"Do you want me to drive?" Grant asked. The offer was sweet, but I could see him eyeing the compact space behind the steering wheel skeptically.
"Don't worry about it, big boy. I got it," I teased, easily sliding my petite frame behind the wheel.
"Take it slow and easy," he directed as I pulled out of the parking lot and merged onto the highway.
I shot him a look that said I knew how to drive, even though I heeded his advice and let up on the accelerator a bit. The car still shimmied and slid on the slick highway. We didn't have a lot of weight in this small car. I let up on the accelerator a bit more as the snow fell even heavier. Our progress was slow, and I was beginning to think June was right. Only someone crazy would be driving on this road.
Without warning, the car lost traction. I barely had time to react as we slid sideways across the highway. Luckily, no cars were coming from the opposite direction. I removed my foot from the accelerator and stayed off the brakes. Thankfully, I had some experience driving on icy roads. I knew to turn the wheel in the opposite direction of our skid to keep the car from spinning around, but as much as I tried, we continued to slide sideways and down the short embankment. The car protested with a loud grinding noise and came to a jarring halt in a narrow gully off the side of the road.
"Well, hell, that was fun," I muttered, gripping the steering wheel with shaking hands. The car was no longer running, but smoke was seeping out from under the hood.
"Are you okay?" Grant asked. I had a strange sense of
déj
à vu. Just yesterday he had asked me the same question after the plane crash.
"Yeah, but I'm starting to feel like we're in one of those
Final Destination
movies," I said, resting my head against the steering wheel. The vehicle shook slightly from Grant's laughter. As always, I was so glad I was here to amuse him.
"It's not funny," I stated, although my own lips began to quirk from watching him trying to hold his laughter in check.
"You're like the ultimate traveling bad luck charm," Grant said, between howls of laughter.
"Me? How do you know it's not you? I've never had this much trouble getting from one place to the other before," I said as my own laughter rippled through me. I guess under the circumstances, it was good that we had a sense of humor over our experience. It would definitely give us a story to tell.
"We better head back to Whisper Hollow," Grant said as the snow continued to fall.
"Seriously?
How far do you think we've gone?" I wasn't relishing a walk along the highway in my designer boots that were designed more for fashion than function.
"It's probably less than five miles. If we're lucky, we can get back to town before the sun sets. Besides, what choice do we have? Look at your phone. There's no signal out here."
Terrific. Five miles might not seem like a big deal to him, but for someone like me, who avoided exercise like the plague, five miles might as well be ten miles. "Maybe we should wait for someone to drive by and help," I offered hopefully.
"Did I miss all the traffic driving by? I think this is rush hour. Even if a car does happen to be out in these conditions, there's no guarantee they'd stop for us. We could wind up waiting and then be stuck here all night. I don't know about you, but sleeping in this tuna can is not my idea of a fun time," he said. He pulled on the handle of his door to climb out, but it wouldn't budge. "Damn it," he grumbled. "It's stuck. You're going to have to climb out first and then I'll go out your side," he said, looking at the center console and steering wheel apprehensively.
"I can't wait to see this," I spurted out, laughing. It was almost worth the five-mile walk for him to finally be the butt of the joke. Almost.
Five minutes and multiple swear words, bumps and more swear words later, Grant and I were headed back the way we had come, this time on foot. Grant carried the recyclable Disney bag I had gotten from the airport that now contained a change of clothes for each of us and the necessary toiletries. I carried my purse with all our gadgets. He tried to talk me into leaving my laptop behind, thinking it would become dead weight, but I refused. My laptop was my life. I would drag my purse behind me through the snow before I left my laptop. I could tell he wanted to argue further, but he just shook his head, mumbling something about priorities. He didn't seem to get that my job was a priority and my laptop was a tool I needed.
I threw one last wistful look at the car that was already covered by a thin layer of snow. Pretty soon it would match the cover on the ground, which was up to my ankles. At first, I was okay walking along. It was kind of nice to have the snow floating down around us. Even as cold as I was at first, after twenty minutes of brisk walking while trying not to slip, I had warmed up and was tempted to take off my jacket. Once the wind kicked up, it was a different story. Neither Grant nor I talked as we trudged forward with the swirling snow whipping into our faces. Grant stuck close to me, lending a hand when the soles of my boots caused me to slip.
Forty minutes into our journey, I finally broke the silence. "So, what do you do for a living now?" I asked, huffing slightly in the brisk air. I had been dying to
know what he had been up to since I left Woodfalls. I was just always too afraid to ask. He may think I'm crazy for asking now, but it was a way to pass the time.
"I took over for my dad at the lumber yard. He still comes in every day, but he basically turned over the day-to-day responsibilities to me when I graduated," Grant answered, not sounding nearly as winded as I was.
"Wow, that's great. I was afraid after the fires in '09 the plant was going to have to close," I admitted. My father had kept me abreast on what was going on while I was away at college. It was all he could talk about every time I called home. He was worried and rightfully so. He had been the shift manager at the plant for twenty years. The lumberyard was his life. He wasn't the only one. Half the population in Woodfalls had ties to the plant in one capacity or another.
"That was a tough year, but I helped out whenever I wasn't in class. There was some rebuilding that needed to be done, but everyone really pulled together," Grant said.
"That's Woodfalls," I said nostalgically. "Whisper Hollow kind of reminds me of Woodfalls," I added. He nodded his head in agreement and I felt a wave of homesickness. In the four and half years I'd been gone, I had only returned for short stints, mostly around the holidays. It was the seasons I missed the most. Like the fall when the leaves changed colors in September and early October. The landscape would be a painter's canvas of yellow, red and orange. Spring was equally enchanting as new life bloomed in the plants that had been dormant all winter.
"Sounds like you miss it," he said, looking at me with surprise.
"Of course I miss it," I said halting. "Woodfalls is my home."
He also stopped. "You could have fooled me. You
hightailed it out of there almost the moment we graduated and never looked back," he added, sounding aggravated, although I couldn't imagine why. His steps were longer than before, as if he was trying to outdistance his sudden annoyance with me.
"I had things I needed to do," I stated, stalking after him as my own anger rose. What was it to him that I had been gone for a while? It's not like we were friends or anything before I left. My own aggravation made me forget to watch my step on the uneven snow-covered path. I was practically running to keep up
with him when my right foot stepped into a hole that was covered in snow. My ankle buckled and the forward momentum carried me to a heap on the ground with a cry of pain. The throbbing in my ankle outweighed the fact that I had fallen in front of Grant again. I chanted a few words that would have made a sailor blush as I extracted my foot from the booby trap it had stepped in.
Without hesitation, Grant dropped the bag he was carrying so he could kneel in front of me. "Are you okay?" he asked me for the third time in two days as he wiped away a tear that rolled down my cheek.
"I'm not sure," I answered, pulling my pant leg up to inspect the damage. My boot was covering my throbbing ankle. I made a move to take it off, but Grant stopped me.
"You better keep it on. If your ankle is swelling you might not be able to get it back on," he said, looking worried.
"How much farther you think?" I asked, squinting in the snow that was falling more rapidly.
"Two miles, give or take," he said, reaching a hand out to help me up. Grasping my hand tightly, he helped me to my feet. The instant I put weight on my leg it bucked and I bit back another cry of pain.
"Mother sucking of all bad luck," I grunted, hobbling on my one good foot.
Grant looked back the way we had just come and then back to the way we still needed to go. Go figure. Only I would hurt my ankle at exactly the halfway point.
"We have to keep going. It's okay. I'm going to help you," he said, effortlessly scooping me up into his arms.
"Wait, you can't carry me," I squirmed.
"Well, I don't want to freeze my ass off out here, and this is probably faster than helping you limp the rest of the way," he said, adjusting me snugly against his chest. His rock-hard chest I might add. "I'm going to have to leave the bag. I'll have to get it later," he said, striding toward town.
I cradled my purse in my arms, feeling guilty that he was supporting my weight along with our stuff, but we had no choice. Our phones and my computer would never make it covered in snow. My throbbing ankle continued to make its
presence known, but I wasn't going to lie, his arms felt absolutely dreamy wrapped around me. Without giving any conscious thought to it, I snuggled closer. He responded by tightening his arms more securely. It had been longer than I would care to admit since I had been held intimately like this. My last relationship was a disaster to say the least. We fizzled out quickly when I realized the guy I had been dating basically lied to me about everything from his job, where he went to school, where he lived. Turns out he had dropped out of college and was still living at home while he worked odd jobs. I'm still not convinced he had given me his real name. Thankfully, it had only taken me a few dates to see through his load of crap. I'd like to say my other ventures in the dating world had been more successful, but between Dan the Forever Crotch Grabber and Steve the Perpetual Xbox Gamer, my dating endeavors hadn't been very successful. Long-term relationships never seemed to be in my grasp. I felt like Taylor Swift. Minus all the money, of course.
"Are you still seeing Amanda?" I asked impulsively. The moment the words left my mouth I wished I could have retracted them. Did I really want to know about Amanda at this moment?
"Amanda?" he asked, puzzled. "No, we broke up right after you left."
My pulse felt like it galloped at his words.
"She married Stan last year."
"Oh, wow. I thought you guys were serious," I said, trying not to sound as excited as I felt. His words gave me permission to not feel so guilty for enjoying the way it felt to be held in his arms. The heady scent of his cologne swirled around me. I remembered the smell acutely. All through senior year, this had been his scent choice. Thanks to Ms. Garrison's statistics class and her insistence that we sit in alphabetical order, I had to sit behind Grant the entire year smelling it.
Memories from back then flooded my mind and I fought the temptation to bury my face in his neck.
I felt him shrug before he answered. "She wanted things I couldn't give her," he answered.
Great, he had a commitment phobia. "I'm sure she would have waited until you were ready."
"I was never going to be ready," he answered.
Gah, commitment-phobe to the max. All my hopeful feelings from a few seconds ago deflated like a balloon. I wasn't looking for a guy who strings a girl along for four years and then drops her like a hot potato when she wants something more. I get the whole waiting thing, but you had to give a person something. For the first time, I actually felt bad for Amanda. Maybe I had dodged the bullet since Grant was never interested in me.
"I got it. You're a perpetual playboy," I finally analyzed, looking at the falling snow in front of us.
"Playboy? You grew up in Woodfalls, right? I'm not sure there are enough women there to be considered a playboy," he chuckled. "Besides, Fran would have my head," he added.
"How is Fran?" I asked, momentarily distracted. I had fond memories of the woman who owned the small store back home. Where most towns had fast food restaurants where all the teenagers hung out, we had Fran's. She had always welcomed us in no matter how loud we were. She made sure to have our favorite snacks on hand and allowed us to claim the front porch of the store as long as we didn't disrupt the customers coming in and out. The best thing about Fran was that she was never too busy to listen to any of us. I loved my cousin Tressa and we had been close growing up, but once I hit high school, the two-year gap between our ages made it hard for me to talk to her at times. Fran was the only one in Woodfalls who knew about my feelings for Grant. She was my shoulder to cry on, dishing out tissues and advice at the same time. Eventually, I stopped focusing of Grant and told her about my desire to leave Woodfalls so I could meet Mr. Right. Fran was never crazy about the idea and made it her goal to find me the perfect guy in Woodfalls. For months after, I would arrive at her store to find a different guy from school who Fran had somehow convinced to help her with some project she had fabricated. Her plan never worked, but she deserved an A for the effort.
"She's the same. Causing havoc and flirting with all the men in town her age and some who aren't her age. Of course, she's set her sights on Tressa's friend's dad."
"What? Brittni's dad came back?" I asked, completely floored.
"No, not Brittni. Her friend Ashton."
"Ashton? Why don't I remember her in school?"
"You wouldn't. Tressa met Ashton when she was in Woodfalls a couple summers ago. She came back last summer to get married over on the James property."
"Wow, I guess I've missed a lot," I mused, turning my face back around to look at him. I was startled to see he was looking down at me intently. "What?" I asked self-consciously.
"You have something on your nose."
"Oh," I flushed, turning my face away from his. I ran my hand over my nose, completely embarrassed.
"It was just a snowflake," he said, chuckling.
"Creep," I muttered, swatting at his arm.