A Cliché Christmas(35)

Neither was he.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity being stuck on the teacup ride at the state fair, we both came to a stop.

We lay on our backs panting as the world spun above us. Weston crawled toward me slowly. He looked as dizzy as I felt.

When he was next to me, his heavy, snow-encrusted arm snaked its way across my midsection.

“Did I win?” he asked, breathlessly.

I closed my eyes, smiling as I tried to control my vertigo.

“I think so.”

“Yeah?” he whispered. “What did I win?”

My heart. “I’m not sure you’re ready to hear it yet.”

Weston’s laugh was winded. “Touché. You’ve always had such a smart little mouth on you, Georgia.”

“Yes, but you like it.”

“Mmm. That I do,” he said. “That I do.”

When his mouth crashed onto mine, I knew his goal: to show me just how much he liked it. Unfortunately, our make-out session lasted only as long as it took for the snow in our coats, pants, and boots to start to melt, which wasn’t long at all. It turns out that when one rolls down a giant hill of snow, one takes in quite a bit of the stuff.

“Come on, Miss Mistletoe.” Weston reached a hand down to me as he stood. “We need to get back to town.”

Wet, cold, and completely exhausted, we made it to the bottom of the hill, my smile never fading.

And just maybe it never would.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN

To my utter amazement, the storm came early.

Weston rarely showed signs of nervousness, especially behind the wheel. But when he slowed to a crawl around a tight bend in the road, I could feel the stress radiating from him. A focused silence replaced our banter and jokes. Though it wasn’t even four in the afternoon, the sky was an opaque gray mass. The snow was so thick that even the brake lights in front of us were no longer visible.

And we still had twenty miles to go.

Even with chains and Weston’s superior driving skills, navigation proved difficult. I prayed we’d make it home before dark.

Suddenly, Weston jerked the truck to the right, narrowly missing a car that was stopped in the middle of the road. “What the—”

He maneuvered the truck over to the narrow shoulder on the right.

“Stay here. I need to figure out what’s going on. Might be a stalled car.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, you won’t. Stay here, Georgia. The hazard lights are on, and you’re more visible here than you are walking around outside or standing behind that car waiting for someone to plow into us.”

Though I didn’t want to be left alone, I conceded. His look certainly didn’t say, “Let’s negotiate on this one.”

As Weston blurred into the ominous wall of snow, I slipped my cell phone out of my satchel to call Nan.

No signal. Urgh!

I counted the seconds until the windshield was completely covered with snow, a solid screen of white. Fourteen seconds. I flicked the wipers on to clear it away. And then I started counting again.

Eleven minutes passed before Weston returned, the tip of his nose rosy from the cold.

He slammed the door. “Bad news.”

“What?”

“It’s not a stalled car. It’s an entire lineup of cars. I talked to a driver a ways up—before he lost reception, he got a text saying there was a major accident near the exit for Lenox. Do you have coverage?”

I shook my head. “No, I already tried.”

Weston exhaled and rubbed his temples. “I’m sorry about this, Georgia.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s weather—it’s fickle.”

“Yeah, but I knew it was coming. It’s probably going to be a few hours until we can make it home at this point. I haven’t seen any plows out yet.”

I watched the blades of the wipers as they scraped against the windshield.

“If there was a closer exit, I’d pull off, but you know as well as I do, there’s nothing. I’m guessing they’ll close the pass to oncoming traffic if they haven’t already. When this all freezes tonight, it’s gonna be a huge mess.”

I bit the corner of my lip.

“You thinking about Nan?”

“Yeah, I’ve just always hated the idea of her being alone during winter storms.”

Weston’s chuckle rumbled low, blending with the muted sound of the engine. “That town treats Nan like a queen. She’s far from alone, I can assure you of that.”

He was right. Most likely, her phone was already ringing with neighbors checking up on her to make sure she’d stocked up on supplies.

I reached behind my seat. “Well, it’s a good thing I snatched this giant container of Nan’s cookies from the counter before we left.”

Weston pulled onto the road again, keeping his hazard lights on. “Yeah, those might end up being dinner and breakfast.”

My laugh faded the second I realized he could be right.



An hour and a half and approximately two car-lengths later, our hope to make it home before the sky completely blackened vanished as frigid wind gusts continued to pummel Weston’s truck.

The only contrast to the darkness that enveloped us was the falling snowflakes caught in the glow of the headlights.