Page 74 of Snowbound with the Santas

“Hi,” crackles a voice. “This is Mountain Rescue. To whom am I speaking?”

“You’ve got Archer.”

“Hey, Archer, it’s Colin.”

“Hey, Colin, how’s it going?” Colin’s been a part of Mountain Rescue for as long as I’ve been here, and he’s got a great understanding of how things work here. Mainly that we prefer not to be disturbed, but with Rayne with us, I think I’ve spoken to him more this past month than my entire years here.

“Pretty terrible, actually,” Colin replies. “I’m screening calls left, right, and center from the ski lodge.”

“About?”

“About Rayne, of course,” Colin snaps. “Archer, she never made it back to the lodge.”

I pause with my head halfway through my shirt, and confusion swirls like fog in my chest. “What do you mean, she didn’t arrive?”

“Exactly that,” Colin remarks. “She never arrived!”

“Well…” I approach the radio and glance through the door. “Of course she never arrived, Colin. She’s still here.”

“What?” Colin sounds as if someone just punched him in the gut. “She never left?”

“No, she never left. How could she? You told us we couldn’t risk that kind of drive down the mountain until the trails have cleared, so we’ve been sitting, waiting on your call.”

There’s silence for a long moment.

“Colin?”

“Archer… we called through just before Christmas. The road’s been cleared for travel for at least five days.”

“What?”

“You need to put her on this call right now, Archer, before someone thinks you’ve done something terrible?—”

Colin’s voice fades into the background as I think back to the radio call just before Christmas—the call that Rayne answered. She definitely told me that the roads were still unsafe for travel, and I had no reason to doubt her.

“Hold on, Colin. I’ll be back.”

“Archer!”

I hurry from the bedroom and stride down to the lounge, where Nick is tucked up in a chair by the fire with his nose in a book, and Frankie lounges across the sofa twirling a knife around a small chunk of wood.

“Where’s Rayne?” I demand.

Both of them straighten immediately.

“Bathroom,” says Frankie.

“Why?” asks Nick.

“Because I’ve got Colin on the radio telling me the Ski Lodge is going crazy because they think Rayne left here just before Christmas and never made it down the mountain.”

“What?” Frankie leans over the back of the couch. “Why the hell do they think that?”

Nick’s face changes immediately as he catches on before I have to say anything.

“Because,” I say tightly, “the call that came through before Christmas was to tell us the trails were safe enough to travel.”

“And Rayne told us the roads were still blocked,” Nick says, abandoning his book. “She lied?”

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