Detective Jason Stephanidis steered his truck down the narrow, icy road, feeling better than anytime since being placed on administrative leave. He’d checked on several elderly neighbors near Holly Creek Farm and promised to plow them out after the storm ended. Now he was headed back to the farm to spend some much-needed time with his grandfather.
It wasn’t that he was feeling the Christmas spirit, not exactly. Being useful was how he tamed the wolves inside him.
Slowly, cautiously, he guided the truck around a bend. Amid the rapidly falling snow, something flashed. Headlights? In the middle of the road?
What was a little passenger car doing out on a night like this? This part of Pennsylvania definitely required all-wheel drive and heavy snow tires in winter.
He swerved right to avoid hitting the small vehicle. Perilously close to the edge of the gulch, he stopped his truck, positioning it to provide a barrier against the other car going over the edge.
There. The car should be able to pass him now, safely on the side away from the ledge.
Rather than slowing down gradually, though, the other driver hit the brakes hard. The little car spun and careened into an icy snowdrift, stopping with a resounding thump.
Jason put on his flashers, leaped from his truck and ran toward the vehicle. He couldn’t see through the fogged-up window on the driver’s side, so he carefully tried the door. The moment he opened it, he heard a baby’s cry.
Oh no.
“The babies. My babies! Are they okay?” The driver clicked open her seat belt and twisted toward the back seat. “Mikey! Teddy!”
There were two of them? “Sit still, ma’am. I’ll check on your children.” He eased open the back door and saw two car seats. A baby in each. One laughing, one crying, but they both looked uninjured, at least to his inexperienced eye.
Between the front seats, the driver’s face appeared. “Oh, my sweet boys, are you okay?” There was an edge of hysteria in her voice.
“They seem fine, ma’am. You need to turn off your vehicle.”
She looked at him as if he were speaking Greek, then reached a shaky hand toward the baby who was wailing. “It’s okay, Mikey. You’re okay.” She patted and clucked in that way women seemed to naturally know how to do.
The baby’s crying slowed down a little.
“Turn off your vehicle,” he repeated.
“What?” She was still rubbing the crying baby’s leg, making soothing sounds. It seemed to work; the baby took one more gasping breath, let it out in a hiccupy sigh and subsided into silence.
She fumbled around, found a pacifier and stuck it in the baby’s mouth. Then she cooed at the nearer baby, found his pacifier pinned to his clothes and did the same.
Unhurt, quiet babies. Jason felt his shoulders relax a little. “Turn the car off. For safety. We don’t want any engine fires.”
“Engine fires?” She gasped, then spun and did as he’d instructed.
He straightened and closed the rear car door to keep the heat inside.
She got out, looked back in at the babies and closed the door. And then she collapsed against it, hands going to her face, breathing rapid.
“Are you all right?” He stepped closer and noticed a flowery scent. It seemed to come from her masses of long red hair.
“Just a little shaky. Delayed reaction.” Her voice was surprisingly husky.
“How old are your babies?”
She hesitated just a little bit. “They’re twins. Fifteen months.”
He focused on her lightweight leather jacket, the nonwaterproof sneakers she wore. Not on her long legs nicely showcased by slim-fitting jeans. “Ma’am, you shouldn’t be out on a night like this. If I hadn’t come along—”
“If you hadn’t come along, I wouldn’t have gone off the road!”
“Yes, you would’ve. You can’t slam on your brakes in the snow.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“Ma’am, any teenager would know not to...” He trailed off. No point rubbing in how foolish she’d been.
She bit her lip and held up a hand. “Actually, you’re right that I shouldn’t be out. I was slipping and sliding all over the place.” Walking up to the front end of the car, she studied it, frowning. “Wonder if I can just back out?”
Jason knelt and checked for damage, but fortunately, the car looked okay. Good and stuck, though. “You probably can’t, but I can tow you.” As he walked around the car to study the rear bumper in preparation for towing, he noticed the Arizona plates.
So that was why she didn’t know how to drive in the snow.
He set up some flares, just in case another vehicle came their way, and then made short order of connecting the tow rope and pulling her out of the drift.
He turned off his truck, jumped out and walked over to her. Snow still fell around them, blanketing the forest with quiet.
“Thank you so much.” She held out a hand to shake his.
He felt the strangest urge to wrap her cold fingers in his palm, to warm them. To comfort her, which would shock the daylights out of his ex-fiancée, who’d rightly assessed him as cold and heartless. He was bad at relationships and family life, but at least now he knew it. “You should wear gloves,” he said sternly instead of holding on to that small, delicate hand.
For just the briefest second he thought she rolled her eyes. “Cold hands are the least of my problems.”
Really? “It didn’t look like your children are dressed warmly enough, either.”
She turned her back to him, opened her car door and grabbed a woven, Southwestern-looking purse. “Can I pay you for your help?”
“Pay me? Ma’am, that’s not how we do things around here.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Look, I’d love to hang out and discuss local customs, but I need to get my boys to shelter. Since, as you’ve pointed out so helpfully, they’re inadequately dressed.”
“I’ll lead you back to a road that’s straighter, cleared off better,” he said. “Where were you headed?”
“Holly Creek Farm.”
Jason stared at her.
“It’s supposed to be just a few miles down this road, I think. I should be fine.”
“Are you sure that’s the name of the place? There’s a lot of Holly-this and Holly-that around here,