McKinley didn’t have much to say after that. Who would. After a time, I heard him say, “tired?”
I must have nodded off because when I opened my eyes he was standing over me. His hand reaching out for my mug which was tilting at a precarious angle. I lowered the handle to level the mug, then relinquished it to him.
“There’s a bedroom at the end of the hall with fresh sheets on the bed. The bathroom is next to it.” He said.
I nodded and stopped mid yawn when I realized what that meant. “What about you?” I asked.
McKinley inclined his head in the direction of the sofa. “You’re on my bed.”
“This is your place. You should take the master bedroom.”
“You’re the guest and this couch is a lot less comfortable at three in the morning.”
“But…”
“Go.” He ordered.
My mind felt like arguing but my body won out. I stood and headed down the hall making a mental note. His habit of ordering me around was going to be addressed ASAP.
Once I was in bed and under the covers, I looked through the window at the snow blowing outside. There was nothing that could be done until the storm had passed. My eyes growing heavy, I surrendered to my need for rest.
McKinley was awake and pulling his boots on when I returned to the front of the cabin.
“Good morning.” I said.
He looked up. “You’re up.”
“Yes.”
“The snow has stopped falling and the skies are clear. I’m going out to take a look around, see if they’ve gotten to the road yet. I made coffee. You’ll need to sit tight. This may take a while.”
“How long?”
“An hour or so.”
“We’re not that far away from where the cars were left.”
“Over two feet of snow has fallen since you went to bed and your vehicle was already covered pretty good by the time I found you.”
I nodded.
“I need to go clean what I can off of the vehicles. How good are you at driving in winter weather?”
“Not very good.”
I’ll go ahead and mark yours for towing. Do you know the plate number?”
“Huh?”
“The license plate number on the rental car? It helps the towing company if I can give Baker a license plate number to go with a description of the car. It takes less time to match the vehicle up with the correct address and owner or, in your case, driver of the vehicle.”
I listened to McKinley talk as I put on my coat and scarf. I was sitting on a chair with boots in hand when I heard him say, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going with you. Things will get done much faster if there are two of us working.”
He shook his head. His hair was still tousled from the night before and bounced as he spoke. “It’s going to be cold out there and hip deep snow is a bitch to walk through.”
“Two and a half feet is not hip deep.”
“Not for me but I’m taller than you are. If you trip on the other hand, you might be swallowed.”
“You may be taller than me but I’m not as short as you think.” I responded irritation rising. “Besides we have a few things to discuss before we get back to the house.”
I followed McKinley through the snow. It was wet and cold, not quite up to my hips but close enough. The man was right about the snow being a bitch to walk through. I wasn’t going to tell him that. He might be even more difficult to get along with if I paid him a compliment.
“What did you want to talk about?” He asked without looking at me.
“What happened to make you hate romance novels...who broke your heart?” I asked abruptly. It was not what I planned, but the words were out nonetheless.
McKinley stopped walking. He looked at me for a few beats then faced forward. “I guess the way I’ve been talking to you I should give you an answer. Some of it at least.” He continued his trek to the cars as he spoke.” A few years ago I had a girlfriend. I loved her. I wanted to marry her and I thought we were happy. She left me because I didn’t know how to be a good partner, I wasn’t romantic. She read those damn romance novels. All the time. She would tell me about some of them, read bits of them to me. Almost all of them had these perfect rich guys in them who did everything right.”
“The kind of men who sweep women away on private jets for romantic dinners and weekend getaways?” I asked.
His only response was an involuntary shrug. “We were practically living together. The last time I saw her she told me she couldn’t spend the rest of her life with a man who didn’t know how to shower his woman with gifts that conveyed the boundlessness of his love.”
“What did you do, after she left?”
“I kept on the way I had been only without her. A few months later I found out Dad was sick. I packed up and came home.”
“You haven’t tried dating again?”
“No.”
I drew my own conclusion, “Since what’s her name isn’t around you blamed the novels she read for what happened and by extension, the novelist.” I looked at McKinley raising a brow.
“Kind of. I know it’s not your fault I’m not good at relationships.”
“What kind of boyfriend were you? Were you obnoxious? Rude?”
He shook his head.
“Were you kind and patient? A caring lover? Did you show up for her? Did you love her even when you didn’t understand her or were you gruff and bossy?”
“I did my best to be the things you mentioned. The gruff and bossy is new.”
A silence grew between us.
“The bossy thing it’s not so good huh.”
“For repelling romance novelists it works great. If you want to attract people to you...not so much. Being a romance writer everyone assumes I know all about love and relationships. I don’t know everything. What I do know is sometimes things don’t work out because people just aren’t a good fit. They can be good people. The attraction can be there, the sex can be there, the love of the same things can be there and they still may not bring out the best in each other. They don’t complement each other. When two people don’t make each other better it’s not meant to be, not in the long run at least.” I continued. “Romance novels are Fantasy. The things men do in romance novels, it’s a fantasy. When you didn’t fit in…”
“Julia.” He said.
“When what you two had wasn’t what Julia wanted for her life she used the novels as an excuse to break up with you. People use stupid excuses to break off relationships all the time. We take those excuses to heart because they broke our hearts.”
McKinley stopped walking and shook his head. “This is what should break your heart.” He said gesturing to our cars. Both vehicles were covered in snow.
“Let’s start with mine.” McKinley said, “I need some things out of the back.”
Twenty minutes later he fished a bag out of the back of his vehicle. Opening it, he retrieved a small shovel and a metal sign with ‘T’ on it crafted from reflective tape. McKinley dug as much snow as he could from around his tires while I removed snow from the windows. He found a mile marker close by and took a picture of it. We repeated the process with my vehicle putting one of the metal signs in the window indicating it needed to be towed before taking a picture of the license plate.
“What’s next?” I asked.
“We close up the cabin and head back to the house.”
Lisa and Phoebe were sitting at the the dining table when we let ourselves in.
“Thank goodness.” Lisa exclaimed as she rose from her chair. “Are you okay? You’re both okay.” She said as she looked each of us over.
“I thought about feeding her to the bears but I figured you’d notice.” McKinley teased.
“Mr. Baker says you’re afraid of bears and Mom would have noticed. She sees everything.” Phoebe announced.
“I have a healthy respect for bears. But you’re right, Phoebe, I wouldn’t have fed Jess to them.”
“Take off your things. Have a seat. I’ll make some plates.”
“She cooked like she expected you to have lost all of your weight overnight Auntie.” Phoebe said releasing a long suffering sigh.
“It’s how your mother shows us she loves us.” I responded patting Phoebe’s hand. “It’s very good to see you.” I looked at her, cradling my chin in my hand I asked, “What have you been doing?”
“After Mom talked to Mac we talked about what she wanted to cook this morning while we played Monopoly. Then we had movie night and drank cocoa in front of the fire. We went to bed early. What did you do?”
“I drank coffee and talked to your friend over here and went to bed early. This morning we cleaned the snow off the cars, got mine ready for towing and came back here. On a snowmobile.”
“Snowmobile?” Phoebe’s face lit up. “Can I play on it?”
The word ‘no’ crossed Lisa’s lips as she carried two plates in loaded with eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, and sausage gravy.
“What exploded?” I asked, laughing.
“It’s too much isn’t it? Phoebe said it would be too much.”
“It’s how she shows us she loves us.” Phoebe repeated back to me.
“Of course not Lisa. It’s just right.”
“I know I’m famished.” McKinley added.
“I think we’ll save the rest of the pancakes for tomorrow.” Lisa announced.
McKinley stood when he heard the word ‘pancakes.’
I looked at him with my ‘what are you doing?’ face.
“She said there were pancakes. A mountain man needs his pancakes.” He said, jogging into the kitchen.
“You’re not a mountain man, remember?” Phoebe called out.
“That was really good.” McKinley said.
We stood on the back porch next to the entry of the house watching Phoebe as she sat on the parked snowmobile.
“Thank you again, for the rescue.”
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t do anything. That was all Lisa.”
“No, not for the food. The conversation. It's been three years...I never looked at what happened with Julia the way you did.”
“There are things we tell ourselves to explain why things happen the way they do. Many times, we end up lying to ourselves. Sadly, we can hold on to that lie so tightly it’s impossible to see the truth.”
“You are some woman Jess Windstrom.”
Something inside me warmed at the sound of McKinley’s words. “Thank you.”
“I hope you have a nice evening.”
“Thank you.”
Phoebe returned to the house and we watched as McKinley started the snowmobile and disappeared into the woods. “Mac says the ice rink has special events all next week. He’ll call when the roads are clear again.”
“That sounds fine.” I gave the girl a smile. “Tell me, what should we do with the rest of the day?”
Phoebe’s eyebrows knitted as her expression grew serious, “Could we talk about something in private?” It’s pretty important.”
I held out my hand to her. “My office is always open to you madam.”
Phoebe pulled something out of her pocket before sitting down on the edge of my bed. She handed me a small ornament shaped Christmas decoration. It was parchment white with the words “Christmas Wish” painted across the front in a festive crimson script.
“You’ve found it.”
She nodded. “I have a special wish this year and I was wondering…”
“...if you could use it?”
“Mom said I should ask you.”
I handed her the ornament. “I would never stand between you and your dreams.”
“How does it work?” She asked, her dark eyes bright with curiosity.
“You take a slip of paper and write down what you want, then fold it up as small as you can.”
Phoebe reached into her pocket and opened her hand. A folded scrap of paper rested in her palm.
“Very good. This ornament opens like a box so all we need to do is open the box tuck your wish inside and close it. That’s it.” I worked quickly hoping she wouldn’t see anything.
“There's already something in it.” Phoebe pointed out.
I opened the ornament. “Well, what do you know? There is.”
“Who’s is it?”
“Mine.” I said. “It is a wish I made many years ago. I think it’s older than you are.”
“You never got it?”
“No but I know any wish made by someone as pure of heart as you are is sure to be granted.”
Phoebe slouched a bit. She did not look reassured. I opened the box and pulled out both of our wishes, I closed my eyes and said, “I, Jess Windstrom, want the power of my wish to attach itself and strengthen the wish of Phoebe Paget. May Phoebe get her wish. May Phoebe get her wish. May Phoebe get her wish.”
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