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Power through, Liz. This is part of the job. I walk around the side of the car to the front, scanning the sides of the road. I have to admit, I put on a brave face in the car, but out here in the wild I’m reminded of why I’m a city girl first and foremost. There’s just about nothing I like about the woods in the daytime and at night in the middle of winter, I’m one snapped twig from reverting to primal instincts. Which I guess just means screaming my head off and running for the hills.
The sound of the car door opening makes me jump in my skin, but I recover quickly. It’s only Rhett, probably feeling like a wuss hiding in the car while I go to investigate. He stomps through the drifts toward me, looking utterly pissed off. In the car headlights, he takes an exaggerated look around.
“Well?” he asks. “Where’s the road? Could it be possible that that lady was just fucking with you? Or, just as likely, that this is a trap sending idiot travelers to backwoods cannibals?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve seen too many movies.”
“Maybe you haven’t seen enough. Let me remind you the boyfriend is always the one who gets chopped up first in those films.”
He’s illuminated in the headlights, tall and indignant. It’s a terrible time, but I can’t help myself. “Good thing you’re not my boyfriend then,” I tease through chattering teeth. “You may have a fighting chance.”
Rhett grins with half his mouth. “Who said anything about having to fight?” he says. “All I have to do is outrun you.”
“So you’d leave me to get murdered in the woods?”
“I’m sure Mother would set up a scholarship in your name.” He raises a slightly shaking hand to each imaginary word: “The Westing-Slate Award for Academic Merit. Hey, that’s pretty catchy.”
“I don’t see why your name gets to be in it,” I huff.
“It’s Mother’s name. She’d never be able to give out a scholarship without sharing the glory.”
“Even if I was brutally murdered in the backwoods?”
“Especially if you were murdered. Besides, the whole thing would be to take the heat off me anyway. People would always think I killed you.”
I try to raise my eyebrows but they’ve frozen in place on my face. “Should I be scared?” I ask in mock seriousness.
“Terrified,” Rhett replies.
We grin at each other for a split second and suddenly I forget that my bones are fusing together and that I haven’t slept in twenty hours. I’m caught in the full power of Rhett’s devastating charm and my brain seems to be leaking out of my ears. In a green flannel shirt, the woods and red muscle car behind him, and that hair dangling rakishly in his face, Rhett is transformed into a perfect stranger. A grungy, cocky ruffian completely removed from the white collar doldrums. Suddenly, horrifyingly, Rhett is very much my type.
I turn away quickly, walking without another word around the car before this illusion of Rhett becomes what I see whenever I look at him. I don’t pay attention to what he’s doing, instead use the flashlight on my rapidly dying phone to scan the side of the road for the road that’s going to take us to sleep and (hopefully) sanity.
It doesn’t take long. We passed it; the trees split about thirty feet behind the car. The road is snowy but no more so than the one we’re currently on.
“Here it is!” I announce.
Rhett joins me and examines the road himself. He stands stiffly, with his hands in his pockets.
“You think it’ll make it?” I ask.
He shrugs.
I look for something to say but I feel awkward. It was as if something had flown between us in the headlights. On the cusp of murder and freezing our asses off, we’d laughed together and a weird feeling very much like attraction had landed on me like a flu germ. Had the same thing happened to him?
“Come on,” I say, heading back toward the car. “Let’s go before I lose a nipple to frostbite.” My voice doesn’t quaver, but I cringe as I walk. Why the hell did I bring up my nipples?! We need to get out of here and into bed — separate beds! — before I lose the rest of my damn mind.
I yank on the car door. It’s locked. “Can you unlock the doors?” I call.
Rhett is already on the other side of the car though. He’s staring in the window and I do not like the look on his face. He stands up straight. “Uh,” he says.
Then I realize that the car is on. I look inside and see the key in the ignition. I snap up and stare at him. The expression on his face is way too genuine for him to be fucking with me. We’re locked out.
“What the hell are we going to do?” I whisper. In an instant this road becomes more dangerous than the most violent slasher movie. The cold is already starting to become too much. The hotel isn’t for another two miles and neither of us have our coats. We’ll never make it.
“I’m so sorry, Liz,” Rhett croaks. He yanks on his handle, but it doesn’t give. “Oh fuck. We’re going to freeze to death out here! I knew we should have just kept going.”
My brain is completely numb, but it’s not gone yet. There’s a very simple solution that hasn’t occurred to either of us yet. I kick around in the snow.
