Chapter 1

I thought that it would never end.

The annual New Year’s Eve party at my grandparent’s house is a big deal event in our family and has been ever since I can remember. It started as a party thrown by my Grandparents for their ten children and their spouses. Only within the last few years has it been opened up to their grandchildren too. So now, the house was packed with partygoers, a few of them around my age, nineteen, with quite a few younger kids and a sprinkling of older kids.

I was one of the few in attendance that wasn’t drinking. I’d tied one on the night before, partying with a bunch of people from work and therefore, the mere thought of drinking made me want to gag. I was also attending by myself, having broken up with my girlfriend three months before. Both of these facts were beginning to look like a tactical error on my part; I was being eyed as the poor slob who was going to get to drive home all the people who’d had one too many. Car keys were collected as one showed up for the party, and returned to you once you were in the car of whomever was taking you home, if, in fact, you needed a ride.

It didn’t help that I was also driving a van, a sixteen foot monster made by Dodge that my dad and I had converted into a fuck truck. I was proud of that van, we had insulated it with rigid foam insulation on the floor, walls and roof, and paneled over it. I had installed four wall sconce lights on a dimmer switch in the dashboard, laid plywood and carpet on the floor and made a low double bed, complete with a foam rubber mattress. It had two Captain’s chairs up front, a bench seat in the middle, a kick-ass stereo and a built-in hutch that held an icebox and extra storage. I slept in it a lot in the summer, parked at the beach or at camp.

I migrated to the back of the house, seeking to get out of sight only to find a cousin making out with his girlfriend in my chosen hiding place. It was approaching midnight when a pair of aunts found me and sealed my fate. I was to take Uncle Fred and his wife home, along with Uncle George, his wife and their three sullen kids. And so it began.

It was close to one in the morning when I got back to Grandma’s house after having delivered my fourth load of drunken relatives home. I went inside, stomping the snow off my shoes and slapping it off my coat with my Stetson. Vermont was living up to its reputation for unpredictable weather; it had started snowing around ten o’clock that night and the roads were definitely getting greasy. The drive back to the party from the north end of the city had been an adventure despite the four snow tires that my van was wearing. I’d come damned close to putting it in a ditch on the Beltline and I was hoping that there was no one else at Grandma’s house needing a ride.

That hope proved to be a vain one. Uncle Bill and the bitch he’d taken as his second wife still needed a ride. “That’s it,” Aunt Sara said as she ushered her brother and the Bitch out the door. She pressed a wad of bills into my hand and said, “It’s gas money. I made everyone you gave a ride to pony up some cash.” She dropped me a wink and said, “Happy New Year!”

The door closed behind me and we were on our way. Uncle Bill and the Bitch lived in a little jerkwater town called Ferrisburg about a half hour south of the city. When I stopped to gas up the van, the Bitch started raising hell. She was still pissing and moaning as I started for their house and she bitched about anything and everything all the way home.

I pulled up in front of their house and Uncle Bill got out, turning to assist his wife out of the van. After she was out, he leaned inside and stuffed a couple of folded twenties into my shirt pocket. “Sorry about that, Larry,” he said apologetically. “Thanks for the ride.” The side door rumbled shut and I started back towards town.

I was less than halfway home when I came across a Mercedes sitting on the shoulder of Route Seven. I slowed down and tried to see if it was occupied just as the driver’s side door opened and a woman stepped out. She waved her arms and I stopped. A moment later, she was in the van and closing the door.

“Thanks for stopping,” she said as she turned to face me. “I’m Lisa Stokes.” She stuck her hand out and after a moment, I managed to stop staring at her long enough to find her hand and shake it.

“I’m Larry,” I said, going right back to staring at her. What I could see of her was well worth staring at and I popped a woody while I was doing it. I guessed that she was perhaps thirty-three years old, give or take a few years. She was a redhead, with a thick mop of rust colored hair that was shoulder length and fell carelessly around her oval shaped face. Her nose was slim and straight, her eyes a vivid shade of green and she had a softly squared jaw, a wide, generous mouth with plump red lips and even white teeth. It was hard to tell through the coat, but she looked like she had a good figure or at the very least, a sizeable rack on her. She also had great legs, long and shapely.

She was a beauty but she also had a certain something going for her; a serene and placid attitude that was usually provided by lots of money paired with a subdued, almost hidden sexuality that one could sense, somehow. She effortlessly made me feel like we had been friends for years and that nothing I could say or do would surprise her.

“Where are you headed, Larry?” she asked, giving me a little smile as she gently took her hand back. Her eyes dropped to my lap for a split second and then she looked out through the windshield with a tiny smile on her face.

“Huh?” I replied, blushing fiercely, suddenly glad that it was so dark inside the van. “Oh! Um, the city.”

“Perfect!” she said, smiling a second time. “I live in Lakewood Estates, out North Avenue. Are you going that far?”

“I am now,” I said, tearing my eyes away from her and dropping the van into drive. I checked the rear view mirror and pulled out onto the deserted road. “Buckle up,” I said as I stole another look at her. “If I land this thing in a ditch, I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“You won’t,” she replied as she fastened her seat belt. She settled herself in for the ride and said, “I’m very glad you came along.” She frowned as she added, “I can’t believe that I ran out of gas.”

“It happens,” I said.

“What are you doing out on an ugly Wednesday night like tonight?” she asked.

“Bringing home relatives that have had a few too many,” I said.

“Oh,” she laughed. “A family New Year’s Eve party, huh?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I didn’t hide well enough and I wasn’t drinking. So I got nabbed.”

“I’m surprised,” she said. “Do you have to work tomorrow or something? Most young men your age would jump at the chance to get loaded for free. I know that my two sons always did.”

I cast a quick look of disbelief at her as I answered her. “No, I have the rest of the week off. Four glorious days of freedom until Monday.”

She saw my look. “What was that look for?” she asked.

“You have sons my age?” I asked. “What’d you do, have them when you were twelve?”

A smile slowly spread across her face. “Aren’t you a sweet talker!” she said, putting her hand on my forearm and squeezing it for a moment. “My son’s are about your age, I would think. My oldest is twenty two and his little brother is twenty. They’re both in college out west.”

“I’m nineteen,” I said automatically. I looked at her again as she calmly looked back. I was checking for gray hair or a waddle under her chin, shit like that and I didn’t see anything. “I think you’re bullshitting me,” I said.

She gave me a radiant smile and said, “You’re good for an old lady’s morale, you know that?”

“The next time I bump into an old lady, I’ll bear that in mind,” I replied.

She smiled and asked, “Just how old do you think I am? Tell the truth now!”

“Oh no! I suck at this!” I protested.

“Most men your age do,” she laughed. “Don’t lie; tell me anyway. I won’t get mad, I promise.”

I looked at her and grimaced, searching for a way out of my dilemma. I thought that she was bullshitting me about having kids my age and the last thing I wanted to do was to insult her by telling her she looked older than she was. Then inspiration struck. “I’ll tell you under two conditions.”

“Name them,” she replied promptly.

“All right,” I said. “One, you don’t get mad and two, you show me your driver’s license to prove your age.” I felt pretty smug. I was sure that she wouldn’t accept that last condition. For some silly reason, most women are loathe to reveal their age to anybody. Don’t ask me why, they just are.

She raised an eyebrow at me and smiled. “All right,” she said after a moment. “You’ve got a deal. How old am I?”

I looked at her and bit my lip. “Be honest!” she said, shaking a finger at me. “I’ve already promised I won’t get mad and I always keep my word.”

I sighed and shook my head. She’d called my bluff. “Thirty-three,” I said.

She laughed and squeezed my arm again. “Honey, I’m sorry to have to break your bubble, but I’m pushing forty. Hard.”

“Bullshit!” I said in disbelief, looking at her again.

“That’s no bullshit,” she smiled, digging in her purse. “I’m pushing forty so hard, it’s behind me. I’m almost forty-two. You wanna see my license?” She held it out to me.

I laughed and said, “What for? I can’t think of a single reason for you to say that you’re older than I thought you were. You might lie that you’re younger, but I sincerely doubt that any woman would lie and say she’s older.” I looked at her and smiled. “Especially if they know that they have to produce proof.”

“Well, you’re still a sweet talker, even though you didn’t know it at the time,” she said with a grin, tossing her license back into her purse.

I grinned back at her and our talk moved on to other things as I carefully navigated towards the city. The snowstorm had picked up in intensity; the flakes were big fluffy things that were almost hypnotic to watch in the beams of the headlights as we slowly ghosted through the night. There were also way to many of the beautiful snowflakes; the roads were terrible and steadily getting worse, piled high with snow on an icy base.

We were outside of Shelburne when our trip home came to a halt. We were just starting to climb the only hill between the city and us. It was a little hairy; the road was slicker than snot and the rear tires spun all the way up the hill, the ass end of the van whipping from side to side no matter how gently I feathered the gas pedal. Despite my best effort and our momentum, we didn’t make it. A mere one hundred feet from the crest of the hill, we came to a stop. Even worse, the road was too slick for the snow tires to hold us. We started sliding down the hill, backwards.

“You’d better hang on,” I said to Lisa as I got off the brakes and peered into the rear view mirrors. “This might get a little bumpy.”

I don’t know how I kept the van on the road. It started to slew sideways about halfway down the hill. I spun the steering wheel into the skid and tried not to shit as the van did a complete three sixty in the middle of the road. I caught it as the front end came around again and coasted back down the hill, not touching the brakes or the gas. Unless I wanted to take a thirty-mile detour on back country roads or chance that hairy fucking ride up the hill again, we were done traveling.

We were also stranded.

I stared morosely out of the windshield at the falling snow as the windshield wipers snicked quietly back and forth.

“That was,” Lisa said, “A helluva ride and some damn fine driving, Larry. I guess we’re stuck here, right?”

“Mmm,” I grunted.

She sat quietly for a few moments as I got the van off the road, backing it into a driveway at the bottom of the hill. I was worried that some asshole in an SUV with more speed than stopping power wouldn’t see us in time and hit us.

Lisa’s cell phone snapped shut as I put the truck in park. “The battery’s dead,” she said after I raised an eyebrow at her. I snagged the cord of my phone charger hanging out of the lighter and showed it to Lisa. “Nope,” she said quietly. “Mine’s an Apple.”

I reached for mine as she pitched her phone into her purse and my heart sank. I knew my phone wasn’t there; I could see it in my mind’s eye, sitting on the table in the front hall at my parent’s house. When my hand came out of my pocket empty, Lisa raised an eyebrow at me.

“I forgot the fuckin’ thing,” I said, my voice thick with disgust. “Damn it! Mom’s gonna worry herself sick if I don’t call.”

We sat quietly for a few more moments. “This is the Sullivan’s driveway,” she said softly. “Their house is about a quarter of a mile from here. I’m watching it for them while they’re away.”

I didn’t say anything.

“They’re in Aruba,” she offered after a moment.

“That’s nice,” I replied. “I wish I was with ‘em.”

Another minute of quiet time went by. “They have a phone,” she volunteered softly.

I silently watched the snowflakes hit the warm glass of the windshield and melt, only to be flicked away by the wipers. “I have the key,” she added, almost whispering.

We sat for another minute. I sighed and held out my hand. She dropped the key in it and I put it in the breast pocket of my shirt, next to my cigarettes. I took my time buttoning up my coat; I hadn’t really dressed for a snowstorm and I was dreading going out into this one.

The coat was warm enough, but I had no gloves, no boots, and just a Stetson Cowboy hat. The Stetson would work well at keeping the falling snow from going down my collar, but it wouldn’t do squat for keeping my ears warm. I was wearing a pair of dress shoes and I knew that they would be full of snow after my first step. Lisa was even worse off; she was wearing a short dress, a light coat and high heels, not the best way to be dressed for a trek through the snow. She would have to stay with the truck while I walked to the house, called home and let the family in on where I was.

“Is there anybody you want me to call for you?” I asked with my hand on the door handle.

“No,” she said. “I’ve been divorced for two years now and I live alone.”

“I could call you a cab,” I offered. “You don’t have to sit here and wait with me. If you’re broke, I’ve got enough dough to pay for it.”

She gave me an odd look and said, “I think I’ll wait with you anyway. Thanks for the offer, though.”

“Well, this will probably take me a while,” I said as I opened the door. “Stay here, I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She nodded as I stepped out of the truck into almost a foot of fresh snow. I slammed the door, went around to the back of the truck, cleared the snow away from the exhaust pipe, and then started slogging my way towards the Sullivan’s house.

The driveway took a turn and within seconds, I was in the dark, out of the red glow of the taillights and my shoes were full of snow. I stopped for a minute to let my eyes adjust and started moving again when I could see. I had to step over a sizable tree that was down across the driveway, which shot all to hell my half-formed idea of going back to the van and driving to the house.

A quarter of a mile isn’t a long walk, unless you’re doing it in the middle of the night in a snowstorm on unfamiliar terrain. Luckily, after the initial turn, the driveway was as straight as an arrow. Just before it got to the house, it split into a big circular turn-around, going right past the front porch and meeting up with the driveway again. I stepped over a low rail fence and cut through the circle in order to save a few steps. By the time I reached the house, my feet were soaked and freezing, along with my ears. I let myself in and made the call to my parent’s house.

“I have a full tank of gas and I’m parked off the road,” I said to my dad through chattering teeth. “As soon as a snowplow goes by, I’ll get back on the road and follow him to town.” I didn’t tell him that I had picked up a stranded motorist; it didn’t seem relevant and I didn’t need a lecture about picking up strangers on the road in the middle of the night, even if it was a woman.

“All right, Larry,” dad said. “You stay there until you can travel safely. Don’t forget to crack a window for fresh air and keep the tailpipe clear of drifting snow.”

“Been there, done that,” I said. “I’ll call you if I run into a problem, dad. Otherwise, I’m gonna call it a night. I’ll see you later.”

While I was there, I made a half-hearted attempt to find some boots. I discovered a couple of pairs in the mudroom, but they were too small to fit on my size fourteen feet. So, I gritted my teeth and left the house, making sure to lock it up behind me. I followed my tracks, stepping over the fence and cutting through the turn-around circle. I made it about halfway through it before disaster struck.