Alpine Embrace

Chapter 5

I woke up expecting sunlight. I expected the blinding glare of snow reflecting off the Alps, the kind of postcard view that costs five hundred euros a night.

Instead, I woke up in a gray twilight.

I rolled over, burying my face in the pillow. It was a good pillow, goose down, firm but yielding, smelling faintly of lavender laundry detergent. For a second, I forgot where I was. I forgot the eviction, the cheating boyfriend, the blizzard.

Then the memory of the door slamming in my face came rushing back.

Ghosts.

I groaned, pulling the duvet over my head. "Why, Kelsea? Why are you the way that you are? Why couldn't you just stay in the living room and read a magazine like a normal houseguest?"

Because I was me. Because I poked bruises to see if they still hurt. Because a locked door was an invitation I had never been able to refuse.

I lay there for another ten minutes, listening. The house was silent. No wind.

That was strange. The wind had been screaming like a banshee last night. Now? Absolute, heavy silence.

I pushed the covers back and sat up. The air in the room was chilly, but not freezing. I padded across the plush carpet to the window and pulled back the heavy curtains.

I blinked.

There was no view. There was no sky. There was no valley.

There was just white. Packed, dense white pressed directly against the glass.

I touched the pane. It was cold as ice. The snow had drifted, or fallen, so high that it had completely buried the guest room window. We were in an igloo.

"Okay," I whispered. "That’s... terrifying."

I needed coffee. And I needed to face the music. Or, more accurately, the pianist.

I quickly dressed in the same borrowed sweatpants and hoodie from the night before, feeling gross and unkempt. I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to tame the bedhead into a messy bun that said 'artistic chic' rather than 'raccoon in a dumpster.'

I opened the bedroom door. The hallway was dim.

"Hello?" I called out softly.

No answer.

I walked into the main living area. The massive fireplace was dark, just a bed of glowing red embers remaining. The room was shadowed, lit only by the gray light filtering in from the upper clerestory windows which were evidently still above the snowline.

Jaxon was in the kitchen.

He was standing with his back to me, staring at a coffee machine that looked like it belonged on the deck of a spaceship. He was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt that fit him like a second skin, exposing arms that were crossed tightly over his chest.

The tension radiating off him was palpable. It was a force field.

"Good morning," I said, stepping into the kitchen.

He didn't turn around. "Coffee is in the pot. Mugs are in the cabinet above it."

His voice was flat. Monotone. Devoid of the warmth he’d shown Mia last night, and devoid of the raw emotion he’d shown in the studio. This was Factory Reset Jaxon.

"Thanks," I said.

I reached for a mug. The ceramic clinked loudly against the granite counter. I winced.

"Look," I started, pouring the coffee. "About last night..."

"Don't," he cut me off.

He finally turned. His face was a stone mask. His eyes were shadowed, dark circles bruising the skin beneath them. He hadn't slept.

"We’re not talking about it," he said. "You overstepped. I reacted. It’s done."

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry," I pressed, because I apparently had a death wish. "I heard the music and I was... drawn to it. It was beautiful."

His jaw clenched so hard I thought a tooth might crack. "It wasn't a performance, Kelsea. It was private. Do you understand the word private? Or is that another concept you struggle with, like 'storm warnings' and 'trespassing'?"

Ouch.

The sting of his words made me recoil. "Okay. Wow. Message received. You're grumpy. I'm intrusive. We're a match made in hell."

"We're not a match," he snapped. "We're two people stuck in a box until the plows come."

He grabbed his own mug and took a sip, grimacing as if it tasted like poison.

"Speaking of the box," I said, trying to pivot to neutral ground. "My window is buried. Like, completely."

"Yeah," he said, looking at the wall of windows in the living room. They were covered too. The snow was halfway up the glass, creating a claustrophobic, aquarium-like effect. "We got another two feet overnight. Drifts are up to eight feet on the north face."

"Is that... normal?"

"For a storm of the century? Sure." He set his mug down with a thud. "I have to go out and clear the intake vents for the generator and the chimney. If they get blocked, we get carbon monoxide poisoning and we don't wake up."

"Oh," I said, my eyes widening. "That sounds... bad."

"It's manageable. If you know what you're doing." He walked past me toward the mudroom. "I’m going out the second-floor balcony. The ground floor doors are blocked."

"Can I help?"

He stopped and looked me up and down. The look wasn't insulting, exactly, but it was dismissive. "You don't have gear. You'd last five minutes. Stay here. Watch Mia if she wakes up. Don't let her turn on the TV. We need to conserve power."

"Aye aye, Captain," I saluted weakly.

He ignored the salute and disappeared upstairs. A moment later, I heard the heavy sound of a sliding door opening and the rush of wind, then silence again.

I was alone in the kitchen.

"Great," I muttered into my coffee. "Trapped in a snow globe with a man who hates me."

"He doesn't hate you."

I jumped, sloshing hot coffee onto my hand.

I turned to see Mia standing in the hallway entrance. She was clutching a stuffed penguin that had seen better days. Her hair was a riot of curls, sticking up in every direction.

"You sneak up on people," I accused gently, wiping my hand on my sweatpants.

"I have ninja feet," she said gravely. She shuffled into the kitchen and climbed onto her stool. "Daddy is just grumpy in the mornings. He needs caffeine. And bacon."

"He’s had caffeine," I said. "I think the bacon might be a good call, but I’m terrified to touch his stove."

"I can help," Mia offered. "I know how to crack the eggs."

I looked at the six-year-old. I looked at the silent, oppressive kitchen.

"You know what?" I said. "Let's do it. Pancakes. If we make pancakes, maybe he won't evict me into the snowbank."

"Chocolate chips?" Mia asked, her eyes lighting up.

"Is the Pope Catholic?" I asked. Mia stared at me blankly. "Yes. Chocolate chips. Lots of them."

For the next hour, the tension in the house lifted slightly. Mia was a delight, chatty, imaginative, and shockingly bossy. She directed me to the flour, the sugar, and the secret stash of chocolate chips hidden behind the quinoa.

We made a mess. Flour dusted the granite counter. Eggshells ended up in the sink. But for the first time since I arrived, I felt my shoulders relax.

"So," I said, flipping a pancake that was more oval than circle. "Does your dad always play the piano?"

Mia paused, a whisk in her hand. "Only when he's sad."

My spatula froze. "Is he sad a lot?"

Mia shrugged, a small, mature gesture that looked wrong on her little shoulders. "He misses Mommy. Especially at Christmas. Mommy loved Christmas. She put lights on everything. Even the toilet."

I choked out a laugh. "The toilet?"

"Yeah. It blinked." Mia giggled. "Daddy took them down. He doesn't like the lights anymore."

My heart squeezed. It was a physical pain in my chest. He doesn't like the lights anymore.

I looked around the chalet. It was beautiful, architectural, and expensive. But she was right. There wasn't a single decoration. No tree. No wreath. No stockings. It was a sterile, beautiful tomb.

"Well," I said, forcing a brightness I didn't feel. "Maybe we can make our own lights? I'm an artist, remember? I can draw anything."

"Can you draw a dragon eating a snowman?" Mia asked.

"I can absolutely draw that."

The back door, the one leading from the mudroom, rattled. Then the sound of boots stomping on the floor.

Jaxon walked back into the kitchen. He was covered in snow. It was plastered to his pants, his jacket, his hair. His face was red from the cold, wind-chapped and raw.

He looked at the kitchen. He looked at the flour on the counter. He looked at the stack of chocolate chip pancakes.

"What is this?" he asked, wiping snow from his eyebrows.

"Breakfast," Mia announced. "We made you a peace offering. It has chocolate."

Jaxon looked at me. I braced myself for a lecture about messing up his kitchen.

Instead, his shoulders slumped. He let out a long breath, and the fight seemed to drain out of him.

"Pancakes," he said quietly.

"Eat," I said, echoing his command from the night before. "You look frozen."

He walked over to the island and sat down heavily. He didn't take off his coat. He just picked up a fork and took a bite.

"Good?" Mia asked.

"Good," he grunted. He looked at me, his gray eyes unreadable. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," I said, throwing his own words back at him. "We still have to survive the cleanup."

A corner of his mouth twitched. It wasn't a smile, but it was a threat of one.

"The vents are clear," he said, cutting into the stack. "But the snow is heavy. It's wet snow. Concrete. It's putting a lot of weight on the roof."

"Is the roof strong?" I asked.

"It's Swiss engineering," he said. "It's strong. But..."

He didn't finish the sentence.

Suddenly, the lights overhead flickered.

They buzzed, dimmed to a dull brown, and then surged back to full brightness.

We all froze.

"That wasn't the generator," Jaxon said, his voice sharpening. "That was the main line trying to reconnect and failing."

BZZZZZT.

The lights flickered again. Longer this time.

And then, with a definitive click, everything went black.

The refrigerator hum died. The low whir of the heating vents stopped. The silence rushed back in, absolute and suffocating.

"Daddy?" Mia whispered in the dark.

"Stay put," Jaxon’s voice came from the darkness. authoritative. calm. "Nobody move."

I heard him stand up. "I need to get to the breaker panel. The generator should have kicked in automatically."

"Why didn't it?" I asked, my voice rising an octave.

"I don't know," Jaxon said. "But if it doesn't start in the next ten minutes, the temperature in here is going to drop fast."

I sat there in the dark, smelling chocolate and fear.

"Mia," I whispered, reaching out to find her small hand in the gloom. "Do you still have those ninja eyes?"

"Yes," she whispered back, gripping my fingers tight.

"Good," I said. "Because I think we're going to need them."

From the utility room, I heard Jaxon curse. A loud, violent sound of metal hitting metal.

"Jaxon?" I called out.

"It’s jammed," he yelled back, his voice echoing. "The transfer switch is frozen. We have no power. We have no heat."

I looked at the gray light filtering through the snow-covered windows. The "luxurious chalet" had just turned into a very expensive freezer.

And we were the meat.