Page 36 of Perfectly Complicated
I pull out my phone. The forecast has changed to a winter storm warning.
“Come on.” I head outside the coffee shop, Janie close behind.
When we reach my sports car, it’s buried under several inches of snow—completely useless in these conditions, but we don’t have much of a choice now.
“Think we’ll make it through this?” Janie asks as I brush snowoff the windshield with my bare hands, since I don’t own a snow scraper.
“Sure,” I tell her because I know that’s what she wants. I’ve driven in snow before, but not this much, and definitely not in a car built for speed, not snowstorms.
The first few miles aren’t terrible but also not exactly fast. My car handles the snow better than I expected, and for a moment, I think we might actually make it.
But that hope dies the second we hit the highway.
What was a beautiful, scenic drive is now a white-knuckle nightmare of slick roadways and declining visibility. When my car fishtails, Janie’s hand grips the door handle.
I’m barely doing twenty-five when I see the police cruiser ahead, lights flashing, the road barricaded. The officer waves us down.
“Road’s closed,” he says when I roll down the window. “Conditions are too dangerous. Multiple accidents already in the last hour.”
“How long until it reopens?”
He shakes his head. “Probably not until morning. This freak storm’s worse than predicted. We don’t have the plows to handle this much snow. You folks need to head back to town and find somewhere to wait it out.”
“Wait it out? How long?” Janie asks, leaning across the car.
“At least overnight,” he replies.
Her eyes widen. “But we’renotstaying the night. I have a baby at home…”
“I’m afraid to break the news, but Mother Nature says otherwise,” the cop tells her.
He directs us to do a U-turn and I drive toward town, wondering what we’re going to do now.
We need to find a different way out of town. Because I’m absolutely not staying in Santaville with this woman overnight.
“This is unbelievable,” Janie mutters, slumping back in her seat. “Today was supposed to be simple.”
“What?” I ask.
She throws up her hands. “The festival. Show you some holiday activities, maybe get you to feel differently about Christmas, then go home. Not…” Her gaze flicks to me before it darts away. “Getting snowed in.”
She’s not just referring to the weather. She's talking about what happened in that coffee shop under the mistletoe. And now we’re stuck here all night.
“If we can’t get home, we just need to find two rooms until the roads are open again,” she mutters.
Two rooms.Maximum distance so we don’t accidentally kiss again.
“If that’s what you want,” I say, studying her.
She turns toward me and her expression closes off. “Yeah...it is.”
But I'm not buying it for a second. Because a woman who wants distance doesn't kiss back like that.
ELEVEN
Janie
We drive back to Santaville in awkward silence, Christmas carols filling the space where conversation should be. Every few seconds, I catch myself sneaking glances at Rourke, unable to forget the way his hand felt cupping my face and the taste of his warm lips.
