Chapter 4

“Calm down!” Anya chastised her heart for pounding with macabre anticipation. She was not going to suffocate! The Eisenhower Tunnel loomed ahead, dominated by the majestic snow-blanketed Rocky Mountains. This was the east slope of the Continental Divide. The highest elevation for any highway in the world, and her lungs knew it. She couldn’t imagine how Nikki was breathing with all those cigarettes she had smoked on the way here. Just a mile and a half through the tunnel and she and her four girlfriends would be on the western slope, heading toward their destination, Silverthorne, and an Anti-Valentine’s Day lunch.

Hopefully, the thunderstorm that hung overhead would subside as they rode out of the eleven-thousand feet altitude. Snow had started falling, that was better than a thunderstorm. They should turn back now that the feathery flakes were falling, but Anya was determined to overcome her fears and spend this Valentine’s Day on her Harley rather than alone in her apartment, sulking over the mockery of a day for lovers when she had no one. She just prayed none of them skidded out of control because of her dog-with-a-bone tenacity to spend the day riding.

She glanced at her fellow riders. Especially Christine Parker. Her scooter was highway worthy for speed and distance, although they had to stop for gas more often than the big-girl motorcycles, but Anya worried the Vespa’s tires might not be fit for snow and ice. To be honest, none of the motorcycles were suited for ice. As long as the snow remained fresh and dry, they’d be alright.

Anya looked ahead as if she could see the ominous open maw of the Eisenhower Tunnel, poised to gobble them up as soon as they entered. No! She shook her head. It was safe. Massive concrete and pillars of brick, it looked as if she were about to ride into a building, like a parking building, except, instead of winding around to go up, up, up, she’d steer her Harley forward for a mile and a half.

Should they have taken Loveland Pass, instead? A two-lane highway that took over an hour to traverse. If it was snowing here on 70, surely Highway 6 would be treacherous. But it wasn’t a tunnel under fifteen hundred feet of mountain. Darn Christine and her constant chatter about the history of this area. Anya had enough problems making herself face her claustrophobic fears without knowing the engineers had difficulty figuring out how to keep the mountain from collapsing in on itself when they bore the tunnel.

Anya drew in a deep breath. Making it through this long tunnel was merely practice for making it through life without Gary. The acute pain of his betrayal hurt even a year after the divorce was final. Even with a Master’s Degree in Physical Therapy, she couldn’t mend her coronary fracture with heat-penetrating salves, exercise, or joint adjustments. They didn’t teach this kind of therapy in medical school. So, like she often did at work, she assessed the patient’s needs and devised her own kind of therapy: A day-long motorcycle ride with girlfriends who, in various stages of solitary life, hated Valentine’s Day as much as she did, and everything associated with it.

This was therapy at its finest!

If the snow didn’t put one of them in the hospital.

Nikki smoked a cigarette, the others downed a bottle of water and they were ready for what lay ahead. At least Anya hoped she was ready. If she could keep from freaking out or otherwise embarrassing herself once they entered the tunnel and for just a mile and a half, she’d be alright. Maybe she could talk them into going a different way back, down through Salida. If she could make it through that tunnel once, she’d reward herself by not going through it a second time to get home. Surely she could make Nikki understand.

Nikki was Anya’s longest and dearest friend, whom she had met in college. They both achieved Master’s Degrees. Nikki in Case Working, as a trauma therapist, she had landed a lucrative career although she traveled a hundred-mile radius of Cañon City to meet with her clients, she finally felt fulfilled and contributing to helping people that others had rejected or given up on. Anya always thought it had a lot to do with Nikki’s past.

Married to an alcoholic husband whom she could never reach or help reform. He constantly displayed a complete disregard for her education when he was sober, but when he was intoxicated, he displayed a complete disregard for her, period. It took every ounce of strength Nikki had to admit she could not save this one and to leave the relationship. It left a cold, hard, bitter spot in Nikki’s heart, and Anya knew it would be a cold day in Hades before Nikki trusted any guy ever again.