Chapter 1:

Suddenly in Snowflake

Dana Devlin saw the neon “Laundromat” sign flickering in the lonely strip mall to her right and yanked the rental car over without even signaling.

She wasn’t worried about being pulled over; heck, she could have done donuts in the middle of the street – naked, practically – and no one would care.

(Seriously, did this town even have a police force?)

Snowflake, South Carolina on Christmas Eve wasn’t exactly a metropolitan hotspot, and at this time of the night she was the only car on the street.

The tiny strip mall had a Laundromat, a sub shop and a convenience store; all decked out in holiday trim and all, amazingly, still open.

Dana smirked; not exactly a carriage ride through Central Park, but for the chance to get away from her boyfriend’s family for an hour or two, she’d take it.

She parked the rental in front of the Laundromat and stood, reaching for the laundry basket in the backseat; then she remembered – no laundry.

All she had was the fresh red wine stain on her new white blouse and the memory of the brief tantrum she’d had after spilling it.

“Use Mom’s laundry room,” pleaded Chad, her boyfriend of two months.

“No thanks,” she’d spat, grabbing her purse and heading for the door. “I thought I saw a Laundromat on our way into town; I’ll go there.”

“The Snowflake Suds and Duds?” Chad asked rhetorically, his family chortling in the background as if they were sharing yet another of their many inside jokes. “Why would you want to go to that dump when we have a perfectly good machine here? Mom can get that stain out in 10-minutes, no problem.”
What she’d wanted to say, of course, was, “If I spend another 10 minutes with you and your family I’ll use your mother’s matching snowmen cheese spreaders to slit my wrists!”

Her freedom had come at a price; now she had nothing to wear while she washed her shirt.

“Yes I do!” she said aloud to the cool night breeze, stiff black heels scraping on the pitted drive.

Dana marched to the back of the rental and popped the trunk; inside was the bag of matching Christmas shirts she’d painstakingly picked out for Chad’s family; all 12 of them!

Surely, one of them must fit.

None too eager to stand around in the bitter cold at midnight and make a guesstimate, she yanked the whole bag inside with her.

There were carols playing inside the dimly-lit Laundromat, adding to her blood pressure.

(Chad’s mother was a big fan of the singing cats version of “12 Days of Christmas,” so she’d been over the caroling after about five minutes in the house.)

Inside the Snowflake Suds & Duds, the scent of peppermint and spice from several flickering candles mingled with detergent and soap, and she noticed little snowflake stickers on all six of the silent washing machines.

She wondered if they stayed up all year, given the town’s name, or just for Christmas?

Not that she cared; if Dana had her way, this would be her one – and only – trip to scenic Snowflake, South Carolina.

The Laundromat seemed deserted, and why not?

Every sane person in Snowflake was home snuggling by the fire with someone special.

Here she was, in the last Laundromat in town, red wine splashed across the front of her blouse and on the verge of tears – again.

“Hello?” she asked, rooting through her purse for enough quarters to start her load.

She found them in one of her side pockets, but just barely.

“Anybody home?” she asked playfully, sliding the four quarters in their appointed slots and turning to face the silent row of dryers across from her, as if one of their round, giant faces might reply in the affirmative.

Her voice would have echoed through the empty, cavernous space if it weren’t for a soulful sax solo soothing overhead.

“Hello?” she asked again, peering around the corner at an empty service desk, where a stack of books and CDs waited for their owner to return, perhaps from the convenience store or sub shop?

The machines were silent, even hers; the only sound in the place a smooth jazz rendition of “White Christmas” which she hated to admit was kind of… nice.

She looked out the huge plate glass window, peering through painted on snowflakes and seeing only her car.

She looked at the open washing machine in front of her, the four quarters all ready to go, and smiled wickedly to herself.

Somewhere, on her bucket list, there must have been an item reading “Take off your favorite stained blouse in the middle of a deserted Laundromat on Christmas Eve in a tiny town called Snowflake while you consider how best to tell your boyfriend you’re breaking up with him.”

She quickly peeled out of her shirt, closed the top of her machine with a shuddering thud, slid in the quarters and, just as soon as the machine started gurgling realized: she had no detergent!

Not an ounce.

She looked frantically through her purse to find lotion, hand soap, anything; nothing.

She spotted an old vending machine in the back, sporting rows of brightly colored detergent boxes; she scrambled for more quarters, finally finding two – her last two – and sliding them into the machine.

The little box slid out yellow and orange and she raced to pour it into the machine, spilling half of it on her naked belly as she yanked off the top in record time.

At last, her load was rumbling and sudsing away.

Dana leaned back against the washer, listening to another smooth jazz Christmas carol and thinking how much more peaceful a rumbling 1972 washing machine could be than a house full of nosy, know-it-all future in-laws (this according to Chad, who gave new meaning to the term “rushing things”).

Only when she heard a male voice clear his throat did she suddenly remember; her blouse was INSIDE that relaxing, sudsy, rumbling 1972 washing machine!

“Oh! My! God!” she gurgled, scrambling through the bag of cheesy holiday T-shirts at her feet to find something – anything – to cover up with. “Oh! My! God!”

In a blur of activity she heard good-natured chuckling, saw a flash of rough fisherman’s sweater, a chiseled face full of three-day stubble and dug even deeper into the bottom of the bulging outlet mall sack.

Just before giving up and going au natural for the rest of the evening, Dana finally grabbed a powder blue baby doll T-shirt with the words “It’s All About Me!” printed in gold foil on a burgundy Santa bag; it barely fit, clinging in all the wrong places and riding up every time she moved more than inch.

“I thought this place was empty!” she gasped, still clutching her arms over her chest as she stood protectively over her washing machine, as if the chuckling intruder was there for her stained shirt. “Where did you come from?”

The chuckling was coming from a youngish guy, leaning lazily against the sales counter and clutching a brown paper bag in his hand.

“I’m-I’m-s-s-sorry!” he stammered, face blushing as he stood his ground. “I went next door for a second and when I came back, there you were… just… standing there and, well, I guess I was too shocked to say anything. I mean, you here about this kind of thing happening but in all my years it’s never quite happened to me before…”

He let his voice trail off and, at last, removed his deep, green eyes from chest level to meet her own.

“What?” she asked as he slid a ring of keys onto the counter. “You work here or something?”
“Kind of,” he said, looking out the huge plate glass window at her rental car.

His voice was vaguely sad, like maybe he had the Christmas blues or something.

(That, or he was afraid Dana was going to call the cops on his Peeping Tom butt!)

She felt a little bad for the guy.

He looked about her age, like he should be in college with she and Chad, and yet here he was stuck running the Laundromat, on Christmas Eve no less.

Then she felt the strict confines of her size XS T-shirt cutting off her circulation and flared, “Well, still, that doesn’t give you the right to… to… spy on your patrons!”

He chuckled again; then she did, too.

She was being overdramatic, and they both knew it.

The black bra she’d been wearing underneath her new favorite white blouse was far less revealing than the bikinis most girls her age wore to spring break these days.

And she still had on her slick gray slacks.

“Well,” she said, inching away from the washing machine, which had now reached its “let’s vibrate Dana’s B-cups” cycle.

While inching away she knocked over her giant bag of shirts, and it spilled all over the floor, green and red and gold and powder blue shirts intended for Chad’s family cascading across the surprisingly clean white tile floors.

She’d been meaning to hand them out for days, but every time she got close to traipsing out to the trunk and hauling them under the Christmas tree, Chad or one of his insensitive relatives did something so blatantly rude, crude or socially unacceptable that she shook her head and refused.

Good thing, or she’d still have Laundromat boy staring chest-high all night.

“Here,” he said, leaping forward and bending down to her level. “Let me help.”

Together they shoved the shirts back in the holiday-themed mall sack, she more quickly than he.

He kept looking at them, that’s why he was so darn slow.

“This is… cute,” he said sarcastically, holding up a white turtleneck with a snowman made of bay leaves on front that said, “Tis the Seasoning” on it.

“Chad’s mom is a caterer,” she explained.

“I see,” he said, slipping it in the bag. “And Chad is your… husband?”
She snorted, standing back up now that the bag was mostly full again.

“Hardly,” she snapped, sounding more resentful than she’d intended.

He nodded again, leaning against the dryer across from her while she fiddled restlessly with the hem of her pants pocket.

She hadn’t smoked in three days, ever since they showed up in Snowflake fresh from the University of South Carolina campus.

And the red wine she’d spilled all over her dress was her first drink all day.

“Is that... store... still open next door?” she asked.

He shrugged and said, “24-hours a day, every day; just like the good, old Snowflake Suds and Duds.”

“Can you… watch this stuff?” she asked before bolting through the door without waiting for a reply.

There was a typical midnight slacker behind the counter, a tall kid with stringy red dreadlocks hanging from under a skip cap who barely looked up from his Cannabis Quarterly when the little cowbell over the door rang.

She found a dusty bottle of cheap red wine stashed behind a stack of pork and bean cans and headed up to the cash register.

There was a bowl of miniature candy canes next to the “have a penny, take a penny” jar and she put a handful, plus a 99-cent plastic corkscrew on the counter next to her wine.

The clerk finally looked up, a spray of straw-like orange hair on his sharp, pointy chin and said, “Merry Christmas!”

She’d forgotten, with all the hubbub at Chad’s house, why they’d come to Snowflake in the first place.

He had a kind voice and watery blue eyes; he looked like the kind of guy who sat in the back of class and read comics all through high school, who never bothered anyone or could hurt a fly.

Something tugged in her heart and she said, voice cracking, “Thank you!”

He looked uncomfortable at her wispy reply, standing transfixed until she said, “Can I have a pack of Wilshire Menthols, short?”

He seemed relieved to have something to do other than stand awkwardly in front of her, and quickly turned around with the familiar pack of light green on aqua smokes.

She wasn’t a big smoker, but in times of stress – you know, like spending your first Christmas alone in a strange town, in a strange Laundromat, in a stupid shirt – a few quick puffs put her right back at ease.

He looked at the array of items, started to say something, then thought twice about it.

As he rang up her purchases he admired her T-shirt and said, “Let me guess; you’re doing laundry next door, huh? Spilled something on your ‘real’ shirt, escaped a house full of crazy relatives to wash it at the Suds & Duds and won’t mind a cocktail or two while your shirt’s in the spin cycle?”
She smiled and said, “You’re in the wrong profession; you should set up shop as a psychic.”

He smiled, growing on her. “I keep telling Cliff the only thing missing from this shopping center is a psychic, but… he’s not as sympathetic to the supernatural as you or I.”

She nodded and said, “Cliff? Is he the guy working in the Laundromat?”

“Working in the Laundromat?” the kid snorted. “Dude owns it, and this store, and the sub shop; this whole shopping center. His Dad left it to him after he passed on a few years ago…”

His voice trailed off as he began bagging the candy canes and wine in an old-fashioned brown paper bag.

“That’s a lot of responsibility for a young guy,” she said, wishing she’d treated Cliff with a little more respect before just disappearing on him like that.

“Yeah, well, he’s used to it by now I suppose. Had to drop out of high school when his Dad got sick, been here ever since. Kind of sucks, too. Dude had a full ride to Duke, but… what are you gonna do? Family’s family, right?”

Dana blushed; she hadn’t even thought of going home to see her parents for Christmas this year, and had made some lame excuse about staying on campus the year before as well.

“Here,” he added, sliding across two plastic cups with a wink. “In case Cliff decides it’s not too early for a shift drink!”

She thanked him, turning and, just before leaving, calling over her shoulder, “Merry Christmas!”

She walked back to the Laundromat slowly, thinking just how wrong first impressions could be.

There was a new CD on now, and as she walked through the door to the Suds & Duds Dana realized that her DJ for the evening was none other than Cliff.

He looked up from reading the back of a CD case and smiled.

She asked, “IS there anything you can’t do?”

When he looked adorably puzzled she asked, “Well, I mean, you’re a landlord, Laundromat attendant, I assume interior decorator and DJ as well?”

He chuckled as she put the bag down, smiling as she brought out the contents.

“I have to warn you,” he said, mock-sternly, “this is a non-drinking, non-smoking establishment.”

When she gave him her best pouty-face, he smiled and said, “Unless it’s Christmas, that is, then pretty much anything goes. May I?”

She offered the cheap opener and watched as his longer fingers deftly opened the wine.

“2010,” he admired, dramatically blowing dust off the cheesy cabernet label. “A fabulous year.”

“The kid in the convenience store gave me two of these,” she said uncertainly, sliding one plastic cup out from the other and laying them both on the counter. “Would you… care to join me?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” he said, already pouring them generous amounts before she’d finished asking the question.

He handed her hers, then pierced her with a sympathetic eye and touched her cup with his own.

It made a soft, wet “clicking” noise.

He said, “Merry Christmas.”

She realized he still didn’t know her name.

“Merry Christmas,” she said back with a wry smile, “Cliff.”

“Hey,” he said, pouting. “No fair. You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“It’s Dana,” she said quickly, looking away if only to avoid getting caught up in his deep, green eyes.

There was a bench just outside the front door and she inched toward it, waving the pack of smokes as a signal.

“Do you mind?” she asked. “I know it’s a terrible habit, but… desperate times call for desperate measures!”

“That bad?” he asked, creeping around from behind the sales counter.

She gave him a “don’t get me started” look and nodded.

He crept toward her, flicking a lighter from one of his side pockets and said, “Actually, I was going to ask you to bum one?”

“Don’t you own the convenience store?” she snorted, tapping out a cigarette and sliding it in his direction.

He nodded but said, “I don’t like to be… tempted… if you know what I mean?”

He waited until hers was in her mouth to light it, then lit his own once he was sure hers had started.

She nodded her thanks, inhaling deeply and sinking down onto the bench with a satisfied grunt as she stretched her long, athletic legs in front of her.

She followed the tart taste of the smoke with the dry, somewhat bitter taste of the $8.99 cabernet and smiled.

“That,” she said, finally meaning it, “is the best I’ve felt all day. Scratch that; all weekend.”

“Family?” he asked knowingly, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke in the opposite direction.

He sipped at his wine, winced only slightly, then smiled appreciatively.

“Not mine,” she said. “My… boyfriend’s.”

She felt funny saying the word, wondered why, then looked quickly to see if he’d been hurt; then wondered why about that, as well.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she thought. “A dude that fine, he must be fighting off the ladies in Snowflake!”

He sipped his wine without comment; so did she.

Then she said, “I told Chad it was moving too fast, but he wouldn’t listen. I said ‘two months isn’t enough time for me to meet your family.’ He insisted on it, wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

“Really?” he asked, long, lean body clinging to the open doorway as if it had been designed just for him. “You don’t strike me as the ‘shrinking violet’ type, Dana.”

“I’m not,” she insisted after a quick slug of wine. “Usually, but what was I going to do? Sit around campus all week?”

“You could have gone home to see your family,” he said pointedly.

She arched one eyebrow and said, “Yeah, I could have, but… that’s a whole other kettle of fish. Instead I caved, said ‘yes’ to Chad and now… and now…”

He waited her out, patiently sipping his wine with a bemused look on his face until she spit it out.

“And now I hate his family,” she finally confessed, “and him kind of a little, and I don’t know how to tell him it’s over.”

“Hate?” Cliff said, arching one thick eyebrow while running those long fingers through his dirty blond curls. “That’s a little strong, isn’t it? I mean, considering the season?”

She thought about it, noticing the smooth jazz Christmas carols had somehow followed them outside.

“Not really,” she finally decided. “For three whole days we’ve done nothing but play charades and pick boysenberries and bake cookies and piece together puzzles and watch sickeningly sweet ‘family’ movies and listen to cats screeching ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ and decorate the tree and… and…”

Her voice trailed off again; she wondered where she was going with this.

What she wasn’t telling Cliff, what she hadn’t told Chad, and what she was suddenly was just realizing was that the reason she hadn’t wanted to meet Chad’s family for Christmas was that because she’d pretty much decided to break it off after Thanksgiving.

She just hadn’t gotten around to it.

And then suddenly it was December, and then came finals week, and Chad had been so insistent, so persistent and… here she was, alone in some Laundromat finally realizing the relationship was over.

Dead; kaput.

“Sounds kind of… nice,” he said suddenly, voice warm and deep in the dark, staring over her head into the inky night beyond. “The whole family gathered around the tree, lots of kids and activity, cookies baking and whatnot.”

“I hear you,” she said, nodding and wondering if he’d think her a lush if she raced inside for two more quick fingers of wine. “But… it’s nonstop. And he never gets a hint. Even when I say, ‘Chad, let’s go for a hike’ and everyone else is more than willing to leave us alone for 10 minutes, he asks his brother along, or his sister, or his niece, or his 12-year old cousin.

“The two of them talked about that Alien Battle Station 3 for 2-hours nonstop? I can understand a 12-year-old geeking out like that but… do you know what it’s like to hear your 23-year-old boyfriend speak alien for 120 straight minutes?”

Cliff chuckled loudly, lazily, eyes closing to half-slits as if imagining the scene for himself and finding it highly amusing.

She felt a slight tingle, suddenly wondering what that chuckle might sound like tomorrow morning as they cuddled in his single bed.

(Wow, Dana, where did that come from?!?)

“I’ve been setting my alarm clock earlier and earlier every morning,” she confessed, “but someone is always up. This morning I got up at 4 a.m., figuring for sure I’d get at least half an hour of down time ALONE. But oh no, his sister was up, making coffee, and trapped me on the front porch for an hour asking me if two years old was too old to breast feed! I don’t know the answer to that, and even if I did, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t find it at 4 in the morning!”

In between chuckling, Cliff reached inside the Laundromat and grabbed the bottle of wine, pouring them both healthy glugs that found the bottle mostly empty.

“Family’s hard,” he said after a long pause, almost making her forget what she’d said to prompt his statement.

There was a wistfulness to his voice that made her suddenly remember what the dreadlock dude in the convenience store had said.

Here she was, running off at the mouth about college and exams and boyfriends and family, and he was working the graveyard shift at the family Laundromat on Christmas Eve!

“What about you?” she asked quickly, earnestly, feeling suddenly stupid for gushing non-stop about her non-problems. “Your wife can’t be too happy about you running this place on Christmas Eve?”

“Wife?” he asked over the lip of his red plastic cup. “Not likely. Everyone in Snowflake is either 16 or 66. Not a lot of dating potential around these parts.”

“So why do you stay?” she asked, knowing a hunk like Cliff would get eaten alive the minute he set one darling foot on her small college campus.

He shrugged and looked over her head again, as if asking himself that very question.

“Family,” he said at last. “Mom’s never been the same since Dad passed, and my brother took off right after high school; same with my sister, so… someone’s got to stick around and man the fort.”

She looked up at him, leaning casually against the doorframe of the Snowflake Suds & Duds, looking dashing in his snug fisherman’s sweater and wheat-colored chords, no socks and weathered deck shoes.

Dana didn’t have much to say to that; she who had cut out of her own small South Carolina town the minute she graduated high school, entered SCU the first semester she could and had never looked back.

They were so different, she and Cliff, and yet she felt almost… intimately… close to him.

He was one of those guys you just felt like you’d known forever, and wished you could know a lot better – a lot sooner.

Still, when she was with someone, she was with someone.

Random encounters with hot business owners on Christmas Eve or no, she was with Chad and, until she broke it off, with Chad she’d stay.

And what then?

She still had three days left with Chad and his family, and then there was New Year’s… would there ever be a good time to let Chad down easy?

And what if she did?

Was she going to come running to Snowflake every weekend to seduce Cliff on top of some random washing machine?

And even if she did, what of it?

Where could she use her marketing degree in tiny Snowflake?

Would she give it all up to run the Laundromat?

Or sell cigarettes at the convenience store?

Or slice onions at the sub shop?

She lit another cigarette to smoke away the regret, the fantasy, the frustration of Cliff standing so close and she not being able to do a single thing about it; she handed him one without being asked.

He lit theirs both and said, “That’s it for me; two’s my limit.”

She snorted white smoke, and he did two.

Three cigarettes and the last of the red wine later, he was sitting next to her on the bench outside of the Suds & Duds, a space between them as the city of Snowflake settled around them.

Behind them oozed the smooth jazz, in front of them Christmas approached amidst a tiny city of twinkling lights.

Dana suddenly thought that there must be something special about who you spend Christmas with; not the morning of and all the presents, or even the dinner and the tree, but the minute Christmas dawns, that priceless, precious moment.

Special because it only happens once a year, and you’re only aware of it so often.

Maybe she’d been wrong to tear off out of the house and flee Chad’s family that way, but whatever it had cost her, whatever the future might hold (or not hold) for she and Chad, she knew that she was spending Christmas with the right person this year.

Even if they had only just met.

Dana reached over tentatively, but quickly, before she could chicken out.

She found his hand lying chastely in the space between them; it was hot and flushed and gripped hers – tightly, almost urgently – the moment their fingers touched.

Neither of them moved beyond that simple gesture, but it was enough; for now, at least, it was enough.

The moment passed and he turned to her with a bashful smile and said, simply, “Thank you.”

In his eyes she saw gratitude his words couldn’t convey; she only hoped he saw the same in hers.

Just then bright lights illuminated the bench and they both flinched, hands peeling apart to cover their eyes as a clatter of sneakers launched from the side door and jangled into the sub shop, the cowbell over the door announcing their presence.

The lights went off, the driver’s door opened and Dana heard a familiar voice call her name.

“Chad?” she said, rising out of the seat to distance herself from Cliff, who wisely stayed put.

In her peripheral vision she caught him slide the empty wine bottle out of view behind the bench with a single heel, even as he slid the pack of cigarettes toward his own lap.

“What’s going on Cliff?” Chad asked brusquely, dark hair gleaming in the harsh light under the Laundromat awning.

For the first time all evening it occurred to Dana that Cliff might actually know Chad from growing up in Snowflake together, not to mention his family.

Suddenly she felt raw and exposed.

“Still hanging around Snowflake?” Chad asked in a way that indicated he was glad that he wasn’t.

Dana cut Chad a look, but relaxed as Cliff said merely, “Sure, why not?”
Like Dana, Cliff knew it was no sense explaining to a hot shot MBA overachiever like Chad – he of the ascots and riding gloves and expensive watch collection – what it meant to give up your own dreams to run the family business, humble as it might have been.

“Still smoking, too, I see?” Chad scoffed.

Dana knew he hated the habit, which is why she’d gone three whole days without a single puff.

Cliff willingly took one for the team, chuckling, “You know us townies, Chad; always sitting around on park benches and smoking the day away—”

“What got into you?” Chad asked Dana, cutting Cliff off and turning with his back to the Suds and Duds owner.

Cliff took the hint and stood, inching inside the Laundromat and sliding behind the counter to switch CDs yet again.

Dana was confused, surprised to see Chad hunting her down, yet startled by the lack of understanding in his cold, blue eyes.

“I needed a break, Chad,” she hissed, trying to keep her voice down as Kenny G oozed from Cliff’s boom box. “Don’t you understand?”
“I understand my family is extremely upset,” he huffed, clearly missing her point. “I understand you left me in a very awkward position back there just now, having to explain why you’d want to come use some townie Laundromat when Mom has a perfectly good washing machine back–”

“That reminds me,” she said, turning on a heel to see Cliff smiling back at her. “My blouse!”

All that time with Cliff, the wine, the music, the conversation – the hand-holding – she’d forgotten why she’d left Chad’s house in the first place.

“You wrap that up,” said Chad, either ignoring or simply not caring about the smoldering glances sparking between she and Cliff, “and I’ll go grab the kids.”

Dana breathed a sigh of relief, glad Chad wouldn’t be insisting on following her into the Laundromat at least.

“I’m so sorry,” she told Cliff breathlessly, who was already drifting toward her washing machine.

“Why?” said Cliff, rattling some change in his palm and sliding some of it into a nearby dryer.

“Just, it’s so dramatic,” she sighed.

She looked at him, reached out and touched his sleeve, “And because I was having a really nice time.”

“Me too,” he said, looking slightly down at her.

They were hip to hip now, standing over her washing machine, so close she could smell his cologne and feel the warmth from his skin.

How she longed to touch him again, even if it was just to hold his hand; to sit quietly and hold his hand and wile the holiday away, doing nothing more than listening to long sax solos and staring into those dreamy green eyes.

“Thank you,” she said, and he shrugged, thinking it was about the coins in the dryer. “No, I mean, for tonight.”

“I know what you meant,” he lied, fixing her with those eyes.

They both jumped when the van horn honked again, inching away as the headlights flickered on and flooded the Suds & Duds with white, impatient light.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said quietly, opening the lid to her now silent washing machine as a way to keep her by his side, if only for just another moment longer. “I’ll finish this up and, if you feel like setting your alarm clock early again, well, I’ll still be working when you get up and you can come by and pick it up then.”

Warmth rushed through her stomach as her senses flooded with sweet anticipation.

Quickly she mouthed a silent, “Thank you” before squeezing his forearm tenderly and slipping out the door.

“I can’t believe you’d run out on the family like that,” Chad scolded, nostrils flared, as he backed out savagely into the empty street before peeling forward.

He hadn’t even waited for her to click her seatbelt in tight.

(She half-wondered if the five gangly kids in the back were belted in as well.)

“I can’t believe you’d chase me down like some… some… prized heifer that’s strayed from the pasture,” she said, keeping her voice down. “And I can’t believe you’d bring all your nieces and nephews along for the ride.”

“They wanted ice cream,” he blurted, nodding toward their dripping cones as he drove. “Snowflake Subs is the only place in town open this late.”

Her jaw dropped.

“So, you mean, this was just a… a… fluke? The kids wanted ice cream so you just happened to pull up to the only sub shop open this late, which just so happens to be next to the only Laundromat open this late?”

Chad nodded, then stopped himself just in time and said, “Of course not.”

But even so, she caught the quick look he sent to the rearview mirror, warning his gaggle of nieces and nephews in the backseat not to spill the beans.

She sat back in her chair, suddenly feeling… at peace.

It was over with Chad, that much was clear.

Whatever goodwill she’d had in her heart for him had bolted the minute she realized he hadn’t thought twice about where she’d gone – or felt the slightest indication to come looking for her.

“What are you doing?” he asked as he heard the telltale beep from her cell phone.

“Just setting my alarm,” she said. “I want to get a quick run in before the Christmas festivities start.”

“Good idea,” he said, patting his non-existent belly. “I’ll get up with you. What time so I can set my own cell?”

“5:30,” she lied sweetly, as he began beeping and blurping his way through setting his own alarm.

Only when she locked her alarm onto 4:45 a.m. did she finally relax.

The town of Snowflake blurred past the passenger window, all quaint cottages and sweet chalets, all decked out in twinkling white holiday trim.

For the first time, the town looked picturesque and quaint, and she couldn’t wait to see it in a few hours; alone, for the first time all trip.

Well, alone that is until she walked back through the door of Suds & Duds, and into Cliff’s arms…