Page 5 of All Snowed Gin

I turn on my heel, not bothering to say anything else. A grand welcome isn’t needed. It’s not like she’s coming over for a dinner party. She’s only using the phone. I glance over my shoulder, watching as she struggles to close the solid oak door. She’s pushing into it with her whole body, no doubt wondering if it’s made of stone, same as I did with a similar door as a child.

When it finally shuts—the distinct click from it latching almost covered by the shuffling of her feet to catch up with me—I pick up the pace. It’s time to get this over with.

“Phone’s in here,” I grumble, nodding toward the kitchen.

“Thank you soooo much,” she replies. “I’m sorry to disturb your afternoon, but my phone was having a hard time getting a signal in the storm.”

“Cell service is spotty up here. Can’t be relied on.”

“Oh, gotcha. I guess that makes sense, being so far out of town and all. I guess I…”

She cuts herself off, jaw going slack, only a few steps into the kitchen. I watch as her eyes widen, darting around the room, surveying the state-of-the-art equipment in here. A six-burner gas range sits over dual ovens, both of which are built into marble countertops. The farmhouse sink is to the right, with a fridge large enough to hold a month’s worth of food to the left. It’s more than I’ll ever need, living alone, but it also holds more memories than I can count. Meaning I won’t ever change a thing.

Including the corded phone built into the wall. It’s the one item in here that isn’t fancy and modern.

“It’s old, but it works,” I tell her, nodding at the faded canary-yellow device and knotted up cord. “’Specially since there’s no Internet.”

“Thank you.”

Her smile is bright, tugging at a string inside me that I didn’t know existed. One that needs to disappear. I step out of the kitchen, giving her the privacy to make her call. The skeptic in me thinks maybe I should watch her, make sure she doesn’t run off with the silver. The realist in me, though, reminds the skeptic that she’s only wearing a sweatshirt in a snowstorm, so there is nowhere for her to put the silver that I don’t own.

“Big Ben, this is Rubber Duck!” Lou’s voice crackles over the CB radio in the den. I roll my eyes, hating the nicknames he gave us.

“Hi Lou,” I answer.

“Your phone’s busy, everything okay up there?”

“It’s fine. There's a gal using it who blew a tire on the way down the mountain’s all.”

“Oh man, in this weather? That sucks.”

“Yup.”

“Well, I hope she’s got a change of clothes, because she’s gonna be there awhile.”

Errr…what?!

“Come again?”

“That’s what I was calling to tell you about. Bridge is out. Roof collapsed. You got your groceries, right?”

“Delivered this morning,” I answer absentmindedly. My thoughts aren’t on my groceries right now. They are one hundred percent on the brunette in my kitchen.

Who is stuck. Here.

Shit.

“Pierce? You hear me?”

“I heard you. Bridge’s roof collapsed. They say how long to clear it?”

“No, but I gotta think at least a couple or three days before they even start with the snow, then Chris—”

“Lou…”

“I know, I know. Not your favorite time of year. Well, no one should bother you now, since no one can get to you.”

Which means no one can get to her…