Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 95107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
“All right, hold on, let’s figure this out,” I finally say.
I click the emergency blinkers and pull onto the shoulder of the narrow road. Though I probably don’t need the emergency lights, considering we haven’t seen another car in ages.
I grab my phone from the cup holder. I only have two bars, but it’s enough to load the weather app.
“Shit,” I say a moment later.
“What is it?” Grace leans toward me to peer at the screen.
“Apparently there’s a blizzard tonight. What the hell. It said nothing about a blizzard when I checked the weather earlier.”
“Did you…” She stops.
“Did I what?” I demand.
Grace exhales ruefully. “Did you check the weather for Boston or did you check the weather for northern Vermont?”
I pause.
“Boston,” I grumble.
“Babe.”
“I’m sorry. That was dumb of me.” I lick my lips in an overly lewd way. “Want to spank me for being a bad boy?”
A glint of lust lights her eyes. I chuckle softly. We both know she loves how dirty I am. I’m not shy about what I want and what I like, and Grace has gotten pretty good at voicing her desires too. That’s why our sex life is so phenomenal.
“Maybe later,” she says, her face growing serious. “Let’s focus. It looks like this area is expecting more than a foot of snow tonight.”
“They always say that, and it’s never that much,” I argue.
Stricken, she peers out the dark window. “I don’t know… It’s really piling up out there.”
“So what do you want to do? You want to turn around? Because I think we can beat the snow and get there before the worst of the storm hits.”
She chews on her lower lip. It’s so goddamn adorable. I’m tempted to lean over and kiss the hell out of her.
“Fine, let’s do it,” she decides. “Just don’t speed, okay? I want to get there alive.”
“Deal. I’ll spare our lives.”
She snickers.
I steer back onto the road, and despite its stupidly expensive winter tires, the SUV actually skids.
Grace yelps. “Logan!”
“Sorry. I’m not speeding, I swear. It’s just slippery.” I ease up on the gas, proceeding to drive with more caution.
For the next twenty minutes, we don’t speak. We’re too focused on the drive and the worsening weather. A wall of white has appeared in front of our car. All the snow accumulating on the ground and on the hood of the Mercedes tells me a foot of it isn’t a far-fetched estimate. To make matters worse, this area is so isolated, I doubt any snowplows or salt trucks pay it many visits. Eventually the road becomes treacherous, and it isn’t long before I’m driving at a crawl.
“John,” Grace says in concern.
“I know,” I say grimly.
But it’s too late to turn back now. The interstate is too far behind us. The GPS says we’re about forty minutes from the B&B, but at the pace we’re traveling, we won’t reach it for several hours.
“Shit,” I curse. “Okay. Keep an eye out. Maybe we’ll see somewhere we can stop.”
“Like where?”
“I don’t know. A motel? An inn?”
A note of panic creeps into her voice. “Babe, there’s nothing here. We’re literally in the middle of nowhere—” She jumps when the SUV skids again.
“Sorry.” My hands are curled tightly around the steering wheel. I lean forward and intently stare out the windshield like an elderly lady who forgot her glasses at home.
“Should we pull over and wait it out?” Grace frets.
I think it over. “Probably not a good idea. What if we get snowed in at the side of the road? I say we keep going.”
“Sure, let’s keep going at this brisk pace of zero miles an hour,” she says sarcastically. “We’ll get there at dawn.”
“It won’t take that long—” Something suddenly flies past the windshield.
A gust of blowing snow, I realize half a second later, but it’s too late. I’d already instinctively tapped the brakes. Just lightly, yet even that soft touch sends the car into a fishtail.
“Fuck.” I attempt to steer out of the skid, but the tires swing sharply, and this time I can’t control it. The next thing I know the Mercedes is barreling toward the slope at the shoulder.
“Hang on!” I shout, white-knuckling the wheel as we fly off the road.
7
Grace
My pounding heart nearly busts out of my chest horror-movie style as the SUV fishtails dizzyingly out of control. When it finally comes to a stop, my hands are shaking and I’m weak with relief.
I plaster my face to the window. All I see is total darkness, broken only by the thin columns of the headlights. They’re pointing at a stretch of white. Nothing but snow fills my line of sight. We’re at the bottom of a small slope, but it might as well be a mountain. When I peer up to where I think the road is, it feels impossibly far.