Christmas Pet

He gripped the steering wheel. “If anyone is to blame. It’s you. You let Sophia go.”

“What did you expect me to do? Lock a pregnant woman in the bathroom so we could serve her papers? Tackle her to the ground? You can’t possibly blame me for this. It was your impatience that landed us here.” I grabbed his phone from the dashboard and typed in the trailer’s address.

He didn’t say another word, which was fine by me.

I was a little excited to go to the trailer. Every summer before the real world took over my life, my mom and I would drive to what we called our happy place. We shared the trailer with her three sisters and brother. That meant there were always cousins coming and going, and I always had someone to spend my days with.

Fall breaks were spent there and also a few weekends in winter when the weather allowed. The snow-peaked mountains always took my breath away.

But as my mom got older and my cousins moved away, the trailer sat unused and unloved. There was talk about selling the land. I would sell my soul before I allowed that to happen. Grandma had left the land to all of us, so we all had a say in what happened.

During lazy summer mornings, my mom and I would walk the almost two-mile loop around the lake talking about nothing and everything, or my cousins and I would go to the manmade beach and giggle about the hot lifeguards.

On calm days, before the kayakers and boaters got on the water, the surface appeared like glass — hence the Lake Mirror name.

It wasn’t a palace or a grand log cabin, and while everything needed updating, the walls did what they needed to do — they remained standing.

As luck would have it, my mom and I had spent Labor Day weekend cleaning out the cobwebs, and we’d paid to have someone weatherize the place for winter, but it wouldn’t take long to turn on the gas and oil and get the heat blasting.

And now, two-and-a-half months later, I would be spending the night with my boss, and not in the way I’d once fantasized.

He thought I was a ditzy idiot, and I found him insufferable and infuriating, and a self-absorbed ass.

And to think, I’d had a crush on him. Well, no more.

We were going to have an incredible night.Chapter Five - JamesFat flakes swirled around us and showed no signs of stopping. Pearl had been right. We should’ve waited until morning. My impatience had gotten in the way and had left us stranded during a raging blizzard.

The trailer wasn’t as bad as I had imagined. It wasn’t a five-star hotel, but it wasn’t a hovel either. I needed to apologize to Pearl for my initial reaction. The things I’d said to her in the car were beneath me. My frustration and impatience were no excuse. She didn’t deserve my anger, and she didn’t deserve me revealing I’d overheard her private phone conversation. I’d been unnecessarily cruel.

It wasn’t her fault Daniel was a step ahead of me. Something I was sure he got a kick out of. I hoped he didn’t realize I was on his heels, but knowing him, he did.

Pearl had disappeared into what I assumed was the bedroom and came back out layered in over-sized clothes.

“Wait here,” she said, “I’ll go outside and turn everything on. We need to flush the antifreeze out of the pipes before we use any water. Can you turn on all the taps and the shower?”

“You stay here,” I said. “Tell me what to do outside.”

She waved me away. “You don’t know anything about this place. I’ll get everything connected in less time than you would — even in a blizzard.”

While Pearl set about turning on the amenities, I ran the water like she’d asked. As the faucets flushed out the antifreeze, I slid my phone out of my pocket to check my email. Un-fucking believable. Zero bars.

I needed my phone. Everyone had their addictions. My inbox was mine. There must be somewhere I could get a signal in this place. If not, we would have to leave. I couldn’t stay without access to the outside world.

Pearl came back in, her clothes caked in snow. “We’re not going anywhere anytime soon.” She toed off her boots and shrugged off her extra layers until once again, she wore only her ugly sweater and jeans. Despite having worn gloves, her fingers were the color of Santa’s suit. I had an urge to take them between my palms to help warm them up.

Snow dotted her eyelashes, and her cheeks and nose were shiny and red. She looked more than fuckable. We might have our differences, but she was one hell of a sexy woman.

With the flip of a switch, a small gas fire flickered to life. “It shouldn’t take too long to warm up,” she said.