Close to Heaven: A Colorado High Country Christmas

by Pamela Clare

  Joe got to the point. “I was hoping you and I could team up to clear the main streets around town. It will be a lot easier to deal with now than it will be tomorrow.”

  Taylor nodded. “I’m game. I need to finish here and then clear my parents’ driveway.”

  “Sounds good to me.” A person had a right to look out for their own.

  “I’ll have to get Megs to approve it, too.”

  Megs Hill, the director of the Team, could be a hard-ass at times, but Joe had a world of respect for her.

  “Fair enough.”

  From behind him came the sound of an opening door.

  “Is it true that Rain’s roof collapsed?” Rose Ellery shouted from the shelter of her front porch, wearing a parka over her nightgown, her long silver hair hanging loose. The owner of Rose’s New Age Emporium, she was the town expert on tarot and astrology—and the hub of Scarlet’s gossip.

  “Yes, Rose, it’s true,” Joe answered. “But she’s okay.”

  “Thank the Goddess! What about my place? Do you think it will cave in?”

  Rose lived in one of the town’s old Victorian buildings—one of only a handful to survive the 1878 fire that burned most of Scarlet to the ground. Its steeply pitched gabled roof made it unlikely to collapse.

  “I think you’ll be okay, Rose,” Taylor said.

  “Could I ask you to shovel my driveway?” There was a coquettish tone to Rose’s voice now. “You men are so strong, and this wet snow is heavy.”

  Taylor shared an amused glance with Joe. “I’ll be happy to plow it for you, Rose.”

  “Thanks! If Rain needs a place to stay, I’ve got an extra bedroom. It’s cold out here! Goodnight.” With that, Rose disappeared inside again.

  “Your parents live on the east side of town, don’t they?” Joe asked Taylor.

  Taylor nodded.

  “Why don’t you stick to the east side, while I take the west side—if it’s okay with Megs, that is.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “You know anyone else with a snowplow?”

  “The Team has one that’s attached to its UTV. Herrera is at the Cave clearing the parking lot right now.”

  The Cave was the Team’s nickname for their headquarters.

  “Do you think Megs would be okay with having him join our little plow brigade?”

  Taylor grinned. “I’ll ask her—and I’ll tell her it was your idea.”

  “I’m okay with that.”

  “See you around.” Taylor turned and walked back to his truck.

  Joe headed off again, finishing First Street and then turning onto Moffat Street, which had the misfortune of being named after his great-great-grandfather, Silas. It was going to be a long night.

  It was three in the morning when Joe got a text from Rain that Dr. O’Brien was discharging her. He headed back toward the hospital, arriving twenty minutes later to find Lolly going over Rain’s discharge instructions. Rain gave him a little smile when she saw him, but she couldn’t fool him. He could tell she was shaken and overwhelmed by what had happened tonight, her face still pale. Who could blame her?

  Not wanting to intrude on her privacy, he made his way over to the coffee, poured himself a cup, and waited until she stepped out of the exam room, wearing a borrowed parka over her pajamas and boots that were a bit too big for her.

  “She’s good to go.” Lolly hurried off toward the ringing phone at the nurse’s station. “Just keep her warm.”

  “Will do. Thanks.” Joe stayed close beside Rain as they walked out to the Land Rover. “Where did they get the coat and boots?”

  “Lolly said they raided lost and found.”

  “Clever.” He opened the door for Rain, helped her inside, then hurried to the driver’s side and climbed in beside her. He started the vehicle and cranked the heat, wanting to make sure that Rain didn’t get chilled. “The guest room has a gas fireplace, so you’ll be plenty warm.”

  “Thanks, Joe.”

  “Hey, we take care of each other here.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does Lark know?”

  Rain shook her head. “I didn’t want to ruin her night. I’ll call tomorrow. I’m so damned glad she wasn’t home. I was able to crawl under my bed, but it’s an antique. Her bed is low to the ground. If anything had happened to her…”

  “Yeah.” Joe couldn’t even go there.

  He drove through the plowed streets toward the highway, telling her what had happened during her time in the ER. “I ran into a handful of Team members—Sasha, Moretti, Nicole, Belcourt, Megs, and Mitch. They seemed to be having a great time climbing around on rooftops with shovels. Moretti had his skis on.”

  Rain didn’t even smile. “I suppose this is a nice change from injured climbers, lost kids, and dead bodies.”

  Joe hadn’t thought about it like that. “Yeah, I suppose it is.”

  “Does anyone know where Bear is? I’m worried about him.”

  Leave it to Rain to think of others in the midst of a personal crisis. Bear had lived in the mountains west of Scarlet for as long as Joe could remember. He was a big man with unmatched survival skills and an in-depth knowledge of the Bible, but he had a child’s mind. No one knew why he was the way he was. The townsfolk did their best to watch over him, giving him hot meals in exchange for blessings.

  Joe told his phone to call the firehouse again. “Hey, has anyone had eyes on Bear since the storm started?”

  “You’re the third person to call and ask me that,” said Miller, her voice distorted by Joe’s speakers. “He’s here. Hawke spotted him walking down the road this morning and invited him to stay in an empty bunk tonight. He’s sound asleep and snoring like, well, a bear.”

  Yeah, Hawke more than deserved that raise.

  “Good to hear. Thanks. Talk to you later.” Joe ended the call, gave Rain the news, relief easing some of the tension on her face.

  “Thank goodness.”

  “Yeah. Good old Bear.” Joe turned onto the highway.

  Rain looked out the windshield, Joe’s headlights lighting up the blowing snow, his plow scraping along the road. She didn’t know what felt more unreal to her at the moment—the fact that her house was now a pile of broken lumber and shattered glass or the fact that she was on her way to Joe’s house in her pajamas.

  “God, I hope you have wine.”

  He glanced over at her. “I’ve got stronger stuff, too.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  “Thank God you’re okay.”

  “Yeah.” She didn’t really feel okay, but she knew he was right.

  She could have lost a lot more tonight than her house and everything in it.

  “I’ve got a couple guestrooms. You can take your pick.”

  “Thanks.” Rain had never been to Joe’s place. She knew he lived somewhere north of Scarlet close to his family’s old silver mine, but that was all she knew. He never invited staff over, instead holding staff get-togethers and meetings at Knockers. He spent most of his time at the pub, so it wasn’t as if he were a recluse.

  Then again, he’d lived alone for as long as she’d known him.

  “You warm enough?”

  “Yeah.” She sank deeper into the borrowed parka.

  “Liar.” He turned up the heater. “This drive usually takes about ten minutes, but I think it’s going to take me ten minutes just to get to the turnoff.”

  “I’m in no hurry.” She was exhausted and desperately wanted to sleep, but she wouldn’t be able to sleep if they ended up in a snowdrift.

  Soon, Rain found herself fighting to stay awake, exhaustion dragging at her as they crept down the highway. Joe said something about Bob Jewell flashing him and Austin, but the words washed over her. After what felt like an eternity, a change in the vehicle’s motion roused her. Joe had just made a left turn onto the unplowed dirt road that led to Moose Lake. Ahead of them, the road headed uphill toward the ghost town of Caribou and the old mine.

  “Can you imagine
leading a mule train up this road in winter or driving a team of oxen and a supply wagon?” he asked.

  She fought to wake up. “Didn’t they use the narrow-gauge railroad for supplies?”

  “The railroad didn’t arrive until 1883. Caribou was built in 1868.”

  Rain stared at him. “You know that off the top of your head?”

  “I guess you could say I’m a student of local history.”

  “What history? Mine opens. Town booms. Mine closes. Town goes bust. End of a very short story.”

  He chuckled. “There’s a lot more to it than that.”

  Something dark stepped onto the road ahead of them. Joe brought the SUV to a clean stop. A moose. It froze in its tracks, stared at them for a moment, snow on its back, then moseyed to the other side as if it didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Don’t hurry on our account,” Joe muttered.

  Five minutes later, the forest on either side of the road opened up to reveal the open meadow where the town of Caribou had once stood. Most of the houses had been salvaged for timber by the time Rain was a little girl. Only the walls of the post office, which had been built of stone, proved that this was the site of a once thriving town.

  “It’s amazing to think that three thousand people used to live here.”

  “Three thousand? That’s twice the population of Scarlet.”

  “And you say you can’t do math.” Chuckling, Joe turned right onto a road that led them through a stretch of dense forest. He motioned to the left. “The mine is a few hundred yards that way.”

  She glanced through the forest but saw only pine trees, their branches weighted with snow. On any other day, she would have thought it beautiful, but tonight she was too tired and too cold to care.

  Joe made another right. “Here we are.”

  Rain stared open-mouthed. “You live here?”

  He grinned. “I live at the pub—that’s what people tell me anyway.”

  Rain missed the joke, her gaze fixed on his house. It was one of those mountain contemporary homes built to blend in with its surroundings. It stood two stories high, about the height of the surrounding forest. Its supporting walls were made of Colorado flagstone that was the same red color as the native soil, the rest of it floor-to-ceiling windows. “Wow.”

  He drove around to the back, pushed a button on his dashboard, and slid into a three-car garage. There were no other vehicles, just a snowmobile, a sled, a workbench with tools, and a ski rack full of gear. “Are you hungry? I can make something quick to go with that wine.”

  “No, thanks.” The food and the wine would have to wait. “All I want is a warm bed and a roof that won’t fall in on me.”

  “Good enough. Let’s get you inside.”

  She climbed out of his SUV and followed him into a utility room that doubled as a mudroom. It had polished maple floors, a washer and dryer, a rug for snowy or muddy boots and shoes, a bench to sit on while putting on shoes, and a closet for coats, hats, and gloves. The room was as big as her kitchen.

  Not that she had a kitchen any longer.

  Joe took the parka she’d borrowed, stopping mid-motion to frown at something on her face. “You’re bruised.”

  She rubbed her cheek, surprised to find it sore. “I must have hit my face when I dove under my bed.”

  “The bedrooms are upstairs. We can go up the back way. It’s faster.” He opened a door to a stairway and flicked on the light.

  Rain followed him up two flights of stairs to a dark hallway.

  He flicked on the hallway lights, opened a door, and turned on the lights in what must have been a bedroom. “Let’s put you here.”

  Rain stepped through the doorway into the pages of a magazine. Recessed lighting cast a warm glow over the room with its polished maple floors. An upholstered platform bed stood against one wall, its headboard covered in soft gray fabric, a plump duvet folded at its foot. Across from the bed, a gas fireplace and large flat-screen TV were recessed side by side into an accent wall of burnished stainless steel. To the left of the bed were floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto the storm, a plush chaise set before them. The door to the bathroom stood a few feet to the right of the fireplace.

  “You can adjust the heat here. I’m going to turn it up.” Joe touched a dial on the wall. “There’s radiant heat in the bathroom. The fireplace turns on with that light switch. Do you think you’ll be comfortable?”

  Rain was too tired to laugh. “This will do. Thanks.”

  “Let me know if you need anything. I’m at the other end of the hall.” Joe turned to go. “Goodnight.”

  “’Night.” Rain shut off the lights and crawled into bed.

  Chapter 3

  Twenty-six days till Christmas

  Joe let himself sleep a good few hours, then dragged his ass out of bed, put on a T-shirt and went downstairs to the kitchen to make coffee, his gaze moving toward the door to Rain’s room. He needed to get something in his stomach and call Hawke’s crew for a SITREP. Snow was still falling, and there were probably lots of folks who needed help digging out this morning. On top of that, someone needed to get into the wreckage of Rain’s place and pack up some clothes and personal things for her.

  He got coffee brewing, then reached across the counter for the TV remote, listening to the weather report while he whipped up some biscuits, eggs, and bacon. Another thirty-two inches of snow had fallen in the mountains overnight, with high winds and as much as six to twelve inches expected today. DIA had cancelled all flights. The buses and light rail weren’t running in Denver. All government offices and schools across the state were closed for the day. Even the ski resorts had closed. Mother Nature had shut Colorado down.

  It didn’t happen often, but when it did, locals treated it like a holiday. It was a chance to play outdoors all day—or stay in bed and screw.

  You would like that, wouldn’t you?

  Hell, yeah, he would. Who wouldn’t? But he hadn’t had a woman in his life for a while now, and that wasn’t going to change before the roads were cleared.

  He’d given up on hookups and dating apps and websites. The last woman he’d dated hadn’t understood why a man with a master’s degree in mining engineering and a private fortune would waste his time running a brewpub. She hadn’t been willing to leave her Denver condo to live in Scarlet, and he’d gotten sick of her condescension. Scarlet was his home. It was also a tough place to meet women, especially when almost eight percent of the town’s single females worked for him, making them off limits.

  Yes, he’d done the math.

  Joe finished mixing the biscuits, plopped the dough onto a cookie sheet, and slid it in to bake in the top oven, while bacon sizzled in the lower one. He would eat and head out, leaving a plate for Rain on low in the oven.

  “Wow!”

  Joe looked up, saw her standing in the hallway at the top of the stairs, eyes wide, her gaze moving over the large open area that was his kitchen, dining room, and living room. “Hey. Did you get some sleep?”

  She nodded, her gaze now on the vaulted ceiling. “This is amazing.”

  “Thanks.” He glanced into the oven to check the bacon, then started cracking eggs. “You hungry?”

  “Famished.” She made her way down the staircase and over to the windows, her hair tangled, the bruise on her cheek darker now. “I usually love snow. But right now … I just want to get my stuff out of the house and see what I can save.”

  Yeah. That wasn’t happening. “Coffee?”

  “God, yes.” She turned and walked toward him.

  Joe’s mouth went dry.

  Her pajama bottoms rode low enough to expose her navel, his gaze moving from the gentle curve of her belly to the tuck of her waist to the flare of her hips.

  Damn.

  He poured coffee into a mug and handed it to her. “There’s cream in the fridge.”

  She glanced around. “Where’s the fridge?”

  He stepped over to the wood-paneled refrigerator door,
gave it a light push to open it, and took out the cream. “Here you go.”

  “A camouflaged fridge. Nice.” She poured some cream and put it away, then came and sat in one of the bar stools, sipping her coffee and watching while he finished scrambling the eggs. “I can’t believe how beautiful your place is.”

  “I inherited all of this—the mine, the land—when my father died. I figured I might as well do something with it.”

  “Building a cabin with an outhouse is ‘doing something with it.’ This … This is incredible. You designed it yourself, didn’t you?”

  How did she know that? “I worked with the architect, sketched out some ideas. She did the rest. We used a lot of repurposed materials. Want a tour?”

  He had a few minutes before he needed to pull the biscuits and bacon out of the oven. He could take the time.

  “Sure.”

  He gestured to the space around him. “Well, this is the kitchen. There’s the dining room, and over there’s the living room. Follow me.”

  He opened the door beside the pantry. “That wine you wanted? It’s down here.”

  They walked together down the stairs and into his wine cellar.

  “Gosh, Joe. Next time Marcia runs out of booze at the bar, I know where to send her. You’ve got a liquor store down here.”

  “Reds are here. Whites are there. Hard liquor is—”

  “Macallan 1940?” She lifted the bottle carefully into her hands. “I don’t even want to know how much this cost. Okay, yes, I do. How much was it?”

  “My father bought that the year before he passed. I think it cost him thirty grand.”

  “Thirty thousand dollars?” Rain looked horrified and held out the bottle to Joe, as if she no longer trusted herself to hold it. “How could anyone drink that? You might as well pee liquid gold.”

  He chuckled, took it from her, and settled it back in its cubby. “I’m saving it for a very special occasion.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see.”

  Next, he showed her the gym with its weights, exercise bike, and treadmill. “Feel free to work out. There’s a stereo system and a TV.”