You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology (33 page)

“And we’ll pay you the tour cost.”

The old man considered them both, his keen eye noting Marc’s expensive ski jacket and Selina’s worn winter coat. “Where are you both from?”

“I’m from Athol,” Selina said, at the same time Marc said, “Seattle.”

“Which one is it?”

“I’m from Athol,” she answered. “Marc is from Seattle. He’s giving me a ride to Salt Lake City, and we’re stopping at touristy spots along the way.”

“That so.” The man rubbed at the white stubble on his chin. “That all seems a far bit out of your way. How do I know you can fix the website?”

“If you have the password, I can fix it.”

“He’s real smart with computers,” Selina attested, then giggled at the understatement.

“It’s on the fridge, for all that I know what to do with it.”

“Not only will I update your website but I’ll teach you how to do it yourself.”

The old man nodded once. “Son, you have yourself a tour.”

They were welcomed into the house and greeted by an older woman, also of indeterminate age, who smiled at the idea of their website being fixed and bustled off to get them some coffee. The furniture in the house was sparse, and what was there was threadbare. But after their coats had been hung up, they were led to a fairly new computer.

“Nice,” Marc said with a nod at the flat screen monitor and desktop CPU, whose red power buttons glowed. “This will be even easier. I was afraid I was going to have to engineer something fancy because of ancient web browsers. But we should get this done in no time.”

“I’ll get the password for you, then,” the old man said.

He returned with a piece of paper, and his wife followed, clutching four mugs of coffee in her hands. The mugs were blue metal with white splotches.
Campware,
Selina recognized.

“Before I get started, I’m Marc.” He tilted his head toward Selina. “And this is Selina. Thanks for agreeing to the tour.”

“I’m Jeremiah,” the man said. “And this here’s Phyllis.”

“Jeremiah and Phyllis,” Selina said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She accepted her cup of coffee from Phyllis, then they both turned to watch Marc and Jeremiah at the computer.

“How long have you lived here?” Selina asked Phyllis.

“Oh, since I married Jeremiah. He’s my second husband. He was born here, and the ice caves have been in his family since they came west. All the good farmin’ land’s been sold. We make what little money we can off tours and such. There’s a gift shop in the big building.”

“You don’t give the tours, do you?” Selina was horrified at the idea of this old couple taking several tours a day into caves.

“Not anymore, no. We get a couple of our grandkids down every summer. They know all the good stories, and they give the tours. They need the tip money. We run the gift shop.” Phyllis shrugged and took a sip of her coffee. “Not sure who’s going to take the place over once we leave. None of the grandkids want it—our son sure don’t—and I don’t know that I’d want them to have it. Good enough life for Jeremiah and me, but not much of a life for anyone else, I suppose.”

Now that Selina’s coffee had cooled down a little, she took a sip of the strong, bracing brew. If this was what they drank every day, it was no wonder they were spry enough to run a gift shop and tourist attraction.

The two women continued to make small talk while Marc walked Jeremiah through all the steps of logging in to their website—which Marc had been excited to learn was a Wordpress site—and how to change content. He had the older man sign in and sign back out of the site several times until both men were confident he could do it on his own. Then Marc asked Phyllis to sit down and repeat the process.

When they’d finished, Marc dug into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He gave what appeared to be business cards to the couple, one each. “These are my personal cards. I can help you with almost anything you need on the computer, and I can probably teach you how to do it over the phone.”

“That’s mighty kind of you.” The old man looked at his wife. “I’ll be honest . . . I wasn’t real sure you’d be able to help us. Strangers, you know.”

“If you like,” Phyllis interrupted, “I’ll make you lunch while Jeremiah gives you the tour. Least we can do to thank you.”

Marc caught Selina’s eye over the couple’s head, and she nodded. “That sounds great, Phyllis. I’ve been eating out for a week and would appreciate a home-cooked meal.”

Jeremiah handed them their coats. “Let’s go, then.”

Back to being bundled up, Marc and Selina followed the old man out of the house. He led them on a trail through bits of lava rock and sagebrush, past more statues—smaller ones, this time—and to a dugout in the rocks where there was a small door.

As they walked, Marc held Selina’s hand while he chatted with the old man. Jeremiah told them stories too far-fetched to be believed, though they were fun to hear. They included train robbers and a missing trunk of gold, a Shoshone girl who had escaped her capture from another Native American tribe and had hidden out among the caves, and at least one Wild West shoot-out. Though, by the huge grin on Jeremiah’s face, she could tell the shoot-out was one he’d made up just for them.

Through the door, he led them along a wooden path that had been built over a slick of ice. Stalactites hung down from the ceiling, and stalagmites busted up out of the ice.

“This is really cool,” Marc said, leaning over to whisper in her ear.

His warm breath—and mouth simply being so close to her neck—sent shivers down her spine. “Yeah. I’m glad we could come here.”

“Hard to tell that the caves are cold when it’s cold outside,” Jeremiah said, continuing his tour, “but they’re thirty degrees in the summer, too. My parents used to store their meat down here before electricity and before they started tourin’.”

He went on to tell them about the natural history of the caves, the geology of the local area, and a little bit about some of the other caves off the highway. “But this is the only one with ice,” he said proudly.

Selina couldn’t help but smile. Not only at Jeremiah, but at the fact that not once during their entire tour did Marc let go of her hand.

Maybe, she thought as they shared lunch and conversation in Phyllis and Jeremiah’s small kitchen, if the gallery job turned out to be a dead end and Babe’s friend couldn’t help her, she’d see if Marc wanted company on the rest of his winter vacation. The past two days had been the most fun she could ever remember having. And while the birds of prey sanctuary was neat and the ice caves were cool, it wasn’t the sights that had made the past couple of days so wonderful. It had been Marc.

Seeing him with Phyllis and Jeremiah only made her like him more. He’d been kind and understanding as he’d talked them through their website and had genuinely seemed interested in their lives. The older couple, too, seemed to see the same warmth and trustworthiness in him that had convinced her to get in the SUV and drive away with him in the first place. He was a solid, hardworking man, which was exactly what she wanted in her life.

Or she was sure he could be, if he stopped his wanderings. She hoped she was smart enough not to expect him to be something he wasn’t—or something he didn’t want to be.

After lunch and good-byes, her phone buzzed as she was climbing into the car. She pulled it out of her pocket and checked her messages. The ones she had been hoping for last night were there, but her heart fell as she read them. Babe’s friend had a room she could rent, and her professor thought he might be able to help her get a job at the gallery. Everything she’d hoped for in Salt Lake City was coming together, just as she was thinking of throwing it all away and becoming as free as Marc.

Only she’d never be free like Marc. She didn’t have the money for it.

“Have you ever thought about staying in Salt Lake?” she asked as they turned onto the main highway.

“What? No.” He shook his head as if to emphasize his point. “I’ve had this idea of a trip planned ever since Curtis and I decided to sell Terry. I’m not giving it up.”

She looked back at her phone, disappointment sinking her heart like the
Titanic
.

“Looking forward to the falls?” he asked, his voice chipper, insensitive to her hurt. But of course he wouldn’t know. He was still operating under the rules of their original agreement.

“Yeah,” she said, determined to spend the drive from the ice caves to the waterfall reminding herself of her dream and how close she was to it, Marc or no Marc.

“A
re you sure
you know how to get to the falls?” Selina asked, her voice as doubtful as her expression as she gazed out the windows at the sagebrush dotting the side of the road.

“These are the directions I found online. And my GPS is sending me to the same place, so this must be it.” But he really wasn’t very sure of it, either. There wasn’t much out here besides the sagebrush and large houses spaced almost a quarter mile apart.

“Have a little confidence in technology,” he said. “After all, technology failures led me to you, so even if it’s wrong, it’ll be right.” At the memory, he broke into a wide smile. “Besides, we went over that massive canyon about ten minutes ago. The falls have to be around here somewhere.”

They started to descend into the canyon. Then they passed a closed pay station for the parking lot. They were in the right place. The town’s website had said there was only a fee during the summer. They had their pick of parking spaces and there wasn’t anyone else with them as they walked out to the viewing area.

“Huh,” Selina said. “I’ve heard of Shoshone Falls, of course, but I’m not sure what I expected.”

Massive gray stones stepped down from the river before morphing into a cliff that plunged over two hundred feet. Water streamed over the cliffs, not in one big sheet, but in several smaller waterfalls spanning the breadth of the canyon. On the far side of the river was a red-roofed white building that was probably several stories tall but was dwarfed by the magnitude of the cliffs.

The view was pretty, no question about that. But it wasn’t the massive flow of water they had both expected. Less disappointing than not seeing wolves with the Wolf People and a closed submarine museum in the middle of northern Idaho, but still . . . At least Selina was with him.

Marc pulled out his favorite phone. The website for the falls was still up and he skimmed the information again. “Ah. The falls are best viewed in the late spring and early summer when the snow runoff is at its highest. We should come back.”

She made a noncommittal noise. Her face was as unreadable. Still, it wasn’t a no, and this was probably the best opportunity Marc would have to broach his idea.

“I’ve had a great time today,” he said. “And yesterday, with you at the bird sanctuary.” He gathered up all his excitement, then took a deep breath so that he didn’t bowl her over with his enthusiasm. “After Snowdance, I’ve got hotel rooms booked all around the Rocky Mountains, with a week in between each place for driving around and seeing the sights. You should come with me. I’ll bring you back to Salt Lake. Or Denver. Or Tahoe. Or whatever city you want to be in when we’re done. Come have fun with me.”

She blinked, and his heart sank.

“I’ve got plans,” she said.

“Since when?” Being lost felt like a waste of time and the e-mails he was getting back about his project were disheartening, but it was all okay with Selina next to him. The idea of her not being there was suddenly unbearable.

“Since we left the caves. Babe’s friend can rent me a room in Salt Lake. It’s near some bus lines so I can get to work once I find something, and it’s not far from the community college campus. It’s not much, but it’s everything I need right now. And my professor thought me working in the gallery was possible. His friend needs someone on a part-time basis. With a waitressing job, I could make it work. Maybe even to save up a little money. Get my independence back.”

The word
independence
registered in his mind but not before his heart fell out of his body and landed at his feet with as much force as he imagined went over the falls in front of them at peak season.

His mind climbed around and over that word, trying to figure out why she would choose to live in a
rented
room, ride the bus, and work two jobs when she could be driving around the west with him, skiing at some of the best resorts in the world. “I’ll pay for your ski lessons,” he offered. “It’ll be fun.”

She leaned forward to rest her arms on the railing, then looked over her shoulder at him. “It’s not the ski lessons or the hotels or the meals. Or the fun. I don’t think you’re having fun.”

“I’m having fun with you.” He folded his arms on the railing, too, their skin barely touching. He needed to touch her, to know she was still next to him, at least for this moment.

“I guess.” She shook her head, her blond hair bouncing around her face. The hair that had caught his attention only a couple of days ago. The hair he might never see again.

“No,” she corrected herself. “I see that you are. But you’ve never stopped checking your phones, and it’s not like you’re not scrolling Facebook. You’re waiting for an e-mail saying you can be let back in to the project that you sold. And if that e-mail comes through, well, I’m sure you’ll do as you promised and get me to whatever city I want to be in, but you’ll drop this man-of-leisure act in a heartbeat and every minute more you have to spend fulfilling your promise to me will be time you resent.”

“That’s not . . .” He was going to say it wasn’t true, but it was. And he wasn’t a liar. “I won’t get an e-mail inviting me to work on the project.” His heart was already on the ground and admitting the truth felt like his heart was now being kicked over the rocks. By feet shod in cleats. “I applied for a job at the company that bought Terry. Curtis sent my application back to me with an e-mail that said,
You’re making a fool of yourself
.” He clenched his fists in frustration. “I don’t know what else to do besides keep driving around and skiing. I’m done with the project of my life.”

He felt hollow and full of holes. Anything that got poured into him was going to drain right out. A sieve. A waste.