When Snowflakes Never Cease (Crossroads Collection)

by Amanda Tru

  Deep down, despite his teasing and often cantankerous attitude toward her, despite knowing that he still didn’t really like her, despite that she treated him terribly, that bare-chested superman on the couch was very much a gentleman.

  Geneva came awake slowly. She stretched her legs down the sheets and reached her hands above her head. She turned over and realized she heard something. She opened her eyes slowly, remembering where she was and identifying the sounds as likely coming from Carter behind the bathroom door.

  Her glance fell on the clock, and she startled up in bed! Ten o’clock! How was that possible? She’d set the alarm for seven! They should be on the road by now! She threw the sheets back and scrambled out of bed, waiting impatiently for Carter to come out of the bathroom and allow her a turn. Deciding she needed some daylight, she walked to the closed blinds. She twisted the stick to let in the light and then began to pull the cord, drawing the blinds to the side of the large bay window.

  “Geneva, no!” Carter said, stepping out of the bathroom just as the final few inches fell away. His warning came too late.

  Her hand fell from its task. Her mind claimed that her eyes told lies in the sight they beheld.

  “No, no, no, no!” The first one was a whisper of disbelief. The last was a shriek of horror.

  White completely covered every inch beyond the window. Snow fell in sheets so heavy it blurred the world, and you couldn’t tell where the ground met the sky. Rapidly accumulating drifts looked like folds of marshmallow, and Geneva couldn’t distinguish a road from the rest of the landscape.

  “Why didn’t you wake me!” She turned to Carter accusingly. “We need to leave right now!”

  “Gen, it’s too late,” Carter said, coming toward her in a pair of jeans and nothing else. His wet hair told the story that he’d just stepped out of the shower.

  “What do you mean?” Gen asked, panic lacing her voice. “If we leave now, we can make it over the pass before it gets any worse.”

  “The road is already closed,” Carter replied with aggravating calm. “It was closed when I woke up a couple hours ago.”

  “So, we just wait? How long until they open it again?”

  “I don’t know. It looks pretty bad. Right now, no one is making it over the pass.”

  Geneva went to her suitcase and hurriedly pulled out clothes as if still determined to make a run for it. “This can’t be happening! It wasn’t even snowing when we arrived last night.”

  Carter sighed, “It wasn’t snowing here, but apparently, it had already started over the pass. The storm hit hard and unexpectedly. Like most of the country, this area hasn’t seen a lot of snow yet this winter. The radar map now shows that several fronts collided into a massive winter storm that covers most of the Western US and is moving east. Pretty much the entire U.S. is under a winter weather advisory.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Geneva bit out tersely. “How could they not know it was coming? How could we not know?”

  For the first time, Carter’s patience cracked just a little. “I’m not a meteorologist, Gen. I don’t know if there was any warning for this area or not. I’ve been a little busy and haven’t exactly kept up on the weather lately. All I know is what the weather report said this morning. Alaska got hit hard by a massive storm that made its way to the continental US and combined with other storms that weren’t predicted to cause much trouble. This isn’t a little snow flurry, Gen. They say it has storm of the century potential with blizzard-like conditions now predicted from the Sierras east as the massive monster moves.”

  Geneva knew she should calm down. None of this was Carter’s fault, and yet he was taking the brunt of her panic and anger. Try as she might, she couldn’t reign herself in, not with so much on the line.

  “You’re saying we’re stuck?” she snapped. “That we won’tmake it back to Crossroads for Christmas?”

  Carter shook his head, his eyes dull with helplessness. “No, Gen. We won’t. At the moment, we’re stranded.”

  Geneva snatched up her clothes and marched into the bathroom to dress. Thirty seconds later, she came out. “I can’t accept that, Carter. You’re telling me that God brought us this far just to abandon us. I promised Kara. I promised Allie. I need to make it home for Christmas. There has to be a way.”

  As she spoke, she yanked on her boots and donned her coat. Leaving Carter standing in the middle of the room, she hurried out the door and made a beeline for the front desk. Surprisingly, Muttonchops was still on duty.

  “Hey,” he greeted before Geneva skidded to a stop in front of the desk. “Tell your young feller that you two are welcome to stay in the honeymoon suite for as long as needed until the road opens. I already marked you down for tonight. Tomorrow we’ll do Christmas right. My bride is already cooking up a storm, ready to whip up a feast for our stranded guests.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Ray, but we can’t stay. We really need to get home tonight. I need a way to get over those mountains.”

  “Your feller was here earlier and asking those same questions,” Muttonchops said with amusement. “Sorry, but nothing has changed since then. Plenty of plows are out working to clear the road. This storm is a nasty one and not expected to get any better. If they get it cleared enough, the pass might open to trucks or vehicles with four-wheel drive. If that sedan out there is yours, you won’t be cleared for takeoff for several days.”

  “Is there a rental car place around here where I coul rent a truck?”

  Muttonchops shook his head no.

  “How about a car lot.”

  Another no.

  “A small airport?”

  “A police station?”

  Muttonchops looked like he was afflicted with a severe case of palsy with his constantly shaking head.

  “Frank Vanderdasson claims he saw a UFO in his cornfield a few years back,” he finally said. “I can give you directions if you’d like to try to hitch a ride with some aliens. That’s the only way I know for sure you’d get over those mountains.”

  She knew she deserved the teasing, but she took it gracefully, only shooting a withering gaze Muttonchop’s direction. None of it stopped the panic from lapping at her like waves inching closer with the incoming tide.

  There has to be a way!

  “How about a gas station or a grocery store?” she tried one last time.

  “Oh, we have those about a half-mile up the road,” Muttonchops confirmed, his head finally bobbing in a different direction. “But the snowplows haven’t been down this way yet. They’re too busy trying to clear the main roads. Right now it’s like trying to keep a bucket full that has a hole in the bottom. There’s too much snow still coming down, and the drifts are too heavy on the streets to get your sedan through. If you need something from the store, I’m sure we have it here.”

  “It doesn’t look too bad,” Geneva insisted, scanning the world outside the large front windows of the hotel.

  It actually did look bad. Very bad. But her panic chased away her reason and placed a nice pair of denial glasses over her eyes so that they couldn’t see the snowdrifts approaching the size of tires and the white pouring out of the sky like a faucet turned to release maximum pressure.

  “I can make it if I hurry,” she said confidently, already moving away from the front desk. “I don’t need to buy anything, but I need to find someone with a truck we can borrow or who will take us as soon as the road opens.”

  “Miss, you’re better off to just wait,” Muttonchops called with concern. “It’s too dangerous to go out right now.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’m sure there are trucks waiting out the weather at the gas station and the grocery store. I need to get things taken care of now. Anyone with a truck will take off as soon as they’re permitted on the pass.”

  Geneva hurried for the front door.

  “Geneva!” she heard Carter’s call right before she made it to the door, but she ignored it and continued outside, pretending that she didn’t hear
him at all.

  She hurried to the car and slid behind the driver’s seat. Feeling the pressure of Carter’s approach, she started the car and backed out. Carter would try to talk her out of going.

  Unfortunately, she’d only backed up a few inches when the passenger side door opened, and Carter slid into the seat with a flurry of snow.

  “Where are we going?” he asked, not a trace of reproach in his voice as he fastened his seatbelt.

  “To the gas station to get a ride,” she gritted out briefly.

  Geneva put her foot to the gas pedal, backing up a few more inches. Then the sedan stopped. Geneva pushed the gas again, but the tires spun, making no progress. Figuring that she needed a better angle to back up, she put the car into drive and lurched forward. Then she tried reverse again.

  This time she didn’t even make it a foot before the tires spun, and the car wouldn’t move. Frustrated, she once again started to pull forward, but the tires now spun in that direction, too. Forward, back. Forward, back. Foot on the gas pedal to the floor, and still neither direction gained her a single inch.

  “Aagh!” she groaned, beating the steering wheel with her hands.

  She shut off the car, tossed the keys to Carter, and got out, stomping her way through the knee-high snow toward the road. Muttonchops said the gas station was only a half-mile away. She could walk it.

  “Gen, where are we going?”

  “You are not going anywhere. Stay here. I’ll just run down to the gas station, speak to a few truck drivers, and be back in a few minutes.”

  “Gen, I’m not leaving you. Where you go, I go.”

  The words should have made her stop right then, but they didn’t quite penetrate the fog of stress until long after. Instead, his presence only made things worse. She may have given up sooner, except that now she had a shadow. She couldn’t just turn back around and admit defeat. Not in front of Carter. She had to make it. Had to prove that she could do this. That she could fix it. That she could get to Allie. That, despite everything, she could save her.

  But every step only got harder. The snow got deeper, soaking through her boots and her jeans. The visibility got worse so that she couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of her through the veil of falling white.

  Her body sounded constant warnings, screaming at her to stop.

  This was dangerous.

  Yet through it all, Carter kept right at her elbow, not saying a word, but matching her step for step.

  In the end, his presence is what finally got through to her. If it were just her, she would have kept going. But plowing headlong into danger yourself is different than taking someone with you. She wasn’t just risking her own life. She was risking Carter’s.

  You can’t save Allie, but you can save Carter.

  Her feet stopped.

  You can’t save Allie.

  The fight left her body, taking all strength with her. She sank to her knees in the snow.

  She moaned, tears blinding the last bit of vision the cascading snow hadn’t already blocked. “I can’t make Jimmy go say goodbye, I can’t get there to say goodbye like I promised, and I can’t save her.”

  “I know, Gen, I know,” Carter murmured, kneeling down in the snow in front of her and wrapping her in his arms.

  “Geneva, you’ve done all you can do. But you can’t save her. You never could. You are not the One in charge. Saving her is not your responsibility.”

  “But God gave me abilities and a brain. I should have figured out a better treatment for Allie. I should have been more convincing to Jimmy. I shouldn’t have missed that flight. I should have insisted we keep driving last night. We are here now because of my mistakes. Because I screwed up God’s plan.”

  “Geneva, none of that is true,” Carter soothed. “Do you believe that God was oblivious to everything that you would do? He knew and planned for it. Even now, we are not hidden from Him. Life, death, and everything in between belongs to a loving God who sees us, knows our needs, and is fully capable of redeeming even death.”

  Geneva heard the words, she knew they were important, but she shook from the cold so badly that she couldn’t make sense of them.

  Carter pulled her up to her feet, put an arm across her shoulders, and practically carried her back to the hotel. She didn’t know how he could see where they needed to go, but it seemed that she hadn’t actually made it that far through the drifts of white. Before long, Carter hurried her through the lobby and into their room. He made her sit on the couch and turned on the gas fireplace. Then he helped her out of her coat, took off her soaked boots and socks, and retrieved a pair of pajama pants from her suitcase.

  “Change into these,” he instructed. “Your jeans are soaked. Don’t worry, I won’t look.”

  He turned his back, and she quickly made the change, though she could hardly pull the pants up because of her extreme shaking. Carter scooted the couch as close to the fire as he dared. Then he yanked the comforter off the bed and wrapped it tightly around her shivering body.

  Announcing that he’d go make them some hot coffee to drink, he left her to do battle with the coffee pot and complimentary coffee stationed in the kitchenette area. With his movements the only noise in the room, Geneva watched the flames in the fireplace dance as her thoughts overwhelmed her.

  She was inadequate. She’d spent her entire life depending on her own abilities, trusting in the talents God had given her. Only in her utter failure did she now recognize that life did not hang on her shoulders. She was not in control. Feeling like she couldn’t go on a second longer, she finally turned and gave it into the hands who created it all to begin with.

  Lord, I’m sorry! I can’t do it anymore. I can’t save Allie. I tried. Oh, how I tried! I can’t grant her dying request, and I can’t even manage to get myself there for Christmas like I promised. I’ve got nothing left, Lord. I’m sorry I tried to do it on my own and acted as if I were in control of life and everyone in it. I should have left it all with you and prayed for the privilege of being Your hands to help Your plan. Help me, Lord. I can’t do any of this on my own. I give you full control of my life and my cares, my loves, and my work. It looks like you’re taking Allie home. I don’t pretend to understand that, and everything in me hates losing to death. I ask that you make something extra beautiful out of her life. Because of Jesus, death does not have the final word. I know Allie will be with You, but don’t let it have the final word here on earth either. Don’t waste the pain, Lord. Bring something—anything—good out of what, to my eyes, can only be bad. Help me to serve you better. Help me to be more in tune with Your plan and not mine. Help me to let You be in control and not try to do it on my own anymore.

  “Are you okay?” Carter’s voice came softly as he sat beside her on the couch and handed her a cup of steaming brew.

  “No, I don’t think I am,” Geneva admitted. “Like you said, I’m not in charge. That’s quite disturbing to me. I always just ramrod through every obstacle and stamp it with the claim that God was using me to do His work. But it’s not like I usually consult Him or ask His opinion on a subject. I just do what I think is best. None of this is what I think is best, and yet clearly, God is the one in charge. He has been every step of the way. From Kentucky to Los Angeles, to Albuquerque, he’s proven that He’s the One in control, not me. I know I’ve been wrong, and I realize I need to get my life on His page rather than expecting him to jump onto mine. I’m trying to work on the faith part that says He knows what He’s doing when everything around me clearly says He doesn’t.”

  “Geneva, the snow didn’t catch Him by surprise,” Carter said, taking her cold hand in his. “Neither did Allie’s illness or her approaching death. Neither did Jimmy’s reaction and refusal. There is a reason for all of it, even if we don’t know what it is. He knows exactly where we are, and He hasn’t forgotten us.”

  “I know that, at least in my head.” Though Geneva’s shivering had subsided, she leaned closer to Carter, rearranging the blanke
ts to lean her head against his shoulder. “I couldn’t save Allie’s life, so I latched onto the idea of granting her final wishes. Now I can’t even manage to do that. Even though I can trust God has a plan and is in control, the part that hurts my heart most is that her wishes will go ungranted.”

  Carter’s arm came around her and pulled her close into a side embrace as they both faced the fire. “He knows exactly where we are, and He hasn’t forgotten us or Allie and her wishes. At no point have we ever been, nor will we ever be outside of a plan He can’t redeem. Even if we don’t make it to Allie in time, even if the wishes she spoke go unfulfilled, I believe His plan will be even better than ours. He can make something out of the greatest tragedies.”

  “Have you heard how she is doing today?” Geneva whispered, afraid to even voice the question.

  She felt Carter’s head nod slowly. “I called this morning before you woke. She’s not doing well. Any time now. She’s actually quite alert, but the nurse will be surprised if she makes it another few days.”

  Geneva let the pain wash over her, and yet, a strange peace came with it. She was not in control, but she could trust the One who was. Okay, Lord, here I am. I desperately want to be with Allie, but it doesn’t look like there’s any way for that to happen. I’m choosing to trust that You have a plan in all this mess and that, no matter what it looks like, You still love us and are good.

  Silent tears trailed down her face. They were tears for Allie, but they were also tears for her. She’d wasted so much energy over the years fighting for control in situations that weren’t hers to begin with. Realizing that her cares belonged with someone bigger, more powerful, and wiser than her was freeing.

  Carter turned her so he could see her face. Then he caught her tears on his fingertips. Her gaze caught on his, and she read the warmth in his eyes.

  “Carter, you don’t want me,” she whispered, studying the rough stubble from a few days growth on his normally clean-shaven face. “I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m very messed up.”