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Chapter 195

They’d promised to take things slow, and so they did. Still, the month of November flew by, especially for Claire, who now had the added priority of “boyfriend” along with her family and job. But even though she was busier than ever and had less time to herself, Nick filled the void that had been left in her life ever since she and Jamie had separated. He took her out on the weekends, brought over dinner on weeknights when she was too tired to cook, played with her children, and made her feel like a woman again. He was her friend, companion, and partner, and the love she’d felt for him all those years ago was stronger than ever.

Still, she was determined not to get carried away with it. She didn’t want to rush this time. She wanted them to take it easy, just enjoy their time together, and let the relationship progress naturally. She wasn’t looking for a new husband, or a father for Caitlin and Delaine; all she wanted was the fun and affection he gave her, and for now, that was enough.

They didn’t spend all their time together, like they had the last time. She saw him a few times during the week, and in the meantime, they went about their own lives. She worked and took care of the twins, went out to lunch with Laureen and helped Dianna with wedding plans. Nick had his own friends and his music and whatever else he did with his free time. (Sleep? Play video games? She wasn’t really sure, and that suited her just fine.) She wasn’t going to be clingy, and she didn’t want to feel smothered by him either.

They weren’t even going to spend Thanksgiving together. Nick had already accepted an invitation from the Littrells to spend the long weekend in Kentucky, and Claire was staying in Florida with her family. Nick would have been invited, of course; they hadn’t said it in so many words, but she got the impression that her parents were pleased he was back in her life. Her mother had always been fond of him, and even her dad had to admit that he certainly seemed to be a better man than Jamie had turned out to be.

It was just as well that Nick would be gone for the weekend, mostly because of Jamie. Now that the divorce was finalized, Claire had a house full of stuff in Iowa to take care of, and the holidays were the perfect time to fly back and pack her things. At least, that was how Jamie’s mother saw it. It had been Mrs. Turner, not her son, who had called Claire and begged her to come up after Thanksgiving… and bring the babies, of course. Claire wasn’t excited about going, but it had been a year since she’d flown home to Florida for Thanksgiving and never gone back. She did have business to take care of, and it wasn’t fair to Jamie to leave him with a house full of her things, most of which he probably didn’t want and which would only remind him of her. Besides, Mrs. Turner hadn’t seen Caitlin and Delaine since they were in the NICU, aside from the emailed pictures Jamie surely showed her. Despite her feelings for her former mother-in-law, Claire wasn’t out to keep her daughters from their grandmother, and so she agreed to make the trip the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

It was convenient that Nick would already be in Kentucky then because, otherwise, he might have volunteered to travel with her. And while she could have used the help, flying with ten-month-old twins, there was no way she wanted Nick and Jamie within five miles of each other, let alone punching distance. No, this was something she needed to take care of on her own.

And so, they said their goodbyes at the airport the day before Thanksgiving, an hour before Nick’s plane to Lexington was scheduled to depart.

“Have a safe trip,” said Claire, offering a smile.

Nick returned it with a grimace that said, quite plainly, I can’t wait to get it over with. She giggled; some things never changed. Nick still hated flying and always would.

“You be safe too,” he replied. “The Midwest is supposed to get some snow this weekend, I heard.”

“Jamie said they’ve already got some on the ground. He was excited about it,” she scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Oh well… I guess I missed out on the snow up there last year; I can take it for a couple of days... then return to sunny Florida and go to the beach.” She beamed.

Nick grinned back. “It’s supposed to be in the 80s and sunny all next week. Bring the girls over to my place, and they can play in the sand. Maybe we’ll take the boat out – whaddya say?”

It sounded like heaven to Claire. “Sounds great!” she exclaimed. “Let’s plan on it.”

He nodded his agreement. “Cool.” He was playing his part well, staying casual and cordial with her, not pushing to get closer. Claire was grateful. She liked the way their rekindled relationship was going so far, but she knew it would be only too easy to get swept up in their old feelings for another and move too fast. She was terrified of making the same mistakes all over again, hurting Nick and losing her companion in the process.

“Well,” said Nick, turning around to check the time on a large wall clock, “it’s gettin’ to be that time. I better get through security and find my gate.”

Claire nodded. “Alright. C’mere first.” He obeyed, and she pulled him in for a hug, squeezing tightly.

“Eat lots of turkey,” he commanded, as they pulled apart.

“You too. And cranberry sauce – my favorite,” she added with a grin.

“And pumpkin pie-”

“With lots of whipped cream,” she interjected.

Nick gave her a look. “Okay, you’re finishing my sentences. Time to go, my darling.” He flashed her a cheesy smile, pecked her on the cheek, and then he was off, weaving through the heavy crowds with his carry-on slung over his shoulder.

She watched him join one of the lanes feeding through the metal detectors, behind a frazzled-looking woman trying to corral three cranky, young children. Claire heaved a sigh, imagining what she would look like on Saturday, trying to get through security with a twin stroller. She wasn’t sure anything she had at the house in Clive, including Jamie, was worth the trip.

But come Saturday, she would find herself back here anyway, wrangling her babies through security to board a plane to Des Moines.

And come Sunday, she would regret having ever gone.

***

Sunday afternoon found Nick at the Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, his luggage at his feet, his plane ticket back to Tampa in his hand. He took a moment to scan the flight information board. There were lots of delayed flights, due to a combination of holiday traffic and the snowstorm that had dumped several feet on the Midwest and was moving eastward. But Kentucky hadn’t gotten a lick of the snow received by its neighbors to the north, and the flight to Tampa was still on time.

He sidled into the line to check his luggage, too lethargic from the turkey sandwich he’d had for lunch at Harold and Jackie’s to move quickly. He’d had a pleasant Thanksgiving – holidays at the Littrells always were – and wasn’t in any real hurry to get home, not while Claire was still in Iowa. She wasn’t flying out until tomorrow, and if the delays kept up, it might be even later than that.

He turned around, squinting at the flight information again. Sure enough, there was one flight to Des Moines, and it was delayed. He wondered if he should call Claire and let her know. If planes landing at the Des Moines airport were being delayed, surely planes taking off would be too.

The baggage line didn’t seem to be moving, so he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

“Hey!” Claire answered after four rings, sounding surprised to hear from him. “Where are you?”

“Check-in line at the airport,” he replied. “It’s not lookin’ too good up there, huh? There’s a flight to Des Moines from here that’s delayed, and it looks like most of the flights to Chicago, Detroit, all the major cities, are delayed or cancelled.”

Claire sighed. “Yeah, we got dumped on. Jamie was out shoveling three feet of snow from the driveway when I got up this morning.”

“When you got up this morning?” Nick frowned, and his heart did a few staccato beats. “You mean you spent the night there?”

She sighed again, and he knew that this time, her annoyance was directed at him. “Yes, because the weather was so bad. I got in right before the storm hit and brought the girls over to the house, and then it started snowing. Jamie didn’t want me driving back to the hotel in a blizzard, especially not with his daughters in the car. And I wasn’t so keen on driving in it either. So yes, I stayed the night, in the guestroom with Cait and Lainey. Now, are you going to get jealous and freak out about that, or are you going to be glad that we’re all safe and sound?”

Well, she had him there, but Nick still wasn’t happy about it. “Of course I’m glad you’re safe,” he grumbled. “It’s just awfully convenient, if you know what I mean. Every time you go to Iowa, you get snowed in with Jamie. I bet he just loved that.”

“Oh, please, Nick. Don’t start this crap again. This isn’t some secret plot against you, some torrid rendezvous behind your back. Jamie blew his last chance with me; we’re over, divorced, end of story. I’m only here now so I don’t have to go back anytime soon.”

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry,” Nick made himself apologize, not wanting to fight with her. “So how’s everything going? What are you up to right now?”

“Enjoying some alone time. The girls are taking naps, and Jamie ran to Wal-Mart to get some lights for the Christmas tree. I’m gonna help him put up decorations later.”

Nick didn’t like that either. “I thought you said the roads were bad. Why’s he out driving?”

“They’re not too bad now; the snow plows and salt trucks were out all night. The main roads are fine; it’s just the back roads that are still a mess.”

“Well then, why don’t you go back to your hotel and let him put up his own decorations?”

“I’m still packing up stuff here. Besides, he’s a guy; he doesn’t know anything about how to string lights on a tree. He’d be helpless without me.”

Nick rolled his eyes. And you just love that, don’t you? he thought scornfully. Somehow, Claire always found an excuse to be needed. Why couldn’t she just pack up her crap and leave? He could picture Jamie turning on the old charm and trying to woo her back, making her forget all the reasons she’d left him in the first place. It was like a silent movie playing in his head, distorted and tinged with angry red, and it made his blood boil.

“Alright, well… you have fun with that. I gotta go; the line’s moving,” he mumbled, even though it wasn’t. She started to say goodbye, but he flipped his phone shut, fuming.

He tried to tell himself that there was no way Claire was weak enough or stupid enough to let Jamie get to her, but the past had proven that when it came to Jamie Turner, her judgment was impaired. And that scared him. He’d waited so long for her to come back, and she finally had. He couldn’t bear the thought, even the slightest possibility, of losing her again. Especially not to him. The paranoia of imagining what might happen with Jamie and Claire snowed in together, their little family reunited, was getting worse by the second, eating away at his insides. He couldn’t take it.

He turned around again, eyes zeroing in on the flight information. The flight to Des Moines was still listed, and still delayed. It should have already left, but it was now scheduled to depart twenty minutes after his plane to Tampa left the ground. Not long to wait. Not long at all…

When he turned back, the baggage line had finally started to move, but Nick stepped out of it. Hauling his luggage with him, he made a beeline for the American Airlines counter. There was no line here; it seemed everyone already had their tickets and were just waiting to fly out. Nick, however, crammed his boarding pass into his back pocket, slammed his wallet down on the counter, and told the clerk, “I want to book a seat on the next flight to Des Moines.”

***

Claire was oblivious to the extent of Nick’s paranoia, as she sat in Jamie’s bedroom, once her bedroom too, pawing through the boxes she’d dug out of her side of the closet. Jamie was still gone, the twins were still asleep, and she was still happily sorting.

She’d already gone through all of the clothes she’d left behind, deciding what might still fit, what was worth keeping, and what was going straight to the Goodwill store. She had no need for most of her pre-pregnancy clothes anymore; aside from her baggy sweats and t-shirts, most of them no longer fit well, and in the last year, she’d acquired more clothes to replace them. It felt good to cut down on the amount of stuff she was going to be shipping back.

Now she was tackling the rest of her closet, which was mostly boxes of keepsakes and other things she’d had no idea where to put. These were her favorite boxes to go through because they brought back so many memories, the good along with the bad. The wedding box had been hard to look at; in it she’d put all the mementos from their wedding that weren’t in her scrapbook: her garter; the pins from her hair; the “bouquet” she’d carried down the aisle at their rehearsal, made of a paper plate and bows from her bridal shower; the little satin pillow Kamden had carried their rings on; the guestbook…

She’d opened the silk-covered book, skimmed the elegantly embossed pages, and read the names of family and friends, all the people who had turned up in support of her marriage to Jamie. In a way, she felt like she’d let every one of them down by breaking her vows. But not Nick. His name appeared near the end, after all the others, and she knew that when he’d signed it, he hadn’t done so out of support for her marriage. He’d done so because she had invited him, and he was her friend.

You knew all along he wasn’t the one for me, she’d thought sadly, running her fingers across his signature. You knew it was supposed to be you. But you still came.

She missed him, couldn’t wait till they were both back in Tampa. They hadn’t been together for Thanksgiving, but maybe they’d spend Christmas with each other. And New Year’s. Definitely New Year’s. A new year… a fresh start. It was what they both needed.

He’d be turning thirty in January, and she not two months after him. Thirty years old. She couldn’t believe it. Thirty had seemed so old to her when she was a child, and now here she was, in the last leg of her twenties, with two children of her own. She didn’t feel old, not at all, and yet, she’d reached a new stage in her life.

It was time to settle down and raise a family. She had one of her own now, but it wasn’t complete. She had her babies, two gifts from God, and if she never had another child, they would be enough. But she wanted them to have a father… not just a sperm donor, but a real father, like her own. And she herself wanted a husband, someone with whom she could grow old and share the rest of her life.

Nick.

Whether she wanted to admit it or not, he was the someone she had in mind when she imagined all of those things. Father… husband… life companion. There was no other.

It scared her a little, because she was doing the exact thing she hadn’t wanted to do – fall head over heels for him all over again. She had to be cautious… too fast, too hard, and the inertia would carry her forward into another commitment she wasn’t yet ready to make. She couldn’t afford to blow another marriage. The next time she said “I do,” it had to last forever. And even with Nick, forever was a long time.

She put the lid back on her wedding box and slid it aside, anxious to distract herself with something else. But when she opened the next box, all she found were more mementos… of Nick.

In this box were eleven months of her life, the eleven months she’d spent with him. Like the wedding box, it held everything she couldn’t fit into her scrapbook, but had saved nonetheless. Movie ticket stubs, framed pictures, cards he’d given her, pressed red and yellow roses from all his bouquets. She found the comic he'd drawn for her on the day she'd moved in, the handwritten note left atop the lingerie he'd given her that night. She leafed through a stack of slightly crumpled scraps of paper, tied together with red satin ribbon, each penned with a line from "Open Arms."

Near the bottom of the box, her fingers brushed against something small and rough. Mystified, she plucked it between her thumb and forefinger and pulled it out. A long braid of yarn came with it, and when she finally got it loose and held it up to see what it was, her breath caught in her throat.

It was the Cracklin' Oat Bran ring, the piece of cereal Nick had bestowed upon her the morning after his marriage proposal, lacquered with mod-podge and held on a chain of red and yellow yarn. He had one just like it somewhere, or at least he once had, but she hadn't seen either of them in years.

Holding the "necklace" up to the light, she started to laugh... and laugh and laugh. She laughed until tears sprung to her eyes, and then she cried. How could she have ever let a man like Nick go? She'd wasted years of her life on Jamie, years she could have spent with Nick, if only she had not been so self-centered and impulsive.

I'm not going to be that way anymore, she told herself. This time, I'm going to make it work. I'm going to take my time... and compromise... and sacrifice... and give as much as I take. I'm not going to let the little things get in the way of us again.

After all, it was the little things that had broken them up. Not the big things, like the trials that had shown her Jamie’s true nature. She and Nick could handle the big stuff; they’d proven that time and time again over the years. And now that they were both older and wiser, she knew they could deal with the rest too.

Don’t sweat the small stuff, Claire. Be grateful for every last, little thing. Cherish every moment you have with him.

Oh, how she would soon wish she had taken her own advice all along.

***

A light snow was falling, as Nick drove away from the Des Moines airport in his rental car, the GPS set to direct him to Jamie’s house in the suburb of Clive.

He knew Claire was still there; he’d tried calling her hotel room and gotten no answer. There was no excuse for her not to be at the hotel; it was getting dark, and despite the snow, the roads weren’t bad. But she was still at Jamie’s, getting cozy as they decorated the house for Christmas. He pictured them sitting on the couch with mugs of cocoa… the twins playing on the floor, before a crackling fire. He couldn’t remember whether or not the house even had a fireplace, but it didn’t matter. That was the visual he had in his head, and it was driving him crazy.

He drove fast down the highway, trying to rehearse what he was going to say when he got there. But he didn’t know. What in the hell was he supposed to say? How was he going to explain himself? Did it really matter anyway? No matter what he said, Claire was going to think he was either totally romantic or totally crazy for changing his flight plans at the last minute.

At that particular moment, he himself was leaning more towards crazy.

***

“You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen…”

Hearing Jamie’s voice blend with Burl Ives’ on the CD, Claire turned around to find him kneeling in front of Cait and Lainey, his face at their level.

“Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen…”

She forced herself to turn back around and continue hanging ornaments, while his singing went on in the background.

“But do you recall… the most famous reindeer of all? Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer… had a very shiny nose…”

Cute as it was to see Jamie singing Christmas songs to the twins, Claire couldn’t bear to watch it. It almost made her sick. He had the potential to be such a good father to their children, but he hadn’t been. He’d practically abandoned them from birth, afraid to touch them in the NICU, unable to stay with them the way she had. And now that they were bigger and older and healthier, he was all set to be the jovial dad, bouncing them on his knee while he taught them Christmas songs.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to the girls, to whom Jamie had been nothing but a stranger when they’d arrived at his door yesterday, and it wasn’t fair to her either. And yet, she should have known it would be like this. Jamie was doing what Jamie did best in an awkward situation: pretend like nothing was wrong. He hadn’t given up the act once the entire weekend. He’d cuddled and played with the twins like a doting father should, he had joked around with her, and his charade was so good that an outside observer never would have guessed he was a divorced dad who hadn’t seen his children in person since they were less than a month old.

It aggravated Claire that she would let him get away with it, but if given the choice between a hostile relationship with him and a friendly one, she would always choose friendly… even if it seemed fake. And so she played along as best as she could, though not nearly as well as Jamie.

“Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say – ho, ho, ho!”

Cait and Lainey both shrieked with giggles at Jamie’s belly laugh, and even Claire had to smile. Sadly. It was selfish of her, but she didn’t want to see the twins get too attached to him. They’d be leaving for home tomorrow, and who knew when they would see Jamie again? When the girls got older, it would only get harder and harder for them to be separated from their father. She was trying to keep herself emotionally distanced from Jamie, and she wished she could do the same for them, to protect them.

But for now, she supposed it wouldn’t hurt. They were only ten months old. After a few days back in Florida, they would forget him anyway.

Sometimes, she wished she could forget so easily, she thought as she picked up an ornament from the box. It was a pair of silver bells, engraved with the inscription,

Our First Christmas Together
Jamie & Claire
2008

***

The snow was falling faster as Nick pulled into the driveway of the familiar, split-level house he’d visited last Halloween. Claire may have hated it, but it was actually quite pretty, thought Nick, as he turned off the ignition and sat still for a moment, watching the silvery flakes accumulate on his windshield. They were large snowflakes, and each one was a work of art, its unique and perfect symmetry quite visible against the glass.

For a moment, Nick found it hard to peel his eyes away. But then his focus moved to the house in the background, and he remembered why he was there.

Claire.

She was definitely here; there was another rental car in the driveway, heaps of snow piled around its tires. She hadn’t left the house since she’d arrived yesterday. But at least she hadn’t been lying about the amount of snow; Clive had been half-buried in it. Not an inch of pavement, blade of grass, or shingle of roof was visible beneath the white powder. It covered everything; even driveways and sidewalks which appeared to have been shoveled mere hours ago had a dusting of fresh snow.

It was so beautiful that it had a calming effect on Nick. What did it really matter if she had been here with Jamie all this time? He trusted her. He knew she wasn’t going to fall back into Jamie’s arms like some weak rag doll. He had to give her some credit; she was too strong, too stubborn for that. So what was he afraid of?

Nothing, he decided, gazing towards the house. He had nothing to be afraid of. He would just walk up to the front door, ring the bell, push Jamie aside, and tell Claire he had changed his flight because he couldn’t go another day without seeing her. And, wouldn’t she like to have some help in getting her twins home safe and sound in all this snow?

She would eat it up, he thought, a smile playing on his lips. She wouldn’t think he was crazy. She would love that he had come the extra miles, flown on a plane in these treacherous conditions, just to see her.

Emboldened by that thought, he opened his door. Upon stepping out of the car, he found himself in a world of white. The snow seemed to have a muffling effect, for it was eerily quiet all around him. No cars, no people, no animals, no wind. Nothing but the faint whisperings of snowflakes falling upon snowflakes. “Silent night, holy night,” he thought with a smile. “All is calm, all is bright…”

The silence was broken when he began crunching cautiously up to the front porch, careful to keep his footing in the wet snow. He clung to the porch railing, taking the snow-covered steps slowly and one at a time. The last thing he wanted to do was lose his balance and plant his ass in the snow right on Jamie’s doorstep.

Finally, he made it onto the porch. The bay window was shrouded with curtains, but the front door was flanked by narrow panes of clear glass. They cast strips of golden light onto the snowy porch, and through them, Nick could see into the living room, where there was a modest-sized Christmas tree sparkling with lights. Claire stepped into his view, her back to him, her arm poised above her head to hang an ornament high on the tree.

Watching her, he let out his breath in a long cloud that swirled around him in the frigid night air.

***

Caitlin and Delaine giggled and bounced with joy as they watched their father make a fool of himself, dancing spastically around Claire as she went on methodically hanging ornaments.

“Rockin’ around the Christmas tree at the Christmas party hop,” he sang, raising his voice to the same octave as Brenda Lee’s and doing some dance move that resembled The Monkey. “Mistletoe hung where you can see, every couple tries to stop.”

And suddenly, his hand was around her wrist, and he was dragging her away from the tree, over to the doorway that opened into the kitchen. And there was mistletoe, hung where she hadn’t seen it before. She knew, instinctively, what he was about to do and tried to pull away, but he threw her backwards over his arm, dipping her low, leaned over her, and brought his lips crashing down onto hers.

She tore away, sputtered “What the hell are you doing?!” and fell flat on her butt as his arm gave out beneath her.

But out in the cold, Nick had only seen the kiss.

***

Inside, Claire’s cheeks burned with humiliation. Jamie’s eyes blazed with anger.

But outside, Nick’s heart had frozen into a block of ice.

He could not believe what he had just seen. It was his worst fear, confirmed. Snowed in together, they’d found a way to rekindle their old feelings for each other. Jamie had gotten to her after all.

And now what? He had come all this way, only for this. To have his frozen heart completely shattered out on Jamie’s porch.

Why?

He didn’t understand. He could barely comprehend what he’d seen, but to try and understand why… it was impossible. And yet, he needed to know. He needed answers. Claire was going to have to own up to this… here and now. And Jamie… Lord help him if Jamie came to the door.

Without hesitating, incapable of rational thought, he pummeled the doorbell. He heard it ring from inside and steeled himself, his breath coming in and out in short puffs, like an angry bull, ready to charge the moment the door opened. If Jamie answered, he was going to knock him flat on his ass.

Sure enough, Jamie was coming; peering through the window, Nick could see him moving towards the door far better than Jamie could see him standing out in the darkness. Jamie pulled the door open, and Nick didn’t hesitate. The moment he could get through, he attacked, sending his cold fist straight into Jamie’s jaw.

The collision snapped Jamie’s head backwards, and the force threw him off his feet. As he was knocked down, Nick heard Claire scream from somewhere in the background. Looking up, he saw her getting up from the floor and hurrying over.

“Nick!” she cried, gaping at him in shock. “What the hell?!”

“I could ask you the same thing!” he spat, glaring between her and Jamie, who was now sitting on the floor in an apparent state of shock, massaging his jaw. “I walk up here to surprise you, and I see the two of you making out under the mistletoe! So yeah, what the hell, Claire?!”

Behind her, the twins had started to cry, startled by all of the yelling and probably wondering why their Nick had just hurt their daddy.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” Claire laughed, high and humorlessly. “How’s that for perfect timing?”

Nick missed the sarcasm, but was plenty sarcastic himself. “Perfect timing, huh?” he snapped. “Yeah, I bet… got you out of having to tell me anything, huh? You just let me see it for myself. Guess you’re off the hook. Happy fucking holidays to you!”

Humiliated and ravaged inside, he turned and skidded off the porch, half-wishing he could just throw himself into a snow drift and disappear.

“No, Nick, wait!” he heard Claire yell from the porch, but he ignored her and stomped to his car. She disappeared inside, but moments later, she was leaping off the porch after him, her tennis shoes sinking into the wet snow. He jerked his key into the ignition and revved it to life, but just as he threw it into reverse, the passenger door flew open, and a disheveled Claire scrambled inside.

“Get out,” Nick growled, his foot poised to come off the brake.

“No. Look, this is silly, Nick; you need to he-”

“Fine,” he interrupted, and he yanked his foot off the brake and slammed it down on the accelerator. The car shot backwards out of the driveway, spewing snow everywhere, and ricocheted onto the street. He jerked the wheel just quickly enough to keep it from sliding right into the neighbor’s ditch and managed to keep it on the road, though the wheels spun without traction as he braked. He ignored this, threw the car into drive, and accelerated up the street.

“Jesus Christ, Nick!” Claire hissed, whatever explanation she had to offer momentarily lost in her shock. “Slow down, or you’re gonna put your car in the ditch!”

He said nothing, but slowed down. A little. He compensated by turning on the radio. The rock station he’d found on his drive over came on, and he cranked up the volume until the music was blasting too loud for him to hear anything else, including Claire’s voice. He didn’t want to hear the same old excuses from her, about how he was being paranoid, reading too much into it, about how she and Jamie were back to being “just friends,” nothing more.

Fuck that. He’d seen what he’d seen, and there was no way she could deny it.

She was going to try though. Claire was nothing if not determined. She reached out to turn down the radio so that she could be heard, but as soon as she did, he turned it up again. They played this game for several minutes, both too bullheaded to back down. The car swerved a little every time Nick took his hand off the wheel; in the icy conditions, it required both hands to keep it straight. But there was no other traffic on the road, and Nick was too angry to care about driving recklessly. In that moment, he didn’t care about much of anything.

He didn’t know where he was going, and neither did the GPS. It kept trying to make him turn around and go back to Jamie’s house, which was exactly what Claire wanted too. They were allies, Claire and the GPS, and he was against them both. Whichever way the GPS told him to turn, he turned in the opposite direction, the car skidding across the road each time, spewing snow in its wake.

Claire silenced the radio again. “For God’s sake, Nick, will you please just pull over?!” her voice rang out. The pleading note in it struck a chord in him, but he kept driving. He did not, however, turn the radio back up.

“Why should I?” he replied finally. “So you can give me all your excuses about how you and Jamie are ‘just friends’? Friends who make out under the mistletoe when they’re supposed to be settling their divorce?”

“No! Pull over so you don’t fucking kill us, first of all, and then I’ll explain! It’s stupid, Nick, it really is!”

“No, what’s stupid was me coming here; that’s what’s stupid,” Nick spat bitterly, glaring out at the stretch of icy road that lay in front of him. Somehow, in one of the crazed turns he’d taken, he’d gotten them away from the houses. They were between Clive and the next town now, on a lonely, two-lane, country road, with barren farmland on one side and woods on the other. Here and there, the road curved, as property lines changed. The unsalted pavement was slick, and he finally took his foot off the accelerator, knowing he was in danger of spinning into the ditch if he kept speeding. Even if he’d wanted to pull over, there was really nowhere to do so now. The road barely had a shoulder, at least not that he could see in all the snow, and there were ditches on both sides.

So he just kept driving, and finally, Claire said, “You can choose whether to believe this or not, but I’m telling you the truth. That kiss you saw? He forced himself on me. He dragged me under the mistletoe. I pushed his ass away, but I bet you didn’t see that part.”

Nick kept silent. He didn’t know what to think. No, he hadn’t seen her push him away, but then, he hadn’t seen much of anything right after. It was as if the rage had literally blinded him.

“Why would he force himself on you?” he finally asked. “Doesn’t the fuckbag realize it’s over?”

“Hell if I know. I didn’t get a chance to ask him, ‘cause you hit him in the face. Maybe he was just playing around; I don’t know. Either way, it was completely inappropriate, and you have every right to be mad, but believe me, Nick, I didn’t want it!”

Her last few words hung in the air, as they rode on in silence, Nick struggling to figure out what he thought of her explanation.

“Do you believe me?” she asked in a small voice, after a minute or so.

Nick let up on the accelerator again and chanced a look over at her, trying to read her expression in the moonlight. The sheen coming off the snow cast a silvery glow across her face, making her eyes extra bright, and although it was still hard to get a good look at her, he realized he didn’t need to. She wasn’t lying to him. Claire was a lot of things, but she wasn’t a liar. She’d always been blunt and brutally honest with him. If something had really happened with Jamie, she would have told him. And she sure wouldn’t have jumped into the car with him, knowing how he drove when he was upset.

“I believe you,” he replied quietly, turning his eyes back to the road.

The curve came out of nowhere. If there had been a sign warning him, he’d missed it. The road veered sharply to the left, and with just seconds to adjust, he knew he’d never make it. He jerked the wheel left anyway, then quickly back to the right, trying in vain to keep the car from sliding right into the cornfield. But right away, he knew he’d overcorrected. He could feel his tires spinning and, with sheer panic, realized he’d lost control.

The car was fishtailing now, skidding from the left lane to the right. As it slid off the blacktop, he heard Claire scream. He caught a flash of the shadowy trees looming ahead a split second before the car struck a snow drift, sending a shower of snow over the hood and covering the windows in white. He could no longer see where they were going, nor had he any chance of gaining control, but for another second or so, he was aware. He knew they were spinning off the road; he knew they were about to crash. He tried to brace himself.

As they hurtled into the ditch, his last conscious thought was of Claire.

Then the world seemed to implode on him, and the dim whiteness of the snow turned to black.

***