Kissed By The Country Doc. Melinda Curtis

On the way out, she absently registered Mitch’s odd, almost panicked expression. She chalked it up to something he’d seen on the computer screen.

      Ella walked from the inn to the diner, getting her bearings on the map. And then she came upon a dead end. There was no more sidewalk. At least, not one that had been shoveled. There were at least four more buildings on her side of the highway, which... Hey there—the highway had been plowed. She slogged her way through knee-high drifts of snow to reach the cleared highway and then walked north.

      The morning was still overcast, and the wind swirled around her like a champion skater.

      The next building contained three small storefronts with large plate glass windows and signs that each posted a variation of Reopening in Spring. She’d have to walk through twenty feet of snow to reach the porch.

       Um, no.

      Best limit this trip to a scouting mission and use her impressions to form a plan of attack. She looked farther north. There were supposed to be four houses or cabins perched on the river side of the road.

      Ella consulted the plat map and then surveyed the area. “Why are there only three?” Had she read the map wrong?

      The wind tugged at the map.

      She tried to hold the paper taut in the air, but doing so only made it billow like a sail. She switched tactics and tried holding it over her thighs, which worked better. Except... Where was she on the map again? She turned around slowly, trying to draw reference from snow-covered landmarks and—

      A big gust of wind pushed her backward into a snowdrift, which, all things considered, wasn’t as bad as it seemed. She was protected from the wind and realized the plot across from the missing home had a cabin perched high above the road.

      “Aha!” She laughed and tried to stand.

      Except, instead of getting to her feet, she sank deeper in the snow and then began to slide backward down the hill toward the river, her stadium coat acting like a soft-sided sled and her head cutting through nature’s snow cone like a shark’s fin cut through water. She didn’t slide fast, but the incline was steep enough that her flailing arms and legs didn’t stop her. Snow clung to the nape of her neck and pushed the knit cap off her head. She slid and slid and slid until her back connected with something solid and she came to a halt, although her heart kept beating as if she was running a race.

      If not for the big cold rock at her back, Ella might have plunged in the river. She could hear its throaty gurgle alarmingly close. Her knit cap and property papers were halfway up the hill.

      It had all happened so fast. Epiphany. Laughter. Disaster.

      Her heart rate began to steady and the cold continued to spread, starting with her neck and her toes and working toward her core.

      Cold. So hard to shake regardless of whether you were indoors without heat, or outdoors facing a locked door.

      Panic had her jackknifing and scrambling to get her boots beneath her. One leg sunk in the drift to her knee. The other got tangled in the long hem of her stadium jacket. Snow tumbled down the collar of her sweatshirt, making her shiver.