Rosalie was in the kitchen with one of her bright-colored caps covering her hair. This one had snowmen printed on a crimson background. She smiled and pointed to the coffeepot. “Help yourself. There is bacon on the bar, and I’m making oven cinnamon toast. We’ll have a quick bite of something before we go to the café. According to the television weatherman, this freezing rain is supposed to stop by seven o’clock. It’s going to make for a slick pathway from here to the café.”
Scarlett went straight to the coffeepot and filled up a mug. “Your bonnet is appropriate for today, Rosie.”
“Thank you. It seemed like the right one.” She removed a pan of toast from the oven and set it on the stove. “This one is getting faded like all the rest, though. If I had the fabric, I would have dragged out the sewing machine and whipped up a few more while we’ve been stuck in the house. Next time we get to El Paso, I’ll stock up again. I hate going over there to all that hustle and bustle.”
I loaded a plate with four slices of toast and six of bacon and refilled my coffee. I hated to think about leaving the coziness of the trailer or driving in the snow. But if Rosie had cabin fever and wanted to get out, I would gladly take her. “This looks great. Thank you for making breakfast before we go to the café. Rosie, all you have to do is choose a day, and I’ll drive you anywhere you want to go.”
“Thank you,” Rosie said. “I just might take you up on that when the roads clear up.”
I picked up a piece of crispy bacon and bit off the end, glad that she didn’t want to go anywhere that day. “Why do you wear those things instead of a hairnet?”
“Hairnets are for old women,” she answered. “Eat your toast so we can slip and slide out to the café.”
“There will be none of that. If you broke a bone, we would have to close the café permanently,” I said.
“Or else just serve hamburgers and fries. I think I could manage that,” Scarlett said. “But you and I would get tired of the same old thing every day. We could tie a rope to a cookie sheet, use it for a sled, and pull Rosie out to the café.”
“You will not!” she protested. “We’ll go slow and watch our steps. There’s not a cooking pan in this place big enough for my butt anyway.”
“We could wrap you in Bubble Wrap,” I suggested.
“Hush!” she snapped. “Besides, all our big pans are out in the café, so one of you would have to go out there.”
I shoved another bite of bacon into my mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “You scare me, Miz Rosie.”
“I’m glad that I do, but don’t call me that,” she said. “It makes me feel as old as hairnets. I’m just Rosie Smith, a common name that no one even looks at twice.”
I finished off my last piece of toast and looked out the window on my way down the hall. A sliver of light out there on the horizon promised the first sunrise we had seen in three days. What looked like diamond dust sparkled on the snow. Even when I traveled alone, I hadfollowed Frank’s rule of thumb, staying in the eastern part of the States during summer and early fall and slowly making my way west for the winter months. I’d gotten a late start this year because I wanted to sit in on a couple of games up near Niagara Falls.
The mountains of snow heaped up on each side of the pathway Henry had cleared caused me to remember a Sunday school story about how God parted the sea for his children to cross over into the promised land. I hadn’t thought about that story in years, so why was it coming back to me now?
Was the café my promised land?I wondered. Even if Jackson and I were never anything but friends, was this where I was supposed to be for the rest of my life?
“Is there a shovel in the trailer?” I asked without turning around.
“No, but there is one in the storage room,” Scarlett answered.
“Then I’ll go get it and clear the rest of the path for y’all.”
Scarlett handed me the key to the back door. “You really are scared that Rosie will get hurt, aren’t you?”
I removed my coat from the hook, slipped it on, and tucked the key into the pocket. “Don’t come out until I finish.”
Before I got off the bottom porch step, I wished I had been wearing cleats instead of leather-soled cowboy boots. I stepped out onto the ice-covered layer of snow, and my feet went right out from under me. I crashed into the snow on the right side of the path. Nothing but my pride was hurt, but a visual of Mama and me making snow angels in our backyard flashed through my mind. I’d been about six years old in northern Kentucky, and Mama and I had put socks over our shoes and pretended we were ice-skating.
“Step and slide,” I muttered as I got back on my feet. “Or get a good fast start and slide all the way.”
I opted for the latter and made it all the way to the snowdrift in front of the café door before I crashed and burned a second time. I got up and fetched the key from my pocket, but by then my hands were freezing.
Mental note to self: Buy a pair of gloves next time you are in a place where they are sold.
Lady Luck must have decided to go to a warmer place, like Florida or maybe Southern California, because she certainly was not there with me when I dropped the key into a snowdrift. Thank goodness for the layer of ice, because it lay there on the top like a piece of gold. I carefully retrieved it, unlocked the door, and used the door to push back enough to wiggle through and get inside the place.
“Holy hell!” I shivered and shook like a dog coming up out of a lake. “Come to think of it, I could use a little of hell’s heat right now,” I muttered when I was finally inside the warm room. I shot a dirty look toward the ceiling. “Don’t you dare tell Rosie that I swore. I’m trying my damnedest to keep her safe, so that should account for a lot.” I rubbed my hands together to get the circulation going.
The shovel stood over in the corner, and on a shelf next to it was a pair of brown work gloves. “Hot damn! And that’s meant as a wonderful saying, not a dirty phrase.”
I shoved my hands down into the gloves, picked up the shovel, and headed back outside. By the time I’d removed the snow out to the edge of the path and chipped away at the ice, I was panting—and appreciating Ada Lou a whole lot more. The freezing-cold air made my chest hurt, and I was thoroughly convinced that icicles were hanging on my eyelashes when I finished the job.
