The exact opposite of me right now.
My shaking hand reaches out and I pull the gear shift back into drive, inching forward.
But that’s not what happens. The car sputters and dies almost immediately and terror spikes through me. I turn the keyagain and again but this time there’s nothing. Just a clicking noise that has tears welling in my eyes again.
Finally, I stop turning the key and sit back, already feeling the cold seeping into my bones and filling the car.
“What’s going on, Mom?” A soft voice from the back seat makes me sit up and straighten my spine.
I can’t fall apart. I’ve got two other people depending on me. Two special little people that don’t need to see their mother losing her mind and weeping like a damsel in distress.
“Right,” I mutter under my breath, pulling out my phone and checking it, heart sinking even lower when I see that I have no bars. This far up the mountain, it’s not that big a shock but still…I had hope.
That hope is sinking like a stone in a lake.
“It’s alright, guys. We just need to wait a little bit. I’m sure help will be by soon.”
“Do a lot of people come this way?” My son always has to ask the practical questions, dammit.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I know some of the people that live up here and they’re always around. We shouldn’t be out here too long.”
I’m lying through my teeth. But what else am I supposed to do?
I can’t tell them that the car won’t start, we’re stuck in the middle of a blizzard on the mountain where I grew up and we’re not going to get help anytime soon.
Unfortunately, I know the truth and we are royally screwed. Merry Christmas to me.
CHAPTER 2
Landon
The truck’s radio cuts in and out as the storm disrupts everything around us. Especially my nerves.
I never have gotten used to these big storms on the mountain. I should have paid more attention to the weather reports but I came up here to tell my buddies from Wildwood Construction good-bye and enjoy the annual Christmas party that Jameson and his wife Fern were throwing.
It was a free-for-all of course. Get all the guys from Wildwood Construction together and everything goes to hell in a hand basket. They can’t help themselves. The practical jokes and snarky comments just keep coming.
They’re great guys, though, and I’m going to miss the hell out of them. But I’m exhausted. I need a new start.
Ever since my Dad got screwed by his business partner in our family business, I’ve been counting the days until I had enough money to start a new life somewhere else and now it’s finally here.
My Dad can’t stand to look at me anyway. I know he’s ashamed that he lost the business and had to sell every damn thing he had just to keep his house, but I don’t blame him for it. He got conned just as much as the rest of us did. I didn’t seeit coming either and I’ve been kicking my ass for the last five months. If I had realized what Mark was doing, I could have stopped it.
But in some weird way it’s a relief for me. I’m sick of living here on the edge of the mountain, in the middle of nowhere and waiting for my life to start. The day to day grind of our lumber business took it out of me and I had nothing to go home to.
No wife, no kids, no happy home that smells like a good, home-cooked meal and a laughing woman wrapping her arms around me and holding me tight when my forty-five year old body feels like it’s been beat to hell and I don’t want to get back up.
Someone that cares that I’m so damn…tired. Emotionally, physically, just wrecked.
But there’s nothing for me here so it’s time for me to get out there and find myself. Find a new career, a new life, and maybe finally find that home that I’ve been longing for since my mom passed away when I was twelve.
Pushing that depressing thought aside, I hit the button on the steering wheel to change the station on the radio, looking for anything but static and the weather in the white-out conditions.
Which is how I almost miss the dark red flash on the side of the road below me.
My hands jerk on the wheel but I slow my breathing and make myself steady again.
I don’t recognize the car that’s floundering in the middle of the road and I have no idea why an out of towner would be out here in this mess but there’s no way that I’d leave a stray dog out in this storm.
