by Erin Wright
“Remind me not to believe Channel 12 weather again,” Luke said wryly. “I left my chains at home, so I don’t know how long it’ll be before I can get out of here. You may have me as a guest for a while.” He looked down at Bonnie. “Do you have chains for your car?”
She tried not to laugh too loudly. “Umm…no. In Boise, you can get wherever you need to go sans chains. They believe in street crews and plows there.”
“Hey, we can one-up that here!” Stetson chimed in. “Here, we all own our own equipment so we can be our own road crews.”
Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Stetson is usually 26…until he gets behind the wheel of a 4x4 with a plow attachment on it. Then he’s about four again.” The love and laughter was obvious in her voice, despite her words.
“Speaking of,” Stetson said, his voice getting serious, “I kept thinking that the snow would slow down, but since it just seems to keep coming, maybe we should head outside and make some passes with the plow before the snow piles even higher and we can’t get out our own front door.”
Luke nodded his agreement and they headed for the stairs to change into coveralls and work boots but he snagged Bonnie’s arm as he walked away, ignoring her startled yelp, and pulling her to the alcove for the jackets just inside the front door.
Without a word, he pointed up, and she saw mistletoe hanging by a red ribbon from the ledge.
“When we were decorating yesterday, I was using my noggin,” he said with a wicked grin.
“Thinking ahead, eh? Very impressive,” she said breathlessly.
“You should see what else I can do…” He dipped his head and began to kiss her and she sighed and opened her mouth to his and he buried his hands in her hair and groaned…
The moment was endless and yet it seemed to last only a moment. Or a lot of moments. Bonnie wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of much right then, except how much she was attracted to this man in front of her.
It was too soon to say love. She knew it. She knew that at best, this could be classified as insta-lust, although she would also say that most cases of insta-lust didn’t start with trips into a bathtub mostly clothed.
But whatever she called it, she knew she wanted nothing more than to be around this man for a very long time.
And how was she supposed to make that happen?
Long after he broke away and headed upstairs to get ready to battle the snow, she stood in the alcove, lost in thought, fingering her lips as she pondered her options.
She just didn’t see it. She couldn’t see it. How could this be anything more than a Christmas fling? They lived 90 minutes away from each other, and it wasn’t 90 minutes of straight freeway time. It was 90 minutes of winding, curving mountain roads, steep cliffs on either side, narrowing to a barely-passable-two-laner-if-you-squinted-just-right-and-didn’t-allow-semis-on-there kind of road several times during the drive. She had white knuckled a couple of the corners during daylight. Without fresh snow on the road.
They would be able to see each other once, maybe twice a winter? That wasn’t a relationship. It couldn’t be.
And yet…the idea of heading back to Boise after the weekend was over and never seeing Luke again tore at her stomach. Tore at her heart. Made her sick. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t.
But Long Valley was suspiciously short on huge accounting firms that could offer her retirement benefits and a 401k plan, and especially with her overwhelming student loan debt, she couldn’t afford to simply quit.
Suddenly, Jennifer’s arms were wrapping around her, and Jennifer pulled her close.
“Shhhh…” she whispered. “It’s gonna be okay.”
And it was only then that Bonnie realized that tears were soaking into Jennifer’s shirt and as Jennifer gently stroked up and down her back, she melted against her, letting her frustration come out as she sobbed, the anger at the universe for showing her a glimpse of this world that she loved…and then yanking it away from her.
“Where,” she snuffled, pulling back from Jennifer’s arms, “is everyone else?” She swiped at her nose and eyes with the back of her hand, knowing that she looked just awful — she’d never mastered the art of crying beautifully — but also knowing that Jennifer didn’t care. Jenn had cried on her couch many a time after the break-up with Paul, so she was one person who just didn’t judge.
One of the many things that Bonnie loved about her.
“Stets and Luke went outside to play with their machines, and Carmelita is whipping up something in the kitchen that is bound to add yet even more ‘pregnancy’ weight to my waistline,” Jennifer said with a smile. “When I give birth and have to lose all of this ‘pregnancy’ weight, I’m gonna be screwed.
“Anyway, why don’t we get out of the coat closet and you can tell me why you’re crying so hard you’re hiccuping, under the mistletoe? I’m pretty sure that’s against the rules of the Christmas mistletoe.”
Bonnie smiled ruefully at Jennifer’s joke. “You make fun of the Christmas mistletoe, but I believe in its powers!” she said sarcastically with a small laugh.
Jenn grinned at her. “See? Life is better already.” They settled onto the couch, Jennifer pulling Bonnie’s head down onto her lap and stroking her hair out of her face. Her lap was smaller than it used to be, now that the baby bump was taking up more space, but Bonnie didn’t mind. It was such a joy to see her closest friend become a mother, and she knew she’d be a damn good one.
Slowly, haltingly, she told Jennifer the thoughts she’d just been wrestling with.
“And the dumbest part of all is, he hasn’t even asked for anything more. I may be jumping the gun here. He flat-out told me that marriage wasn’t for him, so long-term relationships probably aren’t either. I’m being an idiot, but I don’t seem to be able to help myself. I like him, Jenn.”
She sat up and swung her legs underneath her, staring Jennifer straight in the eye.
“Dammit, a lot more than I really should, considering we just met. But I feel a spark around him that I’ve never felt for any guy, not even The Ass, Ryan Petersen. There’s something there and I want to pursue it and see if it works out and instead, we have to just cut it short. We have to let it go, because a long-distance relationship, especially with a guy who lives in a world like this?” She gestured to the snow falling, ever falling, outside the living room window. “We can’t just commute back and forth or whatever. After this weekend ends, that’s it. We’re done. It’s finished before it’s even really started.”
Jennifer nodded thoughtfully, her concern written all over her face. “No, you’re right. I don’t know what to suggest to you, because just from this summer until now, it’s been a really big adjustment for me to move to Long Valley from Boise. I miss you, of course, but I also miss being close to stores and movie theaters and plays and bars and…yeah, it’s just a totally different world up here. In some ways, you’re better suited for it — at least you’ve always loved snow and mountains and pine trees. For me, Stetson has been the only way that I’ve been able to cope with this change. Well, Stetson and Carma and some other friends I’ve met here. Some of the friendliest people in the world live up here.
“But I’d be lying my ass off to you if I said that it’s only been roses and unicorns and sunshine since I moved up here. Why do you think I was so quick to invite you to come spend Christmas up here? I was so excited at that idea, you have no idea.” They grinned at each other and Jennifer pulled her in for another hug.
“I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully as they pulled apart. “I’ll keep thinking about it and see if I can come up with any brilliant plans — any way to make this work for you two. Or at least let you two have a shot at a relationship.”
Just then, the back door opened and Stetson and Luke, chatting, came into the kitchen. Jennifer craned her head around and looked through the open doorway at the two men. “Speaking of,” she said softly under her breath. “There’s our men now.”
Bonnie’s heart contracted at her phrasing, “our men.
” Was Luke hers? He looked through to the living room and, spotting her on the couch, grinned widely and winked.
It sure seemed like he wanted it.
But how?
She smiled back, determined to hide her worries, at least for the moment. She could learn to live in the moment and not always try to plan ahead, right? And what better time to learn that trick than right now.
With a determined smile, she stood up from the couch and headed to the kitchen. It was time to live for right here, right now, and let the future take care of itself.
Chapter Fourteen
~Luke~
The next few days passed in a blur of laughter and pies and snowball fights and more kisses under the mistletoe. In fact, Luke found himself spending more time in the coat alcove by the front door than he’d ever expected to, but considering how much fun he had in it, it was time well spent in his estimation.
The snow storm — promptly called The Storm of the Century by all of the local news channels — finally abated, after covering all of Long Valley and most of central Idaho and western Oregon with anything from a few inches to a few feet of snow, depending on elevation. Luke knew that for some people, the snow had been a huge inconvenience and that it would take a good week for the county employees to dig everyone out, but he couldn’t help thanking God for the snowstorm every day.
It gave him Bonnie just a little longer. Even her boss from hell had realized that it would be next to impossible to require all of the employees to make it to work — even in Boise, some of the streets were still closed to thru traffic as the street crews worked to clear them all — so he’d reluctantly given everyone the day off until December 29th.
Which just happened to be the day after tomorrow.
A thought Luke was studiously avoiding.
He also made sure to check in with Ol’ Willie occasionally, once the phone lines came back up, but as Ol’ Willie crankily told him at one point, “You can damn well show back up in March. Until then, don’t you worry ‘bout it.”
As strange as it was to wrap his mind around it, Luke knew Ol’ Willie was right. They’d always struggled to find things to do with themselves in the winter, and although it was true he did always manage, it was also true that maybe he didn’t need to.
Maybe he could take vacations, and the world would still keep spinning.
And maybe, he could take them with this beautiful woman. He grinned down at Bonnie, who had her pink tongue sticking out between her teeth, concentrating wholeheartedly on the gingerbread man she was decorating. He’d never seen anyone take gingerbread men so seriously. Carmelita baked up a dozen for them to decorate, but mostly, this had consisted of Stetson and Luke eating their gingerbread men while Jennifer and Bonnie were busy pouring their very creative souls into making gingerbread men that’d fit right in to the window of a bakery.
Except…Luke had eaten all of his cookies and was now eyeballing the one Bonnie had already decorated. It looked so damn good, and surely no one would notice a missing foot…or head…
“Don’t even think about it,” she said, without looking up.
“What?” he said, injecting as much innocence as he could into his voice, trying to cover up his surprise.
He looked up at Stetson, who just shrugged. “Jennifer can do it too. It’s scary.”
“We women have radars when it comes to people trying to steal our hard work,” Jennifer said without missing a beat. She was busy adding a frosting bowtie to her gingerbread man. “Our children are going to be so screwed…”
“Speaking of children,” Bonnie said, “shouldn’t you be able to tell if it’s a girl or a boy by now?”
“Oh, I already know,” Jennifer said breezily. “But Stetson wants to have a family party and tell everyone at once, including himself, so we were thinking we’d have a gender reveal party in January. Are you going to come for it?”
Luke’s heart restricted painfully when Bonnie looked up at him for just a moment, her question clear on her face — are we going to be together then? Am I going to be up here for it? — before she turned and forced a smile at Stetson. “So are you saying that your wife knows and you don’t, and you aren’t going crazy over that yet?”
“Nah. I’ll be happy either way. As long as it looks like Jennifer and has ten fingers and ten toes, I’ll be happy.”
“And if it doesn’t look like Jennifer?” she asked.
“Then I feel sorry ‘em already!” Stetson bust up laughing, as did everyone else.
Carmelita, God bless her soul, brought in another cinnamon roll each for him and Stetson, saving Luke from getting his fingers whacked for trying to sneak another piece of gingerbread man from Bonnie.
He dug into his cinnamon roll with a lusty sigh. He was seriously going to have to think about hiring a housekeeper out at his place. After a week of Carmelita’s cooking, he just couldn’t fathom going back to Ol’ Willie’s burnt stew.
“Carma, do you have a sister?” he called out after he put a bite of heaven into his mouth. He closed his eyes, savoring every morsel.
“I have one sister, and three brothers. Why do you ask?” His eyes popped open to see her standing in the doorway to the kitchen, wiping her hands on a tea towel.
“Just trying to imagine Life After Carmelita, and right now, I’m not sure I’m gonna live. I should eat an extra cinnamon roll so I can fatten up, just in case.”
Blushing, Carmelita walked back into the kitchen, muttering, “Flattery gets you nowhere,” under her breath as she went.
But he noticed it was only a couple of minutes before another huge cinnamon roll appeared at his elbow, along with a refill of his coffee cup.
Apparently, the way to Carmelita’s coffee was flattery and a clean mouth. After his screw-up that first day at the dining room table, he’d made sure to watch his mouth real closely around her. He noticed she’d already trained Stetson. He knew which side of his bread was buttered.
Or where the bread came from…
It was the next morning before Luke forced himself to face reality again. Today was the last day. Bonnie really was leaving. She had to go back to work the next morning, and wanted to give herself plenty of time to make the drive back.
Stetson had managed to clear out his driveway, the county road crew had managed to clear out the highway, and Boise had pretty much cleared out its streets. It should be easy driving. She should be good to go.
Looking at her, the pain lanced through his heart. It may be an easy drive for her, but that didn’t make it easy on the heart. Suddenly, he began wishing for sheets of snow to come down from the sky, blanketing the world as far as the eye could see again, but the sky was that brilliant blue that only seemed to show up during the wintertime, when the air was clean and crisp and cold and the world around him sparkled with the brilliance of winter.
Dammit, now Bonnie had him thinking about sparkling winters. She had turned him poetical and shit. Didn’t she realize how much she’d changed him in the last six days? Didn’t she know he didn’t want to be without her?
Everyone else had disappeared with murmurs of, “Better get back to it,” so obviously wanting to give them a chance to say goodbye alone. Instead of laughing at their obviousness, Luke appreciated it. Because it was going to be hard enough to say goodbye, without having an audience to do it in front of.
She smiled up at him ruefully. “It seems like everyone else has left us,” she said. “Our friends are short on subtlety.”
“Yeah, it’s one of the things I like best about them,” he said with a forced joviality that sounded as wooden to his ear as it felt to his heart.
He reached out and pushed a lock of her gorgeous mahogany hair behind her ear. “I learned a new word this week,” he said.
Startled at the abrupt change in conversation, she said, “Yeah? What’s that?”
“Mahogany. Your hair is mahogany. Such a better word than ‘brown’ or ‘red’.”
The joyous laughter spilled out of her. “I�
��” She drew a deep breath and tried it again when she could stop laughing. “I am very proud of you,” she said, mock-seriously. “Such a big word for a cowboy.”
“Farmer,” he corrected her.
“What?”
“I’m a farmer. The only animals I have are horses. I’m no cowboy.”
She looked him up and down, assessing his Wranglers and cowboy hat and green plaid shirt. “Uh-huh,” she said drily. “You call it what you want. I’ll just call you my cowboy.”
My cowboy. Luke was instantly just fine with being called a cowboy.
She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips gently. “Thanks for a magical Christmas, cowboy,” she whispered against his lips, and then before he could stop her or think of how to stop her or pull her into his arms and never let her go, she slipped into her car and drove away, red taillights disappearing into the twilight.
The second time a woman in his life just drove away.
And damn, did that hurt. In a way he didn’t even know pain could hurt — in his whole body. Everywhere. Even his damn pinky toes were heartbroken that she’d driven away and left him alone.
Again.
At his feet, Sticks whined pathetically.
“I know just what you mean, buddy. I know just what you mean.”
Chapter Fifteen
~Luke~
“Jennifer, I can’t stand it anymore. I need you to tell me how to sell my farm.”
“What?!” She stared at him, wide-eyed with surprise.
“I miss her too much,” he said, striding around Stetson’s living room, waving his hands as he went. Past the fireplace that had kept them warm. Past the couch where they’d snuggled late at night. “These weekends together, and then not seeing each other again for days, or even weeks at a time…I can’t live without her anymore, Jenn, I just can’t. I used to think that marriage wasn’t for me, but I used to be an idiot. I’m gonna sell my farm and move to Boise and…well, I’ll work at C-A-L Ranch or something. Something!” He slumped onto the couch, and just stared at Jennifer, pain vibrating off him in thick waves. Retail wouldn’t kill him, right?