Christmas With A Stranger

At that, he straightened up and thumped a fist on the roof of her car, sending a clump of snow slithering down her windshield. “I don’t believe what I’m hearing,” he informed the shed at large, his words echoing eerily. “Is this her way of trying to be funny?”

“Hardly,” she retorted, addressing the zippered front of his down jacket, which was all she could see of him. “I plan to spend tonight in Wintercreek and have quite a few miles still to cover before I get there. I’d just as soon not waste time keeping you entertained with witticisms.”

He bent down to confront her again, squatting so that his face was on a level with hers. “Let me get this straight. You expect to reach Wintercreek tonight?”

“Didn’t I just say as much?” She wished she could see his face more clearly. But everything about him was a little bit distorted in the flare of his car’s headlamps, with one side of his features thrown into dark relief and the other silhouetted in light. Like opposite sides of a coin—or good and evil all wrapped up in one package.

She suppressed a shudder. This was not the time for such fanciful notions. It was a time for positive thought and action. “I have a hotel reservation—”

“I heard you the first time and I hope your deposit’s refundable,” he interrupted curtly. “Because, as they say in the vernacular of these parts, ‘honey, you ain’t goin’ nowhere any time soon’.”

“Are you telling me I’m stuck in here until someone comes to rescue me?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

Her confidence nosedived a little further. “And...um...how long do you think that will take?”

He shrugged. “Hard to say. First light tomorrow, if we’re lucky.”

“But that’s almost twelve hours away!”

“I know.” He braced his hands against his knees and shoved himself upright again. “Better turn off the engine before you asphyxiate us, and resign yourself to sleeping in your back seat. Open the trunk and I’ll hand in your emergency supplies.”

She hadn’t thought it possible for anything to make her heart sink any lower but, to her dismay, he managed it with his last remark. “Emergency supplies?”

“Sleeping bag, candle, GORP.”

“GORP?” she echoed faintly.

“Good old raisins and peanuts. Trail mix, cereal bars, stuff to keep your stomach from folding in on itself—call it what you like; I don’t care. Let’s just get you settled before we both die of exposure.”

“I don’t... I have only a suitcase. With clothes in it,” she added, as if that might mitigate things a little.

It didn’t. Thumping a fist on the roof of her car yet again, he let out a long, irritable exhalation. “I might have known!”

“Well, I didn’t,” Jessica said tartly. “They never mentioned an avalanche on the weather report. If they had, I’d have stayed off the road. And please stop bludgeoning my car like that. Things are quite bad enough without your making them any worse.”

She thought he swore then. Certainly he muttered something unfit to be repeated in mixed company. Eventually, he composed himself enough to order, “Get out of the car.”

“And go where? You already said no one’s likely to rescue us tonight.”

“Get out of the car. Unless you were lying a moment ago and you really do harbor a death wish.”

“I’d just as soon—”

“Get out of the goddamned car!”

It was Jessica’s strongly held belief that a teacher who wished to retain control of her classes should make clear her expectations at the outset. Insubordination ranked high on her list of priorities. Unless it was stamped out at the start, it flourished quickly and completely undermined a teacher’s authority. Related to that were the social graces which, in her opinion, were as important a part of the curriculum as any other subject. She felt it was incumbent on her and her staff to teach by example wherever possible.

Which was why, when she replied to her companion’s incivility, she resisted the temptation to tell him to take a flying leap into the nearest snow bank and, instead, said firmly but politely, “I’ll do no such thing. Furthermore, I don’t like your tone.”

“I don’t like anything about this situation,” he shot back, singularly uncowed. “Believe me, if finding myself stranded overnight was in the cards when I got out of bed this morning, I can think of a dozen people I’d rather keep company with than some ditsy woman who doesn’t have the brains to travel equipped for winter driving conditions.”

“I’m not seeking your company,” Jessica snapped.

“But you’re stuck with it,” he said, chafing his bare hands together to keep the circulation going and turning toward his own vehicle again. “So hop out of the car now, because it’s not big enough for two to stretch out in and I’d like to get some sleep.”

Horrified, Jessica stared at him as the import of his words struck home. “You expect me to spend the night in your car...with you?”

“It beats the alternative,” he said bluntly. “Life’s tough enough without my waking up tomorrow to find a frozen corpse on my hands”

“But—!”

He blew into his cupped palms and, with the first hint of humor he’d shown so far, slewed an alarming leer her way. “Listen, we can debate the propriety of the arrangement once we’re under the covers.”

He was rude and he was outrageous—but, she was beginning to realize, he was right on one score at least. The cold was seeping through the open window to infiltrate her clothing most unpleasantly.

Still, she wasn’t about to cave in to his suggestions without a murmur. “I think I should warn you that I have taken several courses in self-defense.”

“Pity you didn’t start worrying about your safety before now,” he said, his expression at once resuming its former forbidding aspect. “As it happens, I’m harmless, but it would well serve you right if—Oh, what the hell!”

He pushed himself away from her car and seemed to make a concerted effort to rein in the anger suddenly vibrating around him. “You’ve got five minutes to make up your mind. If you’re not out of this car and into mine by the time I’ve got my sleeping bag unfolded, better say your prayers and write out your last will and testament, because, lady...” he blew into his hands again to emphasize his point “...it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

And with that he marched back to his car and doused the headlamps, leaving only hers to bathe the shelter in their glow. She heard a door slam, another open. Saw an interior light go on as he rummaged around at the back of what appeared to be a large utility vehicle. And knew, as the chill already invading the inside of her car crept deeper into her limbs, that she had little choice about what to do next.

He could be a serial killer, a deranged psychopath, a man intent on choking the living breath out of her, but, if she chose to ignore his less than gracious invitation, she’d wind up dead by the morning anyway.

Swallowing doubts and reservations along with what was left of her pride, she rolled up the window and stepped out of the car. As though crouching in wait for just such an ill-prepared victim, the cold took serious hold, knifing through her mohair winter coat as if it were made of nothing more substantial than silk.

Just as she approached, her reluctant knight jumped down from the tailgate of his vehicle, which turned out to be a Jeep whose heavy winter tires were looped with snow chains. “Smart decision,” he said, shrugging free of his jacket. “Take off your boots and coat, then hop in.”

She liked to think she’d outgrown any tendency toward foolish impulse and indeed spent a good portion of her tenure as headmistress counseling her students to think before they spoke, to temper spontaneity with deliberation. Yet the question was out of her mouth before she could prevent it, gauche and horribly suggestive. “Why do we have to take off our clothes if all we’re going to do is sleep?”

He stood before her, the interior light of the Jeep enhanced by the glow of a candle set in a tin can on the floor under the dashboard. Quite enough illumination for her to take in the powerful breadth of shoulder beneath the heavy jacket and lean, athletic hips snugly clad in blue jeans. Was it also enough for him to detect the sweep of color that flooded her face?

If it was, he chose to ignore the fact, instead pointing out what would have been painfully obvious to anyone of sound mind. “I stand six three in my bare feet. Last time I checked, I weighed in at a hundred and ninety-four pounds. For that reason I bought an extra-large sleeping bag but it’s still going to be a snug fit for two. I no more want your snowy boots in the small of my back than you want mine in yours. As for the coat, you might want to roll it up and use it as a pillow.”

“Of course,” she muttered, chagrined. “How stupid of me.”

“Indeed!” He rolled his eyes and gestured her toward the Jeep with a flourish. “Climb aboard, stash your boots in the corner, and make yourself comfortable.”

Comfortable? Not in a million years, Jessica thought, trying to keep her sweater in place as she slithered into the sleeping bag.

No sooner was she settled than he slammed closed the tailgate and raised the rear window, rather like a jailer securing a prison cell. He then went around to the driver’s door, pulled it closed behind him, shucked off his boots and, tossing his jacket ahead of him, proceeded to crawl over the seat and join her in the back of the Jeep.

Inching into the sleeping bag, he turned on his side so that his back was toward her. Why couldn’t she have left it at that? What demon of idiocy compelled her to try to make pillow talk?

Yet, “This is really quite absurd,” she heard herself remark, in a voice so phonily arch that she cringed.