Page 58 of Snowed In

She laughs lightly. “I’m pretty sure they provide the witnesses, but if you really want to come…”

“I do!” I shout and then carefully fist pump the air when I see a road up ahead. There isn’t a sign, but I know that has to be my turn.

“Then, we’d love to have you there for it,” she says.

God, I’m so fucking happy for her. “You’re going to be so beautiful. I’ll make sure of it.”

I can practically hear her eyes rolling. “Gee, thanks, West.”

“Hey,” I say softly.

“Yeah?”

“You know I love you, right?”

Her shaky breath surrounds the tiny interior of my car. “I know. I love you too.”

Suddenly, I can hear Gregg a lot more clearly than before. “Gay or not, I’m not particularly a fan of listening to you tell another man you love him.”

We both laugh, and I carefully take my turn, tall trees enveloping me on both sides. It’s even darker than the main road, but at least one side doesn’t just drop away anymore.

“Are you guys doing like an Elvis-themed Vegas thing?” I chuckle at the thought, trying to imagine Sheila, who up until she met Gregg was the epitome of a strait-laced good girl, and Gregg, with all of his tattoos and leather, standing in front of an Elvis impersonator.

When she doesn’t respond, I glance at my phone, frowning when I see the screen’s gone dark.

When had that happened? Had the GPS just given up and shut down the app?

I tap on the screen. “Sheils?”

There’s no response, and the screen stays dark. My car’s quiet, except for the crunch of the tires outside on the growing snow and my heater working hard to keep up with the frigid cold.

I tap at the screen again, more frantically, pressing the buttons on the sides, trying to wake it up. The screen stays black.Fuck. How is it dead? I had been at eighty percent when I left my apartment.

Fear rolls down my spine as I glance around, but I can see very little outside the beams of my headlights, which don’t go too far, thanks to the heavy snow falling from the sky.

I just need to keep going. I’ll get there eventually. I just need to stay on the road, and then I’ll make it.

Something big and brown moves fast, darting out from between the trees just to my right and crossing the road in front of me, startling a scream out of me. I reflexively slam on my brakes, catching darkeyes and a long snout before my car is spinning and I lose sight of the animal.

I try to pump my brakes, fighting for control of the steering wheel, but it’s no use. My tires can’t get any traction, and my car, even though it wasn’t going that fast, has enough power behind it to wing around a few times and thenslaminto the trunk of a tree.

Chapter Two

Ashley

“Come on, Norm, it’s going to get too cold, even for you.”

I carefully lead my newest alpaca into the barn. He’s still a bit skittish but doing better than when he arrived a couple of months ago. It’s taken a lot of time and patience to get him to trust me enough to even put the halter on and then a bit longer to attach the lead. Thankfully, he spots his best buddy, Malone, munching on some hay, and he comes the rest of the way inside much easier.

“Yeah, yeah. Go join your friends,” I say, taking off his halter.

I give the space a quick check, making sure everyone is accounted for and settling in for a snack or on the extra-thick straw beds I laid out for them earlier. Most of the year, the boys prefer to stay outside even at night, but in the winter, I make sure they bed down in the barn. Alpacas are hardy, but the storm that’s moving in this evening is planning on dumping snow on us and dropping the temperatures into the single digits. With the windchill, it’ll get below zero.

I nod at Rebecca, my llama and fox hunter, and then head out of the barn, making sure it’s secure behind me. A couple of the alpacas have figured out how to push open the doors if I don’t make sure it latches completely behind me. The last thing I want is to be trudgingthrough thigh-deep snow, looking for my freezing herd who aren’t smart enough to get back in the barn themselves.

During the summer months, they pretty much free-range over my land, and it’s easy to keep tabs on them as I’m out in my workshop or hunting and fishing every day. It’s rare for there to be any issues. As herd animals, they didn’t tend to wander off on their own, and Rebecca keeps smaller predators like foxes away.

Trekking back to the cabin doesn’t take too long, but it’s dark as hell. The night sky is swallowed with clouds, blocking the stars and moon and pelting me with rapidly accumulating snowflakes. I’m used to it for the most part. I grew up on the West Coast, but I moved to my peaceful—or isolated, if you listened to Aunt Marie—cabin after I was discharged from the Army.

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