Doesn’t matter. Tessa’s out there.
We push into the storm.
Chapter 9
Tessa
I’ve been sitting in this car for fifty-three minutes.
I know because I’ve been watching the clock on my dashboard, the green numbers ticking by while I try to figure out how to fix this myself.
The meeting ran late. Of course it did. The caterer had “concerns” about the appetizer selection, and then the venue coordinator wanted to discuss backup plans for the backup plans, and by the time I finally escaped it was already getting dark and the snow was starting to fall.
I told myself it would be fine. Forty minutes. I’ve driven these mountain roads a hundred times. I know every curve, every dip, every stretch where the snow drifts pile up.
What I didn’t account for was a freak storm coming out of nowhere. No warning. No forecast. Just clear skies one minute and whiteout conditions the next. Because of course. Because the universe saw Tessa Lang having a productive day and said absolutely not.
The slide happened fast. One second I was creeping along Ridge Road, squinting through the white, and the next my back end was swinging out and the world was tilting sideways and I was crunching into a snow bank hard enough to rattle my teeth.
Idiot. You’re an idiot. You should have left earlier. You should have checked the weather twice. You should have?—
The engine’s still running. The heater’s still blowing. Small mercies.
But the car won’t move. I’ve tried reverse. I’ve tried drive. I’ve tried rocking back and forth the way my foster dad taught me when I was sixteen and got stuck in a parking lot after my first winter storm.
Nothing.
So I did what any reasonable person would do.
I got out and tried to dig.
With my hands. In a blizzard. Because I’m Tessa Lang and I don’t need anyone’s help and I’m apparently also a complete moron.
That lasted about ten minutes before my fingers went numb and I couldn’t feel my face and I had to admit that maybe, possibly, I was in over my head.
Now I’m back in the car, heater cranked, fingers burning as they thaw, and I’m furious. At the storm. At the meeting that ran late. At myself for not leaving sooner, for not being more prepared, for being stuck in this stupid situation in the first place.
Fifty-four minutes.
I pick up my phone for the dozenth time. One bar. Maybe.
I tried calling Maeve twenty minutes ago. Couldn’t get through. Tried Sadie. Same thing. The cell towers must be overloaded, everyone in town trying to check on everyone else.
There’s one person I haven’t tried.
Ben Wilson.
My thumb hovers over his contact. I’ve called this number so many times in the past few weeks, always about the auction, always getting his voicemail or a joke and a quick escape.
He’s probably not even home. Probably at his parents’ place, or the bar, or anywhere but near his phone.
And even if he answers, what am I supposed to say? “Hi, Ben, it’s the woman who’s been hounding you for weeks. I’m stuck in a snowbank like an idiot and I need you to rescue me. Please ignore the fact that I can’t even drive home without screwing it up.”
No. Absolutely not. I’ll figure this out myself.
I shove the phone back on the passenger seat and stare at the white wall outside my windshield.
Fifty-six minutes.
