“I thought I said…” he starts to say, but guesses I couldn’t just lay there while all this commotion was happening outside.
“Let’s get you somewhere warm. I’ll grab your bags. We’ll be riding up front with Mike,” he says, grunting his way past the management who’ve already started to remind him if we leave we won’t get any sort of refund.
I’ve never been in a big rig before, and after a short introduction to Mike, who looks like a shorter version of my dad which is a little unsettling, he settles me into the cabin space in the back, where I can lay down and rest my ankle.
I try to insist I can have a regular seat, but it sounds like Mike has his orders too.
“Carter’s orders ma’am,” Mike apologizes with a knowing smile before he tuts to himself, ready to join the argument I can hear brewing outside.
I strain to see and can make out plenty from the smoky window of the cab.
The owners of the Lodge look mad still and have plenty to say, but Carter leans in close and says something to them both which silences them instantly.
He ignores the woman in the pink ski suit once she finally gets near enough and I can hear her begging us to wait, to give her a ride somewhere. Anywhere.
Carter gives the thumbs up to the plow driver, who starts up again with a huge roar and a thick jet of snow from his plow as he starts to clear a path ahead for us to leave.
We all have to laugh once we see the others left behind, scrambling to get out of the way but still managing to be dumped with plenty of cleared snow.
Carter’s farewell gift for them, especially the hint of pink I can see buried under what must be a thousand pounds of snow.
“Perfect timing!” he exclaims, slapping Mike on the shoulder as he starts his own rig which shudders to life and we follow the huge snow plow past the cabins and back out onto the path it cleared coming in.
“What did you say to them?” I ask Carter, leaning over from my bed behind him, hooking my arms around his neck as I bring my face up close to his.
“Nothing I’d repeat in the company of a lady,” he says cryptically, grinning and holding my hands over his heart as we follow the plow back down towards what would normally be a familiar road if it wasn’t for all the snow.
Chapter Twenty
Carter
Mike’s a gun, and his perfect timing and friend with the plow have sure made me a lot happier.
Free from that Lodge, and most important, free from that idiotic woman who Greg tried to set me up with.
Looking at Serena’s face in the visor mirror, her arms cradled around my neck, I know she’s the only girl for me.
A woman now.
Claimed well and proper.
I feel like the happiest guy alive, but it isn’t too long before I feel another set of eyes glancing over at me.
Once Serena settles back down into her bunk, and once I feel like she’s dozing, I put it to Mike.
“Well? Out with it Mike, I’ve known you long enough to see when you’ve got something to say. If it’s a matter of money, I’ll transfer that to you-” I start to say.
But it isn’t that.
Mike knows I’ll pay him and plow guy handsomely for extracting us.
The look in his eyes is something else.
The look I saw in Greg’s eyes, in Serena’s father’s eyes.
He shrugs and grunts but has to say his piece, which is what Mike does.
“Didn’t know you had a daughter is all,” he mumbles, glancing back at me with a raised brow.
I catch his drift.
“I don’t, Serena’s Greg’s daughter. I think I mentioned Greg a few times,” I reply, trying to keep it casual but feeling my back getting prickly.
My jaw sets hard and I feel my hands flexing into fists.
Mike grunts again, shifting up a gear as he mutters something.
“What’s that?” I spit, not even hiding my annoyance now and Mike’s more than ready to meet me halfway.
“I said you seem pretty friendly with her. Wonder what her dad thinks ‘bout that?” he retorts, holding my intense stare with one of his own.
I know Mike has daughters too, probably around Serena’s age by now.
I hear her shifting in her sleep behind me, reminding me to keep calm so as not to wake her.
“If it’s a problem, Mike, then you can take it up with me once we get to the freeway before I leave,” I hear myself growl.
He thinks for a moment, and I can see him turning it all over in his mind before he chuckles softly, slapping my thigh which I fucking hate.
“Oh! I’m just teasing buddy. You do whatever it is you do… none of my business,” he says, straining to smile.