Let It Snow (Snow Creek Book 1) Page 5

  “What?” she spat. “To not be dead? To not be six feet under? To not be ripped apart into a million meaningless pieces that don’t even make a person anymore?”

  Daniel snapped his head back like she’d smacked him right across the jaw. She wanted him to yell back at her but he didn’t. His eyes filled with sympathy and he reached for her. She tried to pull away, but his arms came around her too fast, and then her face was in his neck and he was holding her close as she cried.

  Finally, a year later, Jessica was crying. It didn’t come easy. The sobs knifed their way from her throat; the tears stung her cheeks. She cried until she couldn’t hold herself upright, and then Daniel walked her to the couch.

  She cried until her voice went hoarse and she could only sniffle, and finally she felt her body give up and her voice give out. Every muscle in her chest ached.

  It was all so easy to see now.

  Her parents had wanted what all parents want for their children. They wanted her to be happy. She was the one who wanted them back so badly that she had concocted a fantasy of their expectations.

  She wiped at her eyes and finally pulled away from Daniel. Looking into his eyes, she realized they were wet with tears, too.

  The Daniel of her daydreams never asked her what she wanted out of life. The Daniel of her daydreams barely cared who she was.

  The real Daniel did.

  Which was going to make it all the more awful to walk away.

  Chapter Five

  Daniel spent the afternoon calling airlines and exercising willpower.

  Willpower not to touch her again—like he shouldn’t have touched her the first time.

  Willpower not to ask her to stay—because that would have been easy.

  Willpower to watch her look up her own flights, call old friends, and ask if she could visit or stay while she got on her feet.

  There was that easy, seductive voice in his head: Get a grip, man. Don’t be dramatic. Just ask her to stay through Christmas. No one should be alone or with strangers on Christmas. It’s just another week. What’s the harm?

  But he knew the harm. One week would be two and then three and then he’d hate himself and she’d hate him, too, for robbing her of her dreams.

  Daniel hadn’t had any dreams before Jessica. He loved Snow Creek. He loved snowboarding. Guys like him had been a dime a dozen on the mountain. They ended up ski instructors and snow bums and tourism employees.

  It hadn’t been until Jessica, that Daniel realized what he wanted. He’d watched her lock herself inside that store. He’d seen the fight in her, and he’d wanted to help her fight. He’d wanted to help—and he’d become the kind of guy who spent every minute of his job helping people.

  He’d never felt such meaning and reward before.

  How could he take that sense of purpose away from her after she’d been the one to give it to him?

  His ears perked up as he heard her say, “That would be great—it would just be for a couple days. Thanks!”

  He put down his own phone and glanced across the living room to where she was sitting at the kitchen table. “Get something?” he asked.

  “One of my friends is at her parents’ for Christmas, so her apartment in New York is free. She’s going to let me crash there while I figure things out.”

  “You can always crash here, too,” he offered, wishing she would be here even if he was with his family.

  Her face lit up, too, but she shook her head and glanced at her phone. “I better just move on, you know.”

  “Yeah, no, you’re right.” Idiot, what are you doing? You just said you’d let her go.

  “Can I ask a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “There are two people I need to say goodbye to.”

  ***

  Jessica waited for the sense of dread that usually hit her when she drove over the small peak to the graveyard. Her chest usually tightened and squeezed, and then her breath would catch as she choked back tears. But this time…it didn’t happen.

  She felt sad and achy, but there was a lightness in her heart that she wasn’t expecting.

  “To the right,” she said.

  “I know where it is.” He kept his eyes on the road. “I was at the funeral.”

  Had he been there? Apparently Daniel had always been there, but she hadn’t seen him—hadn’t really seen him—until now. He parked at the edge of the snowbank in front of her parent’s gravestones, which stood side by side in the snow. Someone had come through after the blizzard to clear the roads, but hadn’t gotten around to clearing the plots yet, so the gray tombstones were the only markers she had among the blanket of white snow.

  They got out of his truck and walked to the markers. Daniel took her hand, and it wasn’t until then she realized that she hadn’t been the only people to lose her mom and dad. The whole town had lost them—and in losing Books and Crannies, her parents had been lost all over.

  “Is it pathetic that I kind of wanted a sign?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?” He squeezed her hand.

  “A sign that I’ve done the right thing—or that they’re proud of me. Like in the movies, where, I don’t know, a white dove swoops down and perches on my shoulder and says they’re watching me and it’s okay.”

  “Maybe this is better,” he said somberly. “Maybe they’re too busy getting it on in Heaven to pay attention to you right now.”

  His deadpan face broke into a smile just as hers gaped in horror and then she found herself laughing. “You’re right. That would be better.”

  “How’s this for a sign?” he asked. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and flashed the screen. A one way ticket from Snow Creek to New York. “Last seat on the flight.”

  “When did you—”

  “When you ran to the bathroom, I checked. I was rebooking my flight to Denver, anyway.”

  “I—I leave tonight?”

  “We leave tonight,” he said. “I’ll drive us to the airport."

  She glanced down at the gravestones. Don’t get any ideas about Daniel, Mami. I see you raising your eyebrows. He’s just a friend. No need to dust off the hunting rifle, Papi.

  They would have liked Daniel. The real Daniel—not the weird fantasy version of him she’d created while locked in the bookstore. She pulled away and leaned down to kiss the top of the headstones. The concrete was cold and rough on her lips.

  As she pulled back she was suddenly hit by a crystal clear memory.

  She came come home after band practice just as her parents were closing the store. Her mother was arranging a display of cookbooks. Her father was counting the receipts in the cash register.

  “How was school, Mija?” her father called across the store as she hugged her mother.

  “I was voted Most Likely To Conquer the World,” Jessica announced.

  Her mother had squeezed her tight and her father had cheered.

  “The yearbook is doing a special photo session for everyone who won their Most Likely category, along with the Prom King and Queen. Can you drive me?”

  “Drive you?” Her mother lightly slapped her arm. “Papi!” she yelled.

  Her father threw something across the store and Jessica caught it in her fist. She opened her palm—it was her mother’s car keys. She’d been begging for her own car for years, but of course, her parents couldn’t afford it. Besides, in a town this size, she could easily walk or snowshoe to school.

  “A girl who’s going to conquer the world can drive herself, can’t she?” her father said.

  “Really?” Jessica squealed. “I promise I’ll be safe and go the speed limit and stop at all the stop signs.”

  “We trust you,” her mother said. She hugged her tight. “After all, if you’re going to leave us and conquer the world, we’ll have to trust you.”

  “I’m not going to leave you,” Jessica murmured into her mom’s shoulder. “I’m staying here and helping you with the store.” She’d enrolled in an online college just so she
could do that.

  “We’d send you away if we could,” her mother said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Mami—”

  “Leaving us doesn’t mean leaving us, Jessica. You can’t leave home, even if you go somewhere else.”

  Jessica smiled through her tears.

  As far as signs went, she’d take it.

  ***

  Daniel could tell Jessica’s hands were shaking as she checked in at the gate of Snow Creek’s tiny single-runway airport.

  “This is my first time flying,” she said.

  “Nervous?”

  She quirked her brows. “No. Excited.”

  He sent his parents a text update that his flight was on schedule.

  “Daniel! Hi!”

  He smiled at the ticket girl, as he handed over his information. “Nice to see you,” he said. He remembered her from last year. They’d met at a bar. She was exactly his type and suddenly not his type at all. He glanced at Jessica who looked between them with interest.

  He didn’t want to be a guy with a type anymore, he realized.

  Daniel wasn’t the kind of guy who slept with a girl once and walked away. He was the kind of guy who was with a girl until it wasn’t interesting—and it happened more often than not that he was the one to lose interest first. But he’d never quite lost interest in Jessica. Not ever, and it still hadn’t happened.

  He figured it never would.

  “Merry Christmas,” the ticket lady said. “Going to Denver to be with your family?”

  “Yes.”

  “But your girlfriend isn’t going with you?” She looked at Jessica with a wide smile.

  “Oh, weird.” Jessica shook her head. “I’m not—”

  He threw his arm around Jessica’s shoulder and pulled her against him. “She’s got more interesting things to do than be with me. Conquering the world and all that.”

  The ticket girl furrowed her brow questioningly but smiled. “Okay, then. Well, you can both wait over there in the lobby. They’ll call boarding for New York first in about ten minutes.”

  Daniel squeezed into one of the dozen uncomfortable metal chairs in the tiny lobby.

  “Did you know the Rockefeller tree lighting is one of the most viewed tree lightings in the world?” Jessica asked.

  “I didn’t,” he said, grinning. She rattled on about the tree lighting and he let himself enjoy simply watching her.

  When they called the New York flight, she stood nervously. “That’s me. Oh my God, that’s me. I’m doing this.”

  “You’re doing this,” he agreed, standing. He reached for his St. Christopher’s medallion and pulled it over his head. Then he placed it around her neck.

  “Daniel….”

  “It’s for travelers,” he explained.

  “I know.”

  He felt selfish enough to lean down and kiss her. He pulled away before it could turn into anything else.

  “Thank you,” she said. “If it weren’t for you….”

  “If it weren’t for you,” he agreed.

  He turned away so he wouldn’t have to watch her get on the plane.

  ***

  Sunday, December 24th

  “If we’d known you’d be so damn miserable,” his father said, “we’d have wanted it to keep snowing so you could stay on the mountain.”

  “Leave him be,” his mother said.

  Daniel kept peeling potatoes at the kitchen island while his mother rolled out a pie crust on the counter and his dad added another layer of glaze to the ham. They’d been at him since he arrived last Tuesday.

  Daniel, you’re wasting away into a wee lad.

  Daniel, that woman practically ripped off your clothes, are ye blind, lad? Get a number!

  Daniel, if you stare at that you-tooob all day, you’ll go blind, son.

  Jessica had posted a video nearly every day since arriving in New York. She’d done one on the best hot dog carts, another on surviving New York on $20 a day. In all of them, she wore his medal. She'd put up a teaser for a Christmas Day video in which she planned to feature the carolers and toy soldiers at Rockefeller Square.

  He’d never seen her look happier; he’d never felt more miserable. She didn’t even look sad about being alone on Christmas.

  “Daniel, are you all right?” his mother asked.

  He realized he wasn’t snarking back to his parents like he usually did. His silence was worrying them. “I’m all right.” He forced a smile.

  “Ye were always a terrible liar. Shameful lack of skills.” His father stuck the ham back in the fridge. “Are we boring you here in Denver? You miss the action of the mountain?”

  “No.” Daniel picked up another potato.

  “There’s a girl, isn’t there?” his mother asked.

  “I hope so,” his dad said. “Or else there’s no excuse for this pathetic display.”

  “There’s a girl,” Daniel confirmed, bracing himself for the inevitable ribbing. Instead, his parents both studied him quietly. “Jessica Mendez.”

  “Oh, the Mendez girl.” His father nodded.

  “I could barely tear you out of that bookstore when you were a boy.” His mother chuckled.

  Daniel explained what had happened to the store, and how they’d found each other again—and how he’d let her go. How he’d practically pushed her onto the plane. Had bought the ticket. “So I did the honorable thing,” he said with a sigh.

  His mother laughed and his father barked like a seal, slapping his meaty hand down on the corner.

  “It’s a good thing you’re nice looking, son,” his father said, “Because the brains didn’t take well in the womb.”

  “Wh…what?” he sputtered.

  “Letting a good woman go isn’t honorable. It’s plain stupid, is what it is.”

  “What choice did I have?” he asked. “Her dream is to travel the world. Not be stuck in Snow Creek.”

  “Do you know what century it is, Daniel?” his mother asked. “They have cell phones now. And airplanes and Skype and chatting.”

  “Do I need to show you the Skype, son?” his father asked. “Did they not educate you in that school of yours?”

  Daniel set down the peeler. “Looks like I’m missing Christmas this year.”

  ***

  Jessica debated the different camera angles. The Rockefeller Christmas tree was so tall that the only way to get all of it and herself in the frame was to stand a block away, but then the crowds blocked the bottom of the tree where the toy soldiers would be marching tomorrow.

  Her stomach grumbled. She’d missed lunch, and would have to come up with a plan for dinner, but she wanted to get this right. Her viewers had doubled in the past week, making hers the number one amateur travel channel on YouTube. She didn’t want to lose her place.

  She still didn’t know where to go next. She had a few extra days at her friend’s place, but she couldn’t live on couches forever. She needed a base where she could return after trips, recharge her batteries and come up with new and exciting material.

  The obvious place was….

  She moved her thumb over the St. Christopher’s medallion. Everything made her think of Daniel. Even that guy in the crowd looked just like him. He was tall with wind-blown chestnut hair, green eyes.

  God, he really did look like him. She closed her eyes. Stop daydreaming, Mendez.

  But then she opened them and there he was for real, in the flesh, twenty feet away.

  Her heart quickened—it was Daniel. In New York! She wasn’t crazy. She dropped her camera into her backpack, slung it over her shoulder and ran after him. “Daniel!” She pushed through the crowd, running faster.

  His head disappeared again, then abruptly reappeared. He turned and faced her and she ran into his chest.

  “Daniel?” she asked. “It’s you, right?”

  “This is crazy,” he muttered, wrapping his arms around her.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I can’t keep away
from you,” he said. “Even though I should.”

  Was she daydreaming again? Was this another Daniel fantasy?

  “I tried,” he continued. “I really did, because I know you have this dream and I didn’t want you to give it up, and even now I see how happy you are and I feel like I’m going to come in and mess it all up. But I think I’m not giving you enough credit because you’re going to be fine. It’s me I have to worry about. My own feelings but—I just need to say this.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “You want to be a travel reporter,” he said. “But every travel reporter has to come home.”

  “Oh weird, I was just thinking that,” she said.

  “I want to be home, Jessica. I want to be your home.”

  She grinned, lighting up as much as the tree.

  “Say something,” he begged.

  “Are you nuts?” she teased. “I’ve known you forty-eight hours. Give me some time.”

  He pulled her against him with a low growl and kissed her. “Don’t make me beg. It’s been a long flight.”

  Falling snow landed in their hair as she snuggled against him. “You know what everyone else is doing right now?”

  “Waiting with bated breath for an answer?”

  “Dancing at the Fezziwig Ball. I always wanted to go, but I’m a terrible dancer.”

  He pulled her closer as the snow fell faster. “I have a whole year to teach you.”

  * * *

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