Maggie Shayne - An Enchanted Season

He leered at Rachel as he said it. She gasped and stepped back, disgusted by the implication, while her fiancé jumped down the last two steps, anger furrowing his brow.

“Get the hell outta this house!”

“Why doncha try throwing me out?” Dave shot back. “There’s three of us, an’ only one of you !”

The door banged open with a vigorous clashing of the sleigh bells, startling everyone. They turned to look at the figure in the opening. The pink, fur-clad figure. At least, the coat was pink, and it had a thick span of high-quality, white faux-fur trim all around the hems, cuffs, and neckline. A fluffy faux-fur hat was perched on the woman’s head, and a matching, fuzzy muff dangled from a white cord around her neck. She flung up one hand as they gaped at her, beaming an angelic smile from her pink-painted lips. “We have arrived! Oh, goodness, you wouldn’t believe how thick the snow is falling out there!”

Her hand slashed down again in a limp-wristed dismissal, showing off her sparkly pink fingernails. Narrow pink heels clicked on the hardwood floor as she crossed from the entry rug to the hallway, brushing between Joey and Pete. Both young men stared at her with wide eyes. She held out her hand to Steve, forcing him to uncurl the fists he had formed in order to shake it. Blue eyes pinned him in place as she did so, and an exotic scent filled his lungs. The combination was too friendly for the anger in his mind to be sustained. He found himself tentatively smiling as she introduced herself.

“You must be Mr. Bethel, owner of this fine establishment. Call me Cassie! We were looking at stopping in the town, but the snow was falling so heavily, it seemed we wouldn’t make it—and then we saw your sign, like a miracle from the Buddha himself!” Releasing his fingers, she reached out and clasped Rachel’s palm as well, beaming warmly at the two of them.

“‘We’?” Dave managed to ask, not quite as stunned by her appearance as the other two. Until she turned around and smiled at him. He froze in place under the impact of that warm, cheery grin.

“Oh, yes, my traveling companions. Bella,” Cassie introduced, gesturing past the three youths, “and Mike.”

They turned and saw a dark-eyed, dark-haired woman clad in a black wool coat with flared sleeves and an equally flared hemline that fell almost to her boots. A black fur hat was perched on her head and a muff strung from her neck as well, faux-mink to the faux-fox her companion was wearing. Beside her, closing the front door, stood a dark-skinned gentleman in a marten-fur hat, matching faux-fur muff, and a brown leather trench coat, which he was unbuttoning now that the door was closed, preventing more of the heat in the house from escaping. Doing so revealed the fake sheepskin lining the calf-length jacket.

“Hello,” Mike stated, reaching between Pete and Joey to shake Steve’s hand. “As she said, my name is Mike, and I’m just as grateful as she is that we have arrived in time. I do hope you have room for us. I would hate to toss anyone out into the blizzard that has formed outside.”

“Speaking of which,” the woman in black stated, her words accented with a hint of something exotic, maybe Eastern European, “shouldn’t you gentlemen go turn off your headlights? Since no one is going to be going anywhere in this weather, there’s no point in you killing your batteries.”

Joey twisted to peer out the window next to the door and groaned. “Aw, man! We haven’t even been here five minutes, and it’s already dumped two inches!”

“What?” Dave hurried to the window set to the left of the door. He squinted through the rectangular panes. The only reason why their trucks were still visible was thanks to the headlights shining through the driving mass of snowflakes outside. “Goddammit!”

“ Language, young man,” the woman named Bella snapped, her dark eyes gleaming with outrage. “This is the holy season, and you will not take the Lord’s name in vain!”

“I’d follow along with what she says,” Cassie interjected helpfully, touching Dave’s shoulder. “She has quite a temper when it comes to blasphemy.”

Dave whirled to tell her something, but her pink-nailed fingers bumped into his cheek, knuckles gently caressing his skin.

“Just mind your manners, be on your best behavior, and enjoy the peace that can be found at this time of year,” the blond woman suggested, still smiling kindly.

The fight that had been forming drained out of him. There was no point in arguing; the snow was driving too hard and piling too deep to go anywhere safely. “Fine. Then I guess we’ll just have to stay here until it stops.”

Steve started to open his mouth and argue the point, but Rachel stepped forward, cutting him off. “That’ll be a hundred dollars a night, gentlemen. A hundred a night, apiece. Plus the cost of dinner and supper; breakfast does come with the cost of the bed, naturally.”

All three youths gaped at her. Pete was the first to regain his voice. “A hundred— a night? You can’t be serious!”

“Oh, she’s quite serious,” Mike interjected. “This is a business, and the business is selling rooms and meals. If you wish to stay and eat, you must pay.”

“You think I’m gonna pay to help support this place, when my cousin Richie is gonna be running it as soon as they can’t pay the mortgage?” Joey demanded.

“Of course; your only other option is to risk driving in this weather, and freezing to death.”

“When we want your opinion, we’ll beat it out of you!” Pete snapped.

Cassie slipped between the two once again and cupped their jaws gently in her fingers. “Now, boys, this is the season for peace . For brotherhood, compassion, and caring. But electricity doesn’t come cheaply, and neither do clean linens, or a hot meal. You will be gentlemen, and pay for your stay.” Releasing their cheeks, she turned and smiled at Rachel and Steve. “Just as we will pay for our own stay. Mike?”

“Why am I the one who always pays for these things?” the dark-skinned man muttered. He touched his chest, then gestured at the dark-haired woman. “Do I look like I’m made out of gold?”

“Of course.” Bella smirked. She passed between the three boys, bringing with her a sharper, spicier tang to her perfume than the sweeter one her pink-clad companion wore. Glancing over her shoulder, her heart-shaped face thrown into elegant profile, she murmured, “Your headlights? Or do you want to still be stuck here, forced to pay a hundred dollars a night when the roads are cleared in a few more days?”

“To he…heck with this,” Dave muttered, heading out the door. “I’m not stayin’ here!”

Pete, glancing between him and Joey, joined him in slogging through the rapidly forming drifts. Joey exited the house as well, but not to climb into his truck, slam the doors shut, and start up the engine. As the five in the house watched from the front window, he sat there for a moment, the door still opened, barely more than a silhouette glimpsed through the falling flakes. Then the headlights cut off. The other set of headlights swiveled, then vanished into a reflected, swirling glow of lit flakes. The glow dimmed quickly, fading from view.

A figure swirled out of the white, climbing the deep-set porch. Joey opened the door, looking sheepish as he entered far less vigorously than he had originally arrived, keeping one hand on the doorknob so it wouldn’t hit the wall. He rubbed at the back of his neck with his free hand, opened his mouth…and a crash in the distance, faint but unmistakable, cut him off. Jerking around, he stared out the window next to the doorway. “They must’ve slid into the ditch! We gotta get to ’em!”