Page 7 of The Christmas Eve Delivery

“When is it supposed to hit? I’ve got a flight to catch in Albany.”

The clerk shook his head. “No, you don’t. They are already shutting the airports down. It was on the news.”

I didn’t believe that it was going to be that bad. After I slid back into the car, I pulled out the phone to check the local weather. I saw that I had missed an alert. My flight was canceled. Maybe this storm was something to take seriously.

I considered driving all the way back to the city, but every bit of news and social media was in a panic over the impending storm.

As I pulled out of the gas station, the snow began falling in a thick white sheet. Fine, I could take a cosmic hint. I pulled into the motel parking lot. There was a line inside. I guess I wasn’t the only person seeking refuge.

The clerk worked at top speed even though the people in front of me in line moaned and complained. The woman in front of me stepped up, and the clerk’s face fell from their forced fake smile to horror.

I didn’t figure out that they were out of rooms until the woman crossed her arms on the counter and put her head on them. I could tell from the way her shoulders were lifting and falling that she was crying.

The clerk suddenly had their phone pressed to their ear. The expression on the young man’s face didn’t look promising.

The woman’s head popped up.

“Okay, they can get you in. You have to give them your credit card number to hold the room.” The clerk handed the phone across the counter.

If this place was out of rooms, would the hotel on the other end of that call have anything left? The woman in front of me needed to speed things up. I wanted a room for the night too.

“Thank you, thank you!” She wiped tears from her face, and with a rattle of keys in hand, she ran out the door.

“I’m so sorry, but?—”

“Yeah, you’re out of rooms. That’s pretty obvious. Any chance the place you called for her has anything?”

The young man grimaced and shook his head. “That was their last room. There’s a town about twenty minutes west of here. They have a hotel. I can call to see if they have any vacancies.”

“Brookdale?” I asked.

“Yeah, there. I know it’s out of the way. But there’s nothing south of us with any vacancy, and frankly, Brookdale is closer than anything north of here.” His eyebrows went up.

I let out a long breath. “Um, if that’s my best option, can you give them a call to make sure they have a room?”

I tapped my fingers against the counter while he made the call.

“She’s got plenty of rooms available. Always does. You might want to get moving ahead of the storm. I’ll give her a call and let her know you’re on the way,” he said.

“She won’t need a credit card to secure the reservation?”

He shook his head. “It’s an old-fashioned kind of place. She’ll have a room, don’t worry.”

“Okay, thank you,” I said as I headed out.

“Drive safe. It looks like it’s getting worse out there,” the clerk called out after me as I headed back out into the snowstorm.

5

LYDIA

The wind outside forced its way through various cracks and crevices, making the old inn howl like it was in some kind of horror movie. I hated it. It had only gotten worse over the years. It meant there were windows loose in their casings and shingles loose on the roof. It also made everything inside feel so much colder than it really was.

The vacancy rate was up so I closed off a good portion of the rooms on the southern half of the inn. It really helped me to save on utilities. I could easily open up one of the floors if there were a sudden influx of visitors, but the storm had pretty much driven everyone who wasn’t a local out of town.

I had just finished banking the fire in the lobby area when the phone started ringing like crazy.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m coming, hold on already,” I called out as I ran to answer it. “Sweet Mountain Inn, how can I help you?” I asked.

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