Page 35 of Snug in Iceland
“Me too,” she said brightly, attempting to get to her feet. She looked at Jonas, hoping to convey all these things she was thinking without having to say anything. He looked resigned and smiled ruefully.
“This jeep won’t dig itself out, we’d better get on,” he said, hauling himself to his feet and pulling Rachel up beside him.
“Thank you,” she said softly, squeezing his hand. She knew he understood.
Finally, they got into the jeep, Jonas expertly manoeuvred it around and they crept slowly along the road. Once they reached the main road the snow was quite compacted from other vehicles so it was relatively easy to drive on. As they approached the city, the road rose over the mountains. Despite the calm, winter wonderland lower down, at the top of the mountain the wind was blowing the lying snow in great sheets of powder across the road reducing the visibility dramatically. It was frightening. The jeep was being buffeted by the strong wind and Jonas was struggling to keep the windscreen clear and to keep on the right side of the road. It was an immense relief when they started descending again, out of the wind and away from the treacherous drops on either side of the road.
Jonas stopped right outside Rachel’s hotel and she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before she said goodbye and jumped out.
“Hey Rachel,” called Jonas after her. “Maybe we could do that again sometime?”
“Maybe.”
Maybe they could.
The receptionist greeted her and said that there was a message for her to call Adam. She went up to the room and turned her phone back on. There were a few missed calls and two voicemails from Adam, one of which was an apology for not coming and another where he sounded quite worried, saying that he knew about the storm and that she should ring him when she got back.
Although she was still cross with him, she didn’t want him worrying about her so she took a deep breath and called him, having no idea what she was going to say.
He picked up really quickly. “Rachel, hi, are you alright?”
He sounded concerned and from his voice, she could picture him frowning as he spoke.
“I’m fine. I just got back.”
“The tour company said you got caught in a snowstorm. What happened?”
“It was very heavy snow so we couldn’t make it back from the excursion. We stayed in someone’s cabin. It was fine.”
She couldn’t help but be brief, annoyed that he hadn’t started off by explaining why he didn’t come. Or by apologising.
“How many of you were there?”
“Just two of us.”
“Just you and the guide?”
“Well, there would have been three of us but someone didn't turn up.”
He was silent for a second and a pang of guilt hit her. It was a bit below the belt but nevertheless, true.
“Okay. Point taken.” He paused before he said, “You don’t know how sorry I am that I didn’t make it this weekend, especially now.”
Rachel deliberately didn’t fill the silence, forcing him to continue.
“I would have lost my job, Rach. A year of working on the Scramble deal all came to a head this weekend. It wasn’t supposed to be this weekend, it should have been finished already, but there was nothing I could do.” Another pause. “Could I come out this weekend instead? My ticket -”
“No. I’ll be working every weekend now. It was the only chance.”
She wasn’t prepared to give herself a week of emotional stress about whether he would or wouldn’t turn up. Yes, it would be better to see him, to talk things through and goodness knows, this phone call wasn’t the right time to do that, but it was too much. It was better to just concentrate on work now. Sheneededto concentrate on work.
“Rach, I need you to know how sorry I am. If there had been any way around it, I would have been there.”
He was starting to sound desperate now. Rachel pictured him running his hand through his hair in frustration. She was glad. This sorry was no different to any other sorry she’d had from him before. Work was his excuse this time as it had been every time.
“Look, Adam. I know you think it was unavoidable, but for me, it’s another let-down on a long list of let-downs and because of work again. But it’s worse this time because I’m here. It’s so hard to do this over the phone.”
“I know you’re angry with me, you have every right to be but I will make it up to you when you get back, I promise. Please believe me, I know how much I’ve let you down and hurt you,” he said gently.
