With every previous guy that she dated, there was always a moment when she thought, “Do I want to continue dating him? Or am I ready to move on?” Connor was the only guy who had ever stepped into her life that she’d had thoughts of spending her life with.
She had recently edited the part of his videos when they’d been heading to the community center to judge the gingerbread houses, and the five-year-old boy stopped to ask him questions about hockey. It was one of her favorite clips, and as she re-watched it several times, she realized that somewhere along the way, she had started imagining a life with Connor.
Maybe they’d get married and live near the arena for the first while so he didn’t have far to commute, and she would expand her videography business to Denver. On home game days, he’d go to practice in the mornings while she edited videos, and then, he’d come home in the afternoon for a nap to power up for the game. On days when she didn’t have too many deadlines, she would crawl into bed and snuggle up in the covers with him. And then she would go to his games in the evenings, taking Emmalee with her, and she’d cheer for him until she lost her voice.
And then, after a couple of years, they’d decide that it was time to start a family, and she’d get pregnant. And maybe they’d decide that they wanted to raise their child in a smaller town, and they’d head back to Mountain Springs, and maybe add a couple more kids to the mix. Because he was so great with kids, he would be an amazing dad. They would buy them little hockey uniforms and teach them how to skate so they could experience the sport that their dad loved so much.
It was a life she really thought she’d love. It wasn’t a dream she’d had for long, but it was so vivid and felt so right. And so new. She’d never been able to picture herself having a life with anyone before. Maybe because she’d never met anyone who was so giving and fun and up for anything. Or so thoughtful and helpful and a good cook. Or have a face that she could never tire of staring at.
Her tires slipped a little as she slowed for a stop sign, so she pumped the brakes several times to slow down but didn’t come to a complete stop out of fear of not being able to go again. They slipped at the next turn, too. She might have had a ton of experience driving in snow, but she wasn’t actually sure she’d driven in this deep of snow before. It was slowing her enough that she probably hadn’t gotten over 10 miles per hour since she left.
She turned onto a road where the snow was a little deeper, and she worried that her little car wasn’t going to make it. But she just took it slow and was able to keep moving. She was squinting to try to tell where the edge of the road was since everything was covered in white, then saw a little something that wasn’t white. In fact, it was moving. She squinted a little more, trying to see it through the snow.
It was a dog! He was crouched under a small bush in an area with empty lots and no houses around. The bush had gotten completely covered in snow, leaving only a small window between the snow on the ground and the snow on the bush for him to peek out of. She pulled her car to what she thought was probably the side of the road and put it into park but left the engine running. Then she trudged through the snow to the snow-covered shrub.
The poor little pup was trembling. Maybe from the cold, maybe from being alone in a storm like this. Maybe both. She pushed the snow out of the way and reached in to grab the small dog. “Shh. Shh,” she said as she wrapped it in her arms and carried it to her car. “Everything’s going to be okay. Oh, you must be so cold.”
Once back in her car, she blasted the heater, grabbed some of the napkins she kept stashed in her glove box, and dried off the little guy’s fur as best as she could. The longer he was on her lap, getting warmer, the more he stopped trembling. She put him on the passenger’s side floor, then pulled up the plastic wrap from the corner of the plate her mom had made for her, took out a piece of the meat, put the rest of the plate in her back seat, and started tearing the meat into chunks.
The dog devoured it. “Wow, you must’ve been so hungry. Let’s get you someplace warm, and I’ll get you some more food.”
She put her seatbelt on, put her car into drive, and gave it a bit of gas. The tires just spun.Don’t panic. She gave it the tiniest bit of gas, took her foot off the pedal, and then gave it the tiniest bit more. She kept repeating the process, getting the car to gently rock, giving it slightly more gas each time. For a moment, she thought it was going to work. Until the wheels spun again and made her slide a bit.
“It looks like I’m going to have to dig us out. You stay in here and keep warm, okay?”
She popped the trunk of her car and rifled around for anything she could use as a shovel. There wasn’t, but if she wanted to go hammocking or roast some marshmallows, she was set. She did have a blanket, so she got back into the car, made a little nest with it on the passenger’s seat, and put the dog in it. Then she opened the back door, flipped the plate of food upside down onto the plastic wrap, then removed the plate, and wrapped the plastic around the food. A paper plate wasn’t the best shovel ever, but it was better than nothing.
Using the plate was only a little bit helpful. But really, using her foot worked better. She cleared a path around the tires as best as she could, then got in and tried again. It moved an inch or two, then seemed just as stuck.
She just needed to warm up and then she could try again. She pulled the dog onto her lap, and he snuggled right into her, so she grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around them both. Her phone binged with a text, so she picked it up from its spot in front of the gear shift.
Connor: You never texted to let me know you made it home safe. Is everything okay?
She couldn’t say that she got stuck. Not after he warned her about the conditions of the roads and practically begged her not to go. She would get herself free and make it home soon. She looked down at the dog in her lap and the blanket wrapped around them both.
Katie: Sorry! I’m snuggled up all nice and warm.
Connor: So good to hear. Sleep well.
The moment she was warm, she got out and tried to clear away more snow from the front of the car. But it was just falling so fast that it was undoing her work. She cleared the snow from around the exhaust, too. She knew better than to let it get high enough back there to cause problems.
Still, the car wouldn’t move at all.
After blasting the heater for several minutes to warm back up, she got out and cleared away more snow with her feet and her gloved hands. This time when she tried to drive away, the tires just spun from the start until they started to slide, taking her car off the shoulder of the road, and getting it more stuck. She hit the steering wheel with her palms and let out a shout of frustration that scared the dog. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She gathered it into her arms. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
She turned the car off to preserve the gas she had. She would just turn it back on whenever she got too cold. She wrapped the blanket around her again and tucked the dog into her lap. Then she picked up her phone and texted Emmalee.
Katie: Are you awake?
About two seconds later, her phone rang, showing Emmalee’s face. “I am, actually. Can’t sleep. I think it’s leftover from days of trying to wait up for Santa, I guess. Probably because I’m back home in my old room. Why are you awake?”
“My car got stuck in the snow on my way back to our apartment.”
“Oh my gosh! Have you called for help?”
“No. Emergency services already said they can’t help motorists because the conditions are too bad. You know how it is when there’s a big storm here. They’ll slowly get dug out and will eventually get around to everyone who needs help. I just need to wait out the storm.”
“You can’t just wait it out in your car overnight!”
