Snow Day

by Shannon Stacey, Jennifer Greene

  “Maybe not,” Emilee ventured. “Take a look at Rand’s expression. If that annoying woman doesn’t stop talking, this whole thing could turn into a murder mystery.”

  Tessa couldn’t help a dark chuckle as she moved her attention to Rand. “So, enough about me. How are things going between you and Rand?”

  “So far, so good.” There was a smile in Emilee’s voice. “He asked for my number.”

  “Which you gave him.”

  “I most certainly did.”

  “Any stolen kisses in dark corners?”

  “No, but I’m working on it. I’m also worried about you. Please tell me your head’s on straight where it comes to Colton.”

  “My head’s on perfectly straight.”

  Emilee linked an arm with Tessa’s. “Stay strong, sister.”

  “Staying strong.”

  “It’s certainly not to my taste,” Sherry was stating, a hand raised delicately to her chest as she gaped at the suit of armor. “I’m partial to Zander Corbel, or anything from the Shenzille Circle. Subtle is always better than ostentatious. In fact, last Christmas, Jack bought me the most amazing set of glass shelves, custom-made for that corner near the pool deck.” She gave a self-deprecating giggle. “But you obviously don’t know what I’m talking about, Colton, since you’ve never seen our house. You must come visit someday. But, what do you think? Subtle or ostentatious?”

  Colton appeared to give the armor a moment’s thought. “It takes a big room to pull something like that off.”

  For some reason, Tessa felt let down. She didn’t know what she’d expected—for Colton to put Sherry in her place? Had she expected him to declare his staunch respect and regard for medieval armor as a decorating choice? It was silly. She was the last person who should care about his opinion. Let the simpering Sherry worry about impressing him.

  “Let’s go find something to feed these people,” she suggested tightly.

  “I’ll happily whip something up for Sherry Biddle. You got any arsenic lying around the basement?”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of pasta.”

  Sherry let out a rather shrill, false-sounding laugh as she reached out to pat Colton’s knee.

  “Then again, I’m flexible,” Tessa finished.

  A sudden boom thundered through the house.

  Colton jumped to his feet, while the high pitch of shattering glass and rending whine of metal on metal reverberated through the air. Tessa felt the noise right into her chest.

  “Car accident,” Colton declared, rushing for the front door.

  Rand and Barry appeared at a run, turning out from the hallway.

  “Did you hear?” Rand called to Colton.

  “Let’s go,” Colton returned.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  TESSA RUSHED ACROSS the room, intent on following the men. Emilee was with her. Only Jack and Sherry sat dumbfounded.

  “I have to get my bag,” said Barry, turning back to the staircase.

  Fuelled by adrenaline, Tessa grabbed her coat, stuffing her arms in the sleeves as she rushed out the door and up the driveway. Colton was out front, running toward the sound of engines. Rand followed him closely while Tessa jogged next to Emilee, praying they wouldn’t find anyone seriously injured.

  Around the bend in the driveway, she saw lights through the blowing snow. Headlights, taillights, yellow flashers, all seemed to be pointing at different angles.

  “There’re at least three cars,” Emilee gasped.

  “Check the sedan,” Colton shouted to them. He moved toward a passenger van that had rammed an oak tree. Smoke was billowing from under its hood.

  Tessa and Emilee rushed to the upside-down car. Tessa dropped to her knees, peering into the gloom of the shattered driver’s-side window. She cursed herself for not bringing a flashlight.

  “Go get flashlights,” she said to Emilee. “As many as you can find. They’re in the cupboard beside the fridge. And bring blankets. Get Sherry and Jack to help.”

  “Can you hear me?” she called to a woman who was hanging by her shoulder harness.

  Emilee ran off into the darkness.

  “My daughter,” the woman rasped.

  Tessa couldn’t tell for sure, but she thought the woman had blood running down her cheek.

  “I’ll check her,” Tessa assured the woman. “But are you okay?”

  “She’s in the backseat. I’m fine.”

  The woman was obviously very far from fine. But Tessa crawled to the backseat window.

  “Sweetheart?” she called to the little girl.

  She looked to be about five and, like her mother, was suspended by the seatbelt.

  The girl blinked her eyes open.

  “Hi,” said Tessa, lying down on her belly and crawling partway into the car. “My name’s Tessa. Can you tell me your name?”

  “Christie,” the girl responded in a shaky voice laced with tears.

  Tessa inched closer, maneuvering her arms inside the small passageway, ignoring the shards of glass and the snow melting into her clothes. People shouted behind them, men’s voices, women’s voices, crying and screaming. She was vaguely aware of Colton working on the van behind her, helping people out of it.

  “Can you tell me what hurts, Christie?”

  “I want my mommy,” Christie cried.

  “I’m here, baby,” came the woman’s breathless voice from the front seat.

  “Your arms or your legs?” Tessa asked Christie.

  “My arm,” she cried. “Ouch. My arm.”

  “Okay,” Tessa crooned, as she moved to half sitting to be closer to the little girl. “My brother’s here with us. He’s a doctor. Doctor Ambroise is his name. He’s going to be here in just a few minutes to help you.”

  “Is she okay?” asked the woman, tears obviously choking her voice.

  “Does your tummy hurt?” asked Tessa, putting a soothing hand on Christie’s shoulder.

  “Yes. No. A little bit.”

  “How about your head?”

  “My arm hurts.”

  “Tess?” came Barry’s voice.

  A wash of relief rushed through her. “She says her arm hurts.”

  “Anything else?” asked Barry.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “She’s talking? Seems coherent?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I’m going to check mom first.”

  “My baby,” cried the woman.

  “I’m Doctor Ambroise,” came Barry’s soothing, professional voice as he made his way through the window opening.

  “Christie. Please help Christie,” said the woman.

  “We’re helping her,” said Barry. “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Summer,” the woman gasped, obviously in pain. “Summer Torill.”

  “Does that hurt?” asked Barry.

  “Yes,” hissed Summer.

  “This?”

  “Yes.”

  “Less or more.”

  “More.” She groaned out loud.

  “Mommy?” cried Christie.

  “It’s okay,” Tessa cooed. “Doctor Ambroise is helping your mommy.”

  “I’m cold,” the girl whimpered.

  Feeling a powerful urge to hold Christie in her arms, Tessa called out to her brother. “Can I undo her belt?”

  “Do her ribs hurt? Touch them very gently.”

  Tess carefully placed her hands on Christie’s chest. “Does this hurt you, honey?”

  “No,” the girl whispered.

  “No,” Tessa called.

  “Her neck? Her back? Get her to move her hands and feet.”

  Tessa carefully checked the girl’s neck and back, having her
move and watching carefully for signs of pain.

  “She can’t move her left arm,” she called back to Barry.

  “I’ve got blankets,” Emilee’s voice came from outside the cars.

  “I’m going to need a back board to move Summer,” Barry told Emilee in a low voice.

  “Can we improvise?” she asked him.

  Tessa mentally catalogued the contents of the castle, picturing all the stuff she’d found in the basement.

  “The boathouse,” she called to Emilee. “There are surfboards in the boathouse.”

  “I’ll get Rand,” Emilee responded.

  “Do it quickly,” Barry instructed.

  “Can I wrap Christie in a blanket?” Tessa asked her brother.

  “Can you get her out without bumping her arm?”

  “I think so.”

  “Okay. Move her very carefully. I need to stay here with Summer.”

  Tessa found herself giving a rapid nod. She felt a hand on her back and twisted her head to see Colton there to help.

  “Mommy?” Christie whimpered.

  “Okay, Christie.” Tessa turned back, forcing herself to sound calm and confident. “Let’s get you out of here and wrapped up in a nice warm blanket.”

  The girl met Tessa’s eyes. “I’m scared.”

  “I know you’re scared, sweetheart, but I’m going to help you. I’m going to get you out of here so you can see your mommy, okay?”

  After a moment, Christie nodded.

  “Good girl. Okay, can you put your good arm around my neck?”

  Christie nodded again, raising her little arm.

  “Fire’s out,” Colton said to Barry. “Rand’s getting the surfboard. What else do you need?”

  “How are the people in the van?” asked Barry.

  “They’re walking and talking, mostly teenagers. Battered and bruised, but we’ve sent them down to the castle, and they’re getting warm. Sherry and Jack are there.”

  “And the semi driver?”

  “He seems fine. He’s on the radio with emergency crews seeing if he can get some kind of transport vehicle.”

  Tessa was encouraged by Christie’s strength as she wrapped her arm around Tessa’s neck.

  “I know your arm hurts,” said Tessa, maneuvering herself so that she could lie on her back and slide out feet first with Christie resting on her stomach. “And I’m going to try really hard not to touch it, okay?”

  “Okay,” Christie whispered in her ear.

  “I’m right here,” said Colton.

  She felt his touch again.

  “Tell me if I hurt anything,” she told Christie, easing the little girl toward her until she was lying down on Tessa’s stomach.

  “Owie,” whimpered Christie.

  “I know, sweetie. Colton, can you pull us out?”

  “There’s a lot of glass,” he warned.

  “I know,” Tessa acknowledged, bracing herself for scrapes and cuts.

  “Lift your butt,” he instructed.

  “What?”

  His deft hands were under her, slipping his coat beneath her, covering the worse of the shattered glass.

  “Here we go,” he murmured, and then she was moving smoothly out of the car.

  “Watch her left arm,” she warned Colton.

  He gently put a blanket over Christie, supporting her arm as he lifted her into his arms.

  A rumble grew louder, a big diesel engine shaking the ground around them. Flashing lights came into view, and Tessa recognized it was a loader. Her thoughts immediately went to Barry’s former schoolmate, Henry “Red” Redmond. She knew he was a member of the volunteer emergency crew.

  Christie was cringing against her chest, and Tessa covered the little girl’s ears.

  The loader came to a halt, and a man jogged into view. She recognized Red immediately.

  “Hey, Barry,” he said as he stopped in front of them, taking in the accident.

  “Hey, Red.”

  “How’s everybody doing?”

  “Two with injuries,” Barry reported.

  “Everyone’s okay in the other vehicles,” Colton put in.

  “I’ll send in a report on the accident.” Red nodded to Tessa. “It’ll likely be tomorrow before they can tow away the vehicles. But we can set up some warning lights on the road. And I’ve cleared a path with Betsy, so the paramedics will be here in a few minutes.”

  “That’s good to hear,” said Barry.

  For the first time, Tessa heard the stress in her brother’s voice. She reached out to him, putting a hand on his arm.

  “Everything going to be okay?”

  “We’re all good here,” said Barry, his voice back to being completely calm and professional. “But I want to get everybody out of the cold. Red, is your cab heated?”

  “It is,” Red confirmed. “I can take the little girl, leave the ambulance for her mom.” He crouched down in front of Tessa.

  “Watch her arm,” Tessa warned.

  “Hey, there,” Red said gently. “You want to come for a ride in my loader?”

  “Mommy?” Christie whispered, her voice shaking.

  “Your mommy’s going to ride in the paramedics’ truck,” Tessa explained. “But it’s a little small, and both of you won’t fit. Red here is our friend. He’s got a big, big digger that can make it through really deep snow. I’ve been in one before. It’s fun. It’s like being on a carnival ride. Do you think you can go with him?”

  Again, Christie hesitated. But then she bravely nodded her head.

  As Red carefully lifted her into his arms, the sirens and flashing red lights of an emergency vehicle penetrated the gloom. “Can you direct them?” he asked Colton.

  Colton moved toward the emergency vehicle, waving his arms, directing them to the sedan.

  The paramedics descended on the scene, talking with Red about the logistics of getting Summer and Christie to the hospital. Tessa quickly moved out of the way. Rand arrived with the surfboard, but it wasn’t needed.

  With Red on his way to the hospital, it took Barry and the paramedics about twenty minutes of painstaking maneuvering to get Summer out of the driver’s seat. By then, she was unconscious, and Tessa could tell Barry was worried.

  “There’s nothing more we can do here,” said Colton, putting a comforting arm around Tessa’s waist.

  Tessa bit down on her bottom lip. “She has to be all right.”

  “She’s in good hands.”

  “I know.”

  “You were amazing,” he told her in a low voice.

  Tessa was confused. “What do you mean?”

  “The way you comforted that little girl. She was hurt and frightened, and you knew exactly what to say.”

  The compliment took Tessa by surprise.

  “You’ve got that human touch that I can never get right,” Colton continued.

  Tessa had a hard time sorting out what she was hearing. Colton wasn’t good at something? Colton was good at everything.

  “It was nothing,” she found herself answering. She couldn’t even remember what she’d said.

  His arm tightened around her, and his tone was husky. “It was everything. I’m incredibly proud of you.”

  Tessa’s chest swelled. He was proud of her? She’d followed her instincts, yet she’d gotten it right?

  “You must be cold.” He started to gently steer her toward the driveway.

  She quickly glanced around. “Do they need anything else?”

  “Not up here,” said Colton. “But there are a dozen fifteen-year-old boys milling around your castle.”

  “From the van?” she asked.

  “Yes, from the van. I’m thinking we might want to get down there
and supervise.”

  Tessa regrouped and refocused.

  “The van was carrying a wrestling team on their way back to Augusta,” Colton continued. “It sounds like their GPS messed up and sent them down the wrong road.”

  “Are any of them hurt?”

  “They seem fine,” he answered as they started down the driveway. “I’m more worried about your great room.”

  * * *

  COLTON COULD SEE the boys were restless. And fuelling them up with pasta just made it worse. He’d heard from the paramedics that there was a shelter set up in a local school, but there was no way to transport the boys and their coach to the center of town. And it seemed unnecessarily cruel to both the active fifteen-year-olds and the families already staying at the shelter to force the two groups together.

  The coach was doing his best to keep them corralled. Jack and Sherry Biddle were next to useless and had retreated into a far corner, watching the goings-on with round eyes. Rand was too busy lusting after Emilee to be of much use and Tessa was trying valiantly to clear dishes up after the ravenous group had devoured a huge spaghetti dinner.

  Colton decided to get things rolling in a better direction.

  He clapped his hands loudly to get their attention, wishing he had a whistle. A whistle would work great.

  “Ned, Allan, Bobby and Sam.” He’d made sure he memorized their names over dinner. “You are table-clearing detail.”

  “Awww,” the boys groaned in unison.

  “No complaints,” Colton snapped in his best boardroom, I’m-the-CEO-don’t-mess-with-me voice. “Rick, Kevin, other Rick and Jason, you’re washing up.”

  Another round of groaning complaints filled the air.

  “Peter, John, Chris and Piper, you’ll be drying.”

  “This is lame,” said Kevin, one of the larger boys and obviously a leader of the pack.

  “Use the dishwasher,” said Sam, more of a flyweight, with glasses and shock of dark hair that continually fell into his eyes.

  “There’s no dishwasher in the world big enough to clean this mess up,” the coach noted.

  “This is your fault, Coach Redding,” Ned accused darkly. “We should have stayed on the interstate.”

  Of all the boys, Ned seemed most likely to end up in a juvenile detention center.