Snow Day
Page 9
She could feel the tears streaming unchecked down her cheeks, but she didn’t have the strength in her arms to wipe them away. “I don’t want to live in your parents’ house.”
“Oh, good. I mean, I would, but I was hoping you would say that.” His usually cocky smile was a little shaky and it gave her a thrill to know he was as shaken up inside as she was.
“You could live with me.”
“I’d like that. You know I have to go back to Connecticut. I have projects in various stages I can’t walk away from. But I’ll come home to you on the weekends and work toward transitioning my business to the coast of Maine. Maybe the Portland area. I can make it work if you’ll be patient.” He paused and reached for her hand. When his fingers closed over hers, she felt like everything was right in the world again. “Will you marry me, Delaney?”
“Yes,” she whispered. Then she threw her arms around his neck and yelled it out. “Yes!”
As the remaining audience broke out in applause, Brody held her tight and pressed his face against her neck. “I promise you, for the rest of my life, you’ll be the candle in my window.”
“Welcome home, Brody.”
* * * * *
Seeing Red
Jennifer Greene
To SOLON
A Hero In Training
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER ONE
WHEN THE FIRST fat snowflake plopped on the windshield of Whitney Brennan’s rental car, she saw red.
It was already past midnight. She was already past exhausted. And she had another two hours of driving before she could possibly reach Tucker’s Point.
She wanted to be in Tucker’s Point like she wanted warts.
She needed to take a week off work to make this trip like she wanted more warts.
But there was a principle involved.
Her mom and sister undoubtedly believed they’d badgered her into this trip. Both were outstanding badgerers, and Whitney had grown up as the “good girl” in the family, the one who tiptoed, the one who always caved.
This time, the family crisis was about some mysterious locked box that Mom had read about in one of Gram’s journals. It referred to something Gram “treasured,” and that was enough to ignite both Jane’s and her mother’s emotional fires. They couldn’t stand not knowing what was in the box. It wouldn’t wait until spring. Jane couldn’t go now because she was too pregnant, and Mom pulled the nerves-with-winter-driving card. Whitney had said “yes” before they even had to try the Heavy Guilt tricks.
She’d wanted to go back. Maybe not in crazy winter conditions, and certainly not to capitulate to unreasonable demands from her family. But for herself. Ten years ago, she’d been a crazy-in-love 18-year-old with a broken heart. Man, had she changed.
She’d made a great life for herself, had a terrific job in Philadelphia, was no longer that anxious-to-please sucker she used to be. She wasn’t afraid of anything anymore.
Occasionally, though, becoming fearless wasn’t exactly a great character recommendation.
The weather was deteriorating fast. Damn fast. In the past hour, the first big, fat, beautiful snowflakes had turned the dark forest into a fairyland of white, but then the temperature rose—up one degree, then up five.
Her driving problems changed from annoying to downright ominous. The snow turned sharp, a furious mix of snow and rain, then pumped up the volume. The sleet pecked at the car like sharp needles. She switched the windshield wipers on higher, watched the blades pick up a skim of ice with every swipe.
She hadn’t seen another car in miles—didn’t expect to. Normal people would never travel to Tucker’s Point on January 2. She’d easily found flights out of Philadelphia, but not to Portland or Bangor or Waterville or anywhere else near Tucker’s Point. The airlines to these locations had been grounded. They all seemed to think there was a serious winter storm coming.
As far as Whitney was concerned, that was like saying that cows mooed.
This was Maine. Tucker’s Point was a coastal town. So of course there was a storm coming.
She’d expected the snow, just not the ice. Not so much ice. She had to slow to a crawl, which meant it was past three in the morning before she finally crossed Pine Street, then Maple, then Oak...and finally hit the seaside road. By then the wind had picked up a scream, making traffic lights sway and tossing branches and debris in the air. The windshield wipers could barely keep up with the torrential blast of icy snow, and Route 1 was a skating rink.
She couldn’t see the houses. Couldn’t do anything but white-knuckle drive through this, but everything was familiar. Closest to town were the hotshot homes—upscale beauties, brick, several stories, sturdy as rock, with traditional white shutters locked because of the storm. Then came the curve of the harbor—a silver piece of glass to drive on—and after that the more modest homes and cottages.
She was a quarter mile from her grandparents’ place when she heard a crack. A magnificent old maple tree suddenly came crashing down from the west side of the road. She had to jam on the brakes to avoid being hit, and that sent the car into a scissor-sharp skid. She bumped into something—a bush, a curb, something completely concealed in white ice. The car stopped. Didn’t want to start again. She gave it a minute—a long, long minute—and finally the engine turned over.
Right around then, she realized her hands were shaking. This trip was supposed to be a cathartic journey. So much for catharsis. So she’d been dumped in high school. So she’d lost the only guy she’d ever loved. Big deal. Right now all she wanted from life was to survive the next half hour.
It took all of that time to sludge the last half mile to her grandparents’ place. By the time she skidded into the dark drive, she was dead tired. Her eyes were gritty, her spirit wilted. The old bungalow was hardly welcoming—no one had been here in months, so there were no lights, no amenities, no heat. Still, just being here helped erase the miserable drive. Everything hadn’t been terrible in Tucker’s Point. Her gram and grandfather were so, so loved; her memories of the house were packed with smiles and laughter. Whitney might not have fit in with her nearest blood kin, but her grandparents had snuggled her close to their hearts.
She sighed and glanced at the backseat. Exhausted or not, she still had to bring in supplies. She was a Mainer. She’d come prepared for a storm, even if this was turning into an unexpectedly ugly blizzard. Cell service was unlikely in these conditions, but she had everything she needed to get by—food, water, a propane heater, warm clothes.
She wasn’t afraid to be alone. Unlike ten years ago, she no longer needed anyone. Alone was safer, and she could take care of herself.
She opened the car door and had to gasp for breath; she was immediately attacked by the deluge of sharp ice-rain. The next time she needed a little cathartic trip, she decided, she’d open a bottle of cabernet, put on some old movies and stay home. Darn it, the chances of her even running into Red in this kind of blizzard seemed beyond remote.
And that was the last clear thought she had. It took the rest of her energy to get all the supplies in the house, after which she planned a complete and total crash.
* * *
AT FIVE IN the morning, when every sane soul was sound asleep, Henry Redmond—alias Red—stood in front of his third-story window, mesmerized by the view below. A storm like this was magnificent. The Atlantic was furious, pounding wave on wave at the shore, spitting and frothing as if she were rabid.
The ice storm started from the north a few hours ago—after most people in Tucker’s Point had likely gone to bed, early on a Sunday, thinking about work the next
morning.
There’d be no work today, Red knew. His best guess was a three-day blizzard. Kids would be over the moon to have Christmas vacation extended by another few days. Parents would be pulling their hair out. Most would have stocked up on emergency food supplies, because they were Mainers, which meant they’d be prepared for a storm at this time of year—but Red was still starting to feel antsy.
She was hardly the worst storm he’d ever seen, not by a long shot. But the wind was a screamer, driving with whip force, and he’d watched three inches of ice accumulate in the past hour. The ice could do a whole lot of damage if it didn’t slow up soon.
A saw-buzz noise made him dig a hand into his pocket, reaching for his pager.
“You sure answered that quick.” The sheriff’s bark of a laugh was familiar. “Thought I’d ask if you minded waking Betsy up.”
“Hey. I always take care of my best girl. Did a good rubdown on her an hour ago. She was purring when I left her.” He earned another laugh from the sheriff, but then he quit messing around. “I figured you’d be calling up the auxiliary team.”
“Yup. You know the drill. Just starting to call, but Roger, Will and Baker will be on track shortly. Delaney’ll set up an emergency shelter at the school. I assume you’ve got your generator going so you can plug in communication devices.”
“I’ll be darned. After all this time, you think I don’t know the drill in an emergency?”
“I know, I know. Waste of breath. Come daybreak, I need you to take the usual stretch off Route one, after the cutoff at Pine Street. About two dozen folks to the north there, appreciate your checking on them. Then there’s a big maple down on Route one. Nothing to do about it now—I can’t imagine anyone is on the roads—but hoping you can do something about the tree once the storm lets up. At least clear an emergency lane if you can.”
“Betsy lives for problems like that. What else?”
The sheriff sighed. “There could be a kid missing.”
Red straightened. “You mean there’s a kid out in this weather? Now?”
“I’m not certain yet. It could be a misunderstanding. Right now I’m just passing on the story—and the worry. You know the Shuster place, two houses down from the Brennans?”
Red clawed an itch at the back of his neck. Not that the Brennan name was a sore spot, but he wasn’t likely to forget the Brennan family in his time. Here he was. Twenty-eight and still single. Because of the one girl he had both loved and jilted—and even after all these years, he still hadn’t forgotten her. “Yeah, I know the Brennan place.”
“Well, the child’s name is April Shuster. She’s nine. Her parents are in the middle of a big, messy divorce. Mother just called me a few minutes ago.”
“She didn’t realize her kid was gone until this hour?”
“It wasn’t like that. The mother thought April was with her dad. The dad thought April was with the mom. The dad had the visitation time, but brought her home early because of the storm forecast. The mom was out getting supplies for the storm, came home, never thought to look for April—”
“Less backstory, Sheriff.”
“Well, I know. But the backstory’s the point of how the parents mislost her.”
“Mislost?”
“Ayuh, I can’t think of another way to put it. It’s too soon to be sure if she’s misplaced or lost for real. The mom got home, put the car in the garage, put the groceries away. Power went out, and she went to bed. Woke up in the middle of the night, heard the storm, wandered around to look out windows, see what it looked like. Went into April’s bedroom, saw the bed had been slept in and clothes were all over the place, but the girl was missing. She called the dad’s landline, but lines were down by then. She called his cell, but lost the connection—except for hearing that April was supposed to be with her.”
Red cut to the chase. “You want me out there searching now?”
“I’d like to send the whole town out searching for her, but that just wouldn’t make sense. Even if she did go outside, got lost, she’d have holed up somewhere by now. And I know you and Betsy are an unbeatable team, but there’s no visibility, no way you could really do a search. I’m going to try to get through to the father’s place, talk to him, see what more I can find out. Then I’ll let you know what’s what. Not to worry.”
Right. As if he could sleep after that. He clattered down to the second floor, pulled on gear—a tech-serious base layer, socks with warmers, flannel. Hit the stairs to the first floor, checked to make sure his hand warmer had fresh lighter fluid, stashed two of them inside his work gloves, grabbed his parka and hat, pulled on serious boots.
A Thermos of hot coffee, and he was ready. First-aid supplies were already stashed in the garage, including bottled water, blankets and food packs. He unplugged Betsy and gave his John Deere an affectionate pat on the rump. “I know, honey, you’ve been waiting for action all day. Believe me, now you’re going to get it.”
He climbed into the cab, started up the heater, turned her on. As expected, once on the road, conditions were beyond awful. It was biting cold, tear-freezing cold. The ice storm was what his granddaddy would have called a humdinger of a storm. Ice came down in a treacherous downpour. The beams from Betsy’s lights were his entire field of vision.
He made his way to Route 1, mentally planning his journey—to take the coast road to Pine, then double back. The houses to the north were under his charge, for the obvious reason that he lived the farthest out. Unlike those in town who volunteered for the auxiliary emergency team, he could get through anything with Betsy.
Near Pine, the houses were fancy, boarded up, wealthy owners off to wherever they wintered every year. The harbor was centered at the core of town, with a white beach for summer swimmers and dock space for any size boat under the sun. After that, the road rose, curved like a pregnant belly, a cliff edge over rocks and stony shoals. Homes were more spread out—and a lot cheaper—but built sturdy, made to weather storms and capricious seas.
No lights were on in any of the houses. Red didn’t expect to find any places with power. He’d check in later in the morning, see if anyone was in trouble, but for now he aimed for the Shuster place. No sign of life there, either. He edged two more houses down—a quarter mile distance—and abruptly put Betsy in neutral.
A rush of memories shot through his mind at the look of the Brennan place. Whitney’s grandfather had died early last summer. The shake-shingled bungalow had been vacant since then, but for years, Jack Brennan and his wife had taken in Whitney, Jane and their mother.
Staring at the Brennans’ brought back the best year of Red’s life. Back in high school, he’d been a hotshot athlete, star quarterback in football then the best hoop shooter in the state. Girls had flocked. He had the world by the tail, got an athletic scholarship to the University of Maine, even attended that first year. But one wrong ball game, and he’d cracked a knee bad, broken the right ankle in three places. He was benched permanently from competitive sports, which meant his athletic scholarship went down the tubes. That abruptly, he was suddenly careerless, aimless and more lost than a pup in the woods.
His senior year of high school, though, he’d owned the world. It struck him now as funny, because there was only one thing he ever wanted. Naturally, it was a girl.
Snow White. That’s what they’d called Whitney Brennan. She’d picked up the tag in her junior year. She was a delicate cameo, blonde, blue-eyed, made soft and serious both. Red couldn’t count the number of guys drooling after her. She wasn’t prissy. Nothing like that. She was just a hard-core good-girl, and the prettiest girl in school—hell, probably the prettiest in the whole country. But when none of the guys could coax her into more than a peck of a kiss after a date, she’d naturally picked up the no-touch-princess reputation. The Snow White reputation.
At least until she went out with him.
He chugged in behind the car, yanked on gloves. Didn’t turn off Betsy—didn’t figure he’d be here that long—and opened the door of the cab. A beast of a wind slapped his face, pushing against him as he tried to walk forward. The front porch showed recent footsteps, but it was impossible to guess what size because snow and ice had already filled in the spaces.
He rapped his knuckles on the door, once, twice. Waited. When there was no response, he pushed the door latch. The door wasn’t locked—another thing that didn’t make a lick of sense.
“Anyone here? Hello?”
The startled shriek that answered him made his heart pound.
The shriek was distinctly soprano.
A soprano he hadn’t heard in a long, long time.... But he’d know her voice anywhere.
CHAPTER TWO
WHITNEY HEARD THE KNOCK on the door—although heaven knew how. She’d been trying to sleep for a good half hour. She was so exhausted she figured she’d drop like a stone, but instead the relentless, screaming wind and the ice pelting the windows made it impossible to relax, much less sleep.
The second rap made her scowl.
This was no time to lose her mind. There was no one there. How could there be? It was past five in the morning; the roads were unnavigable, and it seemed mighty unlikely someone would be stopping over for tea.
She’d crashed as fast as she could, leaving food supplies in the car, only bringing things into the living room that she absolutely needed—the propane heater, an eight-hour candle for the mantel and bedding. Lots of bedding. She’d started with a down comforter on the old couch, followed by a sleeping bag, and once she’d zipped herself in, she’d pulled another down comforter on top. She was loath to leave the nest.