One
The folks at the last convenience store warned me not to go any farther. With the storm coming, there was simply no point in going on.
Spring in these parts doesn’t come ’til April. For the snow to truly be gone? That’d be June.
You’d better go back to where you came from, sweetheart. This weather ain’t for city girls who dress like you.
I rolled my eyes and told them I’d take my chances. The sky looked fine. Everyone was on their way to their families for the holidays. Even if something did happen, I figured I’d be able to find help.
I had my chains and a full tank, but in retrospect, maybe I should’ve listened.
The storm hit when it hit. One second, it was sunny and clear; the next, I’d turned into the mountains and found myself inside a blizzard. Even with chains, the wheels spun. The heater started blowing cold air.
I tried to pretend it was no big deal for the first couple of minutes, but the altitude kept climbing, and soon, I couldn’t even see the road.
I didn’t want to admit that maybe the clerk had been right, but pressing on started to feel like a really bad idea.
The dashboard lights flickered.
“Okay, this is it,” I said to myself, taking a deep breath.
I pulled the gear into reverse and backed a little to the side, then shifted to drive and spun the wheel all the way to the left.
I was in the middle of the turn when the car got stuck.
I kicked the gas—and kicked it again.
It wouldn’t budge.
I got out to check. Tried digging the snow with my bare hands. Got back in, kicked the gas again. Pulled the gear into reverse and tried once more.
I screamed. Hit the horn with both arms.
Nothing worked.
No matter what I did, the car stayed exactly where it was.
Well, someone else had to be coming up this way eventually. It was the holiday season. I couldn’t be the only one taking this road. I mean, was there another way around? I didn’t think so.
I kept the engine running, sitting in my car.
The engine died around 4 p.m.
The sky was already dark.
The snow had frozen everything solid.
I got out, took one step, and my entire lower leg sank under.
The flakes felt like blades in the harsh wind.
I trembled, putting one foot in front of the other, fighting my way back, hoping some idiot like me with a big truck would turn up.
I couldn’t even feel my face.
My boots were soaked within minutes.
All I felt was irritating pain and deep shivers in my bones—cold penetrating my coats and burning deep into my skin.
I remembered snow differently, at my grandma’s in Oregon. There, winter was magical—snowmen and skating, riding in my grandparents’ car, looking out at a world covered in white.
Literally. Not. This.
I didn’t believe I’d see a light. By the time it came, I had fallen for the fifth time, thinking I was going to die in these mountains.
It wasn’t bright at first—just a blurry blob that looked unreal. But then it got clearer, brighter, and I heard the sound of an engine, chained wheels crashing through the snow, headed toward me.
I started to feel hope again.
“Help…” I lifted my head and shouted in a weak voice. My lips had stopped trembling by then. “Help…”
The truck stopped a little way off.
The door opened.
A man ran toward me.
He was around my father’s age, with a mustache and thick brows, looking kind of like Sheriff Swan from Twilight. His eyes never once lingered on my face. Like a silent hero.
He had a warm hat and a really thick coat, properly dressed for weather like this.
He picked me up, carried me to his truck, placed me gently on the seat, wrapped me in blankets, and pressed a hat on my head.
Then he tossed me a warm rubber pouch full of hot water and shut the door.
“You’re gonna be just fine,” he said, climbing into the driver’s seat and closing the door. He turned the heater all the way to the warmest while I shivered, clutching the warm rubber pouch.
He kicked on the gas and charged forward.
“No… don’t…” I managed to squeeze a word out. “G-go… b-b-back…”
He gave me a look and hit the brakes, and words disappeared from my lips.
“The storm is only gonna get worse,” he said in a low voice. “You just sit back and focus on getting warm.”
I’d usually be offended by those words, but the way he spoke reminded me of my father, who never learned how to express his feelings in a way other people could easily understand.
So when he hit the gas again, I sank back into the seat and clutched the pouch, feeling the warmth seep through my skin.
All I needed was to know I could trust him.
I did know.
He saved me, wrapped me in warm clothes, and now, he was taking me to safety. Who was I to question him?
Instead of getting in his way, I focused on stopping my teeth from making more embarrassing noises.
I flexed and opened my fingers, slowly regaining some mobility, and once he saw I did, he passed me a silver insulated bottle.
“Drink it,” he said. “It’ll help.”
“What’s in it?”
“Hot water.”
I tried to twist the lid off, but it was tight.
“Every year, an idiot drives up this road, thinking they’re not gonna die,” he said coldly. “I had a room at the Red Motel. Thought I’d stay in town this year. Wasn’t gonna make the trip, but they dragged me out, told me to drive up to my cabin because there’s a girl up here who’s gonna freeze to death on her way to Oregon.”
“R-really?” My lips trembled.
The stranger didn’t say another word. He just took the thermos from my hand, placed it between his legs, twisted the cap off for me, poured some water into it, and handed it back.
I managed to take a sip between the quivering and the chattering, and as it rolled down my chest into my stomach, I felt, for the first time, that I had a grip on my own shivering.
“Thank you,” I said.
He nodded in reply.
I didn’t know if it was the rubber pouch filled with hot water on my stomach or something else, but I felt a warm stream in my heart. He came all the way up here in the worsening storm to save me. He even gave up his motel room.
The road had long disappeared. I had no idea where we were going—just that we were deeper in the mountains. The blizzard was getting worse. There was no turning back now.
It made me nervous and scared looking outside the window, so I gazed at him instead.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“My friends call me Ned.”
As if trying to make me feel better, he reached into his pocket and handed me his driver’s license.
Edgar Finnegan.
I looked up at him. My fingers brushed against the photo of him, taken five years ago. I didn’t mean to spy, but still, I did the math in my head.
Fifty-three.
He was more than twice my age—two years older than my father.
A young girl like me probably wouldn’t spark his interest.
The thought came out of nowhere.
I shook my head, a little embarrassed, telling myself to stop. But I couldn’t help replaying the image of him carrying me to his truck in the snow.
He was strong, steady, and fearless—not like men my age, with their ambition and ignorance. His temperance came from years of surviving the harsh weather. He knew, not guessed or risked.
And I didn’t know any man like that in my life, except my father.
“Is your wife at the motel?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
I immediately regretted it.
He doesn’t even know my name yet, and I was already asking about his marital status… Suggesting what, exactly? Why the hell did I ask?
“Shit… S-Sorry…” I stuttered, flustered. “I’m Casey, by the way. Casey Jones. And you definitely don’t have to answer that.”
For a second or two, he didn’t say a thing, as if it was only appropriate for me to sit in my own dread.
And slowly, he talked again.
“Like the country song?” he asked. His voice was low and almost inaudible.
“Hm?”
“The country song,” he said again.
He turned to look at me, as if checking whether I had heard him right, but when he caught the blankness on my face, he raised his brows.
“Never mind,” he sighed.
He focused on the road again.
It almost seemed like he had something else to say, but he just decided to keep the thoughts to himself.
I handed back his ID, feeling a little left out.
And for a while, we sat in awkward silence.
“You know, your dad named you after a train driver,” he said with a short chuckle, muttering mostly to himself.
“Where are you traveling from?”
This, I heard.
“San Diego.”
He made a low hum in his throat, as if that explained something.
“You headed to Oregon for the holiday?” he asked. “You got any family there?”
“Yeah. My grandparents live there.”
He made a face, but I didn’t know what that meant.
“Let me guess—you take the plane every year, but this year you thought, hey, why not do something stupid for a change?” He laughed, as if my suffering was entertainment.
My face burned.
I wanted to snap something back, but the words were caught somewhere between my throat and this stupid warmth in my chest. All I could think about was how he sounded like my father when he teased me. And I started to let go of the rubber pouch I had been squeezing so hard.
Civilization was miles behind us. We were in no man’s land while the wind started to rock the truck.
I had never been this far away from home, but I felt…safe in the blankets, next to him.
My gaze landed on his face again, thinking how he was like a mountain, unmoved by the turbulence in the outside world.
My heart slowed, and all the drumming in madness and panic started to fade.
“You gotta quit looking at me like that, girl,” he said softly after a while.
“Like what?” I played coy.
“Like you’ve got a thing for me.” He made a grunting noise and shifted in the driver’s seat. He reached and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Is this how men of your generation flirt?” I snapped back.
At that, he took a sharp breath in.
“How old are you?” he asked, his voice sounding a little guilty.
“Twenty-two,” I whispered, not even blinking.
He made another noise, shifting in his seat again.
“I’m scared to look outside the window,” I said innocently.
“Then close your eyes,” he said, clearing his throat.
But I refused.
I was smiling and flushing, and I couldn’t just look away.
He raised his hand and put it up between us to block my gaze.
I snuggled down in my seat, a little daring.
He kept his hand between us, the other on the wheel. I sniffed his scent on the blanket he wrapped me in, and the two of us stayed in silence as something brewed between us.
At some point, I gazed down. Between his legs, the fabric folded into a wrinkle that kind of looked like a bulge.
It was pointed in my direction, hard and a little round on the edges. It looked like something was straining the fabric underneath all the layers—and I started to bite my lip.
For a moment, I couldn’t move my eyes away.
If you stayed, the rest is here.
