Page 18 of Snowed in With My Small Town Billionaire

“No, thank you,” Lucas said.

Lucas sighed heavily and leaned his head against the chair. “I don’t think that I’ve ever been this exhausted.”

Sawyer grunted his agreement. He was too tired to say anything. His mind was a fog and his entire body felt like it was on fire.

The room was filled with conversations, but Sawyer couldn’t register any of it. He set his coffee cup on the table next to the chair, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. The sweet darkness of sleep closed in on him.

Jerome’s sharp voice cut through the noise like a knife, waking Sawyer. “It took you long enough to get to us. Were you taking naps between shovelfuls of snow? We were cold and they were terrified.”

Sawyer’s jaw clenched and anger exploded inside of him.

However, before he could say anything, Oliver spat out a cutting reply. “Shut your pie hole, Jerome. Do you think it was easy? Daniel, Sawyer, Lucas, and I have been shoveling for almost twenty hours straight. We dug out your cabin as soon as we possibly could.”

Jerome growled at him, but Oliver held up his hand. “If you’re so unhappy about how long it took or you have something else nasty to say, feel free to go back to your cabin. You can take an armload of wood to last you the night.”

Everyone stared at Jerome. His face was bright red and the vein in the side of his neck was throbbing. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something else, but after looking at Oliver’s face, he apparently decided to keep his mouth shut. He pressed his lips tightly together and looked away.

Sawyer glanced around the room. He smiled and nodded when he saw Audrey mouth, “Thank you.”

Everyone started talking again, but Oliver held up his hands. “Hold on folks. We aren’t able to get any kind of reception on our cell phones and we can’t get reception on our emergency radios. We have absolutely no way of communicating with anyone. The good thing is that they are aware of the situation and will send help as soon as they possibly can. Meanwhile, everyone will have to work together.”

Oliver glared at Jerome as he made the last statement.

Sawyer looked at Lucas and shook his head. “This is why I never go on vacation.”

8

C H A P T E R

Gwen

How long are we going to be here?” Brent asked, looking around the room full of people.

Gwen sat next to him and rubbed his back. “I don’t know, Honey. It could be a while. You saw how deep the snow is. It’ll take a while for the people in town to be able to dig out the road and then dig out our cars. Did you notice that we couldn’t see any of the cars when we walked up?”

He sighed deeply. “Maybe I should have asked for a trip to the beach.”

She laughed. “Just think of this as an adventure. You will have a great story to tell everyone when you get back to school.”

“I guess. Do you think that the mountain is really cursed?”

Gwen shook her head. “No. I don’t believe in curses. It’s just a coincidence that we happened to be here the first time there was an avalanche in thirty-plus years.”

“Grandpa always says that there is no such thing as coincidences.”

“Well, he’s entitled to his opinion, I suppose.”

“That was nice of Sawyer to carry me on his back. I know he was tired and I’m heavy.”

She ruffled his hair. “Yes, it was.”

“He seems like a very nice man.”

“It would seem so,” she replied.

Brent curled up in a tiny ball on the couch and went to sleep. It was one in the morning and he had woken up at five when the avalanche started, so she wasn’t surprised that he was so tired.

She closed her eyes and bowed her head. “Lord God, thank you for keeping us safe. Thank you for Sawyer and Lucas who continued digging us out even after they had been working all morning. Please watch over everyone here and keep us safe. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.”

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