Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 95256 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95256 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
“No!” I faced him. “We can’t! We have to work today. I’ve got tastings, and the restaurant opens at five. We’re booked!”
Gianni laughed and shrugged out of his coat. “Ellie, no one is on the road today. The tasting room and Etoile are officially closed, along with every school and most businesses in northern Michigan.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I already talked to Des and Kanani.”
“What time is it? Is she still at the front desk?” Kanani was the night manager. She normally left by eight each morning.
“It’s nine-thirty, and yes she’s still there. She said she can stay until Toby or Winnie arrives.”
Toby was the daytime manager. He and Winnie could handle anything, but I still felt panicked. “What about Des? Did he make it there?”
“Not yet, but he’s doing his best to get there as quickly as he can.” Gianni laughed as he hung up his coat. “He says he might snowmobile in.”
“What about the guests stuck at Abelard? If the restaurant is closed, how will they eat?” Etoile wasn’t open for lunch, and we only served cheese and charcuterie in the tasting room.
“Relax. Kanani was able to put out a continental breakfast, as always, and together she and Des will manage something for lunch.”
“What about dinner?”
“I’ve got that covered too—Trattoria Lupo is closed today, so my dad will go over to Abelard as soon as he can get there and put something together in Etoile’s kitchen.”
“Well, what about us? What are we supposed to do?”
Gianni stretched out across the foot of the bed, head propped on his hand. “Don’t worry, I planned out our whole day. First, we’ll make snow angels for two hours, then we’ll go ice skating, and then we’ll eat a whole roll of Tollhouse cookie dough as fast as we can, and then—to finish?—we’ll snuggle.” He gave me his most charming grin.
“Gianni!” I stamped my foot. “This is no time to quote Buddy the Elf. That isn’t prop snow out there, it’s the real thing! And this is a real emergency! We’re stranded here, and I want to leave.”
“I do too, but we can’t go anywhere until my car starts and the roads are clear, and that could be a while, so we might as well make the most of this unexpected opportunity to spend more time together.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “If you think I’m going to sleep with you again, you’re crazy.”
“I don’t think that.”
“Good.” Sighing, I dropped my arms and closed my eyes. “This sucks.”
“Come on. It could be worse.”
I opened them and stared at him. “How?”
“You could be trapped with someone a lot less fun than me. You could be trapped alone. You could be trapped in a burning building.”
“I guess this is preferable to that,” I muttered. “But I still want to leave as quickly as possible, so keep calling the towing company.”
“I definitely will.”
“In the meantime, I guess I could make some coffee.” I glanced at our kitchenette. “What should we do for breakfast? Gas station treats?”
“We could, but I asked Rose in the office what the options were, and she said we could snowshoe up the highway to her sister Mae’s diner. It’s open.”
“We don’t have snowshoes!”
“Rose said the motel owns some they rent out, but we can use them for free.”
“How come that diner is open but everything else is closed?”
“I asked that too, and she said Mae lives above the diner and has been open every single day for twenty-seven years. Apparently, it’s a point of pride.”
I nodded. “I wish I had some snow pants. That snow looks deep.”
“You don’t have to go. If you want, I can go and bring food back.”
“So that you can tease me about being such a princess that I can’t go out in the snow? Forget it,” I snapped, heading for the bathroom. “I can manage.”
Thirty minutes later, Gianni and I were trudging up the road with snowshoes and poles borrowed from Rose. The snow was a foot deep at least, and continued to fall in thick, heavy flakes, although the wind wasn’t as bad as it had been last night. Still, it was freezing cold, and I could hardly feel my nose, toes, or fingers after just a few minutes. My pants were probably going to be ruined. The good thing was that snowshoeing was hard work, so the trunk of my body stayed fairly warm.
Even so, I was happy when we reached our destination—an old, two-story house whose clapboards had been replaced with vinyl siding with an addition off to one side. A wooden sign out front read Mae’s Diner, Open 365 Days a Year. Several snowmobiles were parked outside the place, and it occurred to me we hadn’t seen a single car or even a plow on the road.
The front walk had been shoveled at least once this morning, so we took off our snowshoes and carried them up the steps onto the porch. Leaving them outside the door along with our poles, we entered the diner. It was a small place—really just one big room—with polished oak floors and furniture. Despite the fact that it was late January, Christmas lights were still strung up, shining in all their multi-colored glory. It was blissfully warm and smelled delicious, like bacon and savory potatoes and something sweet too, maybe donuts. My mouth watered as my toes thawed.