Page 96 of Married With Malice

By then it will be dark. It will also be cold, even colder than it is now. At the rate the snow is falling, there might be a couple of feet of new accumulation by then, burying the car.

Anyway, I can’t sit here in the car all night. There’s less than half a tank of gas and the engine sounds awful unsure of itself since the tree encounter.

Panic begins to fray my thoughts.

Trying to estimate how far I might be from the resort is useless. When I left, I was distracted and happy. I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have because it never occurred to me that I might end up stuck out here in a broken car during a blizzard.

“Fuck.” I smack the steering wheel with my fist. Shockingly, this accomplishes nothing.

Maybe phone reception is just lacking in this tiny area. If I can get to a place where the trees aren’t quite as dense then I might have a better chance of getting a call to go through. It’s worth a try and I have no better ideas.

I pull the strings of my hood tighter, wrap my scarf more securely, and brace myself for a blast of arctic air.

The temperature has not improved within the last five horror-riddled minutes. Neither has my reception. I hold the phone up above my head and try again and again, walking first one way and then the other while the battery grinds down.

I try to get my bearings, searching for any hint of exactly where I am in the increasingly likely case that I’m stuck setting out for the resort on foot. All I see are tall trees. And snow. And more trees. No matter which direction I turn, the scenery looks exactly the same.

How can this be modern life? It’s more like some pioneer-age bullshit. There are endless apps, digital tools and communication devices at my everyday disposal. Yet here I am alone on a mountain in a blizzard without a clue what to do next.

My phone flickers and dies in the same instant I try to call 911. Then a few minutes of blinding terror ensues when I have trouble finding my way back to the car. The wind is positively shrieking now and a layer of snow has already covered the vehicle.

With my sleeve, I brush all the snow off the hood and the windows. There isn’t much point. The car will just be covered again in a few minutes.

Things improve slightly once I’m back inside. The dashboard navigation screen has been wiped out but at least the heat still works.

It’s too much to hope for that a passing driver will see me. I’m not sure how far off the main road I am and it’s doubtful anyone else is stupid enough to go joyriding right now.

I rub my hands together in front of the vent as it puffs out warm air. Less than an hour has passed since I left but it’s been an adventurous hour.

I wonder what Luca is doing right now.

The pang of yearning I feel at the thought of him is almost crushing. I’d give anything to have him here. Or better yet, to be where he is. Warm and safe. Wherever Luca is, that’s where I want to be.

Instead of fleeing on this fool’s errand, I should have run to find him immediately. What will Luca think when he discovers the keys are missing and I’m gone?

I can’t handle the idea that he might believe for a minute that I’ve left him.

As the warmth returns to my skin, I mull over my options.

They aren’t spectacular.

Night won’t fall for a couple of hours but the snow shows no sign of letting up. I can try and follow the car’s tracks back to the main road and then start walking up to the resort, however I’m unsure how much distance I’ll need to cover. The leather boots I’m wearing aren’t made for trekking through the snow. My jacket is warm, yet not really equipped for stranded-in-a-blizzard conditions.

But the most ominous truth bomb is the fact that my current car shelter won’t last the night. The gas will run out and the heat will go with it.

Years ago I watched a movie about a pair of young siblings who’d gotten lost in the wilderness. With the snow already chest deep and night soon to fall, they remembered how their father had told them to dig a snow fort if they ever found themselves such a predicament. The two of them went right to work, digging out a burrow with their mittened hands, and there in that cozy frozen den they survived the night. The movie ended happily when they were sniffed out by their father’s dog the next morning.

Frankly, I’m not convinced of my ability to dig a snow fort on my own.

And there probably aren’t any rescue dogs around to sniff out my location. I’ll save that idea as a last resort.

A quick search of the rental car produces nothing that would be of any survival value. The only potentially useful items are a pair of green emergency glow sticks found in the glove compartment. They get shoved into my purse for now.

In order to quell the rising dread, I think of Luca. Three months ago I would have laughed myself silly if anyone had told me the man I was being forced to marry might be the one with the power to unlock my heart.

“And now I’m YOUR psycho!”

Laughter snorts through my nose at the memory of the first night of our honeymoon. That boy sure is a piece of work.

---