Do Not Open 'Til Christmas by Sierra Donovan (19)

Where was Chloe?

Bret returned to the office to find both reporters’ desks vacant. Chuck, presumably, had run out for lunch, hopefully a short one. Maybe Chloe had done the same.

He checked his e-mail and found a message from her, sent about half an hour ago.

Very carefully worded, very professional. She’d written the e-mail in such away that no one, say, from the corporate office, could read it and find anything amiss. Even Bret couldn’t find any underlying bitterness or sarcasm, with the possible exception of four words.

Okay. That stung a little.

He stared at the screen. He shouldn’t be surprised. A few nights ago, she’d been in his arms. She’d given the indication that he might be worth the risk, the investment, and he’d turned away. He couldn’t expect her to be endlessly patient while he made up his mind to turn into a human being.

If he’d been a little quicker to come around . . . if he hadn’t sent her up to Mount Douglas today . . . if, if, and if.

Maybe he’d shut her out one too many times. Maybe he should leave it alone. But he’d be as defeatist as his father had been if he gave up without even trying.

He straightened in his chair and started to type.

* * *

Chloe had been on the road less than half an hour—long enough for the sky to go from ominous gray to premature darkness. Long enough for the snow to start, thick and heavy. Back home, at Tall Pine’s lower elevation, they hadn’t expected snow till around six o’clock. What a difference a few thousand feet made.

She hadn’t seen another vehicle on the road in the past ten minutes. Because it was Christmas Eve, and because people who lived up here knew better than to go out in this.

She should have left sooner. And when she saw the sky turning dark, she should have turned around while Mount Douglas was still close behind. How far had she driven? The snow and heavy, dusky light made everything unfamiliar. She only knew she was in some eerie no-man’s-land between Mount Douglas and Tall Pine. And that if she turned around, she’d be driving uphill, straight into the thick of the storm.

As dicey as this was, pressing for home still made more sense.

She passed a yellow metal street sign. The name of the road wasn’t encouraging: Rabbit Trail.

Chloe slowed—yet again—and leaned forward to squint through the windshield. It was like seeing the world from inside a snow globe. A really dark, scary snow globe. She negotiated the curves slowly and carefully, which gave the storm that much more time to catch up.

Biting her lip, she accelerated with care as she came out of the next curve.

The car skidded.

In slow motion, Chloe felt her rear wheels slide to the left. Toward the guardrail that stood between her and a steep drop.

It ran against her instincts, but she did what she’d been taught all her life: she steered the car in the direction of the skid. Toward the oncoming lane, and the guardrail. Her heart hammered as her car aimed for the edge, still skidding. It straightened its course in time, and she pulled the steering wheel to the right. A little too sharply. She skidded again.

Nothing was in slow motion anymore.

The car picked up downhill speed as it slid, this time toward the snow-covered mountain on her right.

Everything was a blur until the car hit something with a loud bang.

The next thing she knew, she was struggling for breath. She felt the safety belt biting into her shoulder. Chloe fought to pull in a short breath, then another, as she opened her eyes. A deflated white airbag drooped out of the steering wheel in front of her, and fine powder hung in the air. Chemicals from the airbag, she realized hazily.

She was still straining against the safety belt, but she didn’t appear to be hanging upside down, thank God.

She took another breath.

Through the windshield, at first she saw only gray and white. As her eyes came into focus, Chloe saw that part of the gray was the thick trunk of a tree. The white, not surprisingly, was snow, which had probably softened the impact when she ran into the tree. The view through the passenger side was solid white. Apparently, the car was embedded in a snowbank.

Chloe twisted in her seat to look out the driver’s side. She realized the car was tilted, not forward so much as to the right. Leaning to look out the driver’s-side window felt a little like climbing uphill. To see out, she lowered the window a few inches. A nasty blast of cold air rushed in, bringing snow with it. She squinted through the gray and white. It looked as if her car had left the road altogether.

She pulled in another breath, this one deeper, then heaved a sigh. It could have been worse. A lot worse.

But it wasn’t great.

* * *

Bret’s reply to Chloe’s e-mail was short, and he spent forty-five minutes trying to get it right.

He hit Send, then checked the time again. Almost three-thirty. Weather permitting, she should be back in town by now.

Weather permitting. With a chilling sense of hindsight, Bret pulled up the weather on his computer as he dialed Chloe’s cell number.

“The subscriber you are trying to reach is currently out of signal range. . . .” No surprise there.

Chuck popped his head in and echoed Bret’s question of nearly an hour ago: “Where’s Chloe?”

Bret stared at the forecast. The snowstorm still wasn’t scheduled to hit Tall Pine until five p.m. Plenty of time for Chloe to get back safely. If she’d left in time.

But the database showed the storm had already descended full force on Mount Douglas, two thousand feet higher.

He texted Chloe: Are you all right?

No immediate reply. Of course, if she’d hit any weather, she could very well still be driving.

A moment later, he added: Please let me know when you’re back and safe.

* * *

Remember your training, Chloe told herself. What have you got?

She’d have to make sure the tailpipe wasn’t blocked by the snow before she tried to start the car again, or she ran the risk of sucking carbon monoxide fumes. Chloe switched on the car’s flashing red hazard lights and looked behind her. She tried to make out the blinking of the lights through the falling snow, but it was hard to tell. There was a good chance the back end of the car was buried.

Only one way to know for sure.

She buttoned her coat up tight, pulled on her gloves, and pushed open the door. The first time, gravity made the door fall back. The second time, she held it open as she climbed out of the car and promptly sank knee-deep in snow. It soaked into her slacks and shoes, while more snow pelted her from the sky. She bent her head, trying to keep the snow out of her face, and stepped back to assess the situation.

The car was tilted, the driver’s-side wheels off the ground, the passenger side shoved deep into the heaps of snow alongside the road. Chloe trudged to the back of the car and found what she feared: the tailpipe was buried. That meant no heater unless she could clear away the snow that buried the pipe. She tried digging at the hard-pack snow and only succeeded in soaking her gloves.

She fared a little better with the trunk, which was higher up and only partly wedged into the hill. She got it open far enough to duck her head inside, which brought blessed relief from the snow blowing into her face.

A flashlight with batteries that worked. Thank God. She used it to search for more resources.

A dirty beach towel from some forgotten trip to Prospect Lake. It might not keep her very warm, but it could help dry her feet. A tool kit? Maybe, if she got any MacGyver-type inspiration.

And two—count ’em, two—road flares. In her mind she heard her father’s voice, admonishing her to be more prepared.

Chloe lit a flare and took it to the edge of the road to set on the rapidly disappearing pavement. She debated setting the other one as well and decided it was better to save it. Snow could cover the first one pretty fast.

As quickly as she could in the cold, she grabbed the rest of her treasures, left the trunk open for the extra bit of visibility, and scrambled back to the front door of the car. Before she got inside, she checked her phone for signal bars. Nothing. She held the phone high and moved it slowly overhead, watching for some change in the display. Not surprisingly, no bars appeared. It didn’t take long for reception to disappear once you left Mount Douglas behind.

She tried to phone roadside assistance anyway and got the expected series of flat beeps. That left one more thing to try. Sometimes a text got through when a phone call wouldn’t.

The first person she thought of to contact, ironically, was the person who sent her up here in the first place. But she couldn’t blame Bret for this. Yes, he’d sent her out of the office, for his own personal reasons. He’d also intended for her to go home early.

She didn’t want to worry her parents prematurely. She could try Kate and Tiffany. But if she wanted a resourceful person with a cool head, she didn’t think she could do better than Bret. This wasn’t the time to indulge in pride, or hold a grudge. With numb fingers, she texted him.

The message bounced straight to her phone’s out-box.

* * *

Maybe she’d decided to stay in Mount Douglas to wait out the storm, Bret thought.

Except that, knowing Chloe, she would have been intent on getting home for Christmas. And if she was still in Mount Douglas, she would have gotten his text. He didn’t think she was petty or angry enough to ignore him.

Just in case, he texted her again: Are you okay? Worried.

He tried to skim the snowman story, but couldn’t fight the sense that he was wasting valuable time. He sent Chloe’s story and photo through for the front page and gave the green light to the WHITE CHRISTMAS banner. Then he turned to important matters.

He phoned emergency crews in both Tall Pine and Mount Douglas, but the harried dispatchers needed more to go on. With other, tangible emergency calls, they didn’t have enough personnel to search the mountain highway for a motorist who might be in trouble.

By four o’clock, he was done waiting. Every fiber of his being insisted that something was very wrong. He had snow tires on the Mustang, but he didn’t think they’d cut it where he was going. He got on the phone in search of a vehicle with four-wheel-drive.

Did Chloe have chains in her trunk?

Imagining scenarios didn’t do any good.

In minutes he’d arranged to pick up Scotty Leroux’s truck. “I’ll meet you at The Snowed Inn,” Leroux said. “It’s right off the main highway. That’ll save you time.”

Bret texted Chloe to let her know he was looking for her, although he had no idea whether she’d receive the message. Then he headed for the door.

“You’re in charge,” he told Chuck, who’d been pounding away at stories and trying to offer helpful suggestions.

“Seriously?”

Bret yanked his coat off the rack. “Sorry. I know it’s Christmas Eve. Get together with the layout team, take what we’ve got, and have them put together two skinny papers.”

“Right. I’ll try not to burn it down.”

Bret pulled on his coat and remembered one more difficult but necessary task. “I’ll need the phone numbers for Chloe’s roommates. And her parents.”

“I’ll call them.”

“Just text me their numbers. I’ll call while I’m picking up the truck.” This was all his doing; he needed to deal with it. “Thanks.”

Chuck nodded. “Go.”

Bret started for the door. At the last minute, he reached back and snatched the scarf from Millie Bond off the coat rack.

* * *

Chloe huddled in the front seat, legs drawn up against her, as the temperature dropped. Surely a car would come by eventually. But so far, no one had.

Her foray into the snow had come at a heavy price. Her clothes were damp, and although the car provided shelter from the wind and snow, it was a long way from warm inside. She curled her bare toes under the towel she’d used to dry her feet. Her shoes had been soaked; her socks were worse. Why had she worn loafers today instead of boots?

Oh, right. Because she thought she’d be spending the day in a heated office. But she could have been home and warm by now if she’d left Mount Douglas right after she finished the interview. Or if she hadn’t taken the extra time to e-mail Bret.

Twenty-twenty hindsight didn’t help. She needed to cope with what had really happened, and she had to face the fact that she could be spending Christmas Eve in a freezing automobile. Chances of anyone seeing her white car in the snow were minimal, even with the hazard lights on. And with the airbag deployed, the horn didn’t work. She’d tried.

She needed to stay alert, ready to flag someone down, if a car came by.

Staying alert was becoming a problem, too. A couple of times she’d caught herself nodding off, and she knew that wasn’t a good thing. She forced herself to unwrap her folded arms and do mini-calisthenics. She needed to do whatever she could to stay warm . . . and awake.

* * *

At The Snowed Inn, Scotty Leroux was already waiting with his F-150. Impressive speed, especially from a guy Bret barely knew.

“Thanks,” Bret said.

Leroux simply held out the keys. “Be careful up there.”

Bret handed him the keys to the Mustang in return, so he wouldn’t be leaving Scott short a vehicle.

Scott eyed the Mustang with a crooked grin. “Now, that’s the trade of the century. If you ever want to swap straight across—”

“If I find Chloe I may just take you up on that.” Bret climbed into the cab of the big truck. He heard what he’d said and corrected himself. “When I find her.”

Before he could close the door, a small procession emerged from The Snowed Inn.

Scott’s wife, Liv, came to the side of the truck and handed up two big plastic lidded cups of coffee. “One for you, one for Chloe, when you find her.”

“With lots of cream. I told her. Here’s some extra.” Mandy handed him a thermos, along with two heavy blankets.

Jake was last. “I found two heat packs,” he said. “She’s going to be cold.”

He wasn’t kidding. The parking lot of The Snowed Inn had taken on a gray cast in the rapidly fading daylight, and a savage wind whipped at them from down the mountain. The storm was headed this way. And he was heading up into it.

Bret looked down at the four people who’d pulled all this together on fifteen minutes’ notice. Three of them, he rarely even saw. There was no time to thank them adequately.

He settled for, “You guys are amazing.”

“Tell us about it.” Leroux slammed the door of his truck and stepped back with a wave.

Bret waved back and gunned the motor. He had a lot of ground to cover.

* * *

Chloe tried to think about something besides the freezing air that seemed to close in around her and work its way past her skin. People used to survive in the elements with a lot less shelter than this car. In the pioneer days, mountain cabins probably weren’t much warmer than this. Except that they’d undoubtedly keep a fire going.

A nice, roaring fire. She clung to the image, tried to take some warmth from it. She pictured herself building a roasty campfire on the floor of the passenger seat. No, she wasn’t crazy enough to do it. Yet. But she was definitely getting loopy. She pictured laying twigs and needles for the kindling, building a tent of branches over it to let the air circulate, touching a match to it and watching the fire come to life—

Fire. That reminded Chloe of her lone flare in the road. She peered through her window and saw no light. It must have gone out some time ago.

She felt in her pocket for the remaining flare. It meant going back out there, and that sounded like the worst kind of masochism. But if she didn’t, there was that much less chance of being seen.

Grimacing, she put on her wet socks and shoes and trudged back out. She ventured through the snow to the side of the road, legs growing number with every step, and walked past the rear of the car. She saw no sign of the first flare. It must be buried in the snow. She stepped farther down the road and lit the second flare. The blast of heat inches from her fingers was enticing, but it wouldn’t do her any good. Still, she briefly savored the heat as she held it.

It wouldn’t be long before this flare, too, was extinguished or buried by the snow. Chloe said a silent prayer and set it down in the road. As she struggled her way back to the car, she felt a buzzing in her pocket.

Her cell phone. Holy crap, a text.

She dug the phone out of her pocket with frantic, numb fingers. It was from Bret. Are you all right?

Of course he hadn’t gotten her first text, because she hadn’t been able to send it. Chloe did her best not to move from the spot where her phone had buzzed. She retrieved the message from her out-box and re-sent it, holding her phone high over her head, hoping to catch whatever reception there was out here. After several seconds, she lowered the phone to check her screen.

The message had gone through.

She shut her eyes tight and prayed again. Her phone buzzed three more times. They were all texts from Bret, all more than an hour old. The first two relayed his growing concern. The third offered her some much-needed hope.

As she read the last line, she nearly burst into maniacal laughter.

* * *

Bret worked his way up the mountain. The first part of the drive was torturous because he knew it wasn’t likely he’d find Chloe this close to home. Still, he had to look, his eyes scouring both sides of the road for any sign of a white car in trouble.

Then he hit the snowstorm, and it got harder. It forced him to slow for safety’s sake, and it made it that much harder to divide his attention between the road ahead and the search for any sign of Chloe alongside it. The snow grew heavier as he drove on through true darkness.

Awhile ago, he’d offered Scott Leroux his Mustang if he found Chloe. Soon, Bret was ready to promise him the Mustang, his firstborn child, and his immortal soul. A half-buried sign at the right told him he was ten miles from Mount Douglas.

Probably not the right tone for a prayer. Bret clutched the wheel a little harder, peered a little harder through the windshield.

And his cell phone, propped up in the console of the truck, notified him that he had a text.

Bret set his jaw. It could be important. Really, really important. White-knuckled, he waited for the next turnout and stopped, flashers on, while he checked his phone. If this was a notification from his carrier about some exciting new calling plan—

It was from Chloe.

Rabbit Trail?

The time displayed on the text was twenty minutes ago, but with the erratic mountain reception, that could mean anything. At least he had a location to watch for. Bret turned off his flashers and moved forward, eyes searching the other side of the road.

Five minutes later, he came to a half-buried sign for the Rabbit Trail turnoff. His heart lurched.

He’d missed her.

Bret swore softly and looked for the next place to turn around. Coming back down the hill, he traveled at a crawl, watching the side of the road for something. Anything. His eyes strained.

There.

Lying in the road, near the ever-growing bank of snow, was a guttering flare.

* * *

She was starting to doze again.

Chloe shook her head and rubbed her hands together vigorously, trying to force feeling back into them. Even the ache from the numbness was starting to fade. Within minutes, despite her efforts to fight it, she felt herself start to drift again. She bit her tongue, hard, until it bled. But soon she was sinking back against the upholstery of the car as the feeling of cold receded.

She jerked awake. The car was shaking, something rattling at the door. A rescuer, she decided, or a hungry bear.

The door opened with a crackle from the icy snow that coated it, bringing in a brutal blast of cold. At this point she would have been glad to see any human being short of a serial killer. She’d even take her chances with the bear, as long as it was warm.

But it was Bret who pulled her across the seat, into his arms. She curled up tight against him and buried her face in his coat to shut out the cold. His voice was the most welcome sound she’d ever heard.

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “I’ve got you.”