Page 8 of All She Wants

Claire straightened on the loveseat and tightened both hands around her mug.

Three seconds later, the generator started. A low hum rose beyond the rear wall, and the lights flickered.

“The generator is automatic,” Erin said. “It keeps the essentials running, and the wood stove handles the heat.”

Claire looked around the softly lit shop. “You planned carefully.”

“The mountains taught me to.”

“That is more reassuring than I expected a sentence about loss of power to be.”

Erin smiled, although a slight wave of panic rose within.

They slipped into easy conversation, and forty minutes passed before either thought to check the time. Their coffee cooled, the snow climbed higher against the front steps, and no plow appeared on the road. Erin’s phone buzzed on the table. Ingrid’s name filled the screen.

“How bad is it at your place?” Erin asked before Ingrid could say a word.

“Bad enough that I’ve made myself a second hot chocolate. Are you still at the store?” A television murmured from the phone. “The local news is reporting an avalanche above Elk Creek. It came down just past the switchback and closed the road between the store and town. Plows cannot reach the debris until avalanche control clears the area.”

Erin looked toward the windows. “How long are they saying the road is going to be closed for?”

“They will reassess at first light. No crew is going up tonight. I spoke to Dale at public works. He said possibly late morning, depending on how much more accumulates overnight.” Ingrid paused. “Are you alone?”

Erin glanced at Claire. “No. A customer came in before the storm worsened. She’s waiting here.”

“And she’s—”

“Stuck here. Same as me.”

Another pause, long enough that Erin could practically hear Ingrid deciding which question to ask and which to save. “You have the generator, the stove, plenty of water. Add another log to the stove and stay away from the road. Then break out the champagne. Neither of you is going anywhere tonight.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll call as soon as the county posts an update.”

“Thank you, Ingrid.”

“You can thank me by doing exactly what I said.”

Erin pocketed the phone and turned to Claire. “The road is closed. An avalanche took out the stretch between here and town. Crews won’t clear it until morning at the earliest.”

Claire absorbed this without flinching. Then she pulled her own phone from her coat pocket, and Erin watched her cycle through every option a sharp mind could generate in thirty seconds. Maps app. Alternate routes. Nearby hotel listings. “It looks like there’s a Forest Service road on the east side—”

“It’s unpaved, unplowed, and it dead-ends at a locked gate two miles up.”

“It seems there is a resort near the pass—”

“It’s on the other side of the slide,” Erin interrupted.

Claire’s jaw tightened. She looked at the white nothingness beyond the glass, then back at Erin.

“So we’re here for the night.”

“At the very least.”

Chapter Four

Erin returned from the back room carrying a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in one hand and two champagne flutes pinched between the fingers of the other. “I was saving this for clients on New Year’s Eve,” Erin said, setting the glasses on the table beside the wood stove. “But I think getting snowed in on a mountain for Christmas Eve qualifies as a special occasion.”