The Mountain Between Us (26 page)

“Two guys I worked with were killed by roadside bombs in the six months I was there. We'd drive these convoys, often at night, with maybe one or two Bradleys for escort. Every time you left, you never knew if you'd make it back.”

She wanted to cover her ears, to keep on pretending he hadn't suffered during his time away. “I'm glad you made it back safely,” she said.

He glanced at her, dark eyes beneath the artificially white brows intense. “From the day I stepped off the plane in Baghdad, I wished I'd never left. I thought the money would be so good, but there wasn't enough money to make up for all I missed while I was away.”

She nodded, a pain in her chest, as if the jagged pieces of her broken heart were rearranging themselves. She wasn't ready for this; she didn't want to hear his confessions or make her own. She forced her gaze out the window, staring at the snow-covered road ahead of them. “How many families are we visiting this evening?” she asked.

He paused for a long moment before answering, but when he spoke his voice was calm, as if any interested stranger had asked the question. “We've got two families . . . one with two children, one with four. They're both up on Black Mountain, this side of the pass. I'll have to stop and put the chains on before we get there. The volunteers labeled all the bags and boxes with names, so when we get there it'll be easy to hand out everything.” He glanced her way again. “I'm looking forward to seeing the kids' faces when we show up.”

“That will be fun,” she said. She meant it. Focusing on someone and something beside her own pain would be a welcome break. “I'm glad Mrs. Desmet asked us to help.”

“Yeah, it kind of makes Christmas more special.”

She nodded. This was definitely going to be a Christmas Eve unlike any other she'd experienced.

C
HAPTER SEVENTEEN

H
olidays had not really mattered to Jameso since he was a kid. Christmas was another day to be got through. Sometimes his mother or his sister would call and he would bluff his way through the awkward conversation, answering their questions about what he was doing with his life with reassurances that he was fine and no one should worry about him.

Last Christmas, he and Jake had climbed Mount Winston and skied down, then celebrated their achievement with a steak dinner and a bottle of good whiskey. They hadn't talked of anything important that Jameso could remember. Jake certainly hadn't mentioned his daughter. Had he thought of Maggie at all?

Sometimes Jameso had a hard time remembering that Maggie was Jake's daughter. She was gentle and open, where Jake had been so guarded and tough. But then she'd laugh and her eyes would crinkle at the corners, the way Jake's had, and Jameso would think of his late friend and feel sorry all over again that Jake, one of the bravest men he'd ever known, hadn't had the courage to get to know his own child.

Jake would have liked Maggie. He appreciated a strong woman who could be with a man but didn't have to lean on him. He'd have gotten a kick out of introducing his daughter to Jameso—and then he'd have whipped Jameso's ass for looking at her twice. The two men would have fought, then made up, as they had so many times before, and Jameso would have had to convince Jake that he was going to do right by his daughter.

Now Maggie filled Jameso's thoughts as he guided his truck over the snow-covered roads. Jake's friend in Montana had been very helpful, but slower than Jameso would have liked, requiring an extra day to do the job Jameso wanted. Which meant Jameso couldn't head back to Eureka until Christmas Eve.

He picked up the cell phone from the seat beside him and punched in Maggie's number again. The phone rang and rang, as it had all day, never even rolling over to voice mail. With a growl of frustration, he ended the call. He'd explain his tardiness when he saw her again. They'd be together for Christmas, and that was all that mattered.

A few years ago, when he was fresh back from Iraq, he'd tried to make things work with a woman. She'd been a lot like Maggie, the independent, understanding type. But she hadn't been understanding enough to deal with his distance and his rages, his drinking, and his inability to commit to anything, whether it was a job or a relationship. Their breakup, like everything in his life in those days, had been explosive and dramatic. He'd been almost relieved when it was over, the burden of trying to make things work lifted from him.

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He was a different man now. Watching Jake self-destruct had led him to cut way back on the alcohol. The rages had faded, and he was working on closing the distances and shouldering responsibilities. Only a few more miles to go, anyway, up Black Mountain and down the other side, then through town. If Maggie's Jeep was at the paper office, he'd stop there. He hoped she'd be pleased and surprised, and not angry at his late arrival.

The truck groaned its way up the switchbacks toward the top of Black Mountain. No traffic passed him from the other direction. Was everyone else already settled in for the holidays? He'd expected a few skiers making a last dash for the resort in Telluride, or families on their way to Grandma's house. Yet he had the road to himself, driving in the fading daylight, with intermittent snowfall. He glanced at the phone again. No service. He'd never understood how the top of a mountain studded with cell towers could be a dead zone.

He rounded the curve of another switchback and stared ahead at the pair of railroad crossing arms lowered across the pavement.
ROAD CLOSED,
the sign between them read. Leaden cold settled in the pit of his stomach as he applied the brakes. So this was why the road had been so deserted. He must have failed to see the signs warning of this closure while he was fiddling with his phone.

He brought the truck to a stop with the grill almost touching the arm of the highway gate. Leaving the engine running, he climbed out and went to stand at the gate. Snow came almost to the tops of his boots, and his breath froze in his beard, but he scarcely felt the cold. The sun hung low in the afternoon sky, the fir and pines casting long shadows over the unbroken sea of snow ahead, like fingers stretching toward him. He couldn't tell where the road ended and the mountains began. Probably somewhere up ahead an avalanche, or a series of avalanches, had buried the pass. The state had big rotary plows that could chew through the walls of snow, but on Christmas Eve no one was in a hurry to do so.

He turned to look back the way he'd come. A 200-mile detour could take him around to the other side of town, and the other mountain pass that also might be blocked by snow. Every winter Eureka was shut off from the rest of the world like this once or twice, as many as half a dozen times. It was an inconvenience people put up with; one more thing that made them unique, tougher than the rest of the world, more independent.

He'd never minded the blockages before. He had everything he needed right there in Eureka. But he'd never been on this side of the pass before, barred from the things he wanted by forces much bigger than himself.

He climbed back into the truck, turned it around, and drove halfway down the switchback to a parking area on the right. A popular backcountry trail started here, unused and blocked by snow this time of year. Jameso nosed his truck in next to the Parking sign and switched off the engine. Then he pocketed the keys, slipped his cell phone into his pocket, and pulled on his jacket, hat, and gloves. From the bed of the truck he pulled out a backpack, cross-country skis, boots, and poles.

He and Jake had skied over Black Mountain Pass two years ago on a lark. No reason Jameso couldn't do it again. He'd made a promise to Maggie, and he wouldn't let a little snow prevent him from keeping it.

 

The Eureka Presbyterian Church was packed for the Christmas Eve service. Maggie stood shoulder to shoulder with Lucille and Tamarin Sherman, watching the flickering flame of her candle, amid a sea of other candles, and choking back tears as the strains of “Silent Night” filled the air around her. She didn't consider herself a particularly religious person, but standing here with the smell of beeswax and evergreens and Tamarin's sweet perfume filling her senses, the magic of the night moved her. She felt loved and cherished by these people and this place; the knowledge that her child would feel this same love started a fresh flood of tears. She sniffed and Lucille handed her a tissue.

“Thanks,” Maggie whispered, and dabbed at her eyes. “And thanks for inviting me here tonight. I think I needed this.”

As they filed out into the achingly cold night, Danielle sidled up to them. “Stop by the Last Dollar before you go home,” she said. “Some of us get together every year to toast Christmas.”

“Sounds good,” Lucille said. “I could use a shot of something to warm me up.”

“I think the cold is invigorating.” Maggie pulled her coat more closely around her and turned her face to the sky. “And look at those stars. We didn't have stars like this in Houston.” Thousands of them twinkled against the pitch black sky, like silver glitter scattered by an exuberant hand. She'd never known so many stars existed before she came to Eureka.

The fact that she could see them so clearly tonight meant the clouds had cleared. It had stopped snowing. Tomorrow, or the next day, the plows and heavy equipment would arrive to clear the passes, and Jameso and Barb would make their belated way to her. They'd celebrate Christmas late, but they'd be together. That was all that really mattered.

She and Lucille and several others followed Janelle and Danielle, Reggie and Katya over to the Last Dollar Café. Bob waited for them at a table near the door, a bottle of Jack Daniels open in front of him.

“Hello, Maggie,” Bob said as she moved past him. “I was just sitting here thinking about how Murph and Jameso and I sat here last Christmas and toasted the holiday together.”

Maggie's throat tightened at the mention of Jameso. “Dad's probably looking down on us now,” she said.
But where is Jameso?

“And Jameso's probably stuck in a hotel in Durango, cursing the snow that's keeping him away.” Bob lifted his glass. “To Jameso.”

“He is coming back, you know,” Lucille whispered as she and Maggie settled into chairs at the table next to Bob's. Reggie had volunteered to fetch drinks, and tea for Maggie.

“I know.” She absently smoothed her sweater over the slight swell in her belly. “I mean, I was worried he wouldn't when he first said he was leaving, but he didn't act like a man who was running away. He really does want to do the right thing for me and the baby. I'm worried he'll try something foolish.”

“Like what?” Lucille asked.

“I don't know. My father was his best friend. They did some crazy things together.”

“Last year, on Christmas Day, they climbed Mount Winston and skied down,” Bob said.

“I remember the year they moved the Christmas tree from in front of the library to the Dirty Sally.” Janelle set a cup of tea in front of Maggie. “When it came time for the saloon to open, the tree was blocking the door. No one could get in or out until they moved it.”

“It wasn't easy either,” Bob said. “They'd wired it in place.”

“One year Murphy set off fireworks on Mount Garnet at midnight on Christmas Eve,” Reggie said. “He forgot to wear ear plugs and he couldn't hear anything for three days.”

“The Forest Service and the Department of Wildlife threatened to fine him or haul him off to jail,” Bob said. “For Halloween the next year, Murph stuck a pair of mule deer antlers to his hat and lit up sparklers all over them. He told everybody he was an endangered species, so they had to buy him a drink.”

“Jake did good things, too.” Danielle settled into a chair across from Maggie. “One year he heard about a family in one of the mining camps that the Elks Club Santas had missed. Jake got together presents and a Christmas dinner on his own and took it to them.”

“He found me and got me to open the store at nine o'clock on Christmas Eve,” Lucille said. “I helped him find clothes and gifts for the whole family. I offered to contact the Elks and see if they could help, but he wouldn't hear of it. He wanted to do it all himself.”

The stories continued, of Jake's exploits and good deeds, his outrageous behaviors and touching kindnesses. Maggie let them flow over her. Since coming to town, she'd been hearing these stories about her father. They made her feel closer to him.

And tonight, they made her feel a little closer to Jameso, too. She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer that he was all right—safe in that hotel room in Durango.

“I hope Olivia and D. J. are all right.”

Lucille's words surprised Maggie into opening her eyes.

“Why wouldn't they be all right?” Reggie asked.

“They went to deliver gifts up on Black Mountain,” Lucille said. “I thought they'd be back by now.”

“Maybe they are back,” Bob said. “They could be at D. J.'s place, having their own celebration.”

Lucille smiled. “I hope you're right. I think they really love each other, though Olivia is too stubborn to admit it.” She sipped her drink, a small glass of Bailey's. “She takes after her mother that way.”

“Christmas is a good time to kiss and make up,” Janelle said. “Maybe that will be their Christmas present to each other.”

Someone asked how Lucas was feeling, and someone else asked Bob about the Christmas play he'd helped Lucas write. But Maggie was only vaguely aware of these peripheral conversations. She'd focused all her attention on the sensation in her belly—like the flutter of a butterfly's wings or a flower suddenly opening. She sat up straighter, concentrating—waiting.

“What is it?” Lucille's voice broke through the fog. “Maggie, are you all right?”

She nodded.

“What is it?” Danielle asked. “Is it the baby?”

The flutter came again, a goldfish swimming in her belly. Maggie rested her hand on her stomach and the fluttering stopped. “I think I felt the baby move,” she whispered.

“Oh, Maggie.” Lucille covered her friend's hand with her own.

“That's wonderful,” Danielle breathed, eyes shining.

“Our first Christmas miracle,” Janelle said.

“It's not a miracle the kid moved,” Bob said. “Babies are supposed to move.”

“Since when are you an expert, old man?” Lucille nudged him.

“I'm just saying, it's not a miracle. A miracle is when something happens that's not supposed to happen.”

“All babies are little miracles,” Janelle insisted.

To Maggie, this baby was a miracle. A year ago she'd spent Christmas as an unhappily married, soon-to-be-divorced, thirty-nine-year-old childless woman. She'd been sure her life was over. Now here she was, carrying her first child, with a new home, a new job, and a new circle of friends who loved her.

Jameso was part of that miracle, too. If her father really was watching them tonight, she sent up a silent plea that he would keep Jameso safe, and bring him back to her and to their unborn child. That was the only Christmas present she really wanted, the only Christmas miracle she needed.