Page 101 of Snowed In
What?she mouths, but I just shake my head.
“Andrew—”
“I booked a cabin,” he says before I can stop him. “One of Christian’s ones. As a surprise. It’s your Christmas present.”
Silence in the kitchen.
Molly looks confused. “A cabin?” she asks. “Where?”
“In the woods.”
“Thewoods?”
“Yeah?” He starts to sound nervous. “Why?”
Both sisters stare at him. And then Zoe tsks. Loudly.
“Woods freak me out,” Molly tells him.
Andrew goes very still. “What?”
“They freak me out,” she says. “You know that.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, they do,” she says, while Zoe nods.
“She saw a horror movie when she was a kid about this serial killer who lived in a forest?”
“Zoe—”
“He had this mask—”
“Okay,” Molly says, holding her hands up. “I remember it, thank you.”
Andrew doesn’t respond, clearly panicking, while Hannah glances between us as though starting to realize she might have picked the wrong side in something.
“I think cabins are nice,” she says pointedly, as loyal to the Fitzpatrick clan as ever. “You should do that instead.”
The sisters share another look.
“Can we go tomorrow?” Molly asks Andrew again.
“Can’t you?”
“No,” Zoe says firmly. “I’m only here for the day.” But she also looks worried. “I’m sorry, Andrew. I didn’t mean to ruin your afternoon. I should have called ahead.”
“You’ve got the place for two nights,” I remind him before everyone can get miserable. “Make it a third and come back on Christmas Eve. There’s no booking after you. Just go tomorrow.”
He doesn’t want to go tomorrow. Everyone knows he doesn’t want to from the look on his face. But only I know it’s because he’s worried enough about something going wrong that this must be tipping him over the edge. But I also know he’d never deny Molly anything. And she hasn’t seen her sister in months and clearly wants to spend the day with her. Basically, he doesn’t have a choice.
“Sure,” he says finally, forcing a smile on his face. “You’re right. Of course, we can go tomorrow.”
Molly comes over to kiss him, winding her arms around his neck. “Thank you for my present,” she says. “It was very sweet of you.”
“I know it was.”
“I’ll make it up to you,” she says, her voice dropping to a low whisper. It’s only because I’m sitting right beside them that I can even hear her. “I’ll do that thing you like where I—”
