps, trying to match these directions. Looks like we only have 65 miles to figure out the next directions. I 65 isn’t going to intersect.”

“Sixty-five?” Felicty asked when Tessa pulled up the original directions. “Or ... One-sixty-five. I think that’s a one. Let me see.”

Tyler watched as they both leaned over the laptop. Tessa pulled out a notepad and began taking notes.

“So how’s Jamie?” George asked.

“Fine,” Tyler said. “She’s staying back to go to the funeral.”

“We heard you had lunch with her mama,” Felicity said, her brows raised.

“Something like that.”

“Meeting the parents,” Cameron crooned. “Moving into serious territory.”

“If only Jamie would take him seriously,” Thessa murmured, her fingers gliding over the keyboard now. “Her mother came by and introduced herself to me and Felicity, too. She didn’t take us to lunch.”

“Technically, the network took us both to lunch,” Tyler said, “but ... for what it’s worth ...”

“Yeah?” Felicity asked.

“It was a good lunch.”

“Come on, you’ve got to give us more than that.”

“No...” he grinned and glanced at George just in time to see the older man chuckle. Privacy, he thought, and understood a little more why Jamie struggled with it. “No, I don’t.”




“Have I said how guilty this makes me feel?” Jamie said as she lay back under the soothing hands as a facial mask was massaged in.

“Felicity and Thessa are the ones who recommended this to me,” Rebecca murmured from beneath her own face mask. “They had it done themselves, filmed and everything for the show. They thought you could have used the treatment, too.”

“Are you kidding? Massage, manicure, pedicure ... the works.”

“Don’t forget the sauna.”

“Who can? I could have used this years ago.”

“We should grab your sister when this is all over,” Rebecca said, “have ourselves a girl’s weekend at a spa somewhere.”

“Mmm.”

“That is ... if you and Tyler can separate yourselves from each other.”

“I think we’re separating ourselves fine now.”

“Hmm,” Rebecca murmured. “Felicity and Thessa said something about coffee dates?”

“We’re the first ones up and out in the morning, and standing around in the parking lot with our mike packs on and camera filming from the RV is not really a date,” Jamie replied. “Besides ... I enjoy his company.”

“He gets you.”

“I suppose he does,” Jamie closed her eyes, listened to the soothing music, “I told Felicity she could hang out with our family when this was all over. She recently lost her mom. I told her you were the best I knew.”

“Well ... that, I can concur with.”




“Tyler, maybe we should stop and look this over more first. Make sure we know what the steps are”

Tyler ran a finger down the notes Thessa was making. “What have you found?”

“I think there may be some detractors in here. Two of these interstates mentioned are way off course. California ... and interstate one. That’s far east coast.”

He ran a finger down her hand written notes. He sighed. He known it was too easy, as he’d known he was too distracted. “Then we stop, evaluate before we move on.”

“Won’t that put us behind?” George asked.

“Not if it stops us from going in the wrong direction. Besides, sometimes it’s only a race to the people on television,” he got out of his seat, headed to the front and told Bob to find a place to stop. “Unless it means we’re really running late.”

“Yeah, but we could lose starting privliges or immunity or whatever it is that getting their first means.”

“Maybe,” Tyler acknoledged Cameron’s point. “It depends on where the other team is and where they started. It depends on what kind of challenge they were given in getting there.”

“Besides, our next destination is a service project,” Thessa pointed out.

“The service projects have a beginning and ending time,” Felicity worried over the corner of the notes. “You miss them, you miss your clue.”

“You mean we could already be going the wrong way?” Cameron looked at his watch. “A whole hour and a half in the wrong direction.”

Clearly upset with himself he pushed out of his chair and headed back to the bunks. Felicity watched him go.



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