Chapter 3
The snowy track turned out to be a two-lane road deep with snow that came up to the top of the Volvo’s hubcaps. And while I knew the car would make it, the looks Alex was giving me as I trundled along, taking it slow and sensible, were anything but convinced I had any idea what I was doing.
“Chill out,” I said. “I practically drive for a living.”
“What do you do for a living?” asked Alex, but I could tell he didn’t really care about the answer, only that he wanted a distraction. How do I know this? He grabbed the oh-shit handle (Jonah liked to call it the Jesus handle), with a grip so tight, his fingers were white.
Being new me, I had some empathy to spare, so I humored him.
“I lived over a garage in Denver,” I said, keeping my eyes on the snow-piled road, so he wouldn’t think I was taking my eyes off the road and freak out. “We sold spare parts, and I delivered a lot of the times, and drove all over.”
His response was a noncommittal grunt, and I got the feeling he was still coming down from an adrenaline high of almost dying and being rescued by a handsome stranger dressed in black.
“My name is Beck, by the way,” I said, because new me had some manners.
“What kind of name is Beck?” he asked.
I stole a glance at him, thinking for a minute that he was being snarly in mean, and that maybe he’d meant to say something more along the lines of, What kind of fucking name is Beck? But he wasn’t.
By the time we got to Whispering Pines Lodge, I reckoned he’d be back to his old corporate CEO self, and giving orders.
I’d seen a flash of that bossiness right before he’d gotten out of his car.
I’m going to come that way. His tone then had been everything about being in charge in a crisis, and I figured that kind of attitude was tattooed on his skin. Maybe even his very soul.
I almost missed the driveway that led to Whispering Pines Lodge, but a last minute sharp turn got the Volvo onto a mostly plowed drive that led up to what looked like a main lodge.
The building was old, covered in snow, and the supports that held up the front porch looked barely able to hold the weight.
But as I parked the car carefully between a large truck and a Honda CRV and got out, I took a look around as I waited for Alex to get out, too.
The lodge was old, but it was sturdy. The walls were made of logs that looked thick, with a river rock base, all of which looked robust enough to last another hundred years.
As we walked across the scraped-snow parking lot, I could see there were lots of cars. Which meant lots of people were already checked in. Would there be rooms? If there weren’t, Alex and I were going to spend a chilly night in a Volvo that, while comfortable to drive, was not set up to sleep in.
Alex rushed past me to go up onto the porch.
“After you,” I said, not hiding my sarcasm.
He flung open the door, and I followed him into the reception area of the lodge and I might be the least romantic person to ever walk the planet, but right away I could see that the lodge, at least this part of it, was cozy.
There was even a fire in the river rock fireplace, and two young ladies in flannel shirts standing behind the wooden reception desk.
They looked at each other as we approached with expressions that seemed to say Uh oh, be on the alert. But that’s not what they said.
“Welcome, gentlemen,” said one. Her badge said Lisa, and she had long dark hair.
“Lisa,” said Alex in a commanding way as he laid a gold-tipped black credit card down on the glass-topped counter. “We need two rooms. The state trooper said the road is closed and that you might have rooms for us.”
He said all this as if he was quite confident that the state trooper with Christmas lights on his brown trooper hat had actually taken the time to phone ahead for us. In a perfect world, maybe, not this one.
But before I could add anything to this brusque request of Alex’s, Lisa shook her head of dark hair and looked sad.
And, I might add, she did not seem impressed with that black credit card.
The card Royce had given me was also gold-tipped, but it was dark blue, and I was willing to whip it out if Alex’s card was at its limit.
Then we could engage in a little credit car war.
“We only have one room, I’m afraid,” she said. “So, if you don’t mind sharing.”
“Actually, we only have a cabin,” said the other young lady. Her badge said Marge, and she had her hair in a bun. “Number 7. It’s the furthest from the main lodge, but it’s all we have.”
“You’re right,” said Lisa. “It’s got a queen sized bed, and a little fireplace.”
“What about food?” I asked. Now that I was warming up, my hands began to ache a little, and my stomach had become alerted to the fact that someone was roasting something that my nose could not identify, but which smelled very good.
Alex spared me a glare as if I’d been bothering him all day with my food demands and had just gotten on his last nerve.
As Lisa took Alex’s credit card, I realized he’d won the battle of the credit card, but what did I care? The gals gave us two room keys. Real ones, old, brass. Cool, right?
Then Lisa handed Alex a laminated card with directions to Cabin 7. I had to go on my toes to look over Alex’s arm to see any of this.
“The parking lot is paved all the way back,” said Lisa. “And there’s a reserved spot for your car.”
“We’ve got a restaurant and a little convenience store and a small bar, right down that hallway there,” said Margie. “We’re limited on what we have, but we make a mean roast chicken. Can I make a reservation for you two?”
Alex was all over this information, like the corporate Boy Scout he seemed to be. Which left me waiting, holding the car keys while he decided which time we would eat.
When we finally walk out into the cold, trudging back to the car, Alex was reaching into the pocket of his thin city coat. But when he brought out his phone, even from a distance, I could tell the glass was cracked and that the phone would ping no more.
Old me wouldn’t have given a shit, but new me made a sympathetic sound.
“Bummer.” I was pretty sure Alex could afford a new phone every month for the rest of his life, but he looked pretty stricken as he clenched the phone in his hand.
The snow had let up a little by the time we got back into the Volvo. When I started the engine, which purred right to life, he said, “Can I borrow your phone?”
I never loaned anyone my phone, always thinking they would fuck it up, you know? But new me handed it over and watched him enter a number and hold the phone to his ear.
He had nice hands. Recently manicured. His movements were fluid, not that I was staring, but because I was driving and he was on the phone, there was no way that I couldn’t listen in to the call.
I imagined he’d be calling some floozy or other that he had waiting for him in Steamboat, so I was surprised to see his face soften when someone on the other end answered.
It was a short drive to Cabin 7, but it was just the two of us in that car, so I could hear every word.
“Mom, it’s Alex. I’m okay, but I wrecked my rental—”
I could hear the gasp at the other end, and then Alex explained how he’d been rescued, and who I was, blah, blah, blah. Then the conversation turned more informative, at least in a one-sided way.
“Did Lottie bring the baby?”
“Tell Tim he shouldn’t wait to go skiing—”
“Did Dad get my message?”
“All of my presents to you are at the bottom of a lake except for the ones I shipped from —”
There were long pauses between what he was saying and the words he was listening to, and I could just about hear a woman at the other end of the line. Something about Christmas and home and family. And I love you. A lot of I love you.
Then Alex said to me, “You were headed to Steamboat, you said? Mom wants to know which hotel. You told me once, but now it’s slipped my mind.”
“The Anchorage,” I said, not sure what difference it would make for her to know. “Got a soak and stars package or whatever it’s called. First drink’ll be a G&T under the stars.”
Alex passed along the information, paused to listen, and then said, “Yes, I agree. He did save my life, after all.”
With a shake of my head, I parked the car in front of Cabin 7 and watched for a minute as the snow gathered on the windshield once I turned the wipers off.
The little brown cabin in front of the parking spot had snow on its roof, and a mist on the inside of the windows.
The cabin looked old and would probably be a miserable hovel.
We got out and grabbed our stuff, with Alex going ahead to unlock the door. As he pulled it open, he handed me my phone back and said, “Thank you,” as polite as could be, though I could see he was stressed about missing Christmas with his family.
I had sympathy and all, even though Christmas to me was just a holiday to be gotten through. My experience with Christmas was strictly limited to the Mr. Magoo version of a Christmas Carol.
Once inside the cabin, I had to revise my initial thought that the cabin would be old and dumpy. It was not. Half of the walls were painted white, the others were covered with wood paneling painted a soft blue. Ship lap, I think Royce would call it.
There was a faded blue and white rug on the pinewood floorboards. Someone had come by and brought logs and kindling for a fire. The heat was on, too, which made me shiver as I warmed up.
“Why don’t you have gloves?” asked Alex as he prowled around, inspecting the small kitchen off the small living room with its river rock fireplace. As he headed down the short (really just a step or two) hallway to the bathroom and bedroom, I shouted after him, “Why don’t you have boots?”
I plopped myself on the couch in front of the unlit fire, throwing my old green army duffle on the floor. As long as I was warm and there was supposedly food nearby, I could weather any storm.