Broken Promises, Frozen Love

Chapter 1: A Close Call

Victoria was confused. The map indicated that the turn-off for Rocking Horse Falls should have appeared somewhere between the Gap Mountain exit which she remembered driving past 15 minutes ago and the Mullumby Scenic Drive exit that was looming before her now. She pulled the car over onto the shoulder of the road and searched for her smart phone. Susan, her sister, had organised this Christmas's family gathering at a fancy new luxury bed and breakfast, "Eagles Nest", at the top of Rocking Horse Mountain. The fact that their accommodation was somewhat remotely located from any other town or community only added, or so Susan had persuaded them, to the rustic charm of a snow capped mountain lodge Christmas hide-away experience. Susan's description of the area when she had emailed them all with the booking six months ago, had sounded so charming and enticing compared to the reality Victoria was confronted with now: unseasonably low, record breaking freezing temperatures, a blizzard and dangerous, icy roads.

Finally, locating the phone in her handbag, Victoria grappled with the buttons to ring her sister. "Blast, no reception!" she cursed. 'But of course, in these mountains, she should have anticipated that.' Victoria was due to have arrived at the B&B earlier in the day, but was held up at work. Her family were probably already there, waiting for her. Victoria peered out of the windscreen of her Volvo. Ice, like thin filaments of spider webbing, was already beginning to form over it with the car engine cut and the heating off. It was getting late, the light was failing and the weather was getting worse. 'Don't panic Victoria. Don't panic!' she told herself.

She remembered she had seen a small hotel next to a drivers' rest stop about 4 kilometres back down the road from whence she had come. 'A good plan', Victoria decided, 'would be to back track down the road keeping a lookout for the Rocking Horse Mountain turn off; but that if she didn't see it, she could go back to the hotel she had passed earlier and ask for directions'. Feeling fortified by her temporary resolution to the problem at hand, Victoria switched on the ignition and confidently pulled her car around and back onto the main road - just when a snow plough the size of Texas turned the bend of the same road she was about to turn onto, travelling at a maniac speed. She missed the snow plough by centimetres and skidded to the side of the road. Worse, her wheels became wedged in the snowdrift left in the wake of the snow plough and all attempts at restarting the car and resuming her journey came to nought.

Okay, now she was officially freaking out! Victoria thought about how many motorists she had observed on the road in the last hour. But besides Satan's snowplough, she couldn't recall one. ' Of course' she thought to herself, 'what other nincompoop would be driving at dusk, on an icy road, in deteriorating, blizzard conditions besides me!'

Searching amongst her backseat luggage for snow boots, parker, gloves, scarf and goggles, Victoria decided to abandon the Volvo and make for the hotel by foot. Maybe she would get lucky and some passing motorist would give her a lift.

Opening the car door however, turned out to be more of a struggle than she had anticipated. The strength of the wind bore down against it. Finally managing to open the door a crack, the shock of the icy blast simply took her breath away – so much so that she let go of the door and it slammed shut again. There was no visibility left through her windscreen now – the whole panel was covered by thick snow. Soon, she couldn't help predicting, the whole car would be buried – and she with it, if she didn't get out FAST.

Just as Victoria was summing up the energy to make another assault on opening the car door, she heard the honking of a car. "Oh, dear God!" she couldn't help yelling out loud. "Please, please . . . help me!" Her gloved hands were shaking in their hurry to press the car horn in response. "Yes, I'm here, I'm here!" she yelled. "Don't leave me!" Ramming her body against the door did not budge it open in the slightest. A deep, male voice, muffled by the wind, but still audible, reached her as she sat in the driver's seat.

"Miss, the door's wedged shut by the snowdrift building underneath and beside it. I've got a snow shovel in my truck. I'm going to get it and then return to your vehicle and get you out. Okay?"

"Okay!" she shouted by way of response. "Please hurry!"

"You're going to be fine. I'll get you out! Don't panic!"

'Okay for YOU to say' Victoria couldn't help retorting in her mind. 'You're on the outside of this car tomb and I'm in here!'

She could hear the sounds of metal on metal as the shovel scraped the sides of the car and siphoned off the sleet and snow; then, the thick scoop and shuffle of snow on the metal pan of the shovel as her rescuer dug around the bottom of her car door. Finally, the door was wrenched open. Victoria leaped from her seat in sheer relief, barrelling over the exhausted man who had freed her. He lay on his back, the shovel above his head out of harm's way. Victoria lay on top of him, her face centimetres from his own.

"Well now, that's what I call a welcome!" the man laughed underneath her. Victoria couldn't see much through her fogged goggles. She imagined she resembled some kind of strange insect in all her winter gear. Although she couldn't quite place it, the voice of the man seemed vaguely familiar to her. "I am so sorry!" Victoria exclaimed. "You poor man. You rescue me and then I crush you to death!" She scrabbled off her hero's chest and onto the packed snow beside them, removing her goggles at the same time.

Shock reeled within her bringing all awareness of her surrounds to an end. Only HE filled her vision. The one man in the entire universe that she would climb back into the snow buried car, to escape.