Chapter 17
seventeen
KATIE
Katie’s head was a jumbled mess as she walked out of her parents’ house, leaving Connor behind. She got a text from her dad a couple of hours ago saying that they were going to bed, but if much more snow fell and she wanted help shoveling the driveway so she could get her car out, to just call or knock on their bedroom door. Or to feel free to not deal with the snow at all and just stay the night.
She didn’t knock or call. But when she got outside, she saw that her dad had already shoveled around her car and all the driveway behind it. Several more inches had fallen since he had. She got into her car to find a plate of food with a note from her mom taped to it.
Leftovers! Your car is at least as cold as the fridge, so I figured I’d bring them out so you didn’t forget them.
Maybe she should start wearing a pin to family things that said Just because I’m the youngest doesn’t mean I’m still a kid . She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment as a little voice in her head said, “Your parents would do those things for any of their kids.” She ran her hands over her face, then pulled out of the driveway and started heading toward home. She was just upset because of what happened with Connor.
Why did she have to fall so fully for a guy who had one foot back in Charlotte and the other foot looking for a place away from Denver to land? It had only been eight days since he’d run into her at that department store, yet she already knew him so much better than she’d known any one of her past boyfriends. She already loved him more than any past boyfriend. How much more would she have a month from now, a year from now, if given the chance?
With every previous guy that she dated, there was always a moment when she thought, “Do I want to continue dating him? Or am I ready to move on?” Connor was the only guy who had ever stepped into her life that she’d had thoughts of spending her life with.
She had recently edited the part of his videos when they’d been heading to the community center to judge the gingerbread houses, and the five-year-old boy stopped to ask him questions about hockey. It was one of her favorite clips, and as she re-watched it several times, she realized that somewhere along the way, she had started imagining a life with Connor.
Maybe they’d get married and live near the arena for the first while so he didn’t have far to commute, and she would expand her videography business to Denver. On home game days, he’d go to practice in the mornings while she edited videos, and then, he’d come home in the afternoon for a nap to power up for the game. On days when she didn’t have too many deadlines, she would crawl into bed and snuggle up in the covers with him. And then she would go to his games in the evenings, taking Emmalee with her, and she’d cheer for him until she lost her voice.
And then, after a couple of years, they’d decide that it was time to start a family, and she’d get pregnant. And maybe they’d decide that they wanted to raise their child in a smaller town, and they’d head back to Mountain Springs, and maybe add a couple more kids to the mix. Because he was so great with kids, he would be an amazing dad. They would buy them little hockey uniforms and teach them how to skate so they could experience the sport that their dad loved so much.
It was a life she really thought she’d love. It wasn’t a dream she’d had for long, but it was so vivid and felt so right. And so new. She’d never been able to picture herself having a life with anyone before. Maybe because she’d never met anyone who was so giving and fun and up for anything. Or so thoughtful and helpful and a good cook. Or have a face that she could never tire of staring at.
Her tires slipped a little as she slowed for a stop sign, so she pumped the brakes several times to slow down but didn’t come to a complete stop out of fear of not being able to go again. They slipped at the next turn, too. She might have had a ton of experience driving in snow, but she wasn’t actually sure she’d driven in this deep of snow before. It was slowing her enough that she probably hadn’t gotten over 10 miles per hour since she left.
She turned onto a road where the snow was a little deeper, and she worried that her little car wasn’t going to make it. But she just took it slow and was able to keep moving. She was squinting to try to tell where the edge of the road was since everything was covered in white, then saw a little something that wasn’t white. In fact, it was moving. She squinted a little more, trying to see it through the snow.
It was a dog! He was crouched under a small bush in an area with empty lots and no houses around. The bush had gotten completely covered in snow, leaving only a small window between the snow on the ground and the snow on the bush for him to peek out of. She pulled her car to what she thought was probably the side of the road and put it into park but left the engine running. Then she trudged through the snow to the snow-covered shrub.
The poor little pup was trembling. Maybe from the cold, maybe from being alone in a storm like this. Maybe both. She pushed the snow out of the way and reached in to grab the small dog. “ Shh. Shh ,” she said as she wrapped it in her arms and carried it to her car. “Everything’s going to be okay. Oh, you must be so cold.”
Once back in her car, she blasted the heater, grabbed some of the napkins she kept stashed in her glove box, and dried off the little guy’s fur as best as she could. The longer he was on her lap, getting warmer, the more he stopped trembling. She put him on the passenger’s side floor, then pulled up the plastic wrap from the corner of the plate her mom had made for her, took out a piece of the meat, put the rest of the plate in her back seat, and started tearing the meat into chunks.
The dog devoured it. “Wow, you must’ve been so hungry. Let’s get you someplace warm, and I’ll get you some more food.”
She put her seatbelt on, put her car into drive, and gave it a bit of gas. The tires just spun. Don’t panic . She gave it the tiniest bit of gas, took her foot off the pedal, and then gave it the tiniest bit more. She kept repeating the process, getting the car to gently rock, giving it slightly more gas each time. For a moment, she thought it was going to work. Until the wheels spun again and made her slide a bit.
“It looks like I’m going to have to dig us out. You stay in here and keep warm, okay?”
She popped the trunk of her car and rifled around for anything she could use as a shovel. There wasn’t, but if she wanted to go hammocking or roast some marshmallows, she was set. She did have a blanket, so she got back into the car, made a little nest with it on the passenger’s seat, and put the dog in it. Then she opened the back door, flipped the plate of food upside down onto the plastic wrap, then removed the plate, and wrapped the plastic around the food. A paper plate wasn’t the best shovel ever, but it was better than nothing.
Using the plate was only a little bit helpful. But really, using her foot worked better. She cleared a path around the tires as best as she could, then got in and tried again. It moved an inch or two, then seemed just as stuck.
She just needed to warm up and then she could try again. She pulled the dog onto her lap, and he snuggled right into her, so she grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around them both. Her phone binged with a text, so she picked it up from its spot in front of the gear shift.
Connor: You never texted to let me know you made it home safe. Is everything okay?
She couldn’t say that she got stuck. Not after he warned her about the conditions of the roads and practically begged her not to go. She would get herself free and make it home soon. She looked down at the dog in her lap and the blanket wrapped around them both.
Katie: Sorry! I’m snuggled up all nice and warm.
Connor: So good to hear. Sleep well.
The moment she was warm, she got out and tried to clear away more snow from the front of the car. But it was just falling so fast that it was undoing her work. She cleared the snow from around the exhaust, too. She knew better than to let it get high enough back there to cause problems.
Still, the car wouldn’t move at all.
After blasting the heater for several minutes to warm back up, she got out and cleared away more snow with her feet and her gloved hands. This time when she tried to drive away, the tires just spun from the start until they started to slide, taking her car off the shoulder of the road, and getting it more stuck. She hit the steering wheel with her palms and let out a shout of frustration that scared the dog. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She gathered it into her arms. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
She turned the car off to preserve the gas she had. She would just turn it back on whenever she got too cold. She wrapped the blanket around her again and tucked the dog into her lap. Then she picked up her phone and texted Emmalee.
Katie: Are you awake?
About two seconds later, her phone rang, showing Emmalee’s face. “I am, actually. Can’t sleep. I think it’s leftover from days of trying to wait up for Santa, I guess. Probably because I’m back home in my old room. Why are you awake?”
“My car got stuck in the snow on my way back to our apartment.”
“Oh my gosh! Have you called for help?”
“No. Emergency services already said they can’t help motorists because the conditions are too bad. You know how it is when there’s a big storm here. They’ll slowly get dug out and will eventually get around to everyone who needs help. I just need to wait out the storm.”
“You can’t just wait it out in your car overnight!”
“Sure I can. I had a spare blanket in my trunk. My parents sent me home with leftovers, so it’s not like I’m going to starve.” Even though Emmalee couldn’t see her, she motioned to the food in the back seat and noticed that the dog must’ve gone back for more while she was outside clearing away snow. The plastic was open and the food was spread all over it and her back seat, and the rest of the meat was gone. She gave the dog a scolding look, but she couldn’t really be mad at the cute thing. “And I still have a fourth a tank of gas, so I can turn my car on for heat now and then.”
“Until the snow gets higher than your exhaust pipe and you accidentally carbon monoxide yourself to death.”
“Not going to happen, because I just keep going back there to clear it away. Plus, I have a little dog to keep me company. We’re keeping each other warm.”
“What dog?”
“ The cutest little honey-colored cairn terrier. He was trapped in the snow and freezing, so I helped him.”
“You got stuck in the snow because you were trying to save a dog?”
“Listen, Emmalee. He was so scared and cold that he was trembling!”
“Our apartment doesn’t even allow pets!”
“Oh, he already has an owner. He’s got a collar with one of those tags where there’s a chip and they can scan it to see who the owner is. So I can’t call them to say I have their dog. But Emmalee, he was lost in the snow! He probably belongs to a family with kids. Come morning, they’re going to get a call saying that their dog was found and it’s going to be the best Christmas present ever.
“If I didn’t save him, then they were going to wake up Christmas morning to find out that their dog died. On Christmas Day . They’d be scarred for life. I had to save him. I don’t know what his name is, but I decided to call him Biscuit.”
Emmalee was quiet for a moment, then said, “I probably would’ve done the same.” She paused a moment, then added, “When I said ‘the same,’ I meant rescuing him. I would’ve named him Zamboni.”
“Of course you would have.”
“Okay, then, we need to get both you and Biscuit rescued. Call your parents! They might know someone with a snowmobile or even a Sno-cat.”
“It’s the middle of the night— I’m not going to call them. Especially because I made such a stink about not wanting help.”
“Katie.”
“And if I did, they’d have to call around for help. Again: middle of the night. And not just that, but the middle of the night on Christmas Eve.”
“Then call Connor.”
“When I left, things weren’t exactly going well between us. He told me that he had already asked his agent about putting in a trade request and his agent was just waiting on him to say when.” She rubbed Biscuit’s fur by his ears, and the dog laid his head in her lap, closing his eyes.
Emmalee gasped. “He did not.”
“He did. Here I am, completely falling for him and thinking that he feels the same about me. But if he was considering asking to leave, then he wasn’t. I don’t think he cares about us nearly as much as I thought he did.”
“How is that even possible? The man made bridesmaid bouquets for you! Are you so heartbroken right now?”
“I am. I really thought he was the one.”
“I can’t believe he would just send you out into a storm, though, and not even care.”
“Oh, he cared.” She was getting really cold again, so she turned the car on to let the heater run for a bit and ran the windshield wipers a couple of times so she could see.
There was a slight pause before Emmalee said, “He offered to drive you home or follow you to make sure you made it, but you told him no.”
“Something like that.” It was stupid. She had just been bugged by everyone offering to help with things she could do herself. And then when she found out that Connor wanted to leave, it was just too much, and her agitation made her react in a way that she’d known had been stupid at the time. Still, though, she did it.
“Did he at least ask you to text him when you made it home?”
“Yep. And when I didn’t and he texted to ask if I made it, I told him I was snuggled up all nice and warm.”
“You lied to him?!”
“It wasn’t a lie! I was snuggled up all nice and warm with Biscuit.”
“Did you purposely make him believe something that wasn’t true?”
“Okay, fine, I lied and it was a really stupid choice. Listen, Emmalee. I didn’t call to worry you or make you feel like you needed to solve this. I just called to see if you would commiserate with me. So… commiserate with me?”
There was a long pause. “Emmalee?”
Still nothing, so Katie looked at her phone. The screen was black. She tapped on it a few times, but it still didn’t light up. She pressed the power button, but nothing. She held it down, and the No battery symbol lit up. “No!” How could it have died without her noticing that it was getting low on power? Then she remembered that freezing temperatures drained a phone battery faster.
It was okay. She would just keep getting out every thirty minutes or so to make sure the area behind the exhaust was clear of snow. Then she’d try to wait fifteen minutes between each time she turned the car on to blast the furnace so the gas would last as long as possible. It would be a very long night, but she could get help in the morning.
It turned out that she couldn’t wait fifteen minutes between each time she turned on the car, though. Her boots, socks, the bottom half of her pants, her gloves, and the bottom half of her coat sleeves were so wet from trying to clear the snow, and it made her so cold. Her hood was pretty wet, too.
Why had she not just called Connor while she had the chance?
She shivered as she pulled the blanket tighter, and then she petted Biscuit again. “We’re going to make it through this, little guy. We’ll be okay.” She just needed to keep saying it, and it would be true.