“And?”
She turned to stare at me, her green eyes wide with disbelief. “And you just… threw it away? Like garbage?”
I shrugged. “I paid for it. I can do whatever I want with it.”
“This issonot the spirit of Christmas,” she said, shaking her head like I’d just confessed to some kind of holiday heresy.
“The spirit of Christmas is intangible,” I pointed out. “How would you know what my Christmas spirit looks like?”
She opened her mouth to respond, then seemed to think better of it. “I’m not sure I want to know.”
“Maybe I enjoy abandoning Christmas trees on the side of the road,” I added, mostly just to see how she’d react. “Maybe that’s my version of holiday tradition.”
She rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath that I couldn’t quite catch. Then she grabbed the jumper cables and popped the hood of her truck.
“Let’s just get your car started so you can go back to wherever you came from,” she said, her tone noticeably cooler than it had been before.
The jump itself went smoothly enough. Her ancient truck might have looked like it was one breakdown away from the scrapyard, but apparently it had enough life left in it to resurrectmy dead battery. The engine turned over on the first try, purring back to life like nothing had ever been wrong.
“Thanks,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck.
“Don’t mention it,” she replied, already coiling up the jumper cables.
“I might have left the door open while I untied the tree.”
She shook her head as she headed back to her truck. “Sounds like your Christmas tradition came back to bite you in the butt.”
Speaking of butts, I couldn’t help but notice hers as she walked away. The woman had wide hips a man could grab a hold of, really get some leverage while he filled her with Christmas cheer.
Fuck the rental. She hadmyengine revving like a racecar at the starting line.
I banished the thoughts and got back into my car, ready to finally escape this winter wonderland and find somewhere civilized to spend the night. But when I tried to back up, the wheels just spun uselessly in the snow.
I tried rocking the car back and forth, gunning the engine in reverse and then forward, but all I managed to do was dig myself in deeper. The rear wheels were completely buried now, and from the sound of things, they weren’t going anywhere without serious help.
Sylvie appeared at my window, which I rolled down, looking like she was trying very hard not to laugh. “Looks like that tradition of yours has been nothing but trouble.”
“I don’t suppose you get a cell signal out here?” I asked bitterly.
“Nope. And a tow truck will take hours to get out here.” Sylvie looked up at the sky. “It’s going to snow. You won’t be getting out of here anytime soon. You should come back to the lodge for the night.”
The suggestion made perfect sense, but it also felt like admitting defeat. I’d spent the better part of an hour trying to escape this place, and now I was going to end up staying here anyway.
I couldn’t see any other option though.
“Fine.” I closed the window, got out, and grabbed my overnight bag from the trunk. I started toward her truck, but she held up a hand to stop me.
“You can get in when you get that tree out of the ditch and into the truck bed.”
I stared at her. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. You want my help, you better treat that tree with some respect.”
“Fuck my life,” I muttered under my breath.
I tossed my bag in the truck and climbed down into the ditch. Getting it loaded in the back of her truck was going to be cold, wet, miserable work.
But I was stuck, literally and figuratively, and she was my only option if I didn’t want to freeze to death out in the woods.
