Love Story for a Snow Princess

by Beth D. Carter

  Laughter dominated in her dream, as a sense of contentment filled her soul. They had shared a lovely dinner in Westwood, celebrating her parents’ thirtieth anniversary with wine and song. Thea’s father had taken them to the restaurant where he’d wooed her mother on their very first date.

  They were a tight family. Thea’s sister was three years older but she still lived at home, Thea attended UCLA, studying education, and her little brother, who stood a little over six feet and wasn’t quite so little, attended Malibu High School. They were all proud of him because he played water polo and had just gotten a full scholarship.

  The open windows allowed the cool night air to filter through the car. Thea leaned her head on her brother’s shoulder as the night air blew over her, lulling her into a light doze. Traffic was thick, as usual, for the ride home. Tourist season was in full swing and crowds flocked to Santa Monica for the nightlife, famous pier, and thriving 3rd Street Promenade.

  It was curious what the mind remembered. Thea’s mother told a joke, although she couldn’t remember it, but it must have been funny because she felt her brother’s shoulder shake as he laughed. Her sister’s phone rang. Then she heard her sister screaming. The car jolted as another vehicle sideswiped them. The crunch of metal, the shattering of glass, and the piercing sound of sirens wailed through the night.

  Thea struggled to wake herself from the nightmare. Twisting and turning in the blankets, she couldn’t breathe. She was suffocating, mentally trapped in the realm of death. Behind her closed eyes she saw nothing but blood, rivers of it flowing over her face, dripping into her eyes and mouth as she screamed herself awake. With a Herculean effort, she pushed through the mound of material that covered her and she sat upright.

  Running an unsteady hand over her face in an effort to make sure there wasn’t any blood, the rational part of her mind knew the accident was a million years behind her. But as hard as she tried, she couldn’t erase the metallic taste of blood from her mouth.

  When she could, she turned on the bedside light and pushed back the covers to go to the bathroom, where she grabbed one of her prescription bottles, opened it and shook out another pill. She didn’t even make a face as she chewed it up and swallowed it without water.

  Chapter Three

  Thea sat alone at the table in the hotel’s small dining area waiting for her destiny to show up. Mr. Caleb Tasker. Her future husband.

  Mrs. Tasker.

  Panthea Tasker.

  Thea Tasker.

  She wished she liked the sound of that, but truth be told she didn’t. Actually, she was scared as hell for what she was about to do. Marry a stranger. Be his wife. Share a bed with him. Start a family.

  She needed a family as soon as possible. She needed…something.

  “Panthea?”

  The sudden sound of her full name jerked her from her uncomfortable musings. She jumped and knocked over her water glass with her elbow, which managed to splash half on the floor and half in her lap.

  “Crap,” she muttered, rising and blotting her dress with a paper napkin.

  “I’m sorry,” said the same masculine voice that had called her name. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  Thea looked at the man and saw the man from the photo book, the man she had picked, Caleb Tasker. Her first impression was that the photo didn’t do him justice. He was a big man, heavily muscled, with a neatly trimmed beard. He wore dark pants and had a brown flannel shirt tucked in, with a red wool cap over his head.

  “Oh, it’s just water. It’ll dry.” She held out her hand. “Caleb, correct?”

  The man nodded and took her hand. “It’s nice to meet you finally.”

  Whether or not they unconsciously planned it, both held hands while studying each other. He seemed just as assessing as she, allowing her to get an honest first impression.

  His eyes were a light blue, reminding her of springtime in Malibu, with the sky crystal clear and stretching for miles over the water. Yet they weren’t happy eyes. Shadows clouded them, with a deep sadness resting on the surface. She recognized the pain because it mimicked her own. She could plainly see he was hurting but trying very hard to ignore the torment.

  “Please sit down, Caleb,” she said, breaking from his grip. He helped her sit, pushing in her chair like a true gentleman. He seemed out of place, as if the room was a tad too small for his frame.

  For a long moment neither of them spoke, nor did they even look at each other as the waitress placed an assortment of breakfast pastries in front of them. When she retreated back to the kitchen, the dining area fell silent as a tomb. Thea finally looked at Caleb only to see him staring at her.

  “I suppose we should ask each other questions,” he said. “Get to know one another.”

  “All right.” She took a deep breath. “What would you like to know?”

  He cleared his throat. “Um…how did you get your name? It’s unusual.”

  “It’s Greek,” she said. “Refers to all the Gods, a Pantheon. My mother absolutely adored mythology, hence the horrendous name.”

  “Not so horrendous,” he murmured. “What made you decide to respond to Aurora Partnership Services?”

  “Oh, nothing quite so surprising,” she replied. “I want to start my own family.”

  She saw his lips thin a bit as he frowned. “You want children?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “Is that a problem?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Of course not. I guess I just didn’t think about...well, about-”

  “Sex?” she supplied.

  He left out a large breath of air and gave her a lopsided grin. “Yeah, well, now I guess that’s in the open. I didn’t realize how nervous I’d be. For all intents and purposes, you’re a stranger to me.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I hope you don’t mind me saying that you’re a very lovely woman, Panthea, so I don’t quite get why you don’t find a normal boy in your hometown, date and do the traditional thing.”

  “I’m from Malibu, California, so there’s not really a traditional thing there.” She shrugged one shoulder, trying to turn her statement into a joke, but it fell flat.

  “Are you sure you’ll be able to live in a place where snow tends to fall at least once a month?”

  She was silent for a long moment. “I, ah, I needed something completely different. I’m not saying that I probably won’t complain about the freezing cold, but I can’t go back there, Caleb. That’s not my home anymore.”

  He cocked his head. “Why not?”

  She hesitated for a moment, and then slipped into the bland tone she used when telling people about the accident the year before. “My family died in a car accident. I was the only survivor.”

  He couldn’t hold her gaze. He blinked a few times and then turned his head away.

  “I lost my wife,” he said, in a tone almost too low for her to hear. “I lost her last year.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Thea softly. “I read you were a widower in your bio.”

  He snorted. “My bio. What a joke. I was told to write a biography of myself in two hundred words or less. And I couldn’t even find fifty to fill up that damn questionnaire.”

  “I thought it was hard, too.”

  He looked back at her, one eyebrow raised. “You did?”

  “Yes.”

  “I signed up with Aurora Partnership Services because I…I was lonely.” He ran a hand over his face. “River Ice isn’t a normal place to socialize. There’s no movie theater or snazzy dance club. There’s nothing here but tourist season and perpetual twilight half of the year. I never thought APS would come through and send me a bride.”

  “I never thought I’d be a bride meeting her fiancé the day before her wedding.”

  That made him smile.

  “Caleb, are you sure you want to get married?”

  “I honestly thought I’d never be married to anyone other than…her.”

  “You still love her.”

&n
bsp; Caleb didn’t say anything for a long moment. She could see a mixture of emotions crossing over his face, frustration, pain, and grief all jumbling around. “Yes,” he finally admitted. “I wake up every morning with her name on my lips. I sit at my kitchen table every night staring at the stove because she was always cooking. My heart hurts so bad I don’t know what to do. So I thought if I married again, got over her, then it wouldn’t be awful waking every morning and not seeing her.”

  He leaned his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. Tears gathered in Thea’s eyes as she watched him, not because she knew that she could never marry him, but because she could never help him heal like he needed to be healed. Not when she, herself, was still broken.

  “One day,” she said, “it will be easy to wake up and face the day. One day you won’t look at the stove. One day you’ll realize that you’ve gone an hour without thinking of her. Then that hour will stretch to two and before you know it, you’ll be able to look at her photos and say her name. But that day is a long way away, Caleb.”

  He reached and took her hand in his. His eyes were red from unshed tears. “What about you? Can you get through the day normally yet?”

  She swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat. She wanted so badly to say yes, to reassure the words she just told him. But she couldn’t. Thea figured that made her a hypocrite. Who was she to be giving advice on mourning?

  “I’m sorry,” he said sadly. “As much as I would love to have the honor of being your husband, I don’t think I can marry you.”

  She squeezed his hand back. “I know.”

  He let go and stood. He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “You’re a good woman, Panthea. You don’t need to be a mail order bride.”

  She watched him leave the dining area and then she turned back to her pastries and picked up a croissant.

  Chapter Four

  Ten minutes later Mr. Ford sat in the vacant seat in front of her, the one Caleb had just left. He blew a large puff of air out between his teeth as he loosened his tie. He looked at her through slightly squinty eyes, an annoyed expression on his face.

  “Miss Snow-”

  “Mr. Ford,” she interrupted. “I have been thinking about the consequences Mr. Tasker and I have just thrust upon you and I want to apologize immensely.”

  Mr. Ford sighed and gave a wobbly smile. “It’s perfectly fine, Miss Snow. These things do happen, you know. Aurora Partnership Services does have protocols in place for situations like this.”

  “Does this happen often?” she asked, cocking her head. “People changing their minds, I mean.”

  “Surprisingly, no,” Mr. Ford said with a smile. “We provide a platform that enables men who want to have families a way to fulfill that dream. And it works, Miss Snow, but to be honest, your case was unique.”

  “Unique how?”

  “You would not have been considered a candidate for our matching services. But both you and Mr. Tasker had backgrounds of emotional stress. Mr. Tasker wasn’t on our active account. Until you.”

  “Oh,’ Thea said, surprised. “I thought I had passed the psychological evaluation.”

  “Our doctors suggested you and Mr. Tasker would be a good match together, helping each other out. So we added him to the list of candidates. I thought it was interesting that you chose him.”

  Thea raised an eyebrow. “Because our families died?”

  He gave a half shrug half nod type of gesture. “It was a chance to bring two unhappy people together.”

  “Oh,” she said again, this time surprised. “That’s actually very romantic, Mr. Ford. I don’t know how realistic it was thinking two depressed people, one heavily medicated, could find happiness with each other, but I thank you for trying.”

  She reached out to squeeze his hand. Mr. Ford squeezed back for a brief moment before sliding back into business mode.

  “If you hurry and pack we can have Hank fly us back this afternoon,” he commented, rising and checking his watch.

  “Back?”

  Mr. Ford nodded. “To Nome. You can go back home, Miss Snow.”

  She frowned. “Home. To Malibu.”

  “All fees are non-refundable, but APS will pay your passage back to Los Angeles, of course.”

  “I, um, don’t think I want to go back,” she said quietly. “Is it possible to stay here for a week? Like on vacation?”

  Mr. Ford blinked. “Well, APS can’t take responsibility for further-”

  “It’s okay, Mr. Ford,” she interrupted with a small smile. “You can go back. I can take care of myself. I just…I don’t want to go back yet.”

  He didn’t say anything as he studied her. “Are you sure, Miss Snow?”

  Was she? She took a deep breath. “Positive.”

  ******

  That afternoon, Thea stepped out of the Princess Hotel, bundled from head to toe and walked the few blocks to the center of town. The day wasn’t quite dark but wasn’t very bright for being noon. The sky cast a grey gloom with a hint of black clouds strewn about. The wind blew fiercely, kicking up snow to swirl around in little tornadoes. She wished she could say that Alaska looked beautiful covered completely in white, but truthfully, the oddly constructed buildings on stilts and the washed-out colors made it all seem flat and dirty.

  Despite all of this, River Ice teemed with people milling around going from building to building. Some held grocery bags, others with heaps of fur pelts. Big husky dogs strapped to sleds patiently waited for their masters. People on skis cruised down the center of the street, mingling with the traffic. As Thea walked on the wooden sidewalk, each person looked at her, smiled and waved.

  That had never happened in Malibu.

  Thea tentatively waved back.

  She saw an enclosed walkway and the sign above the door read “Suinnak”. Thea stomped off the crusted ice and snow on her boots before entering the diner, surprised to see how crowded it was.

  A large pot belly stove stood in one corner, emitting a tremendous amount of heat. Square tables filled up almost every inch of floor space, with chairs scattered every which way. Young and old, people talked, ate and drank, and Thea could tell right away this was the local hang out for the population of River Ice.

  Thea took off her coat and hung it on one of the many coat racks on the wall. Stares followed her as she made her way to the counter.

  “Hello,” greeted the hostess. Like many around, she was Inuit, with striking facial features, long black hair, and dark eyes. “What can I do for you?”

  “Are you Miki Kirima?” Thea said.

  “I am,” the woman replied warmly. “You must be Panthea Snow.”

  “Are you psychic?”

  Miki laughed. “The red hair gave you away. Hank mentioned you might be by.”

  “It’s so nice to meet you.” Thea held out her hand. “You have a great restaurant.”

  Miki laughed and shook her hand. “Not sure if you could justify having four items on a menu as a restaurant, but I thank you.”

  “Is Hank around?”

  Miki shook her head. “Sorry, he left about an hour ago to fly someone back to Nome.”

  “Oh, that was probably Mr. Ford from Aurora Partnership Services.”

  Miki cocked her head. “Aren’t you getting married tomorrow?”

  “You know about that?”

  “Hank told me. It’s hard keeping something like that a secret here in River Ice. Sorry,” Miki said, though her tone was far from conciliatory.

  “Caleb changed his mind and I sent Mr. Ford back.”

  “You didn’t want to go with him?”

  She shook her head. “No, I thought I’d take a vacation.”

  “Well, it’s the end of tourist season, but there might still be some activities going on. I think you’ll like River Ice,” Miki replied. “Listen, why don’t you sit at the end of the bar and relax a little. You’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like.”

  “All right. Thanks.”

&
nbsp; As she sat down on one of the bar stools, she realized that almost everyone had been staring at her as she talked to Miki, listening to the conversation. She blushed and busied herself by taking off her hat and shaking out her long curly hair.

  Miki placed a coffee in front of her and then returned to helping customers. Gradually, people stopped staring at Thea and returned to their socializing.

  Thea sat there all day. Partially for having nothing else to do, but also because the Suinnak managed to take her mind off everything else in her life. She found herself highly entertained by the mingling going on as the feeling of a community took shape. A constant stream of people coming and going, calling each other by name, and it didn’t take long for everyone to include her.

  “Howdy, miss,” said one old man, who looked to be in his late sixties. “The name’s Toothless Jim.”

  When he smiled, it became apparent how he got that moniker.

  “Nice meetin’ ya,” said another man. This one looked a little younger, though it was hard to tell through his beard.

  One thing she did notice was the majority of the people in the diner were men. Now she saw why Caleb had ordered a bride. She and Miki were the only two women in the diner.

  “Get away from her, you old coot,” Miki said, snapping her hand towel at Thea’s latest admirer. “I swear it’s like moose mating season started in here! Sorry about this, Thea. Just sock ‘em in the eye if you need to.”

  Thea smiled and shrugged. “It’s okay. I was just thinking I could ask one of these handsome men to be my husband.”

  “See there, Miki!” Toothless Jim barked, laughing. “Quit nagging us, woman!”

  Night fell fast because of the shortened daylight hours. Gradually, the crowd thinned out until it was only Thea, Miki and Toothless Jim who had fallen asleep next to the stove. Though she knew she should go and get out of Miki’s way, Thea was loathe to leave.