Snow Jam (2 page)

"Thanks," I said. "Just thinking. I'm supposed to be in Hanlin by tomorrow afternoon."

He glanced at the sky, either asking for divine patience or assessing the weather. "You should be able to do that. Forecast says it will be cloudy tonight, so warmer than it is now, and the snow's supposed to stop by midnight. Tomorrow should be mostly sunny and warmer. Nothing's gonna stick for long."

He looked away from the sky at me. I must have had my mouth open, staring. I closed it, then said, "What are you, a weatherman?" Not the best way to get myself rescued, and not the proper appreciation, but still.

"Interested spectator. Can I carry that?" He was gesturing to my carry-on.

"Thanks." I scanned the trunk one last time. Empty. Time to go. Now that I was being rescued, the trapped feeling I'd had in the snow should have vanished. It hadn't, though. Now I just felt trapped because I couldn't go wherever I was going under my own steam.

I have a lot of rules. Some of them even wear me out.

"Where are we going?" I asked as we walked back to his waiting Jeep. They're not the warmest things in the world in winter, but he had the heater cranked and once I stepped inside it felt like heaven. "I have to be in Hanlin tomorrow for a job interview. If you really think the roads will be clear by then
–
"

"What am I, a weatherman?" he asked, smirking.

I blinked. Whatever. "Or you can drop me at a motel. Or
–
any chance you were on your way to Hanlin?"

He gave me an unbelieving stare. "Are you asking me to drive you to Hanlin, your highness?"

I didn't think my question deserved that. "I'm asking you if there's a chance you were already headed that way. You'll recall I suggested dropping me at a convenient motel and
–
what the hell are you doing?"

"Getting us out of here," he said. He'd just started up across the snow bank on the side of the road. He was going to get us stuck. He was going to get us stuck and someone would have to come rescue the rescuer and it was getting later and darker and colder and I wasn't able to come and go by my own will and...

"And in answer to your other question," he said. "You'd suggested dropping you at a motel. You didn't mention anything about whether or not it was convenient."

Mental text:
Sunny
–
I'm rescued, but who's going to rescue me from this jerk?

"Do you always argue this much?" I asked. "I know you're doing me a favor, but I didn't ask for it and you didn't have to."

He grinned. It made me want to slap him. There was a hint of the kind of guy who watches you walk by on the street and doesn't catcall, doesn't do anything, but his grin is disconcerting and all at once you feel
–

Kind of like taking him home and taking him to bed. Which really makes him all the more obnoxious because who wants to feel that way over someone who argues all the time?

"It's still your favor," he was finishing up.

The Jeep whined and climbed over the snow. Less four-wheel drive, more four-legged beast.

I sighed. "I appreciate it." I meant it. I might not be making progress under my own power, but at least it was progress. Tomorrow I'd come back in the morning and get the rental. I'd call the agency to let them know where it was and what I was doing. Then if they'd magically moved it, I'd know, and I could make other arrangements to get to Hanlin. I really wanted that job.

That thought made my fingers tighten on the bag I held. The one with my laptop and my resume and a lot of hope tied up inside it.

"And in answer to your other question," Rick continued, squinting at the road, which the way we were doing it was all shoulder, snow and the tops of road markers flashing by on the left side of the vehicle rather than the right. "We're heading to my cabin."

Heart pounding. Stalker alert. I don't
care
that Sunny knows him. "Excuse me?"

He glanced my way. "Oh, relax, princess. It's a perfectly respectable cabin in a circle of such, with outdoor winter sports enthusiasts in it. One bed, one futon in the living room. Small, but warm and dry. We need somewhere to spend the night if I'm going to squire you back to your carriage tomorrow."

Seriously, he might be the hottest guy I'd ever thoroughly disliked. I took stock again. Golden hair, no other way to describe it. Very young Redford looks, the great jaw, the eyes that looked like they were used to squinting into sunlight while he did improbable things like shoeing horses and rescuing snow-stranded motorists. His hair curled down into the scarf he wore, which looked like something someone had knitted him. Idiotic to feel a stab of something then. Jealousy? Because seriously, he wasn't my type. I like city guys who aren't going to drag me off into the wilderness for exactly this kind of snowbound adventure.

If he'd been anyone else, I'd have asked.
Does this seem like fun to you? It doesn't scare you? What if you can't leave the minute you want to? What if you get stuck and have to call for help? What about it is fun?

Which isn't to say there aren't things I like to do that are hard. Just they seem to have a point. Like doing a long, very hard Pilates class or a long, very hot yoga class. Those things have a point: they make me better. I've never been the type who would climb Everest because it's there. Lots of things are there. Doesn't mean I want them. Which means no four-wheeling because if I'm out in a vehicle, I want to be going somewhere.

I was so wrapped up in my own internal logic and the questions I wasn't going to ask him, I nearly screamed when he said something suddenly.

"What?"

The look he gave me this time was amused and confused. "Are you all right? Am I scaring you that badly?"

"You're not scaring me," I snapped, and jerked the bag in my lap higher and tighter, up against my chest with both hands. Not what I wanted to do. Not what I could stop myself from doing.

He looked from the bag to me to back at the road. "Right," he said. "Anyway, we should be there in about two minutes."

We'd gone hardly anywhere. That was good, though. Because I'd need to get back to my car the earlier the better tomorrow.

I tried again. "If you're not going to Hanlin, any chance you could drop me back at my car tomorrow? Or is there a cab I could call?"

This time he looked at me like I was crazy. "Kind of out in the middle of nowhere for a cab, pri
—
"

"Don't call me princess," I said angrily. "I didn't ask for any of this, including you." I tried to stare straight ahead through the windshield at the blizzarding white we were driving into but I couldn't help taking a sidelong look at him.

He was grinning again. It seemed to be his default setting. But he looked
–
impressed. Fine, if that's what it took, I'd be happy to go on snarling at him.

We drove on into the storm up what turned out to be a driveway.

The driveway to Rick's cabin was long. Some would call it a private road. It made me feel like screaming. Claustrophobia takes more than one form. Definitely it can take traditional forms
–
fear of small, closed in spaces. But it can also be the fear of being held too long or too tightly by over zealous huggers. It can be the fear of being in a meeting in a professional situation and finding yourself hemmed in by latecomers who surround the conference table and you, so that you can't just pick up and move out if the need arises, but must come up with an excuse or tell the truth
–
there's just too many of you, and you're all freaking me out. Claustrophobia can be getting stuck in the snow and having to stay in your car because there's nowhere else to go.

Or driving up a tree-lined dirt road from the feel of it, while walls of white stuff seal you off from everywhere else in the world.

And I was leaving Vegas because?

Oh, right, because I didn't have a job there anymore and I liked to eat and have a place to live.

Rick pulled up in front of the cabin and all I could think was
This would be the perfect setting for a serial killer. Can you say remote?

Which it wasn't, really. He'd told the truth. It was like a weird rural cul de sac and there were seven other cabins around, smoke coming out of three chimneys and lights on behind curtains. We weren't going to be alone out here.

And actually the thought about the serial killer wasn't the only thing I could think. The other thing was unfortunate, but during the ride I'd started glancing at Rick more and more and
–

OK, wow. And it had been a while. Before I made the decision to leave Vegas I was seeing Tony. Big, beautiful, lifeguard buff, big smile, honest and sweet, and at 28, just three years older than me. We were crazy about each other. During the eight months we were together, we made Vegas ours. We did the Sky Jump and the Big Shot adventure rides and took in the Fremont Street Experience and hung out at City Center and we tested new clubs, we danced new dances, we ate in trendy restaurants.

It was great. And it could have lasted. Except when I said I was going to Georgia and since Tony didn't have a job either at that point, because he worked in the hospitality industry and the last economic downturn was really hard on hospitality, it turned out that there were really two of us Tony was seeing
–
me, and the city. And the city won.

It took me two weeks to realize I didn't care. I was busy applying for work with the idea I was going to live out some kind of dream. I just wasn't sure what that dream was. A chance encounter with a friend, Jenna, over disgruntled sushi and beer brought the idea to light.

"If you could do anything you wanted," Jenna had said, sloshing her beer dangerously and using it to illustrate all her points, of which there seemed to be plenty, "what would it be?"

I started shaking my head before I even managed to swallow my mouthful of beer. "I hate these things," I said, and Jenna stared at me. I waved my own beer. "The 'if you had a week to live' questions. If I had a week to live, I'd spend it panicking and trying really hard to figure out what was going to kill me so I could avoid it."

That made Jenna choke on her beer. When she could breathe again, she said, "I'd spend it in bed." She was smiling.

"Alone?" I hazarded.

"Not hardly."

"OK." I saw the lascivious grin on her face and redirected. "So what was the question?"

"If you could do anything in the world, what would it be?" My apartment that day had been snug and summer in the Nevada desert style of hot. I was just entertaining the idea of leaving Las Vegas, several months and so very many job applications before it really started to happen.

Might happen. If I could get to Hanlin by tomorrow afternoon in time for my interview.

What I'd answered her that day was a fantasy I'd had since junior high school when I'd believed I could still do miraculous things and before I'd let other people (or me) tell me otherwise. I told her I wanted to spend a year in maybe ten different cities, though it wouldn't have to be a whole year.

Jenna had blinked. She was Asian, gorgeous, fighting an eating disorder and always trying to lose the last thirty pounds of some weight again. Now she rested her chin on her hands and said, "Explain."

It took a minute to remember the exact dream. I'd been twelve or thirteen at the time, so a year felt like forever and at the same time a year wouldn't have made me as uncomfortably aware of how much older I was going to be at the end of it as it did now. But.

"I wanted to take whatever kind of jobs. Unimportant. Not career stuff. Just whatever I could get. Because I wanted a lot of time off, not having to go to work on weekends and week overtime and stuff. Then I wanted to get a studio apartment or something. Travel light. Laptop, camera, phone, clothes, books, a tea kettle. You know."

The look on her face said she had no clue but was willing to humor me.

"And during that year I'd explore every inch of the city that interested me. I wouldn't have to take work home or stay late. I'd have whatever time I wasn't working to do whatever I wanted with." I spread my hands. It had been a nice dream. But reality was I was an out of work economic development specialist and I enjoyed my work and was probably going to move away from Las Vegas if I found work somewhere else doing what I loved.

"What cities?" Jenna asked. She hadn't moved on.

We started a list then, starting on my coast. Vegas didn't count because I already lived here. If I hadn't, I'd have included it. I'd grown up in a tiny Northern California town and gone to college in Los Angeles which meant I'd already conquered some of my cities. After Los Angeles, there was San Francisco, Sacramento, Seattle, Las Vegas, because I hadn't lived there yet when I was making the lists. Boise, Idaho and just about anywhere in Hawaii. Phoenix and somewhere in Texas. Maine, if I could pack enough sweaters. Florida. Jenna pointed out those were states, not cities. I shrugged. I didn't know the cities. Connecticut. New York City. Rhode Island. Atlanta. Nashville. Denver, maybe, but I didn't like snow, even then.