Mary Anne Wilson - Montana Miracle

SNOW WAS BEAUTIFUL in pictures and on greeting cards, but that was the only experience Kate had ever had with the white stuff. She had no idea that in real life it could be blinding, even in the early evening, or that it could be driven by wind so hard that it shook a car and made it tremble, even though the car was a sturdy sedan she’d rented at the airport two hours before.

She had no concept of cold bone-chilling it penetrated the car windows while the heater fought fiercely to defeat it. Between cursing the weather and cursing herself for driving out here without checking the weather first, she maneuvered the car along the winding, hilly road that climbed into the Montana wilderness. The last sign for Bliss had said twenty miles, and the longer she drove, the more she thought a man like Dr. Parish couldn’t possibly be anywhere near this godforsaken place.

The man was used to fast cars, luxury, pampering, leggy blondes. None of which would be out this way. At least not a leggy blonde with any sense at all. The idea made her laugh. She was beginning to feel like a dumb-blonde joke. She squinted at the road ahead. She was the punch line. All for a story. Then again, she would do just about anything for a good story. Her parents went to some primitive place to build water systems. She went to some primitive place for a story. She was more their daughter than she’d realized.

As she frowned at that thought, the car skidded slightly to the left. Before she could panic, it found traction again on the curve and settled on the road. Another sign for Bliss was caught in the headlights—ten more miles. She glanced at the clock on the dash. Five-thirty, yet it was so dark it might as well have been the middle of the night, and road visibility was almost nil.

The snow she’d driven into fifteen minutes ago had been falling in this area long enough to drift high on both sides of the highway. Now it was building up on the channel of the windshield wipers with each swipe.

She should have stopped at the first sign of snow and found a motel, then waited this out in warmth and safety. Parish wasn’t going anywhere, but she’d been anxious to get to Bliss. That excitement for a new assignment had been building on the plane while she went over the Parish file in detail. Now she was convinced there was a dynamite story hidden in the Montana wilderness. Mac Parish hadn’t just left: he’d gone into hiding.

Kate sensed it wasn’t just a case of Mac’s going back to his birthplace or being a glorified baby-sitter for the kid. He had no adult family left. Both parents were long gone and his only brother had died in an accident months ago. None of that added up to motivation for what he’d given up.

A house in Malibu on the cliffs over the ocean had been sold. His collection of sports cars was gone. His spot in the high-end cosmetic-surgery practice had been filled by another doctor within a month of his leaving. He wasn’t coming back. He’d wiped out everything that would have brought him back.

The car skidded again on the icy road and seemed almost to float, as if the back of the car was about to trade places with the front. She hit the brakes at the same time she remembered reading that she shouldn’t hit the brakes, but just steer into the slide. By the time she figured that out, it was too late.

The car spun the snowy road in a full circle, a slow-motion ballet of weirdness. Slowly, ever so slowly, it miraculously stopped dead in the center of the road and facing the right direction. Kate exhaled a shaky sigh of relief, until she realized that anyone who came around the corner was going to hit her. She was a sitting duck if she stayed there, but she was afraid to drive any farther.

She sat forward, swiping at the rapidly fogging windows. Beyond the laboring windshield wipers all she could see was the reflecting of the headlights in the snow.

She stretched to her right as far as the seat belt allowed to brush at the foggy side window. She was almost certain she could see a dark shadow out there, maybe ten feet away. A bank of snow? It had to be the side of the road. Carefully she inched the car toward it, until she was pretty sure she was off the main part of the road, then stopped.

She put on her flashers and sank back in the seat with relief. The heater was working while the car idled, and her clothes were keeping her snug enough. The corduroy jacket, shirt and jeans were fine, and her boots kept her feet warm. She could wait a bit, see if the snow let up and then go on to Bliss. Just wait. That was all she had to do.

She turned on the radio, hoping to get a weather report, but there was little to no signal. Every station was filled with static, and when she gave up, it hit her that the snow might not be stopping any time soon. What if it got worse? What if she was stuck here indefinitely? What if she was stranded in the high country of Montana in a blizzard? Her gas wouldn’t last forever. One glance at the gauge and she knew that was true. Just under a quarter of a tank.

Her cell phone. She could call for help. She released her seat belt and reached for her purse sitting on top of the reading material about Dr. Parish. She found her phone and flipped it open. Her heart sank when she realized there was no signal.

“Great, just great,” she muttered, then hugged herself and stared out the windshield at the blinding storm. What was it the car-rental agent had said when Kate told her she was heading up here? Snow flurries, that was it. Even Kate knew that this beyond flurries.

She sat back at the same time a light came out of nowhere behind her. The glare of high headlights almost blinded her in the rearview mirror as she tried to make out who or what had arrived. The heavy throb of a big engine vibrated in the air, and she shifted, twisting, trying to see something. Was it a snowplow? Maybe a tow truck? Did they cruise around here in bad weather, knowing that someone would get stuck sooner or later? That made sense to her.

But what also made sense was people prowling these roads, looking for stranded motorists. She’d read enough stories about people who thought they were getting help and ended up robbed, beaten or dead, or all of the above. And she was alone. Completely alone. Unable to run. Then she saw someone out there, a large shadow cutting through the glare of the lights. She turned around, and just as she hit the button to lock all the doors, someone knocked on her window.

The shadow. A huge dark shadow was out there. And any relief was gone. She reached for her purse again, fumbled in it and closed her hand around a small cylinder of pepper spray, thankful that she’d thought to move it from her checked luggage to her purse when she left the airport in the rental car.

She held it tightly as she touched the button for the window with her other hand. As soon as the window started down, icy air rushed into the car’s interior and she stopped it before it went lower than an inch or two. She squinted into the night, still unable to make out the features of the hulk out there.

Then a deep, rough voice demanded, “Are you alone?”

Kate gripped the pepper spray so tightly it made her fingers ache. “No, of course not,” she said without thinking. “I’m not alone.”

She saw movement and the stranger got a lot closer, blocking some of the cold and wind behind him with his bulky body. A light flashed on, blinding her momentarily until it shifted to the seat behind her. “Is someone else in there with you?”

She used her free hand to shade her eyes. “Could you put that light out?” When the light was gone, and she dropped the pepper spray into her lap and grabbed her phone. She held it up so he could see it. “I meant, I was about to call someone.” That was it. She was calling someone, and for all he knew, it was a man, a man who knew where she was, a man who could be on his way right then. “I’m going to call—” She grabbed the first name that came to her “—James. I’m calling James to let him know I’m on my way and let him know where I am and what I’m doing,” she said as she turned the phone on. “He’ll take care of this.”