Chapter 23
OLI
Ren leaned forward and squinted over the Jeep’s steering wheel. “This is an absolute nightmare.” No matter how high or low the headlights were as he switched between the choices, the snow was nearly blinding us.
“The weather app did call it a bomb cyclone blizzard.” I shivered, even with the heat blasting directly toward me.
The wind was so cold outside, every part of me that hadn’t been covered by my coat during the mad dash to the Jeep had ice needles stabbing it.
“Are the headlights even on anymore?” I was scared because I genuinely couldn’t tell.
“Yeah.”
“Where are the fucking plows?” I grumbled.
It was only a bit after four in the afternoon, but the sky was dark gray already with the swirl of snow and the heavy, low clouds hanging overhead.
Fear made it difficult to breathe as the Jeep slid around on the street, winter tires be damned.
My stomach lurched hard with each wobble toward parked cars or snowbanks.
“Is the four-wheel drive locked in?” I asked, gripping the oh shit handle.
“Yes,” he growled out between clenched teeth.
“Shit.” I wanted to grab his hand, but there was no way I could distract him. “We should’ve stayed at the shop.”
“They said this was going to go on for three days. No fucking way. Are you crazy?” He glanced at me with big eyes.
My stomach dragged along behind the Jeep at his blasé attitude about being out in the storm. “You don’t have a clue how dangerous this is, do you?”
He turned to glare at me and opened his mouth.
Ahead, the soft pink glow of what would normally be red taillights had me clutching the dashboard. “Brake lights! Stop!”
He didn’t even look before he jammed his foot on the brake pedal, which he shouldn’t have done.
Thankfully, he slid around a car literally stuck in the road, but that drove the Jeep’s nose into a deep pile of snow that had been shoved up onto the sidewalk as the plows lost the battle today.
The Jeep stopped abruptly, throwing us against the seat belts, but the airbags didn’t deploy.
It took a few seconds for us to catch our breath.
“God damn it!” Ren swore a blue streak as he tried to reverse the Jeep.
“You’re hung up on the snow. It’s under the car,” I said as he jabbed the gas pedal. “Rock it. You won’t get out that way.”
“Huh?” He stared at me with a tiny furrow between his eyebrows.
I groaned. “You really are a California boy at heart, aren’t you? Let me behind the wheel. Now.”
“Absolutely not!” He snorted, but as he squinted worriedly out the windshield at the snowflakes pelting the glass, it hit me that he was scared, too.
He should be. The last time I’d checked, the windchill blasting off the lake was negative thirty degrees.
We were heading toward frostbite territory fast. We couldn’t walk.
“Either let me do it or listen to me.” I rested my hand on top of his on the shifter.
He shook me off but lightly touched my arm before I could pull back. The scowl he lobbed in my direction was colder than the snow. “Why do you think you can do it and I can’t?”
“Oh, well, gee, maybe the five years of winter driving in New Gothenburg I have under my belt?” I tossed up my hands.
He dropped his forehead against the steering wheel. “KC’s Jeep is probably all scratched to hell.”
“I guarantee that is the least of our worries. Get the emergency lights flashing,” I demanded.
When he didn’t move, only ground his teeth loud enough that they squeaked, I slapped the button for the flashers. “Move.”
“No. Tell me what to do.” He took a deep breath as he sat up and shook out his shoulders.
I explained how to rock the Jeep, and he was even doing it right, but we were really hung up on the snowbank. After ten minutes of swearing, he gave up.
“Stay here. I’m going to make sure the exhaust pipe is clear,” I said, tugging up my scarf.
“What!” He grabbed my arm, and even through my coat, it was a bit rough. “Don’t get out.”
“Oh, so you want to die of carbon monoxide poisoning if snow is around the exhaust?” My tendency to fight with him was rearing its ugly head, but it was making me feel better, so I went with it.
“Nooo.” He made a face.
“Stay here.” To my surprise, he listened as I opened the door and the frigid wind had him swearing again.
The cold air stole my breath and rocked the Jeep from side to side as it snatched the door out of my hand and slammed it closed.
That was one way to do that. I pulled my scarf farther up and my hat down as I made my way to the rear.
The tailpipe was clear because the Jeep was a tall vehicle, but the car we’d narrowly avoided rear-ending was nearby, and the passengers would be in trouble soon.
The roaring wind and snow were so disorienting that they made the ten-foot trip as treacherous as a mile, but I located the car because of the emergency lights.
I used my hands to dig out the tailpipe on the car.
A window cracked on the driver’s side. “Thank you!” a woman called.
I fought the wind toward her. She had a sweet round tan face and her hair was hidden under a beanie.
My stomach dropped to the center of the earth when I spotted two kids in some sort of toddler car seats in the back.
They both wore pink snowsuits so thick they reminded me of marshmallows.
“You’re welcome.”
“The police are on their way here with a vehicle that can handle the roads.” Her sunny smile did nothing to make me feel better because technically KC’s Jeep should’ve been fine on the bad roads. It was just that awful out.
“Great!”
Before I could say anything else, a massive Chevy truck with dual wheels in the rear—also wrapped in chains—came to a stop beside her car.
The extended cab made me grin because we would’ve been in trouble otherwise.
The man driving might’ve been a cop, but I couldn’t tell.
He was dressed for an arctic expedition, complete with ski goggles that he pulled down as he hopped out into the horrible cold.
He was shouting as he came over to us, but I couldn’t hear him until he was right beside me.
“I’m Officer Tuffin! Get the kids in the back. Booster seats and all,” he told me and the woman. “Turn your vehicle off and lock it up.”
“We’re over there,” I said, pointing at our stranded Jeep.
“Same. Off. Locked. You get in the front.” He slapped my shoulder. “Mom, I want you in the back with the kids, please.”
It took me a couple of minutes to get to Ren, tell him the plan, secure the Jeep, and get back to the truck, all while Ren held my hand like he was afraid I would get blown away.
“In front. Squeeze in. The kids have to be secure, but you two just get in there any way you can.” Tuffin slapped our arms, then went back to making sure the woman and her children were okay. In the end, I sat on the floor between Ren’s legs because there was plenty of room there and no more seats.
“You all should’ve never, ever been out in this. If we say the roads are closed, they’re closed,” Tuffin said as soon as he was behind the wheel with his seat belt on.
“I was coming home from work. The daycare was closing. What else was I supposed to do?” The woman sounded irate and I didn’t blame her.
Ren rolled his eyes. “Yes, sir. I guess we should’ve stayed in the tattoo parlor for three days.”
Tuffin shook his head. “People are going to die out here tonight. Make sure you aren’t one of them in the future.”
He was mostly pleasant after that, asking the kids what they’d gotten for Christmas, which they happily gushed about.
Once we made it to their house, it took all the adults twenty minutes to shovel the door open because the snow had blown more than halfway up the door.
It was cold, awful work, and I wasn’t sure I would’ve been able to stand it a minute longer than it took for us to wave goodbye to the woman and her kids as they got safely inside.
When we returned to the truck, I had a seat, and it was a good thing because the truck was getting blown around the road. It was touch and go to our apartment building because the wind was literally creating mounds of snow that the truck had to avoid or risk getting hung up like the Jeep had.
“This is worse than an apocalypse movie,” Ren muttered.
“He’s from California,” I said when Tuffin gave him a strange look.
“Ah.”
We laughed as Ren crossed his arms and huffed.
“I’m going to have to go back to the station,” Tuffin said sadly as he stopped in front of our apartment building.
We could barely see the bottom part right in front of us.
The lights didn’t make a difference. “It’s supposed to get worse as the night goes on.
For your own sake, stay home until they clear the roads, no matter what. ” He shook hands with me, then Ren.
“Thanks.” I hopped out, overwhelmed with joy to be home.
“Yeah, sure,” Ren said. He grabbed my hand as we battled the wind to the front lobby that we normally didn’t use.
As we stepped inside and the wall of heat hit me, I wilted against Ren’s side.
He held me close as we watched snow streak past the glass, creating a whiteout.
The door rattled as the wind slammed against it.
“Wow,” I whispered.
He rubbed my back, and the intense on-edge sensation I’d had from the time the Jeep got stuck until we’d arrived here melted out of me and left me clinging hard to Ren. I yawned.
“Okay. I’m an asshole. I didn’t take the blizzard warning seriously.” Ren dragged me even closer, as if maybe he’d just done the calculations on how close we’d come to being ice cubes.
“It’s a blizzard. You’ve never seen one. It’s difficult to understand if you don’t experience it.”
He grunted, but there was a haunted gleam in his eyes. “We drove past other stuck vehicles with people in them.”
“Yeah.” I buried my face against his coat.
“He said people would die. He’s not going back for them.”
“Mm-hmm.”