Emilie's Christmas Love (28 page)

Adam shrugged away from him. "You just don't want to be there with her."

Nick shook his head. "She didn't want us there forever, Adam."

"That's not what she said."

"I have to go." Nick’s voice was rough with emotion. "I'll be back by noon. Look out for your sister."

Adam watched his uncle leave in the big truck. He kissed Amber's cheek and whispered to her that he knew what had to be done to make it right. Then he slipped out the side door, and started walking away from the daycare.

Chapter Sixteen

By ten that morning, blizzard warnings were all over the radio and television. The snow was falling hard and fast, covering tracks in the street as quickly as cars passed. People were advised to leave work early and take in some bottled water and batteries for their flashlights and radios in case of power failure.

Nick finished his first job and decided against the second. The roads were slippery and the snow was piling up quickly on the already icy ground. It looked as though it could get bad. He’d have his hands full after the weather cleared with cars that didn't make it home.

He decided to stop for some food before the stores got crowded. The daycare was only a few blocks from his house so he knew they could make it home, even if they had to walk. The week away from the house had left his cupboard bare. If they were going to have any Christmas at all, he had to stop.

The stores were crowded. Bread was scarce, and batteries were gone. All he needed were the basics, and a few bags of Christmas cookies. And some fudge. And some stuff for punch.

They would put up their own Christmas tree when they got home. It wouldn't be the same as being with Emilie, but he supposed they might as well get used to it. He hadn't brought their presents to Emilie’s house. He’d been waiting until Christmas. It was just as well.

He wanted to get through the holiday. Then he wanted to forget Emilie Ferrier. It wouldn't be easy without moving away from Ferrier’s Mountain, but he was determined that she wouldn't drive him out of town.

Ferrier's Mountain was a good place to raise the kids. Good schools. Good people. He owned his business and it did pretty well. He’d be able to give Amber and Adam all they needed and some of what they wanted.

If his heart broke a little more the first few times he saw Emilie again on the street or in school, he’d eventually get over her. If sometimes he wanted to die knowing that she was so close and he couldn't be with her, he’d remember that he had Amber and Adam.

He pulled into the daycare center parking lot a little before noon. By the look of the traffic, everyone had the same idea. Kids were running and sliding in the heavy snowfall. Parents he recognized, but didn't really know, nodded to him as they passed.

It was as dark as evening with the heavy clouds and the thick snow. Christmas lights twinkled in the darkness, reminding him of Emilie's house and the thousands of lights she'd bought for the holiday.

He shook his head. Everything reminded him of Emilie.

"Hi, Mr. Garrett," the toddler lady said. "I thought you'd be by early."

"Hi," he returned. "It's pretty bad out there already."

"Nice for Christmas." She smiled at him. "I'll have Amber ready to go in a jiffy."

"Is Adam outside?"

She shrugged. "I haven't seen him. He's probably with Mrs. North."

Mrs. North had only seen him that morning when Nick had dropped Amber off.

"I thought he went with you," she told him. "I saw him with you this morning. I just assumed that he left with you. When I turned around, both of you were gone."

They looked frantically through the whole building. Mrs. North called the workers who'd gone home that morning. No one had seen Adam since Nick had dropped him off at eight am.

Mrs. North looked at Nick as she dialed the phone again. "I don't know what happened, Mr. Garrett. We'd better not take any chances. I'm calling the police."

The police cruiser had a hard time making it to the daycare. Already, the highway patrol was calling for people to stay off the roads. The weather was too bad to send out snowplows and the snow was piling up on the streets. Visibility was down to a few feet.

When the police arrived, they calmed Mrs. North, who was at the point of ripping out her hair.

"I don't know where he could be," she told them. "We're a reputable daycare. We don't lose our children!"

"No one thinks anything different, Donna," the chief assured her. He looked at Nick. "Do you have any idea where your son could have gone?"

"My nephew," Nick corrected tautly. "I don't know. I guess he could’ve gone anywhere."

"Was he upset?" the chief asked. "Had you argued about Christmas presents or something?"

"No." Nick thought again. "I think I know where he might be headed."

He picked up the phone and called Emilie. Adam was probably trying to get to her house and talk to her. Why hadn't he thought about it sooner?

The phone rang, but there was no answer. He slammed down the receiver. "He's trying to get to Emilie Ferrier's house."

"Miss Ferrier? Why?" the chief asked in surprise.

"She's his teacher," Nick supplied in a rush, grabbing Amber, and heading for the door. "He wanted to spend Christmas with her."

Nick missed the long looks exchanged between Donna North and the chief.

"We'll meet you out there," the chief promised. "If we have to, we'll bring in snowmobiles for a search."

Nick had a difficult time making it to the Ferrier mansion even though he was in a heavy truck with chains on the tires. He could barely see the road. The windshield wipers were having a hard time clearing the window. Fortunately, there were no other cars on the road.

He thought that he could leave Amber with Joda and make his way back from the house toward the road. Adam had been gone four hours. He knew the general direction of Emilie's house. He could be anywhere, lost in the snow, and the worsening conditions.

Joda ran out into the snow to meet him as he climbed out of his truck. "I knew you would return."

"Adam's lost," Nick blurted out. "He left the daycare this morning. I think he’s trying to get here."

Joda took Amber from him and they ran into the house. Emilie was coming down the stairs when they walked into the foyer.

She took one look at Nick’s strained face and asked, "What's wrong?” 

"Adam's trying to get here to talk to you."

"I haven’t seen him.” She knew what the conditions were like outside. It terrified her to think that Adam could be out there alone.

"He's walking here from the daycare.”

She drew in a frightened breath. "How far is that?"

"About five miles. He knows how to get here, I think. It's really bad outside. I don't know if he can make it. He's been gone over four hours already."

Emilie nodded. "I'll change and help you look for him."

"No. The storm is really bad. The police are on their way to help. They have snowmobiles. They'll help me look."

"What can I do?"

"Stay here," he replied. "He might make it here. Joda is going to take care of Amber."

Emilie watched him walk back out the door without another word. Snow pelted the foyer, leaving a heavy trail behind him. There was the loud sound of a snowmobile starting up in the driveway. The two women looked at one another.

"I'll make some coffee," Emilie told her aunt. "We might need it."

Joda disappeared with Amber before the police arrived. The chief apologized for bothering Emilie as he set up a command post in her kitchen. Emilie passed around coffee to the officers as they drew on a map that was laid on her table. Snowmobiles continued to arrive and officers departed as they set out to try to find Adam.

The weather had taken another turn for the worse. They had closed the road into Ferrier's Mountain. The wind had picked up off the mountain and was whipping the huge deposits of snow into house-high drifts.

Visibility was so bad that the chief was worried about his men finding their way back. If the storm didn't lessen, they would have to call off the search—even though they knew Adam might not be found until it was too late.

Emilie looked at her watch. It had been two hours since Nick had taken the snowmobile and left to look for Adam. She could hear the ice crystals pelting the side of the house that faced the mountain.

It was in a terrible snowstorm, like this one, that Jacque Ferrier had finally met his fate. He had gone out to look for a lost horse that he prized. They’d found him two days later in the river. He had frozen to death, lost and alone in the storm.

Something snapped into place in Emilie's brain.
The river.

Adam had told her about the dream that he’d had about being at the edge of a river in a snowstorm. Hadn't the rocks sounded like the river that ran through her property? His mother had told him not to try to cross the water. She shuddered. Was it possible that he had foreseen this somehow?

Emilie tried to get a snowmobile from the police. There were none available. The chief was debating calling his men back. The weather was getting worse. There was already three feet of snow on the ground.

"I can't let you join the search, Miss Ferrier," he told her. "It's too dangerous. I don't even know if my men should be out there."

Emilie went up to her room and started to layer on clothes.

"You're going to look for him?" Joda startled her.

She nodded, and continued dressing. "I think I know where he might be." She told her aunt about Adam's dream.

"You can't go alone! Your leg is not strong." Joda was horrified. "You could be lost,
petite
. Wait for one of the men to return."

"No one knows this property better than me, except maybe you." She smiled at her aunt. "I've gone out in blizzards before. I know what to do."

Emilie pulled her full snow suit on top of her other clothes. She zipped up the front of the bright pink suit and picked up her snow goggles. "I'm going to take the cross country skis. They'll get me out there faster."

"You don't ski," Joda reminded her.

"True," Emilie admitted. "But they'll keep me on top of the snow."

Joda hugged her before she left the room. "Come back, Emilie. Don’t leave me alone here. You are all I have in this life. Your parents will not thank me if I let you go to your death."

Emilie hugged her tightly. "Take care of Amber. I'll be back."

She started toward the kitchen, and then heard the chief clearly tell his officers that he was calling off the search. Conditions were too bad to continue. They would have to wait and look again after the storm broke.

Quietly, she veered away from the kitchen and let herself out a side door. She picked up a pair of her mother's skis from the storage shed in the back of the house. She put two long spools of cord into her pocket and found a pair of poles. Thank goodness for Aunt Joda keeping everything!

Emilie fitted the skis to her feet and pushed the locks in place. She tied one end of the long, nylon cord to her waist then tied the other end to the iron hitching post at the back of the house.

The cord was bright green against the blinding white of the snow. She wasn't sure how long each spool was, she hoped it was enough to get her down to the river. If she could find Adam, she could follow the cord back. No matter how bad the storm was, the cord would be in her hand.

The goggles protected her from the whiteout effect of the sky and the land. Markers were clear to her even through the heavy white blanket. She'd grown up running wild on this property. She could find her way around it blindfolded.

It was a long shot, she knew, that Adam would have made it around the house and grounds to the river. Yet with the blinding snow, it was possible. She'd heard stories of people in blizzards getting turned around in their own front yards and not being able to find their way back.

That her only clue was his dream might not make sense to anyone else, she realized. She felt certain that it meant something. She was positive that she would find Adam at the river. She only hoped he recalled his mother's warning not to try and cross it. Though it was cold and there was plenty of snow, the ice would only be a thin layer across the water. It wouldn't hold up under his weight.

That he would try something so desperate made her eyes sting with tears. He’d probably thought that he could make it all better for her and Nick. He probably wanted there to be the happy ending that his parents had been denied. He was so young! And he had been through so much.

Emilie felt the pull on her leg, and in her back, as she moved across the snow. The wind was a powerful enemy, blowing against her from the mountain. She had to bend down to try to streamline her body into it. She pushed forward as quickly as she could, praying that Adam would be waiting on the side of the river.

When she’d reached the tree line, she had to start the new spool of green cord. She looked back and saw some of the cord. Most of it was buried in the snow. She tried pulling on it experimentally and it was sturdy.

She couldn't see the house from the trees. The air was white with snow. Her lungs burned from the exercise in the frigid air.

She tied the new cord to the old and started out again. She couldn't be far from the river. She couldn't hear it through the baffling blanket of snow, but she knew it was on the other side of the trees.

She took off the skis and leaned them against a tree that had held her first tree house. They would be easy to find on her return trip. The fir branches were too thick in the forest to allow much snow, even though the trees were heavy with it. 

The skis had taken their toll on her leg and her strength. She was limping heavily through the quiet forest, but she was moving quickly. She could be exhausted later, she promised herself. She could stay off of her leg for weeks. She just wanted Adam to be safe.

Ice crystals had formed around her nose and mouth. She had to take off her goggles when they steamed up and she couldn't keep them clean. She followed the path through the woods to the river with relentless determination.