It took far longer than Tim had expected to reach the I-55 interchange, and the road conditions on the interstate weren’t much better. Worse, he was driving straight into the wind, which buffeted the car relentlessly. He couldn’t tell whether the snow had gotten heavier or it was just being blown around by the swirling gusts, but it was getting harder to make out the contours of the road. He followed along in the existing tire tracks as best he could, hoping no one ahead of him had run off the pavement.

  His thoughts drifted to Zach as he drove, although he didn’t dare look away from the road long enough to do more than glance at him out of the corner of his eye as conditions continued to deteriorate. He was attractive in a way that pushed all of Tim’s buttons, and his rainbow luggage tag suggested he might be interested in guys, but that was about all Tim knew about him, other than him being a travel agent, of course. He didn’t even know if Zach lived in Dallas, only that he was at DFW to catch a flight somewhere warm for the holidays.

  Correction. He was alone at DFW to catch a flight somewhere warm. Unless he was meeting someone at his destination, he probably didn’t have a significant other, because if he did, he’d be spending Christmas with that person rather than helping Tim get to Chicago to keep his promise to Megan.

  Though his offer to help didn’t mean he was interested in Tim. For all he knew, Zach was the kind of guy who adopted stray puppies and helped little old ladies across the street. Just because he’d taken pity on Tim’s plight didn’t mean he found Tim as attractive as Tim found him. Hell, he probably thought Tim was straight, since all he knew was that he’d been married and had a daughter.

  Well, that was something he could correct once Zach woke up.

  As much as he’d enjoy being able to talk with Zach, Tim was glad he was able to sleep. The conditions were getting worse, the blowing snow changing to more of an icy, sleety mix that made it even harder to hold his lane against the headwind he was driving into. Visibility continued to drop and the wipers struggled to keep the windshield clear, though thankfully there didn’t seem to be many other cars on the road to worry about. If it weren’t for his promise to Megan, he’d find a hotel and wait for the weather to clear, but he’d come this far. He wasn’t about to give up now.

  Several hours later—Tim didn’t want to risk looking away from the road long enough to check the time—Zach stirred and stretched in the seat next to him. “How’re you doing?” he asked, his voice rough from sleep—a sound Tim would love to hear again in different circumstances.

  “Hanging in there.” Tim tightened his grip on the steering wheel as something—he couldn’t see more than the dull glow of taillights, going a lot faster than Tim considered safe for the conditions—passed him on the left.

  “You should have woke me up,” Zach said. “Do you want to switch drivers now?”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to pull over, since I’m not sure what kind of shoulder there is under all the snow. I’m okay to keep going as long as the light lasts.” He nodded toward the back seat. “If you could grab a water for me, though, I’d appreciate it.”

  Zach maneuvered himself around enough to reach the six-pack of water and extract two bottles. He twisted the cap off one and offered it to Tim. “Do you want any cheese or pretzels?”

  “Maybe a little.” Tim took a long sip before setting the bottle into the cup holder. “Feel free to futz with the radio if you want. I tried before the snow got worse, but all I could pick up was talk radio, country music, or Christmas songs. Maybe you’ll have better luck.”

  “Not in the mood for Christmas music?” Zach asked as he leaned forward and started searching through radio stations.

  “I just get tired of hearing the same songs over and over,” Tim said. “It’s fine on Christmas Day, but they’ve been playing since early November, and it gets old.” The lack of questions about country music or talk radio was additional proof of how well their tastes seemed to align. “I dated a guy shortly after college who absolutely loved Christmas music, and as much as I hate to say it, that kind of ruined it for me outside of specific circumstances.”

  “That’s too bad,” Zach said, nothing in his tone giving away a reaction to Tim’s revelation that he was bi, and Tim didn’t dare look over to see if his face showed anything. “I’ve had relationships sour me on specific songs before, but never on a whole genre of music.”

  Zach cycled through the stations with pretty much the same results Tim had gotten. “I guess you’re right,” he said with a chuckle, clicking the radio off. “I’d rather talk with you anyway,” he said, reaching into the back again to pull put the bag of snacks.

  That was absolutely fine with Tim. “Tell me more about yourself,” he prompted. “Isn’t there family or a significant other for you to spend the holidays with?”

  “Not really,” Zach said. He opened the bag of cheese cubes and held one up to Tim’s mouth so he wouldn’t have to take his eyes from the road, and that shouldn’t have been as hot as it felt. “My mom died a few years ago, and my dad was never really in the picture, and my last boyfriend and I broke up over a year ago. Apparently I’m clingy and emotionally draining, at least according to him.”

  “I don’t know if that’s better or worse than never around and emotionally absent, which is what my ex accused me of,” Tim replied.

  “I suppose it depends on what you want in a relationship,” Zach replied easily, holding up a pretzel for Tim. “Me, I want someone who puts at least as much value on our relationship as they do on other things. I get that some careers are demanding, but I need to matter too.”

  “That’s not too much to ask.” Tim shrugged. “I can’t really say Melissa was wrong about me. But I mean to do better if I get another chance. Not with her,” he added. “Looking back, I can see that we were never right for each other to begin with. But we got Megan from it, so I can’t be sorry.”

  “My mother once told me it was a waste of time to regret so-called failed relationships, that they were part of who we are and what we’ve lived and that instead we should hold on to the good, learn from the bad, and do better the next time around,” Zach said. “That’s easier said than done, but I try to live by it as best I can.”

  It was the same go-with-the-flow attitude that Zach had demonstrated by coming with Tim in the first place. “That’s good advice,” Tim said. “I’ve made plenty of mistakes, but I’m doing my best to be a better parent than I was. And hopefully a better partner someday.”

  “Megan may not be old enough to appreciate the effort you’re making now, but she will one day,” Zach said.

  “I hope so.” Before Tim could say anything more, another car sped past theirs, shooting a barrage of slushy snow against the Jeep. Tim struggled to hold the wheel straight, but it was nearly wrenched from his hands when he hit an icy patch. Despite his efforts, the Jeep began to swerve across the lanes. Frantically Tim tried to remember everything he’d ever learned about dealing with a spinout and whether the Jeep had anti-lock brakes. Ease off the gas pedal. Hold the brakes down firmly. The Jeep juddered, and he gripped the steering wheel even tighter. Turn the wheels in the direction of the skid.

  After what seemed like an eternity but was probably only seconds, the Jeep came to rest against a bank of snow on what Tim could only hope was the road’s shoulder. His pulse pounding, he forced himself to release his death grip on the steering wheel and look at Zach. “Are you okay?”

  Zach’s face was as white as the snow outside, but he nodded. “Scared the shit out of me, but I’m not hurt. What about you?”

  “If I don’t have a coronary, I should be okay.” He took a few deep breaths and tried to relax the tension from his shoulders. When he didn’t feel like his hands were going to shake off the wheel, he put the Jeep in Reverse and tried to back out of the snowdrift. The wheels spun, but the Jeep didn’t move.

  “Fuck!” Tim tried to rock the Jeep back and forth, but it didn’t budge. He dropped his head against the steering wheel with a groan. “Marvelous. We’ll freeze before we can get a tow truck out here.”

  “Maybe not.” Zach unbuckled his seat belt. “Kitty litter, remember? Let me toss some under the wheels and see if that helps.”

  He had to struggle to open the door against the drift, and the snow engulfed him almost to his waist before he could reach the cargo hatch and retrieve the bag of cat litter, making Tim wish he’d taken the time to change into jeans after all. It took another minute to get the bag open, but once he poured a generous amount under both the front and back wheels, Tim could feel them start to catch. Waving Zach to the side, he worked the Jeep between gears until he could back it free of the drift and parallel to the road again.

  As soon as Tim had the Jeep back in the tracks left by other cars, Zach threw the rest of the bag in the back, then jumped in and refastened his seat belt, stomping his feet to break off the clinging snow. Tim nudged the heater up another notch. “I wasn’t sure that would actually work. I apologize to everyone I ever doubted when they listed that as an essential item to have in your trunk in the winter.”

  “It’s a good thing you thought of it, or we might have turned into popsicles.” Tim put the Jeep into gear and started ahead slowly. “I was barely doing thirty before, but I’m not sure I want to go even that fast now.”

  “We should have switched drivers while we were stopped,” Zach said. “I’m sorry, I was so excited to get unstuck that I didn’t think of it. Do you want to pull over again?”

  Tim shook his head. “It’s okay, but the sun’s starting to go down, not that you can see it anyway, and I don’t think it’s safe for either of us to drive once it gets dark. Do you have enough signal on your phone to see if there’s a hotel at the next exit?”

  “Let me check.” Zach worked his magic on his phone but didn’t sound happy with the results. “The next exit is about five miles ahead, but there’s not much of anything there. We seem to be in the middle of farm country. And the exit after that is another twenty-some miles farther on.”

  The thought of at least another hour of driving made him want to shudder, but it wasn’t like Zach could make a hotel miraculously appear out of nowhere just because Tim was exhausted. “Anything promising at that exit?” he asked.

  He must have sounded more worn-out than he thought, because Zach clicked away at his phone again. “Aha! Get off at the next exit. I may have found something.”

  Even knowing he only had about five miles to go, Tim’s arms were aching. He gritted his teeth and plowed through the slush as the sky darkened around them. By the time he spotted the exit and steered carefully off the main road, he could barely see a few feet in front of his headlights.

  “Make a U-turn onto the access road,” Zach instructed him.

  The access road might have been plowed earlier in the day, but there were no tire tracks to follow, so Tim crept along. “Is there actually something down this road?”

  “Brookdale, Missouri, population 521.” Tim didn’t know what a town that small had to offer, but at this point he’d settle for anything as long as he could stop driving. He peered ahead but couldn’t see anything through the billows of snow.

  “Shouldn’t be too much farther…. There!”

  Tim could barely make out a light on his left. As he got closer, he could see the outline of what had once been a plowed driveway, so he followed it in and stopped the Jeep next to the building it led to. “This doesn’t look like a hotel.”

  “It’s not,” Zach admitted. “It’s the Brookdale Sheriff’s Department. I figured if anyone could help a couple of exhausted motorists, they can.”

  “At this point I’d settle for sleeping in one of their cells for the night.” Tim put the Jeep into Park and opened the door into a blast of wind. “Let’s see what they suggest.”

  Zach wrapped his scarf more tightly around his neck and followed Tim into the police station. The officer on duty looked as tired as Tim felt—and completely surprised to see anyone stumbling into his station at that time of night. “Can I help you?”

  “I hope so,” Zach said. “We’re trying to get to Chicago, but we’re obviously not going to make it tonight, and with our travel plans already messed up because of the weather, we don’t have anywhere to stay, and we don’t know the area. We’re hoping you can help us out.”

  “The weather’s got everything messed up,” the officer replied. “I’m surprised the state police haven’t closed the interstate yet, to be honest. A few more accidents and they just might.”

  Tim’s stomach fell. If it was that bad, the likelihood of him making it to Chicago was slimmer than he’d thought, and he hadn’t been particularly hopeful before now.

  “I hope they’re only bad spinouts like the one we had and nothing worse,” Zach said. “Seriously, man, anything you can suggest, we’d appreciate it. At this point, we’d even take a couple of bunks in a holding cell if it means we’re safe and warm for the night.”

  “I might be able to do better than that.” The officer nodded to a bench against the wall. “Have a seat and let me make a few calls.”

  Tim sank into the seat, resisting the urge to lean against Zach, and hoped he’d be able to get up again.

  “Hey, Alma, it’s Norris at the sheriff’s office. You still have that spare bedroom to let out? I got a couple of stranded motorists here who could sure use it.” He gave Tim and Zach a thumbs-up and nodded. “That’s great. I’ll bring them over. Thanks.”

  “You found us a bed and breakfast?” Zach said as the officer—Norris, apparently—came around the desk to them.

  “Not really, though I’m sure Alma will try to feed you as soon as you walk in the door,” he answered with a smile. “Nah, we don’t get many tourists ’round here. Alma’s son went off to college in September, so I know she’s got an empty room, and she could use a few extra dollars around the holidays. So as long as you don’t have any nefarious intentions”—his hand swung to the butt of the pistol on his belt—“she’ll be happy to put you up for the night.”

  “I swear my only intention is to get off the road and get some rest,” Tim said, trying to look as un-nefarious as possible.

  Officer Norris seemed satisfied with that. “You back your car up so I can get the patrol car out from the garage, and I’ll lead you there.”

  “I’m driving,” Zach insisted, taking the keys from Tim’s hand.

  ZACH’S WHOLE body hurt by the time they pulled up at Alma’s twenty minutes later. He had no idea how Tim had managed to drive as long and far as he had, but he had to be aching like crazy after hours of driving in this weather. They thanked Officer Norris when he handed them over into Miss Alma’s tender care.

  “You poor lambs,” she said after she got a look at them. “You must be half-starved. When did you last eat?”

  “This morning in Poplar Bluff,” Zach admitted, “although we had snacks for the drive.”

  Alma tsked at them as she ushered them into the kitchen. “Sit, sit. I wasn’t expecting company, so all I’ve got is leftovers, but I can heat up two plates for you. How do you feel about shepherd’s pie?”

  “I feel good about anything that’s hot and ready to eat now,” Tim replied, making Zach worry all the more.

  “I love shepherd’s pie,” he added when Alma looked at him. “If you point me in the direction of the room, I’ll just stash our bags out of the way.”

  Alma directed him down the hall to a small bedroom with a double bed, a chest of drawers against one wall, and not a lot else. It was going to be an interesting night.

  He set their bags against the far wall and walked back down the hall in time to catch the end of what Tim was saying. “…helped me get this far despite the weather. I don’t know what I’d have done without his help.”

  “You need a good meal and a good night’s sleep. Things will look better in the morning,” Alma said confidently. She set a plate of shepherd’s pie on the table in front of him. “I was just telling your friend that everything will look better once you’re fed and rested,” she added to Zach, dishing up his own plate of steaming goodness.

  “This is delicious,” he said after taking a bite. Tim nodded his agreement around a mouthful. “We’re so grateful to you for letting us stay with you. I’m not sure we could have made it any farther in all this snow.”

  “I always like a white Christmas, but this is a bit much even for me. My son is waiting for the weather to clear before driving home from Rolla.” She smiled at Tim, who had cleared his plate. “I like to see a man with a healthy appetite. Would you like more?”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m afraid I’ll fall asleep with my face in the food,” Tim said, stifling a yawn. “I know it’s early, but I’m going to crash, if you don’t mind.”

  Alma waved him off with a “Rest well, poor dear,” and Tim all but staggered to the bedroom.

  “I think I’ll turn in too, if you don’t mind,” Zach said. He’d slept in the car some, but he hadn’t slept at all last night, plus he wanted to make sure Tim relaxed before bed or he wouldn’t sleep well. He just hoped Tim would let him help.

  When he reached the bedroom, Tim had collapsed face-first onto the bed, not bothering to do more than remove his shoes. “Hey.” Zach nudged him gently. “If you fall asleep with all your clothes on, you won’t sleep well. Get out of your sweatshirt and jeans at least. It’s plenty warm in here.”

  Tim grunted as he rolled over, then winced when he went to lift the hem of his sweatshirt. “Damn, I knew I was tight from driving, but it feels like someone worked me over with a baseball bat.”

  “I can help if that’s not skeevy,” Zach offered. “And once you have your sweatshirt off, I could give you a back rub if you want. I haven’t had any formal massage training, but I dated a massage therapist at one point who gave me some pointers. They even said I gave a pretty good massage for a layman.”

  “If you really wouldn’t mind, I might take you up on that.” Tim managed to pull the sweatshirt over his head and tossed it in the general direction of his suitcase. Zach tried not to stare as he raised his arms over his head and stretched, setting the muscles on his torso rippling. Tim wasn’t cut like a bodybuilder, but his chest was lean muscle under a light dusting of hair. Not the body of someone who sat behind a desk all day, making Zach wonder if he worked out after all. When Tim’s hand reached for the button of his jeans, Zach turned away, rummaging through his dopp kit, hoping he’d thought to toss a tube of hand cream in there. The best he could come up with was some aloe lotion he’d packed in case of sunburn. It would just have to do.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8