Made in Montana: Part 2 of 5
After a simple supper of pasta and pesto and a green salad, Hank enjoyed a dip in the hot tub on the back patio before retiring for the night. The sunset over the mountains was stunning, as usual, and the sky was clear and studded with stars. It seemed impossible to him that a storm could be rolling in given how serene the skies were.
Hours later, he awoke with a start to the sound of the wind. The windows rattled around him and somewhere in the house, a screen door was loose on its hinges and thumped against the door frame in frantic intervals. His ranch was mostly wooded with pine trees, tall, stalwart, veteran trees that barely budged on even the windiest of days. Tonight though, Hank could hear the wind ripping through the trees, creating an eerie howl that woke him up out of a dead sleep.
Looking out the bedroom window, Hank saw the snow had begun to fall steadily. Oversized, fluffy flakes fell and landed on the ground with an almost audible thump. “So, it begins,” he said. “Looks like one of those heavy, wet snows. Perfect for big accumulation, big messes, and for going back to bed and sleeping through it.”
He crawled back in bed, grateful for the warmth of flannel sheets and a thick down comforter, and was back asleep in no time.
Greenley’s exodus from Coral Cove went off without a hitch. In fact, nothing had gone more smoothly in her life. The landlord hadn’t exercised his right to charge a fee for vacating her lease early; her bosses at the two restaurants where she worked had both been sad to see her go, but released her from her two week’s notice without issue; and Henna didn’t fuss about leaving behind her pre-school and the first friends and teachers of her life she had met there. All she asked was whether Bing could come.
As Coral Cove moved into the rearview mirror of Greenley’s red Toyota Camry, she nearly expected someone to chase her down and hold her back. But no one chased her, no one urged her to stay in Florida, no one even seemed to notice she was leaving.
Henna had never been on a road trip of any kind before, especially not a cross country trip. The distance between Florida and Washington was formidable and Greenley wasn’t sure how her rambunctious four-year-old would do trapped in a car for so long. But even that element of the trip was a non-issue. Henna occupied herself with Bing, creating little songs for her beloved stuffed rabbit, and together Greenley, Henna and Bing listened to children’s audio books, looked out the window, and talked about their new life together.
“Does Uncle William have a swing set?” Henna asked, in Alabama.
“Does Uncle William like stuffed rabbits? Do you think he’ll be nice to Bing?” she asked, in Texas.
“Do you think we can have a pony someday?” she asked, in Colorado.
It wasn’t until they were four days into their trip, in Wyoming, that she finally thought to ask the question every road-tripping parent despises: “Are we almost there? When will be there?”
Greenley took a deep breath, grateful it had taken four whole days for Henna to get bored in the car. “We’ll be there soon, in just a couple of days. Two more sleeps in a hotel and we’ll be at Uncle William’s house, just in time for Christmas. Can you be Mommy’s brave girl and be patient?”
Henna considered this request, weighing out whether she could or could not comply. Always the honest child and a budding negotiator even at four, she spoke after a few moments. “Yes, Mommy. I can be patient. But only if you promise me that Santa will find us at Uncle William’s. I need you to tell him we’ve moved away from Florida. Can you do that for me, Mommy?”
Greenley laughed. “Of course, Henny Penny. Of course.”
An hour later, with Henna dozing in her car seat, Greenley flipped on the radio and scanned for a local station. Settling on a classic rock station with decent reception, she focused on the road ahead and allowed gratitude to fill her heart for the new beginning underway. “This will be a good thing, a very good thing. I just know it.”
Despite having been awoken in the night by the sound of the wind, Hank slept soundly. When he opened his eyes again, he was surprised to find he’d slept the morning away and it was close to noon already. Accustomed to waking when the sun shone through his bedroom’s picture window, he quickly realized why nature hadn’t done its usual job as his alarm clock: the sun was completely obscured by thick, snowy skies.
Hank stood at the window looking out over the ranch. The snow had piled up overnight and he was looking at over four feet of fresh powder, a far greater amount than had been forecasted. The skies showed no sign of stopping and continued pelting a sideways-blowing cloud of fat, heavy flakes. By 1pm, there was another foot of snow on the ground, by 3pm, another foot. He thought of his cattle and horses, tucked away in the warm barn, and knew it would be difficult to get out to feed them, though his ranch hand, Jasper, who lived in a detached house next to the barn, had said he would be around to help over the holidays.
The path between his back door and the barn was covered by a wide, steel roof. It covered a pathway of heated concrete which kept most of the snow from piling up and keeping him from the barn. As the storm lulled into a brief reprieve, Hank took the opportunity to bundle up and check on the livestock. Clad in double layers of thermal underwear and a heavy flannel, he walked quickly towards the barn. That was when he saw something strange.
Ahead, where the edge of his driveway met the country road, he saw lights.
Lights? Headlights? Who in their right mind would be out on a day like this?
He sprinted the remaining twenty yards to the barn, saddled up Rainmaker, his most adventurous mare, and set out down the driveway to investigate. It was slow going, and the mare struggled to find solid footing in the fresh snow, but as he got closer to the lights Hank realized what he was looking at: a red Toyota with its lights on was mashed into a snow bank. The windows were foggy, which made him wonder if there was someone inside.
Henna had slept through most of it, for that Greenley was grateful. Beyond that, she was having difficulty seeing anything hopeful in their situation. The full tank of gas she had was dwindling quickly, but she had to keep the ignition on to ward off the chill that was seeping in through the Camry’s leaky windows. As the needle hovered closer and closer the “E” she thought about what she would do next, when there was nothing between her and the wild storm outside.
Walk. I guess we’ll have to get out and walk, she thought, eyeing her ballerina flats dubiously. If I wrap Henna up in blankets, perhaps it will be enough to get us down the road a bit, and maybe we’ll find a house.
She had tried calling for help, but whether due to the location she was in or the storm raging outside the car she had no cell signal. The “No Service” display on her phone had become offensive and taunting as the hours on the clock travelled on.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Leaving Florida was magical, up until now. Everything was going so smoothly, so easily. What will happen when Henna wakes, when I have nothing to feed her, when we start to get cold?
She closed her eyes, trying to reunite with her breath as her yoga teacher always instructed. Breath out your anxiety, breath in hope, light, peace.
When she opened her eyes, she looked into the face of her rescuer. A long snout nipped at the frost on her driver’s side window and above it, a pair of chocolate-brown, long-lashed eyes met her gaze. She opened her window slightly and through the pauses in the intervals of raging wind, she heard a man’s voice say, “Meet Rainmaker. Are you alright, miss?”
Hank looked at his houseguests, thinking they looked more like damsels in distress than anything else. The woman, Greenley, was wrapped in one of his flannel shirts and on her lap, the little girl was snuggled in a wool blanket which was quickly becoming covered in peanut butter from the jar and spoon she cradled in her tiny hands.
Hank shook his head. “Tell me again how you ended up in a snow bank, in a Camry, wearing nothing but a short-sleeved t-shirt and leggings, in December, in Montana?” His disbelief at how anyone could be so ill-prepared was evident in his voice.
“Look, I’m really sorry to impose on you like this,” Greenley said. “Believe me, it wasn’t my intention to get stuck in the snow and, if things had gone as planned, we would have been in Washington by now. Clearly we’re intruding. We appreciate your rescue, we really do. We’ll be on our way just as soon as the storm passes.”
Greenley spoke softly but with conviction. She’d read books about fair maids being rescued by knights in shining armor, but in the stories at least, the knights were always charming and kind. Granted, Hank had been comforting when he’d pulled her and Henna out of the car, when he’d ridden them through the snow on Rainmaker, and when he’d made sure they were warm and comfortable in front of the fireplace. But his hospitality had stopped short of being generous at that point. Why couldn’t he stop asking questions? Why didn’t he understand that she was not the scatter-brained, weak woman he thought she was, and that this type of calamity was not her norm?
“Hmph,” Hank said. “The highway is a major thoroughfare, two lanes in each direction. When you turned off the north bound route to get gas, did it not occur to you that the snow-covered dirt road you got back onto to go west was not a highway? I mean, honestly, what were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that I’m exhausted. That I’ve been in a car with a four-year-old for five days. That my life is in shambles and that starting over is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I was thinking I could really have used a bottle of wine, or four, and a hot bath, and instead I had a snowy road in a foreign part of the country to contend with. I was thinking that I’ve never owned a coat in my life, and somehow I should have thought to check the weather and road conditions before crossing Montana in December, even though winter has never been my reality in all my thirty-four years.
That’s what I was thinking,” Greenley said, glaring at the tall cowboy standing over her. She looked away. The intensity she felt from his incessant, ridiculing questions was getting out of hand. Had she not looked away, she feared she would have burned a hole through him with the flame in her eyes. Instead she refocused on Henna, hoping to God her crotchety rescuer wouldn’t start in on the globs of peanut butter she was leaving all over his blanket and rug.
“Hmph,” he said again. He turned to walk away, he needed some space from this situation. What in the world was he supposed to do with a woman and a child in his home? This was supposed to be a quiet week, respite from a busy Fall, and a time to be a hermit and keep to himself. A sloppy four-year-old and an ignorant woman were not part of that plan. As he started to walk away, he turned back around to share an afterthought. “You know, it’s not just about staying until the storm passes over. It’ll be passed over by this time tomorrow. It’s about the fact that there is at least six feet of snow out there, and your little beach-comber car isn’t going to get unstuck or be driveable in this mess for at least a week. I bet you thought snow just disappears when the sky clears up.”
Greenley chose not to respond since there seemed nothing positive to say. Instead, she closed her eyes, stroked her baby girl’s hair, and tried to find something happy to think about. It was hard, and she didn’t succeed. All she kept thinking was, It’s going to be a long week and probably the shittiest Christmas I’ve ever had in my life.
Divorcing my cheating husband was easier than this...
Check Out My Other Novels on Steemit!
Return to Breckinridge:
https://steemit.com/romance/@infozoo/romance-novel-return-to-breckinridge-chapter-1-of-12
Vacation in Greece:
https://steemit.com/love/@infozoo/vacation-in-greece-chapter-1-of-9
Her Cowboy:
https://steemit.com/love/@infozoo/her-cowboy-part-1-of-4
More to come...
nice ^^