by Cora Brent
SNOW
(A Gentry Boys Christmas Story)
By Cora Brent
© 2016
All rights reserved
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COPYRIGHT
Please respect the work of this author. No part of this book may be reproduced or copied without permission. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Any similarities to events or situations is also coincidental.
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© 2016 by Cora Brent
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CONWAY
My eyes snapped open even though the alarm hadn’t sounded. For a few tense seconds I listened in the winter morning darkness to the sound of my wife breathing beside me. There was nothing else, no loud noises or other disturbances that would have jarred me awake.
I relaxed a little and looked over at the bedside clock, noting that the alarm would blast on in two more minutes. Gently I reached across Roslyn’s heavily pregnant stomach and switched it off. She rolled her head to the side but continued to sleep. That was good. She needed to sleep.
I waited another minute, offered a tender pat to her swollen belly and then crept out of bed. The forecasts were correct. Two seconds on the other side of the covers and I could feel how the temperature had dropped during the night. This cold snap had already caused record lows in southern California before heading east to Arizona. Somehow a competing weather front descending from the Rocky Mountains meant snow was a possibility in the coming days.
Snow.
I shook my head with a smile.
Here it was three days before Christmas and there was seriously talk of snow in the desert. That had never happened in my lifetime.
I took too long in the shower and by the time I got out and glanced at my phone I realized I only had about ten minutes before my brother would show up for the drive to work. Stone was never late.
After I rushed through the rest of my routine I paused beside my sleeping wife and gave her a soft kiss on the forehead. I was tempted to bend down and kiss her belly too but I really didn’t want to wake her. Roslyn had finally stopped working last Friday and wouldn’t return until the baby was a few months old. Now that all our resources were tied up in making the garage a success I knew she stressed about money and about the future. After all, this life was pretty new to both of us. Love, marriage, baby on the way. A sharp turn like that could give you whiplash if you let it. Not that I was complaining. I loved where life had taken me this past year.
My phone buzzed and I didn’t even need to look at it to know that Stone was responsible. Not only because no one else was likely to text at this hour but because my brother was as reliable as the tide these days. That hadn’t always been the case. Back when we were growing up together as two unruly kids in our dusty hometown Stone was as wild and unpredictable as the devil. Then came four hard years in prison for a tragic accident that hadn’t even been his fault. A lot of men would have turned bitter, even savage over being unjustly sentenced but Stone emerged from that hell determined to be the best man he could be. Two and half years later he’d made good on every promise he’d made to himself in that lonely prison cell. In a lot of ways Stone was kind of my hero. Of course I’d never told him as much. It would have sounded sappy and a little ridiculous to say the words out loud. Still, I liked to think he somehow knew how I felt.
Sure enough, Stone’s truck was idling beside the curb. I gave him a wave in the cold darkness and locked the front door behind me.
My brother lived with his wife in a similar rental house just around the block but he had gone out of his way to stop at a local Circle K for a pair of coffees before heading over to pick me up.
“Thanks,” I said gratefully, taking a slow sip of caffeine before determining it wasn’t too hot. Then I swallowed half the cup in a few gulps.
“How’s she doing?” Stone asked, checking his mirrors and pulling into the street, a model of vigilant driving.
I set the coffee down in the cup holder. “She had some back pain last night but no contractions. She was kind of bummed yesterday when the doctor told her that she wasn’t dilated at all. First babies are often late apparently.”
“Tadpole Gentry isn’t late yet,” said Stone with a grin. “Roslyn’s not due until Christmas day. I have faith we’ll be seeing some excitement before then.”
I grinned back. Roslyn and I had argued over names for months and as far as the rest of the family knew the question was still unsettled. Stone had been the one to start routinely referring to the baby as ‘Tadpole’ and the nickname had caught on.
“Are you and Tadpole communicating telepathically now?” I teased, giving Stone a light shove in the confines of the front seat.
“Maybe,” Stone shrugged. “In any case I plan on being the undisputed favorite uncle.”
“You’ll have some competition,” I said, thinking of my triplet half brothers. Then again, they hadn’t known that we were more than distant cousins until recently. When I was a teenager my mother had admitted to me one drunk and tearful night that I was actually the son of Benton Gentry, the father of Cord, Creed and Chase. For years I stayed quiet about it. I had my own reasons for keeping the information to myself for so long, mainly because I didn’t want them to feel like they owed me a thing. But now it was all out in the open and the three men always went out of their way to let me know they were proud to claim me as a brother.
Stone coughed and braked for a stop sign. “I think seniority counts for something, don’t you?”
“It can’t possibly have slipped your mind that Cord, Creed and Chase are quite a bit older than you, Stonewall.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He flashed that same cocky grin that used to get him any girl he wanted. Now that he had the perfect girl – sweet Evie – he only ever turned on that smile out of happiness. “I’ll always be number one, right Con?”
“Right.” I answered so quietly the word was nearly a whisper. Stone was only ten months older than me. Growing up together down in Emblem we’d been like peanut butter and jelly. Well, that is if peanut butter was always putting jelly in a headlock while jelly howled that peanut butter smelled like dirty feet. Yet even when I couldn’t stand the sight of Stone I couldn’t imagine a better brother. We were lock and key, a matched set. I finished my coffee with a sigh and stared out the window.
“What was that sigh for?” Stone asked.
“Did I sigh?”
“You did.”
I didn’t answer right away as we turned onto the street where several months ago we’d taken a leap of faith and leased a building with plans to open our own auto garage. I knew cars inside and out so most of the work that had come our way since we’d opened had been left to me while Stone handled the more practical side of the business. He was also eager to learn so I’d been teaching him everything I knew. But the doors hadn’t opened too long ago and with the holidays closing in, business had been a little slow so far.
“Just thinking,” I finally answered. “Things will pick up after the new year, right?”
He frowned, swinging the truck into a parking spot in front of the building. He switched the engine off and faced me. “We’re not doing bad, Con. Takes time to build up a business. Even Deck said so.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“That reminds me, I want to talk to you later about launching an ad campaign in January.”
“Sure but I don’t know how much help I can be there. I know as much about marketing as I do about basket weaving.”
He shrugged. “You and me both. But I’ve been talking to Deck and he had some ideas so I thought between all of us we could flesh them out.”
“Well, anything Deck comes up with is bound to be a winner,” I said without a trace of sarcasm.
In the complicated genealogy of our unique family, Deck was Stone’s half brother and my cousin. He was as tough and sharp as he was loyal and kind. When push came to shove I didn’t really have what it took on paper to acquire a business lease. All my money was obtained through rather ill-gotten gains, mostly street racing. No reputable financial institution would have touched that cash influx with a ten-foot pole. And even though Stone worked hard he didn’t have the collateral it would take to start a business. Deck came to the rescue, co-signing the lease as our partner and investing some of his own considerable finances to make sure we had the backing we needed. Deck Gentry was about the closest thing to a flesh and blood superhero as I’d ever seen.
Stone had jumped out of the truck at this point so I followed. The two of us stood side by side and stared up at the sign that had been painted on the building only last week. We’d chosen the name Brothers Gentry because we couldn’t agree on anything more original and we kind of liked the way it sounded vaguely like the mythical ‘Brothers Grimm’. The homage didn’t really fit since we fixed cars rather than battling the supernatural but we liked it anyway.
“There she is,” I said, feeling more that a little awed.
Stone nudged me. “How come you always call the shop a ‘she’?”
“Do I?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm.” I thought about it. “I guess I do it because the best thing that can happen to a guy is to find the right girl. So it only seems right that the shop ought to have the honor of being a female.”
“That’s some weird logic,” Stone laughed. Then he paused thoughtfully. “I get it though.” He had his arms crossed and was still staring up at the sign. I knew he was thinking of Evie. After Stone had gotten out of prison he’d figured that no decent girl would give him the time of day. Then he’d met Evie, a petite bundle of sunshine and beauty. They were finally married a few months ago.
“This will work,” I said with new confidence.
Stone beamed. “Of course it will,” he said.
“Because I’ll do whatever it takes,” I muttered. I was thinking of Roslyn and the baby when I said it but Stone glanced at me sharply. I saw the expression in his eyes before he had a chance to hide it.
I cleared my throat. “I meant I’m going to work damn hard,” I said. “That’s all I meant, Stone.”
He looked away. “I know,” he said quietly but I wondered how much worry lingered under the skin. I couldn’t really blame him for a few moments of unease here and there. I’d spent a long time operating outside the law; gambling, drag racing, sometimes even drug dealing. I hadn’t been out of that life for very long and even though Stone never brought it up I knew he sometimes worried that I might slide backwards. But I wouldn’t. The day we opened this place Stone had taken a black Sharpie marker to a plain piece of paper and carefully lettered three words: Strength in Brothers. It was our mantra, our anthem, something we used to repeat to one another when we were small and scared. We kept those words handy when we were older and anxious. I framed the paper and hung it on the wall above the desk. Often I would pass by and give it a long look because it said everything there was to know about us.
“The clock is starting, brother,” Stone said, pushing me toward the door. “Time to get to work.”
“I’m ready,” I said with enthusiasm.
I wasn’t kidding. Whatever challenges loomed – baby, business, even snow – I was ready for it all.
CHAPTER TWO
STONE
At home I couldn’t turn a corner without tripping over a giant nutcracker or stumbling into the branches of a plastic green tree. Now walking into my place of business treated me to the same experience.
The other day Evie had busted in here after work with her arms full of Christmas decorations, declaring that we needed to make Brothers Gentry more ‘festive’. At first I tried to explain to her that our customers didn’t typically care about things like animatronic reindeer and dancing Santas but she was so excited while turning the garage into a garish outpost of the North Pole that I gave up trying to change her mind. Anyway, it made her happy and generally I go out of my way to accommodate Evie’s happiness since it’s more important to me than anything else.
That day Conway and I just stood back and watched as she artfully arranged plastic window clings while humming an off key version of ‘Jingle Bells’. My brother had raised an eyebrow in my direction but I just shrugged helplessly and unraveled a string of snowflake lights.
Once the place was all decked out I had to admit I didn’t mind the intrusion. Evie was very attached to the idea of making the most out of the holidays and even though I’d gone a long time without Christmas being part of my life I was really glad to have it back.
As soon as we got inside I cranked up the heat while Conway headed to the back to open up the garage bay. No customers were lined up this morning but then again we were new to the neighborhood and it was only a few days until Christmas.
I figured I ought to head to the office (really a converted closet) and dabble in some dull paperwork but the floor was looking a little dusty so I grabbed a push broom and started working it across the shop floor in slow strokes. Moving a broom back and forth reminded me of prison duty and for a moment a bad feeling swept over me to the point where I stopped what I was doing. I’d been out of the cage for two and a half years but sometimes in those first few seconds of conscious thought in the morning I expected to see the grim interior of my old cell walls when I opened my eyes. Maybe that was a dread that would never fully leave me, no matter how long I’ve been out.
“Look lively, brother,” Conway sang out, whipping me expertly with a shop towel. I grunted and reached around to grab him but he was too quick and anyway the bell above the front door rang, indicating someone had walked in. Customers might frown on the sight of the proprietors braw
ling on the floor.
A couple of old ladies walked through the door. They blinked at us behind thick owlish red-framed glasses. They looked alike. Sisters maybe. The one on the left cleared her throat and asked in a high, wavering voice if there was anyone available to take a look at her car. They’d just made the long drive down here from Vancouver when the check engine light came on and it was making them nervous. Conway flashed the ladies a charming smile and offered to pull their car into the garage himself and see what was going on.
There were a handful of cushioned folding chairs flanking the wall by the entrance and the two women sat down, appearing to relax a little as they laughed at the sight of Evie’s collection of ceramic dogs in full Santa regalia.
I brought them complimentary bottles of water while Con pulled an old Cadillac with Canadian plates into the garage bay. He was whistling ‘Winter Wonderland’ as he came around front holding the code reader tool that would help diagnose the engine issue. I sat behind the narrow counter and grabbed a standard form we’d been using to keep track of each customer who walked in. Or, I should say, I’d been using it. Con had no use for paperwork. Or spreadsheets. Or the basic principles of organization. Good thing he was the talent when it came to mechanics.
“And which one of you lovely ladies is the owner of the vehicle?” I asked.
The woman on the left offered a bemused smile. “That would be me.”
I smiled back. “And can I trouble you for a name?”
“Elsa Walker.”
I took pains to write neatly as I filled in the name as well as the make and model of the car. Soon we’d be installing a comprehensive computer program that would eliminate the need for paper and pencil.
