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The car slows to a crawl as the man who introduced himself as Bruce, while holding a sign with my name at the airport, turns the wheel onto another road. This one is narrower, because outside the window it’s not just blowing snow I see. Beyond the thickly blowing snow, the drive is edged with thick needled trees, their branches weighed heavily by the dump of fresh white. We inch forward, the car bumping over the drive until I think I see an amber glow of light through the windshield.
My heart sighs in relief and my fingers ache as they uncurl from their clutch of leather. The tension in my back and neck is thick, and I figure it won’t leave until I’ve escaped this death trap of a car to the warmly lit interior of the rustic home I’ve been day dreaming about spending my Christmas holiday in for the last six weeks.
The car stops and Bruce turns to flash me a cheeky grin. “We’ve arrived, safe and sound.”
“Barely,” I grumble.
He chuckles. “Never seen snow, huh?”
“No,” I admit, squinting through the swirling white at the house. “I haven’t done much traveling, actually.”
I can’t make out the house, and disappointment swells.
“You picked the right day for it,” he teases. “With the blizzard.”
I look back at Bruce. “Will you be staying the night?”
“Me?” He shakes his head. “No. I’ll drop your bags at the door and be on my way. I don’t want to get stuck up here.”
Stuck?He doesn’t give me time to ask as he pushes open the door and steps out into the blizzard. Gathering my purse and my courage, I do the same.
The bite of wind is cold. The lash of the snow as it whips through the valley of Mrs. Emerson’s property is violent. I shiver as I catch my hood from being whipped right off my jacket and follow Bruce, who already has my suitcase and carry-on in his grip and is running for the front stoop. I don’t take it in as I would have liked, but I can see it’s rustically stained timber and stone. Beautiful.
I hurry for the door, shocked when Bruce turns to me with an odd expression that makes my belly lurch and my heart flip. “Good luck to ya, Sadie.”
“Wait!” I call as I watch him rush from the stoop, through the blowing white, to the car. Before I can turn back to the abnormally tall, charmingly rustic wood front door, Bruce is in the car and driving away.
Confused, but excusing his abrupt departure with the thought that he likely wants to get back down the mountain before the storm gets worse, I turn back to the front door and knock. I wait, listening to the howl of the wind through the mountains as I shiver under the weight of the puffy snow jacket I purchased for my holiday. Then, when no one answers, I knock again.
She’s home, I figure, because the lights are on. Maybe she has music on and can’t hear my knock. I know Lucy likes music. I stab the doorbell twice and hear the chime echo from inside the house.
Again, I wait. And I wait. Then I hear the thud of heavy steps before the door is thrown wide.
I gasp and take a quick step back in shock at the sight of the man and hisface. The man glares, hostility reconfiguring the set of his features. His eyes, deep, dark brown, sweep the length of my body before they rest on my suitcase, my carry-on, and then slide back to me. “Can I help you?”
“Um…”
“You break down somewhere?”
“I think there’s been a mistake,” I stutter, feeling my insides begin to quiver. The bitter taste of anxiety swells in my belly like a balloon about to pop.
The man scowls at me as he peers around my body to his driveway, looking for a car and not seeing one.
“You walk here with both of those?” He gestures to my bags. My eyes move from his face to his hands. His left hand is like the left side of his face, rippled with deep, angry looking scars. I wonder what happened to him. I wonder what tragedy leaves a scar like this. I wonder—is his whole left side scarred the same?
“N—no.”
He lifts a cool brow. “Then how’d you get here?”
“I was dropped off.” I force my eyes down to my boots, my face flaming. Even with his scars, he’s a very attractive man, but I sense I’ve offended him by my shock. In my defence, I wasn’t expecting a man to answer the door. Neither was I prepared for the sight of him—or his scars.
I feel bad. Rude. Small. And a little frightened.
There’s been a mistake.
“By who?” he clips, clearly not in the mood to deal with me now or ever.
“There’s been a mistake. A horrible mistake.”
