Total pages in book: 26
Estimated words: 24095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 120(@200wpm)___ 96(@250wpm)___ 80(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 24095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 120(@200wpm)___ 96(@250wpm)___ 80(@300wpm)
Tilly hands me my keys and says goodbye before I hop back into the car. I make sure I have the address plugged into the GPS before I take a small sip of the hot chocolate. I moan at the flavor and how warm it is. It’s not as good as the hot chocolate I make, but it’s close.
"Let's do this," I tell my dancing snowman in the passenger seat.
Pulling back out onto the main road, I drive right to the edge of town. I have to take a sharp left that leads up a hill and circles around. The farther up I go, the more the road narrows. The trees have started to close in around me, and I realize this road goes straight to Mr. Jacobs' house.
The snow is coming down so heavily I have to turn my windshield wipers on faster. The only light is coming from my headlights now, and the trees are so thick they block out the moon. I squint ahead, trying to see if there’s a house in the distance, but there’s nothing. Instead, a deer with two babies darts out in front of me, and I let out a scream. I stomp on my brakes, but I’m too close and have to swerve.
When I jerk the wheel to avoid hitting them, I end up slamming myself into a tree instead. The last thing I see is the dancing snowman beside me before everything goes dark.
Chapter Four
MARLEY
It’s dark by the time I finish chopping wood and stacking it on the covered porch. I’m not sure why I had the bright idea to do it so late in the day, but now that I’m done, I feel better. Which tells me it was probably anxiety induced.
Any time I have to be around people, especially new people, I get anxious and have to do something physical to work it off. I used to run, but in these mountains, that can be dangerous. Now I stick with manual labor. It’s left me with a lot of muscle, but I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been. I’m sure it makes me all the scarier for people in town. I probably look like some kind of bigfoot with a beer belly.
I imagine what that would look like and tuck it away for a book idea later. Christmas horror story with a murderous yeti? That might be fun.
I’ve just closed the shed when I hear something down the road. It sounds like metal scraping, then it’s silent. It’s an odd sound in the quiet woods. Suddenly, the mama deer I like to feed comes racing by with her two babies hot on her heels. The three of them look like they’ve been spooked, and I remember the visitor.
“Shit.” I take off down the driveway, hoping that whatever idiot drove up this mountain is still alive. I do not want to deal with a dead body right now.
The vehicle is closer than I thought it would be, but I guess it’s hard for sound to travel in this snowstorm. It’s coming down so heavily that if I didn’t know my way back home by heart, I could easily get lost out here.
Hazard lights are flashing on and off, but the outside of the vehicle doesn’t seem to be too bad. The driver must have swerved off the road to avoid the deer and hit a tree on the far side where I can’t see.
I wrench open the door. It’s too dark to see inside, and the person in the driver's seat is slumped over.
“Hey, are you okay?” I ask, trying to pull the person closer. They don’t respond, so I reach for their face so I can check to make sure they are breathing.
“My snowman,” the person mumbles.
They have long chestnut hair, and when I turn their face in my direction, I have to brush it away. I’m struck at first that it’s a woman, and then at how incredibly beautiful she is. It’s not that I haven’t seen women before, or even recently, but I’ve never seen someone so utterly exquisite. She’s like the women Botticelli used to paint, flawless and angelic. I have the irrational urge to pull her against my chest and run into the house before anyone else sees her. Or someone tries to take her from me.
What the fuck is wrong with me? The impulse makes me release her and take a step back. Was I really overwhelmed by the need to kidnap this woman? Oh god, what’s happening?
“Snowman,” the beauty whines.
Against all reason, I reach for her again, holding her face in my hand. “Are you all right?”
The beauty doesn’t wake, but she's holding on to a snowman with one hand as she mumbles. Is it wrong to be jealous of Christmas decorations? Reaching in, I unbuckle her seatbelt and then place the snowman in her lap. Clearly it’s important to her.