Snow Furries (An Alpine Grove Romantic Comedy Book 4)

by Susan C. Daffron

  After appeasing her oppressive needs, Becca carefully shuffled her way back out into the living area. Jack had lit the candle again and was sitting on the sofa, a plastic bag filled with snow pressed to the side of his face. She sat down next to him. “Are you okay?”

  He turned his head to glare at her. In the dim light, the flickering flames from the stove made his eyes flash like icy blue daggers. “I’ve been better. Good thing we have all this snow, since there’s a shortage of ice packs—or anything else—in the freezer.”

  Becca pulled a corner of the blanket up over her legs. “Why did you sneak up on me?”

  “I didn’t. I was just standing there. I thought you saw me.”

  “I couldn’t see anything. Then you touched my shoulder.” She clutched the blanket. “Why would you sneak up and scare me like that?”

  He rearranged the plastic bag on his cheek. “I didn’t touch you.”

  “Yes you did!”

  “No I didn’t. Maybe it was a spider.”

  “Yeah, right. What spider is out crawling around in the snow?” Becca peered at her shoulder and brushed it with her hand, just in case.

  “They aren’t outside; they’re inside now. Sometimes they hang out in wood piles.”

  “I didn’t need to know that.” Becca moved her hands around the sofa pillows, looking for wayward arachnids. “I hate spiders. Now I’m really creeped out.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You’re sitting on my bed. They probably all crawled up off the sofa onto me.”

  Becca giggled. “True. You can keep them.” She leaned back on the sofa, pulled her feet up and snuggled herself into the blanket with her arms wrapped around her legs. “I’m really sorry I hit you. I took self-defense classes, after, I…um…took classes. Never mind.”

  Jack looked up from the bag of snow he was rejiggering in his hands. “After what? Since you just hit me, I think you can tell me.”

  Becca moved her head farther away from the candle, so he couldn’t see her face. “After everything that happened today, you probably already think I’m an incompetent moron. At a minimum, I’m sure you think I can’t drive.”

  “I’ll admit, I have seen better drivers.”

  “I can drive fine. Or I can when it’s not snowing. And I’m really not a helpless idiot, either. I wasn’t, anyway.” She waved her hands in front of her. “I had a fantastic career—everyone loved me. I was managing seventy-five properties. I kept track of thousands of details about tenants, rooms, inspections, repairs, utilities—you name it. The folks in the office called me Becca the Efficient. Work was my whole life. I loved it.”

  Jack moved the plastic bag off his cheek and examined it again. “I thought you were an appraiser? What does any of that have to do with hitting me?”

  “I took self-defense classes after I was attacked.” She paused and took a deep breath. Even after all this time, talking about it was still awful. “After it happened, I couldn’t go to work anymore. I went to counseling, took yoga and the self-defense classes. I tried to fix it—or fix myself—I guess. I really did. But everything still fell apart.”

  “You were attacked?”

  Becca sighed. “Yes. I hate talking about this. And now I’ve had to tell so many people, you’d think it would be easier. Really, the whole thing could have been a lot worse. I was lucky.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was going home—just walking to my car outside the office like I always did. When I was leaving the building, two drunk guys said they wanted to “get to know” me. I’ve lived in the city my whole life—I always thought I was kind of street smart and all that. So I ignored them and just walked faster. But they wouldn’t let up. They kept saying they wanted to know me. Finally, I said I didn’t want to know them. They got closer and then one of them hit me. I started screaming and I think I kicked one guy, but then a third guy came out of nowhere and grabbed my purse.”

  Jack touched her arm gently. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  Becca shook her head. “Someone called the police. There’s a warrant out for one guy who ran away. I guess it’s felony aggravated assault, officially. The other two were arrested for misdemeanors. But it bothers me that that guy is still out there, you know?”

  “I can see why.”

  Becca leaned her cheek on her knees. “In some ways, that’s not even the worst of it. I couldn’t go back to work. Every time I tried to go into that parking lot, I got so anxious. I’d see something out of the corner of my eye. And the smells from the Indian restaurant down the street or the sounds of someone clattering a trash can lid would just bring everything back, so I’d just sit there in the car. I tried taking some sick days, hoping it would go away. But it kept getting worse, and finally I had a full-on panic attack at work. I thought I was dying and I couldn’t breathe. I passed out and they took me to the hospital. It was all so embarrassing. In the end, everyone was really nice about it, but it wasn’t like they could move the office. I had to quit.”

  “That must have been hard.”

  “It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I’ve always been so good at my job. It was a huge part of my life. Then there was just nothing. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I looked for another job. Sort of. But mostly I just sat in my apartment feeling sorry for myself. I didn’t want another job. I wanted my job. The one I loved and where everyone loved me. My mom was actually the one who suggested I get into property appraisal work because of my uncle. He owns an appraisal company. So I’m training with him. I like the work for the most part. Well, until he made me come here anyway.”

  Jack squished the plastic bag of snow. “I agree that today was not a good day.”

  “No. You seemed to handle it a lot better than I did though.”

  “I think you were just busy trying not to freeze to death. It wasn’t particularly enjoyable for me either.” He pointed at the dog who was, once again, flat on his side snoring on the rug. “I think Frank had a good time though.”

  Becca wrinkled her nose. “What is that horrible smell?”

  “It’s possible the SpaghettiOs didn’t agree with Frank.”

  “That’s disgusting. Just when you think your day can’t get any worse, the gigantic dog gets a case of the farts.”

  Jack laughed. He had a wonderful hearty, warm laugh and Becca couldn’t help but smile in response. He said, “Well, Frank is a big dog and this is a small cabin. It could be bad.” Jack got up and shook water off his hand. “I think my snow has melted.”

  Frank jumped up and followed Jack toward the kitchen area, wagging his tail. Becca waved her hands at the dog. “Don’t you be sending that stink over here.” Suddenly exhausted again, she leaned back on the sofa. How was Mona doing? Maybe they lost power there too, with all this snow. Poor scared Mona. She hoped her little dog was okay.

  After eating stuffing for dinner, Johnny had collapsed in his fort, so Mona spent most of her evening curled up next to her canine buddy Chelsey. It was clearly time to give up on the long, tiring day, so Kat led all the dogs, Cindy, and Johnny downstairs with the flashlight and returned upstairs to go to bed herself. Joel appeared to be asleep already. Kat turned off the flashlight and crawled under the covers next to him. He rolled over and reached out to find her. “Hi.”

  Kat took his hand and stretched out her legs to figure out where the rest of him was situated. “I want my nightlight back. If I have to go to the bathroom tonight, I might seriously damage myself. This is the darkest dark ever. It’s like someone coated the world in black construction paper.”

  He squeezed her hand. “So did you explain the water conservation measures?”

  “Yes. Talking about anything related to the bathroom with a six-year old is complicated, and the conversation degenerated quickly. It took forever for Johnny to get through every possible question related to flushing protocol and bodily functions. I think he’s on board with the program now though. And he liked the idea of making some yellow snow tomorr
ow.”

  Joel chuckled. “I’m glad I missed it.”

  “The no-water thing is arguably worse than the no-electricity thing.” Kat snuggled up closer, enjoying the warmth.

  “No electricity means no well pump, you know.”

  “I know. I understand it, but I don’t have to like it. I hope the power comes back tomorrow, or I’m going to start looking really bad. The long, stringy, greasy hair look is not attractive. And the kitchen is a disaster. Lori was starting to look way too interested in all the stuff on the counters. Why is it that the dog that is hardest to see in the dark is also the most sneaky?”

  “I’m sure it will be fine.” Joel rolled over on his back and groaned. “I’m more worried about plowing. I just couldn’t face digging out the truck in the dark. But that was probably a mistake.”

  Kat put her head in the hollow below Joel’s collarbone. “The truck isn’t going anywhere.”

  “If I wait too long to plow and it keeps snowing like this, there will be too much snow, and the truck won’t be able to move it.”

  “But it’s got that huge plow blade.”

  “We’ll see. I was just too tired.”

  Kat stroked the soft short beard on his cheek. “There are lots of shovels. The rest of us can help too, you know. If Cindy ever wants to get out of here, she can help shovel.”

  “Ugh. You can tell her that.”

  “Are you feeling okay? How is your leg? Cindy really gave you a hard time about that.”

  “Spending half the day fighting with her is why I’m so tired. She wears me out.”

  “I can’t believe she was mad we ate ‘her’ stuffing. You made it. I’m afraid severe weather delays may affect her big Thanksgiving party.”

  Joel groaned again. “I don’t want to think about that.”

  “Did you really have eight surgeries?”

  “Nine.” He gently moved Kat’s head and rolled over. “That’s another thing I’d rather not think about right now.”

  “What happened?” Kat ran her fingertips across his arm, tracing the contours of the sinewy muscles. Joel had always seemed so healthy and invincible. It was hard to imagine him in the hospital.

  “Car accident. Cindy is overreacting, as usual. I’m fine. It was all years ago.”

  Kat put her arm around his waist and laid her cheek on his back. “I’m sorry. That sounds awful.”

  “It was.”

  “From what Cindy said, I guess running is bad. If Swoosie comes back, we’ll figure out some other way to tire her out.” Joel didn’t respond and from the regular sound of his breathing, it seemed he had fallen asleep again. Kat stared into the darkness as questions swirled in her mind. Nine surgeries?

  The back door slammed downstairs and Kat jolted awake. She rolled over and realized Joel had left the bed at some point. She had planned to ask him about the car accident this morning while they were alone. Oh well. Feeble light was peeking through the curtains. Maybe he was taking the dogs out. Or maybe it was Johnny randomly letting dogs out that were supposed to be on a leash. Uh-oh.

  Kat jumped out of bed and pulled on her jeans under her nightshirt. She scuttled down the stairs and looked around the hall. The door to her office was still closed. That was a relief. She opened the back door and peered outside. Many canine prints and one large set of human footprints trailed off into the forest. The snow had stopped, but the sky was still white. It looked like this was just a small break in the wintery action. There had to be almost two feet of snow on the ground already. Wow. Crossing her arms across her chest, Kat turned around and went back inside. It was freezing out there. The calendar might say it was still fall, but winter had definitely arrived.

  Cindy emerged from Kat’s office and stood in the hallway looking tousled and dazed. Kat waved. “Good morning.”

  Cindy rubbed her face with both hands. “I feel awful. How much wine did I drink?”

  “I’m not sure, but the bottle was empty. I had half a glass. I’m not sure if Joel drank anything. He doesn’t drink wine very often.”

  “Ugh. That was a mistake.”

  Johnny ran out of the office and yanked on Cindy’s pant leg. “I want to watch cartoons! Where did Mona go? I told her she could watch too.”

  “Mona is outside with Joel going for a walk,” Kat said. “The electricity is still out and we don’t have a TV. Even if we had power, you couldn’t watch cartoons.”

  Johnny’s eyes widened as he processed this important bit of information. “No TV? No TV! But I want to watch Rocky and Bullwinkle.”

  Cindy moaned. “I forgot about that.”

  Kat turned her palms upward. “Sorry. My aunt didn’t have a TV. I sold mine, and I think Joel’s was thrown out a window along with his computer. Its final resting place is probably at the dump somewhere.”

  Johnny said in an exasperated voice, “What are we going to do?”

  “I’m going to make breakfast,” Kat said. “The stove still works.” It was a good thing the stove ran on propane, or there could have been a major mutiny last night. “We should use up the eggs anyway, since the refrigerator is still off. There’s a lot of snow out there. I don’t think the power will be back any time soon.”

  “Mommy, there’s no TV!” Johnny whined. “Moooommmmmmy!”

  Cindy slowly started stumbling toward the stairs. “C’mon Johnny, let’s go see what we can scrounge up. I’m not sure I can handle eggs yet. Maybe crackers. Or one cracker.” She looked back at Kat. “Do you have any aspirin?”

  “Yes, I’ll go get it.” Kat followed them toward the stairs. “Oh, and happy Thanksgiving!”

  Cindy gripped the handrail with both hands, dragging herself up the stairs. “Yeah, happy, real happy. I’ll be thankful when I can finally get outta here.”

  Kat sighed. At least, being hung over had slowed Cindy down. Kat would be extra thankful if Cindy left before she got enough strength back to start fighting with her brother again.

  Since no one seemed interested in her breakfast suggestions, Kat left Cindy and Johnny to figure out food for themselves. The messy condition of the kitchen was depressing, and given the lack of water, it was going to stay that way. She put on her coat and boots and went outside, where Joel was standing with the dogs and considering the state of the truck. Although Kat knew the truck was green, no part of the old Ford was visible under its blanket of snow.

  Joel handed her the leashes for Mona and Chelsey, who were panting happily. “Here, have some dogs.” The other dogs were romping through the snow, looking like porpoises, leaping joyfully through the vast expanse of white.

  Kat took the leashes. “Gee, thanks.” She pointed at the truck. “This could take a while.” Linus cavorted over to her through the snow along with Tessa, who was attached to him using the harness and leash arrangement Kat had devised. She rubbed Linus’s ears. “You guys sure are excited about the snow.” Linus and Tessa wagged and ran off to join the other dogs in some power snow wrestling.

  Joel looked up at the sky, which was a monochromatic grayish white color. “I think it’s going to start snowing again soon.”

  “Maybe we should have breakfast and fill up the coolers with snow like you suggested. Soon the refrigerator is not going to be useful as a cooling device anymore.”

  After dealing with the food situation, Kat convinced Cindy that if she ever wanted to leave, she needed to help dig out the truck. Grudgingly acquiescing, Cindy bundled up Johnny and they all went outside. Although most of the dogs were content to sleep away the rest of the morning, Linus made it clear he wanted more time in the snow, so he was allowed to join them.

  Johnny followed the paths the dogs had created earlier in the snow and found a good spot where he could begin working on his snowman project. Linus sat down nearby to supervise. Johnny explained to the dog, “I’m making a snowman with a time machine, so he’ll never melt.” Linus swished his tail, creating a snow-angel wing.

  Cindy took the shovel Kat handed to her. “How come I have to
use the big heavy metal shovel?”

  “It’s a grain shovel,” Joel said.

  Kat said, “I’m smaller, so I get the half-broken plastic shovel.” She flung some snow away from the truck, toward Cindy. “Oopsie.”

  Cindy shook her shovel threateningly. “Hey, stop it! That’s not funny.”

  Kat giggled. “Oh, you’re so wrong about that.”

  “Start shoveling,” Joel said.

  Cindy dug her shovel into the snow. “Fine.” She picked up a clump of snow and lifted it. “Yuck, this is so heavy. We’re going to be doing this forever! Where am I supposed to put it?”

  “Somewhere away from the truck,” Joel said.

  “There’s just more snow over there!”

  Joel winged some snow over the side of the truck and onto Cindy’s head. “Oops.”

  “Nice shot,” Kat said.

  Cindy stamped her foot in the snow. “Stop that!” Throwing the shovel aside, she bent down, picked up some snow in her hands, packed it together, and hurled it at Kat.

  “That’s cooold,” Kat shrieked as snow slid down her neck. She charged around to the other side of the truck, away from Cindy, and stuck out her tongue at her. “You’re gonna pay for that.”

  Cindy stuck out her tongue back at Kat. “Go ahead, shorty, make my day.”

  “Watch me, you giant galumphing Amazon!”

  “Shut up, you little shrimp!”

  Joel turned, jabbed his shovel in the snow, and glared at Kat. “You are really not helping here.”

  She picked up some snow and threw it at him, beaning him in the shoulder. “You’re no fun,” she said over her shoulder as she ran in the oppose direction.

  Cindy lobbed a big clumpy snowball, which landed on Joel’s other shoulder. She raised both arms in the air in a show of victory. “Direct hit! Score!”

  Johnny peered around the large snowball he was pushing around. “Hey, how come you’re playing without me?”

  Cindy turned around and said, “We’re not playing, honey. We’re trying to shovel out the truck, so Joel can plow and we can go home.”