by Erin Wright
Once he’d filled the fireplace with some smaller pieces and set some large logs on the hearth off to the side, to feed into the fire once it was established, he set to work on getting it going. He’d done all he could at this point to ready the house; it was time for him to make sure everyone stayed nice and warm.
He got a small fire going in no time, and started feeding the larger logs into it. Hopefully Bonnie and Jennifer would show up with some candles and they could light them and place them around the living room. Although the fireplace gave off light, it would still just feel better to ward off the darkness.
He heard coughing behind him and turned to see Bonnie and Jennifer, dust-streaked faces scrunched up as they continued to sneeze up a storm, bundles in their arms.
“What…what happened to you two?” he asked, and then began laughing as Bonnie attempted to push her hair out of her face with the back of her hand and only ended up with more streaks of dirt on her face.
“Well, I started to think after Carmelita brought all of those ornaments down from the attic that I bet that there was other stuff up there that we could use tonight,” Jennifer said as she set the bundles down. “So we went looking, and found sleeping bags.” She grinned triumphantly at Luke. “I figured Stetson probably hadn’t been camping since his dad died, maybe even before that, so any camping equipment would be up there, not in the garage. I know how Carmelita’s brain works.”
Bonnie sneezed twice more in succession and then grinned at Luke. “And apparently, I’m just incapable of saying no.” He chuckled – he couldn’t help himself. She had a better sense of humor than any girl he’d ever met before, especially for a girl who currently had a spider’s web strung across her scalp.
“So inquiring minds want to know – how did Carmelita manage to bring down all of these ornaments from the attic without ending up…looking like you two?” he asked with a grin, gesturing at their dirty faces and even dirtier hair.
“We discussed that and decided that it can only be explained away by saying that Carmelita is magic.”
“She has magical powers where dust does not dare to land upon her,” Bonnie added with a grin.
“Well, whatever her magical capabilities are, she’s not gonna be happy to see two homeless urchins have taken up residence in her living room,” Luke pointed out. “There’s pots of water in the kitchen – I’d clean up before her and Stets come back. Oh, and did you guys find any candles?”
“Not yet,” Jennifer called back, her flashlight on her phone leading the way to the kitchen. “I’d meant to look through the pantry here in the kitchen for that, but got sidetracked.”
Luke followed them into the kitchen, envious of their laughter as they attempted to clean each other. How long had it been since he’d allowed himself to just let go and let out a belly laugh? To chill out and not fret about things to come? To just totally and completely relax?
He’d started to tonight, as they’d decorated the tree. When Bonnie was stringing the popcorn and he’d been busy feeding her, he’d felt a lightness inside that seemed almost alien to him. He’d gone back into work mode once the storm really kicked up, though, focused on the task at hand.
But somehow, Bonnie and Jennifer were able to be focused and still have fun. That was their magic trick. A magic trick he wanted to learn.
Taking his phone out of his pocket, he put it into airplane mode. No sense trying to waste battery searching for a signal in this storm. He flicked on the flashlight app and began hunting through the pantry. Organized as it was, it only took him seconds to find the candles and matches, conveniently stored next to each other. He picked up the basket of candles, balancing the matchbooks on top, and headed back to the living room. Time to give their new home a romantic feel.
Complete with rafter-shuddering gusts of wind.
After lighting and placing the candles around the living room, he decided he ought to convince Sticks to come out from underneath the couch.
“C’mon, buddy,” he said, down on his hands and knees, looking underneath the couch. Two bright eyes stared back at him, not moving. “You can’t hide underneath here all night. We need to sit on this couch.” He made kissy noises and snapped his fingers a few times. Sticks whined but didn’t move. “C’mon boy, get out of there.”
Preferably before someone walks in here and sees me down on the ground like this with my ass sticking up in the air.
“No luck?” Bonnie said behind him.
Dammit.
He sat back on his haunches. “Not yet,” he admitted.
“Let me have a go at it.” She got down on her hands and knees too, sticking her ever-so-fine ass up in the air, capturing Luke’s attention. Forget Sticks – he was happy to just stare at Bonnie’s curvy ass.
“C’mon boy, come here,” she said softly, patting the floor in front of her.
He sensed movement and realized that Sticks was almost out from underneath the couch. With a wiggle of his hip bones, he finally popped out and trotted the few steps to Bonnie, licking her face, tail wagging a million miles a minute.
Luke opened up his mouth to protest – just a minute here, that’s my dog! – when he realized he’d sound like a jealous idiot if he actually let those words escape his mouth. He swallowed hard instead as he listened to Bonnie’s half-hearted protests and laughter at Sticks’ overly enthusiastic tonguing.
“I just bathed, mister,” she told him sternly, and Luke was happy to note that at least in this regard, Sticks listened to Bonnie as well as he listened to Luke, which was exactly not at all.
She looked up at Luke and grinned. “You’ve got a real sweetheart of a dog here,” she said, as Sticks’ tail thumped against the couch. Another gust of wind rattled the rafters of the house and Luke expected Sticks to dive under the couch again, but instead, he seemed perfectly content to hang out with his new best friend, even curling up on her lap like a ridiculously oversized lapdog.
Instead of dumping him off onto the floor, she ran her hand along Sticks’ body. “Hey, buddy,” she crooned. “You’re such a good dog. Not very brave but awfully sweet.” Sticks thumped his tail at her tone of voice and Luke couldn’t bite back his laughter any longer.
“Sticks, you dumbass, she’s insulting you.” Sticks looked up at him, a doggy grin on his face, his tail still thumping the couch. Luke reached out to rub him across his knuckle-headed skull when his hand collided with Bonnie and she looked up at him, her face lit only by the dancing flames of the fireplace and candles. She was biting her lip again and he stroked his fingers across her hand, ever so gently, and she shivered—
“Anyone want more gingerbread cookies?” Jennifer came into the room with a tray overloaded with goodies.
Luke yanked his hand back guiltily and Bonnie turned red – even in the firelight, he could see it – and Jennifer bustled around, rearranging the candles to distribute the light in the room to better effect, oblivious to Bonnie and Luke and the blush covering her friend’s face.
Luke scrambled to find something to say. Anything to cover the awkward silence he felt sure astronauts were currently picking up on radar from space, it was so damn obvious.
“I wonder if I should go out and look for Stetson and Carmelita,” he said, rising to his feet. “They’ve been gone for a long time.” He crossed to the window to peer out into the storm. The swirls of snow hadn’t died down; if anything, they’d only gotten stronger since he’d looked outside last. A movement caught his eye and he saw, struggling through the snow, two faint figures, stumbling.
Stetson and Carmelita. And they were heading the wrong way.
Chapter 8
Luke
“Oh shit!” he exclaimed, and ran to the backdoor, grabbing his jacket from the hook hanging there and throwing it on before heading outside. He didn’t take the time to bundle up further – he had no time to bundle up further.
He struck out through the snow, his feet sinking into the newly fallen snow on top and then hitting the harder, older s
now underneath before finally finding solid ground. Each step was laborious, pushing his thigh muscles to the max. His cowboy boots were not exactly the best foot gear to be wearing in a snowstorm but now wasn’t the time to worry about that, either.
He looked up occasionally as he pushed through the snow, making sure he was still heading the right direction, and would occasionally change course as needed. It was probably only minutes but it felt like years before he finally reached the pair, grabbing the large, heavy suitcase from Stetson’s frozen fingers – what the hell is in here? – and then draped his arm around Carmelita’s shoulders, shouting to them above the wind that they needed to follow him.
He began guiding them back towards the farmhouse, trying to hurry Carmelita through the snow while also protecting her against the worst of the blasts of frozen air.
Then she stumbled and curled up on the ground and didn’t seem to understand that she had to get back up and that’s when he realized that he had no more time left to help her walk. She was far past that. He shoved the suitcase back into Stetson’s arms, Stetson’s frozen limbs making it hard to grab the case but Luke didn’t care. He didn’t have time to care.
He scooped Carma up into his arms and began pushing through the snow as fast as he could. His jeans were frozen and wet, sending pricks of pain through his legs with every step. He couldn’t stay out here much longer, either, or he wouldn’t be much use to Stetson or Carmelita.
Finally, oh thank God finally, he made it to the back porch and just as he was trying to figure out how to open the door without dropping Carma, Bonnie opened it.
He carried Carma inside, through the kitchen and into the living room, setting her down on the couch beside the fireplace, pulling at her jacket and scarf, trying to get the wet sodden overclothes away from her skin. Jennifer reappeared in the living room with a stack of towels and the three of them set to work warming up Stetson and Carmelita. Stetson was shaking so bad, Luke wondered if he’d fall off the couch in the grip of his shivers, but it was Carmelita who scared him more. Her lips were blue and she was staring over his shoulder, not seeming to realize he was there.
He briskly rubbed her head and neck with a hand towel while Bonnie did the same to her hands and feet. He was destroying the bun that she always had her hair pinned up in, but he didn’t care. She could re-pin it later.
His legs were painfully cold and wet in his jeans and cowboy boots and he knew he needed to change clothes if he was ever going to warm up but he also knew that Stetson and Carma were in much worse shape than he was. He had no time to change, not right now.
Jennifer’s worried questions and murmurs of love were repeating again and again in the quiet room. “Oh Stetson, what happened? What took you so long? I can’t believe this happened. I’m worried about you. Talk to me. Tell me you’re okay. What happened?” Her plaintive voice tore at Luke and he realized, perhaps for the first time, how much she truly loved Stetson. Sure, he’d thought she loved Stetson and they seemed to make each other happy, but this…
This was more than that. This was someone in the deepest of pain, crying out.
“Took…longer…than…I thought,” Stetson rasped out. The room was dead silent, only the crackling of the fireplace and Stetson’s rough voice to break up the silence. “Kept thinking…of things to bring.” Luke remembered the weight of the bag and wondered if Carma had decided to pack most of her house up in it. They must not have realized how quickly the storm was gathering strength. “Then came back…back outside…and the snow was in our tracks…couldn’t see them. All gone…couldn’t see house…all gone…Everything white.”
Jennifer took a large towel and began briskly rubbing his head and ears. “Shhh…shhh….you can tell me everything later,” she crooned. “Let’s warm you up.”
Carmelita’s eyes began to focus again. Her teeth were chattering so hard, she wouldn’t have been able to speak even if she wanted to, but Luke was heartened by the progress. When a body doesn’t shiver at all, that was when they were close to death. Teeth chattering was a welcome indication of life returning.
“Hey beautiful,” Bonnie said, stroking Carmelita’s hair away from her scalp. “How’re ya doing?”
Carmelita gave a nod of the head and Luke guessed that was all she could manage at the moment.
He and Bonnie’s eyes met over the top of Carmelita, and he realized in that moment how much he wanted to kiss her, to hold her tight. Seeing how fragile they all were, how close the human body could come to death in just minutes, it made him want to hold Bonnie close and never let her go.
And the way her breath quickened and she began biting her lip and her eyes seemed to darken, he knew she was thinking the same thing.
And it only sorta, kinda terrified him.
Chapter 9
Bonnie
Stetson and Carmelita slowly became more coherent and along with it, Carma’s lips began to turn a light pink color, a sign of progress that made Bonnie want to cry with happiness. It had been so damn scary to see her literally frozen, a statue of ice and blue and stone. First Stetson and then Carma went and changed into dry clothes, trying to hurry the warming process along.
Luke excused himself to change also, and it was only then that Bonnie realized how frozen he must’ve been. When he stood up, she discovered that there was a large puddle at his feet from the melted snow. He hadn’t said a word of complaint the whole time he tended to Carmelita.
Jennifer hurried to retrieve more towels, these looking…distinctly less pristine than the first batch she’d brought in. “Stetson only has so many nice sets of towels,” she said with a laugh at Bonnie’s questioning look. “When the electricity comes back on, Carmelita’s going to have quite a batch of laundry to do.”
“Somehow, I don’t think she’ll mind,” Bonnie said with a smile and for just a moment, the two friends stared at each other. Then it hit Jennifer and she pulled Bonnie in for a hug and began crying on her shoulder.
“He was so stiff and cold and he wasn’t talking and…I thought he was gone, Bonnie!” She hiccuped as the tears ran down her cheeks. “It was so damn scary to see him like that. Oh Bonnie, what if Luke hadn’t noticed? Just a few minutes more, and I don’t know…” She broke off, unable to continue. But Bonnie knew what she meant. Life was so damn precarious.
Jennifer pulled back from their embrace. “I…I should get some hot water going. Carma will want some tea when she comes back.” She hurried from the living room, dabbing her eyes as she went, leaving only Bonnie and Sticks. Bonnie mopped up the puddle from Luke’s clothes and then sat down on the floor next to Sticks with a sigh.
“Well, boy,” she said, scratching him behind the ears, “today was an adventure that I’m not sure I ever want to repeat.”
“I think I can agree to that.”
Bonnie whirled around, surprised at Luke’s voice behind her. She hadn’t heard him come back down the stairs. He had his flashlight on his phone turned off, which left them in the dim light of the living room, only the flickering of the fireplace and the candles to break through the darkness.
He crossed over and knelt beside her, and began giving belly rubs to Sticks. His tongue lolled out happily and Bonnie could only laugh at the sight. “I think your dog may be happy,” she said wryly.
“Yeah, just a little.” Luke smiled at her and her heart skipped a beat. In the light of the dancing flames, his cheekbones were thrown into high relief, and his eyes…they were dancing in the darkness, too.
“So where is your family? Why aren’t you with them for Christmas?” Bonnie finally asked, if only to have something to say, since breathing normally seemed to have become optional and she needed to have something to distract herself. He was quite possibly the most handsome man she’d ever laid eyes on, and her breathing seemed to become…erratic every time he got close to her.
As soon as she asked the question, though, his mouth tightened and he looked away and she knew she’d hit a sore spot. She opened her mouth to apolo
gize when he began to speak, and so she closed her mouth with a snap. She wouldn’t be so rude as to interrupt him after asking him an unwanted question.
“My dad’s here in the valley. We see each other sometimes, just in passing. At Frank’s Food & Feed or the grocery store or whatever. He’s not…we’re not close.
“And my siblings…there’s a pair of twins who are younger than me – five years younger. A girl and a boy, so no, they’re not identical.
“They both left as soon as they graduated from high school. Literally. They left that night when graduation ended and I’ve only seen them a couple of times since. They hate Sawyer and make no bones about it.
“And my mom…well, she and I haven’t seen each other since the Christmas of 2002.”
Bonnie sucked in a quick breath. How was that even possible? How could someone go that long without seeing their mother? She tried to imagine for a moment not seeing her mom for years and years, but quickly gave up. Her mom was one of her best friends.
Luke began telling a story, settling in beside her on the floor, his hand coasting gently over Stick’s fur again and again, in a trance of remembrance.
“My mom had hated Sawyer – all of Long Valley – for a long time. After I was born, I think she had postpartum depression because she just sank inside herself. At least, that’s what I heard later. Obviously, I don’t remember it myself.” He shot Bonnie a smile without humor and then turned his gaze back to Sticks, who was floating on a cloud of pure joy as Luke continued to pet him.
“Things got real rough between my parents – she blamed him for taking her away from everything and everyone she loved. She’d gotten pregnant with me, you see. I was the reason they got married. She never missed an opportunity to make me regret this failing of mine – that I’d forced her to marry a man that I’m not sure she ever really loved.”