Wild Holiday Nights: Holiday RushPlaying GamesAll Night Long

by Samantha Hunter

  She’d been over him for years—both the lust and the bitterness. And the latter should have ruined the former for good. Should have.

  He was still a prickly jerk.

  They lived two hundred miles apart.

  She shoved that stuff aside. “How did you get into firefighting?” It seemed like such a cooperative job. So not the Daniel Barber she’d known.

  “I did some logging out of high school. Then wound up in the park service for a while, but I didn’t really have the people skills for that.”

  “You don’t say!”

  He shot her a funny look and Carrie laughed. “Sorry. Too easy.”

  “Anyhow, I dunno quite how it happened. Saw a crew opening listed someplace or other, and it sounded exciting. Pays good.”

  “And is it exciting?”

  He nodded. “I’ll do it till I’m dead.”

  The way he said that gave her a shiver. That was where his recklessness and her brother’s adrenaline addiction varied. Daniel really did have a death wish, she thought. Or, at the very least, a lack of concern for his own safety. He’d always been the kid who’d climb forty feet up a tree and turn a sixth-grade field trip into a scene. Always diving off the trestle or driving too fast or picking fights with grown men for the sport of it.

  “From chopping trees into timber to trying to keep them from burning up,” she mused.

  “That’s me.”

  Was it? They’d known each other since kindergarten. How come Carrie didn’t feel as if she understood this man at all?

  “You’re a weird guy, Daniel.”

  “Don’t remember asking your opinion.”

  “Don’t remember you ever caring what anybody thought of you.” Least of all Carrie. His best friend’s annoying girlfriend, that was all she’d ever been to him. Some grade-grubbing jock girl loitering in the basement during their band practices, probably wrecking the bro vibe.

  “You don’t get into as many fights as I did if you don’t give a shit what people think,” Daniel said absently.

  She frowned, mulling that over. “That’s probably true. I guess maybe I always figured you just liked fighting.”

  “Surprised you thought about me at all.”

  She spoke carefully. “You were Matt’s best friend. And it wasn’t exactly lost on me that I never had your endorsement.”

  “You got that part wrong,” Daniel said. “You and Matt were perfect for each other.”

  She sensed something mean coming, some jab that proclaimed both her and Matt equally boring or upstanding or overachieving.

  “Go on,” she said. “Go ahead and qualify that statement.”

  “Qualify it? It’s true. You guys deserved each other.”

  “And...?” She twirled her hand. “Because I know for a fact Matt dumped me because you told him to.”

  “And nothing,” he said, shrugging. “He was a good guy. You were a nice girl. And I never told him to dump you.”

  “Well, you told him something. He said so. He said you guys had a long talk and he realized he had to end things. So forgive me if I assumed you were going to say something mean just now.”

  “Give me long enough, I probably will.”

  She sighed, headache reasserting itself. “Four hundred miles to go.”

  3

  DANIEL EYED THE intensifying rain with worry. Rain for now, but the farther north they went, the colder it’d get. This water would be ice and snow before long, and he didn’t have a ton of faith in their little wind-up rental.

  The highway was quiet, and small wonder. Only the desperate and dumb were out driving in this. The smart people were comfortable indoors sipping eggnog with their loved ones, or whatever it was nice people did for the holidays. Like he’d know. He hadn’t celebrated Christmas in six years, probably.

  If it was only him along for this ride, he’d have downed a few Red Bulls and powered through the trip, getting there as quickly as possible. But sliding sideways off the road and trapping Carrie with him all night.... The drive was punishment enough for her, surely.

  He didn’t even want to be making this trip. He wouldn’t be if his grandma hadn’t called him directly and demanded he come.

  This is probably my last Christmas, she’d told him. She was eighty-two and she wasn’t a dramatic woman. If she thought this was her final winter, he believed her. And there’s only one thing I’m asking for—everybody to get along for one lousy day. Put aside whatever hurt feelings there are for twelve hours. Suck it up and give me a nice Christmas to remember you all by, wherever I’m headed next.

  He hadn’t needed to think twice about it. If that was what she wanted, that was what he’d do. He’d hug the parents he couldn’t care less about, swallow his resentment, ignore whatever bait came his way once his dad got toasted, stay away from alcohol himself and keep his cool. For his grandma. He owed her. And he loved her, which he couldn’t say about anyone else in the world. Who knew what would’ve become of him if she hadn’t taken him in for his last two years of high school. Probably would’ve flipped his shit and wound up in juvie or jail if he’d been forced to stay at home.

  So, yeah. Whatever Grandma wanted, Grandma would get.

  He eyed Carrie, wondering how many people she loved. Probably a hundred. And probably they all loved her right back. He didn’t even envy whatever happy, homey Christmas she had waiting for her in Grafton. Like he’d even know how to enjoy all that niceness and love and crap. He was allergic to sincerity.

  He remembered watching a documentary about the real-life Horse Whisperer and getting that suffocating feeling in his chest. Whatever that emotion was, he didn’t even know. He hated feeling touched by things; always felt as if he was choking on something. He avoided interacting with puppies and ducklings and babies. Adorable things made him feel vulnerable, like if he held a baby, it would sense the rottenness in him and start crying, and probably need therapy for the rest of its life. Any time a coworker forwarded an email about a firefighter rescuing an animal, Daniel immediately deleted it. Couldn’t risk the sensation. Like a sucker punch to the heart.

  The last time he’d cried had been four years ago when one of his colleagues had died in a wildfire outside Yosemite. The reaction had freaked him out so much that he’d had a panic attack and had been rushed to the hospital for shock.

  Never again.

  Though, God help him when his grandma really did pass away.

  In the passenger seat, Carrie was leaning against the window, using a folded sweater as a pillow. He wondered if she was asleep.

  He wondered if she still snored.

  He wondered if she still used the same shampoo she had in high school, the one that had made her hair smell like strawberries.

  Daniel jumped when she spoke, breaking over an hour of perfect peace. “It’s after midnight.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Merry Christmas, Daniel.”

  “Oh, right. You, too.”

  “You can change the station if you want.”

  He’d forgotten it was even on. The ads and pop music had faded into the droning swish of the wipers. He switched it off.

  “It’s really coming down.” Carrie sat up straight, balling her sweater in her lap. She was right. The drops had turned to slushy flakes. This wouldn’t end well. Western Oregon was useless with snow and ice, unequipped to handle either. Three or four inches of snow could shut down a whole county for days.

  “If it gets too shady to risk, we’ll find a motel,” he offered. Hopefully there’d be vacancies, with most people already at their destinations.

  “Or a manger,” Carrie joked. “In case my virgin birth kicks off early.” She rubbed the sweater bulge in her lap.

  Daniel smirked at that, then stifled a stupid little pang of jealousy. He knew bey
ond the shadow of a doubt that she wasn’t a virgin. He’d gone camping with her, Matt and another friend once, and had suffered through noises evidencing that fact. He didn’t care if she was a virgin, her or any other woman. Didn’t care what intimate things his best friend had been privy to about Carrie Baxter, not the feel of her body, the smell or taste of her excitement, or the words she’d whispered in the dark tent. Totally. Did not. Care. At all.

  Christ, you’re such a creep.

  * * *

  IN TIME, THE late hour began to assert itself. Daniel would have berated himself for not napping while Carrie had been driving, but there was no chance he would have succeeded, anyhow. Too shell-shocked, finding himself in this situation—closed in this tiny car with the girl it had taken him so long to get over. It had been three years after graduation before he’d quit thinking about her. Quit dreaming about her. Quit conjuring up her face in less polite moments—which had taken a concerted, cold-turkey effort. Three years, even though he’d never even kissed her, never even held her hand. So, yeah, sleep wouldn’t be coming tonight.

  “Oregon welcomes you,” Carrie murmured as they crossed the border. They’d been climbing steadily for a while when the sign appeared on the right, the wind peaking as they neared the summit of Siskiyou.

  “Check your fancy phone.” Daniel nodded to where it still sat in the cup holder. “See what the weather’s doing in the Rogue Valley.” Not that knowing would change a thing. There was pretty much one civilized route to take.

  “Yikes,” she said. “Only one bar.”

  He stole glances at Carrie’s face, lit up by her phone as she typed. She still had amazing skin. Her hair was shorter, with layers and stuff, but she hadn’t gone California blonde or anything. She wore it long enough to put in a ponytail; running still shaped her aesthetic, he’d bet.

  He’d smoked under the bleachers and watched her at practice, and he’d thought she looked like somebody who’d run right out of their stupid hometown, ponytail swinging as she’d book it to someplace better. He’d always liked that about her, how she’d been pretty enough to be one of the popular girls, only she always wrecked it—no makeup ever, no qualms about being seen all flushed and sweaty in her track clothes, brown hair frizzy from practice and curling at her temples.

  “It’s thirty-two in Ashland,” she said. “Freezing rain but not crazy heavy.”

  “What about Grants Pass?”

  She tapped and waited. “Thirty-four. Heavy rain.”

  That could get nasty if the temperature dropped much more. And this car was about as surefooted as a hockey puck.

  “If it gets worse we really might want to stop until the morning. Until it’s light out and the road crews have a chance to do their inadequate best.”

  Carrie looked alarmed.

  “What?” Daniel asked.

  She sank back in her seat. “Nothing. You’re right. We can’t be stupid about it. I just really, really didn’t want to miss meeting Shawn at the train station.”

  “Oh, right.”

  Man, what did it feel like, missing someone? Daniel loved his grandmother, but he wasn’t sure if he missed her. She was so woven into the mess of his childhood and adolescence that it was hard to crave a reunion. Plus, a reunion meant going back to Grafton, a place that held very few nice memories and a ton of bad ones. Why didn’t he miss Matt? His best friend, whose house Daniel had escaped to who knew how many times, with whom he’d shared a band, as crappy as they’d been. He didn’t really like the sensation of being known, though. Anyone who’d ever known Daniel well—Matt, his grandma, that one nice guidance counselor—knew he had feelings, and knew what had made him put up walls and push people away. Anyone who knew you also knew how to hurt you.

  Daniel hadn’t missed Carrie, either. For those few years after graduation, before he’d managed to forget about her, he’d craved her, badly. But that was different.

  Beside him, she fidgeted, shifting her legs around.

  “You okay?”

  “Just achy. This always happens during long car trips.”

  “You never could sit still.”

  She smiled, he thought. He sensed it in his periphery as he might feel a warm breeze.

  “You—” He gasped, control of the car gone in a breath. Carrie yelped, gripping her seat as they slid at thirty miles an hour straight across the shoulder and along the guardrail. The front passenger side was screaming, metal-on-metal, sparks flashing. With a hammering heart, Daniel pumped the brakes until the car finally came to a stop.

  “Oh, God,” Carrie said. Beyond the sturdy rail was the black of a drop-off. A deep ditch, not a cliff, but the way Daniel’s body was pulsing, it could have been the Grand Canyon.

  He gulped a massive breath. “Holy shit.”

  They’d lost a headlight and the side mirror, but the car was still running, and the dash wasn’t blowing up with any truly fatal warnings. Tires, brakes, axels—all apparently were intact.

  After a minute filled with nothing but the pulse of adrenaline, Carrie said, “Thank goodness we got insurance.”

  He was too freaked to laugh, and instead let himself collapse against the steering wheel, overcome with horror and relief and guilt. Christ, he could have gotten her killed.

  He sat up straight. “Screw this shit. We’re stopping someplace.” No more bumper bowling with the guardrails. No more driving for a minute longer than they had to.

  He aimed them toward Ashland. Even at a crawl the car slipped often, but not as badly as the first time. It was snowing, but as they neared civilization the temperature rose to just above freezing. The road was suddenly glazed in black ice, the little car losing its traction every few hundred yards and stopping Daniel’s heart all over again. Carrie probably couldn’t tell, since her hands weren’t on the wheel as his were. She also couldn’t feel how tired he was, how sluggish his reflexes were in the wake of the adrenaline rush and at the end of a long-ass week. Though winter was typically kinder as wildfires went, they still happened. Daniel had helped battle a nasty one in southwest Nevada three days earlier, and he never slept well the week after an intense job. With the hour now approaching 1:00 a.m., he was starting to feel impaired.

  He exited at the next ramp. “We’ll get up early,” he promised. “Once it’s light and the roads have some sand on them. Better to be trapped in motel rooms than in a tiny car on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Want to see what your phone says there is for motels around here?”

  “Sure.”

  “Oh, wait. I see one.” The familiar logo glowed through the drizzle and fog like a beacon.

  “That was easy.”

  Only it wasn’t. No Vacancy, read the neon sign. Daniel pulled into the lot anyway. He parked under the awning, grateful that at least they wouldn’t break their necks slipping on the icy asphalt.

  “Down one eye and one ear,” Carrie said sadly, surveying the car’s light and mirror and patting its hood. “Poor thing.”

  “Better it than us.” He headed for the door and the front desk.

  “Sorry, we’re full up,” the woman on duty said with an overdone, patronizing frown. “Lots of travelers got stranded on their way north.”

  “Are there any other places nearby?” Carrie asked.

  “Yeah, two—but the La Quinta’s full. We called before sending some other folks over there. Last I knew, there were still a few rooms at the Evergreen. That’s about three miles east on this same road.”

  “Thanks,” Carrie said. “We’ll try there.”

  Even after just a five-minute stop, the roads had become worse. They were practically laminated in ice, and no sand trucks were to be seen.

  “Jesus,” Daniel muttered. “Only thing that could make this road slicker is a Zamboni. This
place better have rooms.”

  “Fingers cross—”

  The car slipped dramatically on a diagonal, front tires seeking the shoulder. Daniel wrestled back control and slowed them to ten miles an hour.

  After a seeming eternity, the cheap sign for the Evergreen Motor Inn finally appeared down the road. If there weren’t any rooms, driving anyplace else wasn’t an option. They might just have to beg to rest in the lobby for a few hours until the road crews could do their thing.

  “Vacancy sign’s lit,” Carrie said hopefully. Once they parked she took her suitcase out of the trunk. Daniel followed suit. He nearly wiped out on the ice as he slammed the trunk, and Carrie almost fell trying to catch him. Somehow or other, they both stayed vertical, then skate-shuffled their way to the motel office.

  “Merry Christmas,” Carrie called when the clerk looked up from her computer.

  “And a Merry Christmas to you both. You two sure are intrepid.”

  “Please tell me you’ve got rooms,” Carrie said, setting her bag before the desk.

  “You’re in luck! Exactly one left.”

  Daniel’s eyebrows rose to perfectly mirror Carrie’s.

  “Okay,” Carrie said. “Now please tell me it’s got double beds.”

  A shifty smile. “You two not together?”

  They both shook their heads emphatically.

  “Sorry, just the one bed. It’s a big bed, though,” said the clerk. “Honeymoon suite.”

  Daniel shot Carrie a dry look. Christ almighty, now there was a cosmic joke.

  “We’ll take it,” she said. Only choice they had. Daniel gave the clerk his credit card.

  “Honeymoon suite comes with a complimentary bottle of wine,” the woman announced.

  “I don’t drink,” Daniel said stiffly, but Carrie grinned.

  “More for me.”

  They were handed a key card and a chilled bottle of white.

  “Ooh, Willamette Valley,” Carrie read off the label.

  “Oh, and this,” the clerk said and passed Daniel a coupon for ten dollars off a couple’s massage at a spa down the road. He forced a smile for the clerk’s sake.