Page 64 of Please Send Snow
17
JAKE
The sky over the mountains melts into pinks and reds as Michael hops out of the carriage to help us down.
Maddie looks up at me with a wistful smile that I feel in my chest, and I know like me, she wishes we could have stayed in this carriage forever.
This ride felt like it passed in a heartbeat.
And yet it changed everything.
I don’t care anymore that my marriage went down in flames. I don’t care that I’m rebuilding my reputation brick by brick. I don’t care that I lost half my fortune. What’s left is more than enough.
Anything or even nothing would be enough, so long as I have Maddie and Dylan to share it with.
I glance down at my son, thinking about how his whole life is about to get better.
He’s still sleeping soundly. The snow flurries have stopped, but he doesn’t know it. The look on his facewhen they started to fall was so filled with wonder and happiness that it almost hurt to look at him.
“More snow is coming,” Michael says softly, as if he’s reading my mind. “A proper storm. We just got the weather alert. Margo sent Anna to town for extra supplies and told Gerard to check the gas reserves for the generator.”
“Ride out the storm at the chalet with us,” I say, turning to Maddie. “Dylan would be so sad if a real snow came and you weren’t there. You can have the guest bedroom.”
She smiles and I feel like a warm, golden spotlight is shining on me.
“Okay,” she says. “Let me just grab a few things from my room. Stay right here.”
She seems a little nervous for some reason. Probably just worried about the storm.
“Of course,” I tell her, nodding to Dylan, who is still sleeping curled up in the blanket on the seat beside me. “I won’t move a muscle.”
But as she disappears from view, I realize this is a prime opportunity to speak to her in private for a moment.
“Would you mind watching Dylan for a second?” I ask Michael. “I just have to take care of one quick thing.”
“I’d be glad to watch over him, Mr. Stone,” Michael says fondly.
There aren’t a lot of people I’d leave alone with my sleeping son, but the friendly doorman is the one-in-a-million kind of person I instantly trusted the day I met him.
I hop down and take off after Maddie, and I make it inside just as she’s turning down one of the hallways.
I almost call after her, but there are rooms between us, so I stay quiet and jog to catch up.
She turns around another corner, and I follow in time to see her open a door and enter. Convinced that I won’t lose her, I slow down so I don’t scare her to death. But as I approach her door, I see the bronze rectangle on it doesn’t have a room number.
It saysBroom Closet.
What in the world? Is she planning on doing some cleaning at the chalet? I thought we were pretty well stocked on supplies.
I knock on the door, but it’s not fully shut, so it swings open before Maddie can respond, revealing a sight I blink at for a second, unable to process.
The air has the light scent of pine cleaner, and the far-right wall looks like a broom closet as advertised, complete with shelving and cleaning products.
But in front of all that is a cot, made up with a cozy comforter. A lamp is set on a wooden crate beside it, which also holds Maddie’s laptop.
The only adornment is an old photograph affixed to the wall, showing a small girl in a horse-drawn carriage with a man and a laughing woman.
Maddie…
