Hell, it was likely he might not make it back down to the service. Maybe he should turn around and go back to his mother’s while he could.
Squinting, he peered through the windshield and upped the rate of swipes his wipers were making. “Seems worse up here,” he muttered and frowned, while turning onto Lake Road, determined to move forward. His home sat a few miles past the lodge and off a dirt road further up. Suited him fine. The more difficult it was to get there, the harder for someone to make the effort.
For good measure, he turned on the radio to the local station. Having spent his afternoon in Pigeon Forge, he’d not paid a lot of attention to what was happening in the foothills.
“Three more inches in the last hour, folks, so we’re up to seven here in downtown Legend, and it’s just six-thirty. I’ve heard it’s worse in higher country. Forecast says we’re not finished with this yet. Stay in, stay warm, and stay off the roads.”
Matt looked at his pager. No calls. He frowned, picked up his radio, patched into the station, and asked for the Chief.
He waited, turned his lights on low-beam, and slowed.
The snow shifted into a sleeting mass of ice that blanketed his windshield all too quickly. As he followed the road, now significantly narrowed because of the snow, he began to think that his plans, so thoroughly laid out in his head, were likely to change.
“Matthews?” The crackle met him from the radio.
“Yeah, Chief. Need me down there? Just checking in.”
“Didn’t want to bother you son, it’s your day off.”
“Yeah, but looks bad up here. I’m heading up Lake Road toward home. How is it there?”
“For the most part, fine, power is on, no accidents, people keeping of the streets, but…” The thing crackled and sputtered some more. “are you… lodge?... didn’t get… frantic.”
“You’re breaking up. What?” He crept along, his gaze fixed ahead of him.
“Are you near the lodge?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Matthews… sister didn’t… home.”
What the hell was he saying? Matthews. Suzie?
Matthew’s sister. Chelly?
“What?” Squinting, his gaze caught and held onto a flash up ahead. Lights.
Something garbled came back.
“Come again, Chief.”
“Chelly… missing. Might be… lodge. Didn’t make it there.”
Lights. Deeper trenches in the snow heading off the edge of the road.
Chelly?
“You hear me Matthews?”
Shit!
A cold iron fist clutched at his chest and squeezed his heart. The lights. The beam. Casting not at him, but straight up into the trees. He braked as easily as he could without sliding off the road. To his right, he could see down over the embankment.
A small car had slid off the road and practically climbed a tall cedar down the hill. If it weren’t for the lights, he would have passed it by.
“Gotta go.”
Please, Lord, no….
Chelly sat with her head against the steering wheel, gripping the thing like her last minute on earth depended on it, and panted out breath after breath after breath. Adrenaline shot through her, throbbing in her veins. Crying, she attempted to control her errant breathing and tried really, really hard not to panic.
She wasn’t going to make that last part.
Her heart pounded, and fear of what to do next raced through her entire body. Oh God! It all happened so fast, the curve, her tire slipped off the pavement—she couldn’t even tell where the freakin’ pavement was!—and she’d tipped, slid, and rolled once.
Flipped! She’d flipped the car!
“I don’t know what to do,” she whimpered. At least she was now upright.
She was in a tree. A freakin’ tree! But thank God, it actually stopped her from going further down the mountain.
Stupid, stupid, stupid! She should have picked up Brad’s deposit earlier, like he said. She didn’t think about how the roads up here might get. Stupid!
She huffed out one huge breath that thoroughly steamed her windshield. “Okay,” she whimpered. “Am I hurt?”
No. She didn’t think so. Her chest ached from where the seat belt grabbed her and something hit her in the head—maybe her purse?—when she’d rolled.
She glanced to her right. Cell phone. “Where is my…”
The car shifted in the tree and she screamed. “Oh, God!” Panic raced though her. “Oh, God!”
Thoughts of her girls ran through her head and she teared again and sobbed. “I want to see my babies!”
Something knocked against her window and she screamed.
“Chelly!”
Someone was out there! “Yes!” she screamed and frantically reached for the button to roll down the window. “It won’t work! I can’t get the window down!”
The voice came again from outside. “Stay calm. Sit still. The windows won’t work when the engine is off. Hold on.”
The voice. “Okay,” she said and slumped into her seat. “Calm, he said. Stay calm.”
He shouted again. “I’m trying to see how stable the car is before I try to open the door. Sit still, okay?”
Matt. It was his voice. “Matt?” she screamed. “That you?”
Pause.
“Yeah. Just hold on.”
She blew a long, slow breath out of her puffed cheeks. Of all people… “Hold on,” she whispered. “God, please let him not be so mad at me that he lets me slip on down this mountain…”
Closing her eyes, she tried to breathe evenly, to still her panicky heart, and sit still and pray that this would all be over soon.
She heard the latch on the door, and risked a glimpse to her left. Slowly the door opened, and framed there in the moonlight, sleet slanting over his face, was Matt. He’d never looked so damn good in his life.
Leaning in, he reached over her body, his face so close to hers, and pushed the latch on her seat belt. She got a whiff of Old Spice. Funny how that scent made tingles shoot through her. He’d been the youngest man she ever knew to wear Old Spice back in high school. She realized she still liked it.
Funny she should think of that now.
He lingered. Looked into her face.
Their gazes caught and suddenly, every past remembrance of them shot through her with sudden awareness, and she realized how much she didn’t want him to hate her.
“I think your belt is jammed.”
She sniffled and a tear fell. “Please cut the damn thing off and get me out of here.”
“I don’t have anything to cut it. Have to go back to the jeep.”
She grabbed his arm. “No! No, please don’t leave me.”
“Chelly, this car could slide down the mountain. We have to get you out.”
“I know. I know! But Matt, please, don’t leave me.”
Matt thought about the irony of that. He didn’t want to leave her. Never, ever wanted to leave all those years ago. It was she who left. “I won’t.” He knew that should that car shift and start to slide again, he’d be there right alongside her. No way would he leave her alone. “Okay, let’s try something.”
Her tears were nearly his undoing, and once again, he was sucked into the overpowering feeling of wanting to protect her. Hell, at this point, he only wanted to save her, get her out of this car. He’d deal with any other emotions later.
Go into cop mode, he told himself. Serve. Protect.
He tried hard not to put any more pressure on the car than he had to, so he didn’t lean too heavily into her. The vehicle was rather precariously perched and he couldn’t quite tell what was holding it up, so he didn’t want to take any chances and linger.
“Your coat is bulky and you’re small. Let me pull the shoulder strap from around you and see if you can take your coat off. Then maybe that will give us enough room to slip you out of the lapbelt.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
He pulled the shoulder belt back and
she started peeling out of her coat.
“You’re going to be cold.”
“I don’t care. I’d rather be cold than dead.”
He stifled a grin.
“We’ll get it back on soon as possible.”
She wiggled out of it and tossed it on the passenger seat.
“Now, I’ll hold the lap belt and you…”
The car did a crazy shift to the right. Chelly clutched at his neck about the same time he grabbed her and tried to jerk her up and out. Somehow, in the commotion the belt gave way, and Brad tumbled out of the car with Chelly landing on top of him.
With a crack and weird buffered scrape of metal against wood, the car tipped to the right and rolled downward.
Chelly buried her face in his chest and let out a huge sob. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight while the both heaved heavy sighs. Chelly shook in his arms and he wasn’t sure if it was from the cold, or shock.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said after a moment.
Chelly welcome the warmth as Matt wrapped her up his coat and half dragged, half-carried her through the slush-ice mess up the incline to the Jeep. When they reached his jeep, he tucked her in the passenger seat, got in, and turned the heater on high. After a moment, the chill left her and she stopped shivering. She listened as Matt radioed back to the police station, and asked the Chief to call Suzie and tell her that Chelly was fine, and that he’d radio again later. Somewhat relieved that they wouldn’t worry, she also thought about her girls, and missed them immensely at that moment.
They rode in silence while they climbed in elevation. For a while, she didn’t think about where they were going until they passed the lodge and pulled onto a smaller road.
Matt finally spoke. “Your seatbelt latched?”
“Yes.”
“Good. This is getting worse.”
She stared ahead and burrowed into his lined suede jacket. It smelled of him, and she breathed deep. It was a comfort. “We’re not going back to Legend, are we?”
He didn’t immediately respond so she angled her gaze at him. He stared straight ahead, peering down the road. She noticed that even without his coat, he showed no outward appearance of being cold. In fact, he showed no outward appearance of anything, emotion included.
“No.”
“Then where?”
“Can’t go back down, the roads are too bad. No way to turn the Jeep around safely.”
“I asked you where, not why.”
He didn’t respond.
It was Christmas Eve and she was going to be away from her children. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes. Tomorrow would be Christmas morning. And here she was, stuck in God-knows-where with a moody ex-boyfriend.
A sob caught in her throat. Dammit, she would not let him see her cry any more. Every time he had seen her since she was back, she was crying. At least she was alive. That should be consolation enough, and there would be many more Christmas Eves with her children.
The vehicle lurched to the right, and then back to the left. She grasped the door handle. He turned the Jeep and she looked in front of them. A security light shone through the falling snow and rested on a small cabin nestled in some pines, barely visible in the driving snow.
Uncertain about this turn of events, Chelly looked at him, and finally he met her gaze with a look of determination.
“Matt, where are you taking me?”
He didn’t blink an eye. “Home,” he said, “Where I should have taken you years ago.”
Chapter Six
They made it into the cabin by holding onto each other and tripping their way through the growing drifts. Soon, they were inside. Chelly stood in the entry, slithered out of his coat, and held it protectively in front of her. Matt tramped his feet on a rug, pulled off his boots and set them by the door, then moved to the fireplace across the room. He bent to stoke the fire burning there.
In awe, Chelly glanced about.
Not huge by any means, the cabin was definitely warm and cozy, with a clear-cut male influence. The stone fireplace was the focal point, looming large and masculine beneath exposed rough-hewn beams. The walls were bare wood. It looked to be a true log cabin. A dark brown leather couch with a couple of heavy afghans draped over it sat facing the fireplace. Oversized armchairs balanced each side.
She spanned the larger room and noticed an open kitchen to the left, complete with a small breakfast nook tucked back into the corner. It appeared well-equipped with all the necessary appliances, and well-kept. To the right was a half-closed wooden door to another room. His bedroom?
She was sure she would never find that out.
His statement earlier still rang in his ears. Home. Where I should have taken you years ago. What the hell did that mean? He didn’t have this cabin all those years ago.
No. He built one here for himself. And a fine one.
Without her.
She didn’t want to think about it.
Well, yes, maybe she did. They were young and idealistic years ago. Just out of high school, and talked of a home together, a cabin in the woods, with kids and puppies and….
It was what she wanted. He wasn’t ready.
Suddenly she knew why that ache landed deep in her tummy a moment ago. He built their cabin, even though she wasn’t in his life.
Why?
Her gut clutched; she knew exactly why. Don’t think about that right now, Chelly. Not yet.
So, she concentrated on the rooms in front of her. Yes, that was safe. Furniture, fireplace, things on the wall. What drew her in was the essence of wood. Not only the beams and the walls, but also the intricately detailed carvings that sat about the room. Her gaze landed on first one item, then another. A small black bear cub lay on its back on an end table. An eagle perched majestically on the mantle. A mother deer and twin fawns quietly grazing on a shelf. A carved picture of the Smokies, with layers of dimension and depth, hung on the wall next to the fireplace. A set of wooden bowls on the counter was graced with a lake scene.
“Oh, my,” she whispered.
Matt looked up and her gaze fell to meet his. He stood and ran his hands down his thighs. Finally, he moved toward her. “Here, let me take the coat. Slip out of your shoes, okay?”
She nodded and did what he asked, not quite sure why she was so taken aback with Matt’s home. She remembered when they were kids he used to whittle all the time. One time he made her a small heart and put it on a chain. In fact, she still kept it in her jewelry box.
His gaze met hers as he reached for the coat.
“Matt, did you do all this?”
He pursed his lips and glanced about. “Yes.”
“It’s fantastic.” She reached for the bear cub. “May I?”
He nodded and she lifted it closer to her face. “You are very talented.”
Slipping the coat over a barstool, he glanced off and perused his cabin, then back to her. “I had time on my hands.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Built the cabin, too. Bought a little patch of land before Brad Matthew’s bought the lodge property.”
Finally, Chelly found her feet and moved further into the room. She knew she should be thinking more pertinent things, rather than how Matt had occupied his time for the past four years—like how in the world they managed not to argue thus far, and when they would be able to get back down the mountain—but for some odd reason, she was spellbound, and in awe of Matt’s work.
She turned toward him and caught him staring at her. “Matt, I…”
A muffled crack sounded from somewhere outside, then a lengthy scrape against the side of the cabin. The lights flickered and Chelly kept her gaze on his face. He looked away but she still watched as the lights came back on, briefly flickered again, and finally, thrust them into darkness.
Matt swore under his breath, but was secretly glad the lights went out. With Chelly standing there in his cabin, having to look at her, his heart pounded, and he wasn’t quite sure how he would get through the evenin
g. Now, perhaps, in the dark, he might be able to survive a little better.
Although he really did not want to lose power, the cover of darkness felt safe. Besides, the fireplace warmed the cabin nicely. He did have a backup generator, but didn’t relish the idea of traipsing out back to the shed in this storm to kick it into action. If he had to, he would, but for the moment, he preferred staying put.
“Stay still,” he told Chelly and started toward her. “I think we can see well enough with the fire. Maybe it will come back on in a minute.” He doubted it, pretty sure that a low-hanging branch, weighted down too heavy with snow, had ripped the power line from the side of the house. Easy enough fix, but not tonight. He’d see to it tomorrow but knowing that tomorrow was Christmas day, getting the power trucks up here was unlikely.
Reaching her side, he grasped her elbow. “Let’s sit by the fire.” He wanted to say, We need to talk, but didn’t.
He led her there and settled her on the raised hearth.
“This feels good,” she said. “Maybe the heat will dry my jeans.”
Dammit, he hadn’t noticed that her clothes were wet. Glancing down at himself, he was in the same boat. “Hell, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Let me see if I can find us something dry to put on.”
He left her by the fire and trekked off to his bedroom. Thoughts flew through his head like a house afire. One glance back as he entered his bedroom door and his heart began a slow thrum. He left the door open so partial light from the fire would give some illumination in the darkened room.
Chelly was here in his cabin. Not his plan, yet it had happened, and he had to deal with it. But how?
He stalked to his dresser and fumbled through a couple of drawers. Hell, he had nothing small enough to fit her, did he?
Finally, he brought up a smaller pair of jogging pants and an old high school sweatshirt. Smiling, he wondered if she’d remember it. He quickly changed himself, grabbed the clothes for her, and stopped abruptly at his bedroom door to watch her silhouette against the fire.
The flame flickered over her blonde tresses, setting off a fiery halo around her head. She threaded her fingers through her hair, fluffing to dry the length. His breath caught in his throat.
A Legendary Christmas Page 26