“You there?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
“You open?”
“Yes.”
“See you in thirty.”
Then I heard the disconnect.
It was a whole minute later when I finally pulled the phone from my ear that I realized I’d just had my first phone conversation with John Priest, he was coming to Glacier Lily, and for the first time since he started coming, cabin eleven was not open.
No cabin was open.
“Oh man,” I whispered to my phone.
And it was then I realized I was already in my pajamas.
So I flew off the couch and dashed to my room to put some clothes on.
* * * * *
An hour later, I opened the door, looked at John Priest standing there, noted the flakes of snow on his broad shoulders and in his dark hair, then I caught sight of what was happening behind him.
It was snowing.
Hugely.
“Holy cow!” I cried. “It’s snowing!”
“Bad. Roads are shit,” Priest replied, moving in, and I moved back.
“How shit?” I asked as I closed the door behind him.
“Barely got here and I got a snow kinda truck shit.”
Oh man.
“I, uh…well, Jo…I mean, Mr. Priest, eleven isn’t open,” I told him.
“Take what you got,” he told me, already at the registration book.
“I don’t have anything,” I said quietly. “I’m full up.”
He straightened and turned to me. “No shit?”
I shook my head. “Nope. I would have told you before but you disconnected the call before I could share that information.”
He looked beyond me, his expression vague, his thoughts elsewhere, likely where he could find a place to crash on Christmas Eve in the middle of a blinding snowstorm, but still he managed to mutter, “Fuck.”
At the look on his face, the lights twinkling on the tree in my living room that could be seen from the foyer, the snow falling heavy and soft outside the window, and having the knowledge that Priest, just like me, was alone on an important holiday, I blurted, “You can stay here. I have a guestroom. Actually, I have two.”
He focused on me, and when he did, I sucked my lips between my teeth.
“You crazy?” he asked.
I shook my head, let my lips go, and stated, “It’s snowing.”