ever, I see,” she said.
Brenda didn’t argue. She had a good reason to see the negative side of the storm bearing down on them, but she was certainly in the minority. A stream of customers came through the front doors that morning, all of them kind of excited about the snow. There was a lot of talk about watching their kids and grandkids building snowmen for the first time ever.
Brenda eventually escaped into the back room and called Jim again. And for the second time, she was shuffled off to his voice mail. She wanted to talk to him, not just about the Christmas Gala but about the snow. About her fears. About…
Hell, she just needed to hear his voice. The arrival of this storm was like some cosmic sign in her life. She pushed the unreasonable fear to the back of her head and taught her midmorning knitting class.
The first flakes of snow started falling around two in the afternoon, and they immediately stuck to the ground and the road. Louella shut the store at 2:30 p.m. and told Brenda to go home and be safe.
But instead of going up to Momma’s house, Brenda decided to walk down Harbor Drive to the clinic. It was crazy of course. Jim was probably busier than a one-armed paperhanger. But she needed to see him, just to reassure herself.
Or something.
She hadn’t quite reached the clinic’s doors when the snow began to fall in earnest, blown sideways by a persistent wind. The icy motes stung her nose and cheeks and made her eyes water.
She was cold by the time she reached the clinic, but before she could step inside out of the wind, Jim came barreling through the front doors, his hands jammed in the pockets of his coat because he’d lost his gloves.
“Brenda,” he said, gingerly coming to a stop. The sidewalks were already starting to get slippery. “What are you doing here? I thought you were going to your mother’s.”
“You got my message?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you back. It’s been crazy. But I’ve got an emergency. Harper Jephson has a bad respiratory infection, and with his asthma, I think he needs to be hospitalized. But the ambulance service refuses to come out here from the mainland. So I—”
“You’re going to drive to the mainland in this?”
He cocked his head, a kind smile curling the corner of his lips. “I grew up in Syracuse, New York. A foot of snow is like a flurry up there.”
“Really? Because even in Indiana it’s a lot of snow.”
“Syracuse is in the New York snowbelt. So don’t worry. I’ve got lots of experience and a four-wheel drive. And I don’t have any other choices. I have to take care of that little boy.”
She did understand. She’d made a career out of teaching kids of one age or another. But it didn’t change the way she felt about Doc going out into a raging snowstorm.
“I do understand, but…” Her voice broke.
He stepped up to her, the snow falling all around them. “I’ll be okay. I promise you.” Then he leaned in and kissed her, his lips so warm in the freezing cold. “I love you, Brenda McMillan. I don’t intend to lose you now that I’ve found you.”
The words stunned her and opened her heart and flayed her all at the same time. She loved him too, but she couldn’t say the words out loud. They froze in her throat, along with a paralyzing fear that he should never have spoken his feelings out loud because it was probably bad luck.
“I’ll see you later,” he said, then turned and sprinted down the snow-covered sidewalk, slipping once and almost falling.
Her heart lurched in her chest, and she wanted to follow after him, but she stood there stiff and unmoving as he fired up his Jeep and drove off into the storm.
Chapter Eleven
Many hours later, the old shade tree in Momma’s front yard collapsed under the weight of the snow. It fell with a kind of death rattle, more sigh than crack, and it awakened Brenda from a fitful sleep a fraction of a second before one of the tree’s large branches came down through the roof with a deafening crash that shook the house to its foundation.
In one terrifying moment, Brenda found herself caged by branches that had pierced the ceiling, missing her by mere inches. And now, like some surreal dream, snow came drifting down through the hole above her, lit up by the streetlamp outside.
It