Winter Hearts

by A. E. Radley

  It was a gesture Jesse didn’t expect, and as usual when she saw a man do something kind, she found her insides billowing with a warm sensation of desperate need. She sucked in her cheeks and bit down on them, then turned to stare out the windshield as the tow truck backed toward the car. His gloved hands on the controls were deft, quick and strong, and she tried not to notice how he glanced her way before he got back out into the snow.

  “Where he go?” Misha asked, a hint of panic in his voice as he bucked in his car seat. He whimpered, whined, and finally began to let out choked, wet sobs.

  “Shh, hush, baby. He went to hook the car onto the truck. He’ll be back,” Jesse assured him as Wyatt tickled him with the short fingers of one hand and cooed something unintelligible.

  The boy calmed his crying to a rough, hiccuping mumble only when the driver hopped back into the cab and slammed the door shut against the howling wind. Jesse pulled her phone out of the pocket of her brand new coat and checked the time. All together, it had been only about half an hour, but it felt like hours since she left the highway.

  The tow truck pulled out onto the highway and started in the direction of town, and she put away her phone. She listened to her daughter’s gentle consolations and her son’s wet sniffs for a moment before she finally took in a breath and turned to look at the bundled figure sitting beside her.

  “Thank you for coming to get us,” Jesse said, and the driver waved her appreciation away. “I’ve never driven in a snowstorm before, and I will do my best never to drive in it again.”

  She squeezed her legs together and pretended not to feel the familiar yearning building in her belly. She pictured her ex, crying and pleading on his knees, and some of the feeling abated. The last thing she wanted was to trap herself into another situation like the one she was finally leaving.

  “You get used to it,” the driver answered.

  They both went silent for a while as the snowy wind blew and banged around the truck. Misha’s crying had subsided to little sniffles, and the only sound inside the cab was Wyatt gently humming the song they had been listening to in the car when it died.

  Up ahead, the blank, white slate all around them temporarily broke with the appearance of a traffic light. The driver brought the truck to a stop at the red light, then went about the business of unwinding the long scarf from around his mouth. Jesse kept her eyes on the swinging traffic light. Even when his gloves came off and he raised one bare fist to cover a cough, she didn’t meet his eyes.

  The light changed to green and the truck started moving again with a belch. Jesse cleared her throat.

  “I need to get to Center Drive,” she said. “Do you know it?”

  “I do,” the driver said in a voice much softer than the one before.

  Jesse couldn’t help it. She jerked her head to look at him, and when her eyes locked on the face of the person beside her, her breath caught in her throat.

  Her knight in shining armor was a woman, and she was gorgeous.

  CHAPTER 2

  Instead of taking her straight to the house, the driver insisted on bringing her car to the truck stop to fill up her gas tank.

  “I don’t need gas,” Jesse said, but the driver wouldn’t hear her. Jesse paid with her credit card and, at the driver’s insistence, got back into the cab of the truck to wait. She handed Jesse a receipt when she got back into the truck.

  “That makes me feel better,” the woman said. “No matter the situation, a full gas tank makes a safe and happy car. You never know when you’re going to need it.”

  Jesse couldn’t reply. Her mouth felt full of sand, it was so dry, and her mind whirled with strange thoughts. From first sight, Jesse felt something for the bundled up truck driver who saved them from, at the very least, a night of misery, and at worst… she didn’t want to think about it.

  And even when the shell came off, and she saw the long, dark hair tied in a bun at the back of the driver’s head, the feeling hadn’t gone. If anything, it had gotten stronger, even as Jesse had tried to ignore the swell of her chest and the cute way her mouth turned up more at one side when she smiled.

  They drove on from the truck stop down a road that wound gently through clusters of tall, dark trees coated with powdery snow. The driver’s movements were strong and fluid, and she navigated them through darkness Jesse wasn’t sure she would have been able to see the road in. Then, as quick as they had gone into the shadows, they came out, and the truck was backing into a driveway.

  Jesse turned her attention from the strong hands of the woman driving to the property she had pinned all her hopes on. It wasn’t perfect; it needed upkeep and updating, all things Jesse knew she could bring herself to learn if only given the chance. But it was her new home, and a bright, warm feeling filled her chest as they backed into the space and the driver cut the engine.

  “Home sweet home,” the woman said. “Let me help you get the kids in.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jesse started, then glanced over at the dark house again. It was all in shadow now that the truck’s lights were off, and it looked like something out of a horror movie. “Well, maybe if you could just stay a minute.”

  The driver smiled and turned around to face the kids. “Will you watch your brother while Mom and I get the house unlocked? I want to check to make sure there aren’t any places on the porch that need mending before you come in.”

  “Of course,” Wyatt said with a toothy grin. “I always watch him.”

  “You’re a good sister,” the driver said, then signaled for Jesse to come with her to the house.

  They closed both doors and Jesse glanced back at the truck as they stepped away.

  “Don’t worry; this won’t take long, and they’ll be warmer in the truck.”

  Jesse nodded and fished for her keys. When she found them, she held them up to the light of the scant moon to find the one painted red. She squinted at them for a moment, then her face burned with embarrassment.

  “Here,” the driver said.

  Jesse heard a click, then the driver had her arm held over Jesse’s shoulder, in her hand an enormous flashlight. She found the key, whispered her thanks, and followed the flashlight’s trail up the porch steps, across its smooth surface, and to the front door.

  She held her breath as she slipped the key into the knob, and for a moment, it wouldn’t budge. Then it unlocked, she twisted, and the front door opened.

  “Allow me?” the driver asked, and scooted past Jesse before she could answer.

  She shone the light around the front room, and when she was satisfied, flicked the light switches on. The porch light came on, a charming, mid-Century style sconce, and Jesse marveled at how much homier the porch looked with its cheery, blue-white glow.

  Jesse stepped inside the house and examined the front room. It was bare, but the major players – the floor, the walls, and the ceiling – were well-made and kept. She glanced back at the truck. There was no movement inside, and she couldn’t hear anything from the kids, so she moved forward into the house.

  The driver had already gone through most of it and left the lights on behind her. Jesse checked out the rooms and felt a rush of almost painful relief. The house was solid and intact. She knew she had gotten lucky; moving to a house based on only the pictures posted online wasn’t really a wise idea, after all, and even she had been nervous.

  She was checking out the kitchen when the tow truck driver came up behind her and clicked off her flashlight. Jesse turned to regard her.

  “Ready to get the kids in?” the woman asked.

  “You don’t have to do all this,” Jesse said.

  The woman shrugged with a smile that lit up her face. Her eyes were dark and surrounded by freckles that lit up her winter-pale skin, and they drew Jesse in like a primal call. She stood as the driver casually gave her an appraising look, then smiled a little too brightly and murmured her thanks as she brushed by the driver and back out the door.

  In the truck, the kids sa
t straining to see where their mother had gone. When she opened the truck door, they both smiled at her.

  “Is it safe?” Wyatt asked.

  Jesse grinned back at her. “It is, my smart girl. Let’s get you two out of your car seats and into our new home.”

  Wyatt got out of her seat quickly; her blunt fingers were more deft than they looked. Then she unbuckled and released her brother, who tried to climb out of the truck on his own, only to be scooped up in a protective hug by a woman he had only just met.

  “I want tow truck,” the boy said giddily to the driver.

  Jesse listened as he chattered at the driver all the way into the house, then laughed and shook her head. “Do you think you can walk in this snow? It’s slippery.” Wyatt nodded and Jesse let her down. The girl took a few steps to get her bearing, but by the time Jesse had both car seats out and in hand, she was crunching across the surface with something like precision.

  The driver was talking to Misha about tow trucks when Jesse and Wyatt got into the house. Jesse put down the car seats near the door and closed it as a gust of wind chilled her through her winter clothes.

  “Is the heater lit?” the driver asked with a shiver. “It should be, but it certainly is cold.”

  Jesse gawked at her a moment, then shook her head. “I have no idea. The seller didn’t say.”

  The woman nodded. “I’ll handle it, then help you get your bags inside.”

  She disappeared down a hallway before Jesse could protest. In the quiet, she examined the room around them. It was small, but mirrors placed along the bottom of one wall made it seem slightly larger. Almost immediately when she noticed them, so did Misha, and he dragged his sister over to stare into them and make faces. Jesse took the opportunity to sneak out of the room and head down the hallway to look for her guest. She found the woman in an open closet off the hall.

  “How’s it going?” she asked.

  The driver was tinkering with a knob beneath an old furnace with her faced screwed up in concentration. “Pilot light went out, so… not great...” She grunted as she let go. “I have something in my truck I can probably use to loosen this.” She stared at it again, came at it from another angle, and just as Jesse was about to protest her helping anymore, the knob turned and she let out a whoop of triumph.

  Jesse smiled as the woman lit the pilot light with a match from a pack in her pocket. “You’ve been too kind.”

  The woman waved off the compliment. “I did what any good neighbor would do.”

  “Well, you have been very neighborly,” Jesse said with a smile, before the idea sunk all the way in. “Wait, what do you mean by ‘neighbor’?”

  “I live next door,” the driver said as she replaced the panel over the furnace. While Jesse reeled at the revelation, the driver moved past her into the hallway, clicked a switch, and all around them, the house started to smell of old, burning dust. “Oh, that’s ripe,” she said with a laugh. “It’ll burn off quick. No one’s lived in this house for a few years.”

  “You live next door?” Jesse finally asked, and turned to face the woman framed in the doorway. “Why didn’t you say?”

  “I did, just now.” She smirked, then turned around and started back down the hallway. Jesse closed the door behind her and jogged to keep up. When they got to the front room, they found the kids inspecting a cable TV hookup. “The whole neighborhood has cable. We went in together to get them to run the lines, and we pay into a fund every month to keep it going.”

  “That’s a strange setup,” Jesse murmured. She was still reeling from the revelation that this woman – this sexy, strong woman – was living next door to her.

  “There are a lot of seniors in this neighborhood,” the woman explained. “The rest of us don’t want them to be bored out of their skulls, because most of them don’t get out of the house much. It’s a good will thing.”

  “That would not have happened back home.”

  The driver smiled. “Good thing this is home now.” Then she clapped her hands together, making Misha squeal with delight, and rubbed her palms over each other before reaching into a pocket for her gloves. “Ready to get everything inside?”

  “I couldn’t ask you to do that,” Jesse said.

  “You didn’t. I’m offering.” She squatted down so that she could look both kids in the face. “Would you guys do me and Mom a big, big favor?”

  “Mama,” Wyatt corrected. “Her name is Mama.”

  The driver grinned. “Me and Mama then.”

  “Sure,” Wyatt agreed. Misha nodded his solemnest.

  “Can you both go into the kitchen while we start bringing your things in? We don’t want anyone to get their toes squished.”

  “Squished?” Misha howled at the word as his sister dragged him into the kitchen by one pudgy hand.

  Jesse waited by the door as the woman slipped her gloves back on. “You’re good with kids.”

  “There’s not much else to do in this town but make them, so there are plenty around for me to practice on.”

  Before Jesse picked her jaw up off the floor, the driver had walked past her and out the door into the darkness. Jesse spun on her heel and jogged to keep up again over hardwood floors that needed only a coat of wax to shine like new. When they were back outside on the porch, the driver pointed to the truck, her gloved hands looking strong and her face wrapped again in her scarf.

  “I’ll let her down first. Then we can get everything out of there and into the house.”

  Her voice behind the scarf was deeper, but Jesse couldn’t imagine why she would have thought it was a man’s voice, and as she watched the driver walk away, it was even harder to see how she had thought the curvy form heading across the snow was a man’s body.

  Jesse crunched over the snow, thankful again that she had bundled up for her drive in new boots and thick, woolen socks, and watched as the tow truck lowered her car completely to the ground with a light thunk. The truck moved forward slightly, and her heart jumped into her throat. But then the engine went off and the door opened, and Jesse chided herself for having such an emotional reaction to a stranger.

  “Everything is in the trunk,” she said aloud as she walked to her car, got in, and put on the parking brake. Then she popped the trunk with the little button on the driver’s side door. Her rescuer walked around to the trunk and started unloading bags. “Be careful!” she said when one of the duffel bags thumped against the side of the trunk.

  “Sorry.”

  Jesse couldn’t see much of her face, but the part she could see – those dark eyes – looked hurt.

  “No, I’m sorry,” Jesse started, but the woman had already turned and was halfway across the yard.

  She grabbed a couple of suitcases, one on wheels, and started to follow. She got stuck halfway and had to pick the wheeled case up by the handle on the side, and when the driver came back out of the house, she picked up the pace so she wouldn’t take the cases from her.

  They passed by each other and Jesse offered her a smile. She couldn’t tell if the woman smiled back, and it left a little ache in the pit of her stomach to think that she had hurt the feelings of this generous stranger. A few more trips had the trunk empty of everything but the spare tire, and had them both back inside enjoying the heat.

  “Thank you so much for all your help. I don’t know how I would have managed without you.”

  “You would have done fine, and it was my pleasure.”

  She stuck out her hand and Jesse saw that her fingernails were well trimmed and polished with a clear lacquer. The affectation stuck out against her chivalrous actions and masculine job, and Jesse wondered what else she had wrong about her.

  Jesse shook her hand, then squeezed it between both of hers. The warmth from her skin was electric, and it sent a jolt down Jesse’s arms to the center of her in a place that hadn’t been seen in a while. She smiled.

  “I’m Jesse, by the way.”

  “Cara Harvey.”

  Jesse blushed.
“Waters.” She realized after a moment that she had been holding on to Cara’s hand for too long, and dropped it like it had caught on fire. Cara grinned more broadly.

  “Well, I think I’ve taken up enough of your time,” Cara said. She pulled her gloves out, slipped them on, and pulled her scarf back up over her face. It deepened her voice again and Jesse wondered at how a bundle of yarn could do that. “If you need anything, give me a shout. I’m just next door.”

  Jesse didn’t remember seeing any houses very close by, and took Cara’s word for it that she was anything like “next door”. She nodded numbly. She suddenly realized just how tired she was from her ordeal in the car, and as the wind whistled outside, she looked into Cara’s eyes.

  “Thank you so much for all your help.”

  “Anytime,” Cara said. She nodded, then turned around, opened the door, and walked outside, closing the door firmly but quietly behind her and leaving Jesse alone with her thoughts.

  But she was only alone a moment before Wyatt came rushing into the room, eyes bulging, mouth wide open and curled into a pout.

  “Where did she go?”

  “She had to go home. This is a big storm, and if she had stayed here much longer, she might not have been able to make it back to her house tonight.”

  Wyatt panted and looked from Jesse to the front door and back. “But why couldn’t she stay here with us?”

  Jesse grinned, walked over, and hoisted Wyatt onto her hip. She kissed her little, turned up nose. “You’re such a sweet girl. Where’s your brother?”

  “I wanted her to stay. I liked her,” she pouted, then glanced at the doorway. “He’s playing in a room.”

  “I know, sweetie. I liked her, too.”

  Jesse considered what that meant as she walked Wyatt out of the front room and into the kitchen. She let her down on a counter top and glanced around their few bags for the one that held their few snacks. The rest of her things were scheduled to be delivered the next day, but she kept a few things in her car to tide them over in the mean time.