Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
I n high school, science had been Gabe’s favorite subject, right up to the time they’d had to dissect frogs. His lab partner, Fiona Abernathy, and he had looked at the pickled frog, its skin wrinkly and its limbs stiff.
“I can’t believe we have to do this,” she’d muttered, squeezing her eyes shut. “I’m a vegetarian.”
“By now, you should have made an incision and pinned back the skin,” the teacher announced.
When Fiona didn’t move to touch the scalpel, Gabe took a deep breath—a bad idea considering all the alcohol fumes around—picked up the knife, and, with a silent apology to the poor frog, slit its belly down the middle. His eyes burned as he made the horizontal cuts that allowed him to pull back its skin to expose its organs and tack it to the tray with pins.
Fiona crowded over his shoulder. “Huh. That’s pretty neat. Move over.”
She went on to become a surgeon.
Trapped inside Cinderella with Sunny, Gabe felt a new kinship with that frog. She’d slit him open and pinned back his top layers, and, like Fiona, she’d poked around inside.
It hadn’t seemed to bother the frog. He was dead. Gabe, very much alive, didn’t care for it.
“Oh, look! They have a Holiday Inn!” Sunny pointed to the lit-up billboard just outside the small Colorado town they were approaching. “I never thought I’d be excited about one of those. You think they have a bar? Or a restaurant?”
He grunted, which was enough for her. She navigated to the motel, which looked newer than the place they’d stayed the night before. Sure enough, it had a crowded bar where a couple of televisions showed a basketball game. Another TV showed a weather report.
They stepped up to the counter. “Checking in?” the clerk asked. He was older than last night’s careless youth, but he kept one eye on the basketball game.
Gabe slid his license and credit card across the counter.
While the clerk typed on his keyboard, Sunny asked, low, “You okay, Gabe?”
“Yeah, just—just tired. How about you? How’s the back?” He didn’t touch her lower back, where it probably hurt. Instead, he laid a hand on her shoulder where it met her neck and kneaded the tight muscles there. Like holding her hand in the car, massaging the soft skin of her neck felt right.
She let out a groan better suited to a bedroom than the lobby of a family motel. “My back’s not bad, but that’s great.”
He rubbed her shoulder until the clerk slid across a paper folio with two card keys inside. Gabe waited for a few seconds.
“Um.” He’d been too busy touching Sunny to tell him what they needed. “We need two rooms, please. You have two rooms, right?” Gabe’s heart slammed against his ribs. He needed quiet. And space. As much as he could get tonight. Sharing a room—he swallowed—with Sunny wouldn’t allow him to stitch his skin back together.
The guy had already turned his attention to the Nuggets game, but he glanced at them. “Sorry, I assumed you…never mind.” He returned to his computer. “Would next door be okay?”
Not really.
“Perfect,” Sunny said. The clerk handed her another card key, and they headed toward the elevator.
Upstairs, Gabe leaned on the door of his room while Sunny inserted her card into her lock. Instead of going inside, she propped the door open with her bag and stepped over to him.
“Want to head down to the bar with me? I smelled food,” she said.
“No, thanks.” Flayed open, he craved touch, tenderness. He’d already gone too far by massaging Sunny’s shoulder. Who knew what he’d do if they spent more time together? Something he’d regret, for sure. “I think I’ll just lie down. It’s been a long day.”
“I could bring something up for you. We could watch the game together.”
Then he remembered all the men in the bar. Would one of them come on to her like that guy at the diner last night? Harass her? “No, I…just let me set my stuff down, and I’ll bring you whatever you want.” He slid his card into the lock.
“Gabe.” She laid her hand on his forearm, over his coat. “You’re tired. I’ll be fine. But thank you for offering. You’re a good man, and I’m glad I know you.”
She rose onto her tiptoes and kissed him. Not on the lips, and not on the cheek, but in that no-man’s-land in between, just at the corner of his mouth. Her lips were soft, and the fragrance of her hair wafted over him. She hadn’t used the shampoo from last night’s motel, the stuff in the dispenser stuck to the shower wall. No, her hair smelled like the time Gabe had gone with his parents to visit the theme parks in Florida during spring break and they’d stopped at an orange grove, the trees heavy with white flowers and a fragrance he could’ve floated on. He hadn’t wanted to get back into the car. And now he wanted to bury his face in Sunny’s golden hair that smelled like Florida sunshine and happiness.
Too soon, she stepped back. She smiled, not the full-blown grin she sometimes flashed that warmed his chest, but a softer, more intimate smile that made her eyes soft as the twilight sky. His body didn’t even know how to react to that one. Well, it did because it was definitely reacting, but clearly its signals had gotten crossed.
She laid her small palm on his chest, right over his heart, and said, “G’night, Gabe. Call me if you change your mind.”
He nodded, not trusting himself not to say that he’d already changed his mind and try to follow her into her room. Instead, he turned the handle and walked into his own room.
Alone.
* * *
The first flakes fell while they ate rubbery scrambled eggs and a melon medley in the hotel’s lounge the next morning.
Sunny, who should’ve known better after spending January in Ohio, jumped up and ran to the window. “It’s snowing!” Gabe scowled at the flakes drifting down and drained his tiny paper cup of coffee. He picked up both of their cups, refilled them at the urn, and carried them back with more containers of vanilla creamer for Sunny.
When she bounced back to the table, he said, “You’ve lived in New York and Ohio. You’ve seen snow before.”
“Oh, I have. But after growing up in southern California, it’s still magical. Every time.”
He picked up their empty plates and set them in the plastic bin. “You won’t think it’s so magical when you’re driving through it.”
“Oh.” She slumped a little before she brightened. “But it’ll be so pretty.”
He snorted.
They retrieved their bags from their rooms and laid the card keys on the check-in desk. A different clerk, a gray-haired woman this time, peered at them. “You’re checking out? Storm’s coming in, you know.”
“Yeah?” Gabe asked. “How bad?”
“Twelve to fifteen inches.”
“Yeesh. Sunny, you sure you want to drive in this? We could stay here today.”
“We have a heated pool with a hot tub,” the clerk said. “Bingo in the bar later.”
Sunny glanced out the window. “It’s not even sticking yet. And it’s February fourth.”
February fourth? Oh. She’d told him she had to be back for her audition by the thirteenth. “You think they could’ve missed the forecast?” Gabe asked the clerk.
She shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time. Still, be careful out there.”
“We’ll take it slow.” Sunny winked at Gabe.
But Sunny’s sassiness was gone an hour later as Cinderella’s wipers struggled to keep up with the swirling snow, and ice crusted the windshield where the wipers didn’t pass. No showtunes filled the car today, only tense silence. Gabe gripped the dash with one hand and the door handle with the other, dreading the curve ahead.
“Take it slow.” His voice was more of a growl than he’d intended.
“Not what I need right now,” she snapped.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “You’ve got this.”
“I bet the interstate’s been plowed,” she muttered.
It probably also had more cars and semis to avoid. On the two-lane highway, they were alone except for an occasional passing pickup truck with studded tires.
When Sunny braked to approach the curve, Gabe felt the car shimmy and slide as the tires slipped on the unplowed highway. In typical front-wheel-drive behavior, the wheels failed to obey Sunny’s frantic yank of the wheel. The guardrail swam up at them through the blowing flakes. Gabe winced and braced himself, but at their creeping speed, Cinderella only tapped the guardrail and came to a rest against it.
Sunny’s erratic breathing ripped through the interior of the car and fogged the driver’s side window. Meanwhile, the wipers scraping against the windshield made the only sound outside. The snow blanketed the world in silent white.
“Think we can wait it out?” Her voice shook.
“Not here.” Life would get much more complicated if another car lost traction at the curve and hit Cinderella.
“Okay. Just—just give me a minute.” She took her trembling hands off the wheel and shoved them under her thighs.
Gabe glanced out the rear window. No headlights, but he probably wouldn’t see them until it was too late. He hit the hazard lights and took a deep breath. “Let me try.”
“Try what?”
“Swap with me,” he said. “I’ve got more experience driving in snow than you do.”
“But you—you don’t drive.”
With more confidence than he felt, Gabe said, “Stay in the car. Slide over the console.” He opened his door and squeezed out between the car and the guardrail. Checking the road once more, he stumbled through the half-packed, half-powder snow to circle the back of the car and wedged himself into the driver’s seat. He shut the door and pushed the seat all the way back.
It wasn’t like he never drove. He’d driven Cinderella after the repairs he’d done to ensure the car was safe. Sure, he’d only circled Beach Island’s empty parking lots, not a snow-covered highway, but after that understeering scare, Sunny wasn’t in any shape to continue.
Gabe backed the car off the rail and put it in drive. Gripping the wheel so she wouldn’t see the tremor in his hands, he eased onto the accelerator and continued down the road.
Snow obscured the pavement ahead, and Gabe kept Cinderella to a crawl. He heard every scrape of the wiper blades and crunch of the new all-weather tires in the snow. It was nothing like the coaster’s clacking rush on that clear-sky morning. Plus, he wasn’t alone. Sunny was beside him, her tense breath fogging the window on her side. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her.
After twenty minutes, buildings appeared through the flying snow. Sunny let out a shuddering breath. “Think they’ll have a motel?”
Gabe pointed at the neon-lit sign. The E was dark, but it was clear, even through the heavy snow: MOTEL. He steered to the entrance on the left, bumping over the ruts in the snow. The low-slung, one-story building featured a long row of exterior doors in a single wing off the lobby entrance. A line of snow-covered cars sat in front. It wasn’t nearly as nice as the Holiday Inn they’d left that morning. He’d bet they didn’t have a heated pool. Bingo was a stretch.
He eased the car to a stop in front of the lobby door. “Wait here. I’ll check if they have rooms.”
“What if they don’t?” Sunny asked. No grin, not even the hint of a smile cracked her pale face.
“I’ll ask if there’s a diner in town where we can sit and wait out the storm.”
“Okay.” She sounded just as unenthusiastic as Gabe felt about getting back onto the road.
The wind blew him into the lobby, where he stamped the snow from his shoes onto the mat.
“Pretty bad out there, huh?” said a white-haired man at the counter. He turned down the radio, which sounded like a sermon from the speaker’s cadence. Which was odd, since it was Tuesday.
“Yeah. Got a couple of rooms?” Gabe approached the desk.
“Just one.”
“One?” Gabe’s voice rose, betraying his panic.
“Yep. We’re not usually full this early in the day, but we’re the only motel in town. Not many folks braving the roads.” A ring flashed on his finger. Gold, with a cross cut out.
“Anyone else around here rent out rooms? An Airbnb?” Gabe asked.
The man shrugged. “Not that I know of. Not much need.”
“Is there a restaurant in town?” They could wait it out with coffee and pie.
“Sure. There’s a diner a little ways down the road. Not sure if it’s open today with the storm, but there’s a convenience store next door with gas and candy and whatnot.” He lowered his bushy white eyebrows. “So, you want that room?”
“Double beds?” Gabe asked.
“Just one bed. It’s a king, though. Should fit even a big guy like you. You alone?”
“Um.” What was the best answer? Yes, clearly, but what if the man saw Sunny? Would he care? Gabe thought Colorado was pretty liberal. At least, compared to Ohio. But looming behind the man was Jesus. Painted life-size and floating above the rocky ground, eyes rolled up toward heaven, palms facing out, Jesus seemed to say, Gabe, it’s snowing. Why take the chance?
Gabe opened his mouth to say, Yes, completely alone, when the door opened and Sunny breezed in on a gust of cold, snowy air. God dammit.