by Vivian Lux
Except for Jesse.
He didn’t know that the prosthetic leg he wore had been designed and printed by me. None of the amputees at County knew. If I told them, they’d be forced to feel grateful, when I was the one who was grateful.
As my Jeep bounced around the turn, I felt my grip on the steering wheel loosening, but that same little flicker of desire I’d felt last night was returning. On my good days, I could laugh at the irony. How I drank to escape the problems I caused when I was drinking. Isn’t that fucking hilarious? Isn’t that just a wonderfully vicious cycle?
But on bad days, like today was shaping up to be, it just fucking pissed me off. He was never going to walk again, and the fact that I’d stopped drinking wasn’t about to change that. So why even bother?
I gritted my teeth and punched myself, hard, in the thigh to derail this particular train of useless thought. These were thoughts for the dead of night, as I battled insomnia. Not now when I needed my wits about me.
I sighed with relief as the road leveled out. Down in town, the plows must have already been out in full force, because the roads only had about two inches of freshly fallen snow on them. The flakes were falling less thickly down here too, allowing me to see the shut up buildings as I passed slowly down Main Street, keeping an eye out for Aria’s rental.
Main Street was lined with neat Victorian storefronts all the way down the gentle slope to Ganagua Lake and right out onto the pier that jutted into the water. The road was wide, with ample on-street parking so the tourists wouldn’t have far to walk to spend their money. Old oaks marched in a line up the median in the center, spreading their wide, shady branches that bent ominously under the weight of the snow and unfelled leaves. In a couple months, the trunks would be wound with strings of Christmas lights. There would be the last gasp of the shopping season, attracting a few hardy tourists before this place closed up for good. Everything on the main drag was neat and polished to perfection.
But as I rolled slowly through town, I watched the crisp edges deteriorate. The pretty buildings of Main Street gave way to a series of shittier strip malls, then the used car lots. The last thing at the edge of town was the gray hulk of Melton’s Marina, still standing abandoned while the new development was still hung up in permits. I rolled slowly past the gas station/convenience store where I had used to buy my late night booze, then I pulled to a stop.
The thing about small towns is that you're always ready and wary about running into people you know.
So I wasn’t surprised to see my brother. Not really.
What surprised me was that he was filling up a brand new pickup truck.
I pulled in, grinning to see my citified brother struggling with the diesel pump and pulled up alongside him.
“Is this thing yours?" I asked him, rolling down my window and squinting into the wind.
He came stomping over, rubbing his frozen hands together. My brother always lost his gloves. It was kind of his thing. "Thank God!” he called, reaching in through my window to shake my hand. "I was afraid I was going to have to go inside and asked the teenager behind the counter how the hell to work this thing. Thank you, you saved me from looking like an idiot."
I opened my door. There was still that faint air of discomfort between me and Cole, but we’d been patching things up over the past year. Luckily he was too wrapped up in reuniting with his lost first love to pay too much attention to his brother turning into a hermit. "I mean, you do definitely look like an idiot here," I teased him. "Let's not lose sight of this."
"What the hell's going on with this anyway," he asked, shoving the nozzle ineffectually into the gas tank.
I shook my head. “Did you just buy this thing or something? Is it really diesel?"
He sighed and rolled his eyes, dancing from foot to foot. The temperature was plummeting hard and my breath was wreathed around my face. "Yes, it's diesel. And yes, I just bought it. I haven't been able to get any plowing contracts for the development, and I figured, hey, I live in town now with Autumn, why the hell couldn’t I just do it myself, right?"
I grinned. My brother was still wearing his fancy woolen pea coat, even while driving a pickup truck. He'd only moved back to Reckless Falls a year ago, lured back by love and his high school sweetheart taking him back. I didn't see him too often, but when I did, he always looked just about as comfortable around here as a fish looks riding a bicycle. You can take the boy out of New York City, but you can't take New York City out of the boy.
I wondered if that's how Aria was thinking. I wondered where the fuck she was in this storm.
"Well, since you’re the proud new owner of a diesel pickup truck, you probably ought to know that you're using the nozzle that semi trucks would use. The regular nozzle is over on the other side of the tank,” I told my brother.
Cole raised his eyebrows. "How the hell do you know these things?" He asked me.
I shook my head. "Because I pay attention."
"I thought I paid attention too,” Cole fretted. "But it's never to the right things."
I grinned. "So wait, you're really putting a snowplow on this thing? Do you know how to use a plow?"
He shrugged as he walked around to the other side and started yanking on the nozzle. "How hard can it be? And yes, I did buy a plow to attach to this thing. I’m bringing it over to the garage have it attached right now. We’re supposed to be getting ten or twelve inches out of this.” My brother shrugged and successfully wrestled the right hose all the way over with only an inch of play left. He muttered something profane in triumph, then shrugged his shoulders at me. "Either way, the parking lot of the new place is going to need to be plowed out for sure." My brother puffed up a little. "Is it weird that I'm actually looking forward to it?"
"Yes," I said solemnly. "It is very weird."
My brother gave me the middle finger, but I wasn't even thinking about that. I was thinking about Aria.
“Have you seen Aria Dolan?” I blurted to my brother.
He looked up sharply. “A.J.? She’s back right? At least that’s what I’ve heard.”
I shivered as a gust of wind cut through me like a knife. Standing out here chatting was idiotic. “She’s back,” I grimaced. “And she’s out in this.”
My brother’s raised eyebrows said everything as the pieces slid in place. “She’s staying at her grandfather’s place, I remember now. And you… you’ve got a thing for her, don’t you?” He turned off the pump and blew on his fingers. “Is she at her parents’?”
“No idea,” I grumbled.
“Maybe she’s back at the house now and you just missed her?”
“Yeah maybe,” I said.
“You sure she wants you out here worrying about her?”
“No, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t,” I growled as I slid back into my seat and turned on the engine. I held my hands out to the heater. “But I’m going to anyway.”
I said goodbye to my brother, but still I was thinking about Aria. She grew up here, I told myself reasonably. She should know how to drive in the snow. But then again, she’d spent the last seven years getting ferried about by tour buses and fancy planes. Did she really know how to drive at all? Did New Yorkers drive? No, they took taxis and the subway.
My mind whirled round and round, but the sound of metal screeching against metal just kept sounding in my brain. I drove in aimless circles before I finally passed the B&B.
Her car wasn’t there.
"God dammit," I said out loud, slamming the heel of my palm into the steering wheel. Helpless fury coursed through my veins, reigniting the old, forgotten tremor in my hand.
I turned back towards Whaleback Mountain, but the whole drive back I kept my eyes peeled for a white rental car and flame-red hair.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Aria Jane
If I just stayed in the tracks made by other cars, I should be fine, I reminded myself.
I was hunched all the way forward, as if the extra foot of nearness would help
me peer through the whipping snow. With a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, I tried my best to forget that I had barely been behind the wheel of a car in seven years. And I certainly hadn’t been driving in weather like this…ever. My parents would have never allowed me out in a storm, even if I had stayed in Reckless Falls. Not after what happened to my sister.
I leaned forward been farther. Had the weather been bad on the night Violet died? I never thought to ask. I had never wanted to know more about my sister than what was absolutely necessary, but as my heart thumped sickeningly in my throat, I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d seen it all as it was happening. Was she laughing with her friends and happy, with death taking them all by surprise? Or had she known what was coming and screamed the whole time?
I shook my head, blinking back surprised tears. It must have been seeing Xavier that had me all fucked up and sentimental about the past. Seeing him so happy and in love….
“Shit,” I hissed out loud. My back wheel had hit a patch of ice, and sending me sliding sickeningly sideways. I cut the wheel, trying to remember if you were supposed to turn into a skid or turn out of it, when my tire caught a patch of cleared roadway and sent me shooting sideways across the road. “Shit!” I screamed as I cut the wheel even harder, sending the car spinning around like a top. The sky and earth blended together, just sheets of filmy white until suddenly everything stopped with a great, muffled, “thunk.” The airbag shot out in a blur of white powder and made the most awful screeching sound.
I gasped and realized that sound was coming from me.
My whole body was shaking. Gingerly, I reached up to touch my stinging cheek and realized I’d scraped it on the now deflating airbag. The white powder was settling around the car interior in a cruel imitation of the white flakes that were slowly covering my immobilized car.
“Fuck,” I whispered. I took a breath and began a gentle exploration of my body. Wiggling my fingers and toes caused no pain, but there was a sharp pain in my chest, I pulled back my shirt to see that my seatbelt had cut a dark red mark across my breasts. I was going to have one hell of a bruise in the morning.
I shivered. Already the cold was starting the seep into the heated interior. Carefully I leaned over and sifted through the spilled contents of my purse until I found my cell phone. It was charged and ready for me to call someone for help.
But who?
I flicked through to Xavier’s contact number and dialed, exhaling a careful breath through my teeth. “Come on, honey, pick up,” I muttered as the phone rang and rang.
But when his chirpily snotty voicemail informed me that he was too busy being fabulous to pick up the phone right now, I remembered that they were hanging cabinets today. They probably couldn’t hear the phone over the noise of construction.
“Shit,” I exhaled, setting my phone down. Panic was starting to seep in, the aftereffects of shock. “Shit, shit shit!!” I screamed, banging my hand against the window. The snow puffed up in a little swirling cloud, clearing a patch for me to peer into the whirling white.
Who the hell could I call?
My parents? That was the last thing I wanted to do. I’d rather call AAA. But did I even have them anymore? I reached over and sifted through my purse detritus until I found my overstuffed wallet and dumped out the collected mess. Receipts and ticket stubs and credit cards rained out, and I spread them all out. “Aha!” I exclaimed in glee as I picked up the battered old card and held it up to the light.
It had expired four years ago and I’d never thought to renew it. Why would I? I was a fucking rockstar back then.
“Fuuuuuck,” I exhaled, leaning back. I could try to call a garage, but who knew how long that would take? I could try calling…who the hell else did I even know here? The realtor? Mr. Banner?
Fucking Derek?
“Fuck,” I sighed. “Fuck fuck fuck.” It made the most damn sense. I was only about a mile from our place….had I really just thought of it as our place? Fuck, it didn’t matter, the point was it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition to have him come out and pick me up, right? I was his landlord, after all. Maybe I could knock off a towing fee from his rent. Yeah, he’d do it for that reason and not because we’d almost fucked in the creek.
I pulled up my email and ignored the increasingly threatening letters from the band’s lawyer and instead I scrolled to the email I’d received from Mr. Banner about my “tenant.” Derek Gideon Granger’s phone number was listed right there on the leasing agreement. Gideon, how had I not known his middle name was Gideon?
“Fuck,” I said, but I was already dialing.
There was the sound of scrambling, then a gruff, “Yeah?”
I exhaled as relief flooded my body. Relief over getting rescued I told myself. “Derek?”
“Aria?” he sounded a little panicked. “Where have you been?”
I felt myself bristle. “Why, were you looking for me?”
He hissed out a frustrated sigh. “Actually? Yeah. I was fucking looking for you. It’s bad out there.”
Something inside of me slid slightly sideways to hear the worry in his voice. I felt myself blinking back tears yet again. “I know,” I choked. “I got in an accident.”
“What? Where? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m on route 16 only about a mile or so from the house. I slid off the road, I’m…”
“I’m coming.” I heard him moving, fast. “I’ll be there really soon.”
“Derek!”
“What?”
“Be careful driving your Jeep, the roads are really bad.”
“Oh, I’m not driving the Jeep.”
“What?” I said.
But he had already hung up.
I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. The adrenaline was seeping away, leaving me profoundly sleepy. I pulled my coat around me more tightly and winced as my fingers grazed my sore shoulder. There was a whining sound in my ears, an after effect of the accident, I supposed. The snow covered the windshield, and I squirmed restlessly as the claustrophobia started to close in. I closed my eyes again as the whining in my ears grew louder. “Jesus,” I whispered, wondering if I needed to go to the hospital. Was this what concussions were like? Did they make your ears whine louder and louder and then…
I screamed as something large thumped against the window. The whining was suddenly cut short, and then the thump came again. A big black shadow crossed the window and then suddenly the door was flung open.
“What the fuck?” I shouted when I saw the misshapen figure in front of me. He was hooded, with a mask pulled down so that only his goggled eyes were showing. His dark, nearly black eyes. “Derek?” I asked.
He pulled down his muffler. “Aria,” he said, exhaling sharply. Wreaths of frozen breath circled his head. He reached out for my hand and gently helped me to my feet. “Are you okay?”
“How did you get here? Where is your Jeep? Why do you look like a marshmallow?” I must have been delirious, because I was babbling like an idiot.
I couldn’t see his smile under the muffler but I could see the crinkling at the corner of his eyes. “I told you,” he said. “I wasn’t driving the Jeep.”
He took my arm and gently led me around the back of my crumpled car.
“A snowmobile?” I gasped.
“Seemed like the fastest way to get to you.”
“You want me to ride that with you?”
He shrugged. “Unless you’d prefer to stay here.”
“No thank you.”
“Let me grab your stuff.” He glanced back. “You’re off the road and on the shoulder enough that I think we can wait to call a tow truck until after the storm is over.”
“Okay,” I breathed.
“Hop on.”
I hesitated. This was the man who’d invaded my privacy and manipulated me into breaking up with my boyfriend. Never mind that it was justified. Never mind that I was secretly thankful to have Killian’s lies exposed. It still didn’t make what he’
d done any less evil. Even if it had, in some way kind of rescued me.
Like how he was rescuing me right now.
I swallowed. “I’ve never ridden one before.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” he said, as he handed me goggles with a grin. “Except hold on tight.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Derek
Her arms were wrapped around me. I knew it was because she was holding on for dear life as we whipped through the whiteout, but hoped she was enjoying the feel of her body pressing against mine as much as I was.
I should have been concentrating on the dim shapes illuminated by the snowmobile’s headlight, but I was too caught up in the warmth between her thighs, heat so searing I could feel it even through my down parka. She clung to my waist so tightly that the shape of her breasts was evident even under her coat.
We hit a dip, crossing the snow-covered ditch, and her hands fell lower, brushing right over the raging hard-on I was sporting.
She stiffened and slowly moved her hand away.
But she didn’t let go.
The gray shape of the carriage house loomed in the distance. It was nearly a blizzard out here, with wind so cold it stole the breath from my lungs, but even so, I still didn’t want this ride to be over. I contemplated turning in circles, the better to spend more time with Aria Jane clinging to me, to have more time to enjoy the heat between those legs.
But her teeth were chattering now, so I reluctantly pulled up to the door and killed the engine.
“Your place?” Aria asked, shivering. She was holding her injured shoulder gingerly.
“Looks like it.”
“Why didn’t you take me up to my place?”
“Because your place doesn’t have a fire going and a mug of hot chocolate already warmed up for you.
She blinked. “You made me hot cocoa?”
I held the door open for her. “I thought you’d be cold.”
She scurried into the door, stomping the snow from her boots. “Well these are ruined,” she chuckled, peeling them off her legs.
“They still look good to me.”
