While It Was Snowing

1

Christmas Season

North Texas

The house was to die for.

It was exactly what Amy Casey's best friend, Julie Kleinhoff, had promised-a luxury lake house on the shore of Lake Texoma, with eight bedrooms and nine baths, a separate and cozy artist's studio, a pool, a hot tub, a chef's kitchen, stunning lake views, and Christmas trees in every room. Child-sized nutcrackers armed the entrance of the dining room, the living room, and the kitchen. Santa, his sleigh, and his nine reindeer were suspended from the ceiling in the great room in a manner that suggested they would land on the massive hearth at any moment.

Two beautiful wreaths hung on the double front doors, wood was stacked next to the enormous fireplace. Giant clumps of mistletoe, probably harvested from right outside, hung from every archway. Each room had a theme-cozy-cabin Christmas, festive beachy Christmas, old England Christmas. It was a holiday feast for the eyes and the spirit, and it was all for Amy, for two full weeks, at no cost. Two weeks that she could not possibly carve out of her busy life again, given the number of people in her family who relied on her for every little thing. Two weeks that she would have all this fabulousness to create art, painting the images of the beauty around her that lived in her head, experiencing the artist's life she'd once dreamed about; to be someone other than mother/ex-wife/daughter/employee. To be all by herself. Well. Her dog, Duchess, had come. But Duchess was old and blind and practically deaf. She would sleep all day. So yes, all by herself, for the first time in years.

Julie knew that was important to Amy and had helped her plan this getaway. Julie's family owned this luxury, so she could pull all the strings to make this magic happen for Amy.

So there was no way that a man should be standing in the kitchen.

Perhaps even more urgent, there was no way Amy was going to be able to fight him wearing a bathrobe as thick and cozy as a sheepskin rug, with her hair wrapped in a towel. Speaking of which, if she didn't take that towel off and put some product in her hair in the next five minutes, it would dry frizzy and weird, and she could not have that. She had also decided to go for a bohemian vibe during her two-week retreat (more elastic, less underwire).

She folded her arms across her chest and said in her most authoritative tone (a tone that, let's be honest, worked less and less on her family these days, but was all she had), "I'm not leaving."

The man, whose name she had yet to learn, picked up one of the apples she'd brought and said, rather too calmly given the circumstance, "Neither am I."

How had such a horrendous mistake been made? When Amy had first wandered into the kitchen and seen this tall, trim man in cargo shorts and a Houston Astros T-shirt and wearing his baseball hat backward, she'd been so startled, she'd shrieked. He had likewise been startled and at the very same moment, he'd yelped like someone had goosed him, and dropped the sandwich he was holding. "Oh no," he said, staring down at it.

It was the sandwich that had thrown her off and kept her from lunging for a knife. She couldn't imagine that someone intent on killing her or robbing the house would take the time to make a sandwich. Much less bend down to clean up the mess. She'd assumed he was a maintenance man. But before she could voice her guess, he guessed that she was the housekeeper.

"Excuse me?"

"Okay," he'd said, clearly excusing her.

Amy remembered in that moment that Ryan, her ex-husband, had urged her to bring a gun. "You need to protect yourself," he'd said, hitching up his pants. "I'd protect you if I was going-"

"No chance," she'd said with a side eye for him. "And you know how much I hate guns."

"This is the thing about you, Amy. You lump all guns into a single category-"

"Goodbye, Ryan," Amy had said. That was the great thing about being fifty-two, divorced, and menopausal-Amy didn't feel nearly as compelled to stick around and give men a chance to mansplain like she had when she was younger. The moment Ryan started talking nonsense was the moment she started walking.

Back to this guy. "I don't know what is going on here, but I have this house for two weeks."

"So do I." He put the remains of the sandwich in the trash.

"That's not possible. Julie lent it to me," Amy said.

"I don't know who Julie is, but I rented it from Sam."

And therein lay the problem. "Oh my God," Amy said immediately. Sam was Julie's sister, and together, they'd taken over the family lake house when their parents moved to a high-rise condominium in Dallas. The Kleinhoffs weren't ready to give the place up-it still made for a great family staycation spot-but they didn't like it sitting idle, either. Julie and Sam decided to list it on all the vacation house rental websites in the new year. But Amy seemed to remember that Julie and Sam had argued about it, because Sam felt like they were leaving money on the table by waiting until the new year. Sam apparently had jumped the gun.

"I'll get Sam on the phone right now, and we'll clear this up," the guy said, and pulled a phone from his shorts pocket.

"No, I'll get Julie on the phone, and we'll clear this up." Amy grabbed her phone from the pocket of her robe. And then she and the man stood there, phones drawn, staring at each other.

"Who is Julie?" he asked after a moment.

"Sam's sister."

He stared some more. His brows dipped. "Are you suggesting that there has been some miscommunication in booking?"

"Obviously." She pulled up Julie's contact and hit the call button.

"Great," he said, punching something into his phone. "Sam and I had a nice chat about Byron Nelson."

"Who's that?" Amy asked.

The man gave her a withering look, put his phone to his ear, and walked out of the kitchen.

By now, Amy's call had rolled to voicemail. "Julie!" she hissed into the phone, and glanced over her shoulder to make sure he wasn't listening. "Where are you? You need to call me-"

The man was suddenly in front of her.

"As soon as you can," she quickly added, and hung up. "What?"

"Sam's not answering, and her voicemail is full."

That tracked. Julie often complained about her sister not answering and having a full inbox.

"What about you?" he asked, nodding to the phone she was gripping.

"Not answering," Amy admitted.

"Well. Here we are." He lowered his phone. So did Amy. He slid it back into his pocket. So did Amy.

"We've got ourselves a problem," he added unnecessarily, then bit into her apple.

"Not really," Amy said. "There's a resort up the road where you can probably get a room."

"Funny," he said. "I meant it's a problem for you. I've paid in full for this place." He took another healthy bite of her apple.

That was the moment Amy thought she might have to fight him. She considered her options and found them all lacking, and therefore resorted to throwing a fit. "I'm not leaving."

"Neither am I."

She braced her hands against the marble kitchen bar. "Look, Mr. . . . ?"

"Neely."

"Mr. Neely. I need this. Do you know how long it's been since I had alone time? Before my first son was born, seventeen years ago, that's when. I finally get a chance to do what I love-"

"What's that?"

Amy paused. "What's what?"

"What do you love?"

She felt a little ridiculous saying it, but who was this guy to her? "I'm an artist. A painter. Anyway, I have a show coming up, and I need to paint, and I need to be creative, and in order to be creative, I need space and alone time. Therefore, I need you to leave."

"Huh," he said, and put the apple core on the countertop like a Neanderthal. "Well here's the thing, Mrs. . . . ?"

"Ms. Casey."

"Here's the thing, Ms. Casey. I have injured my knee, and I need some time to decide what I'm going to do with myself, because my old way of life isn't working with the knee anymore."

"What's the old way of life?"

"Golf."

For heaven's sake. Why did men think the sun and moon revolved around their golf game? She rolled her eyes.

"Professional golf," he clarified.

Amy didn't know anything about professional golf other than it dominated Sunday afternoon TV viewing. She shrugged a little.

"I looked long and hard and found a place where I can heal and think. Someplace off the beaten path where I could be alone. Therefore, I will not be leaving."

Her phone suddenly pinged. She hoped it was Julie checking in so Amy could tell her about the grand fuckup. Then Julie would call Sam and make her give this man his money, and in a matter of a couple of hours, he'd be gone, and Amy could resume her two weeks of bliss. Which had started with a most excellent bath, the zen of which Mr. Neely was ruining.

But the text was not from Julie.

Mom do we have any milk?

The message came from Jonah the Destroyer's phone, otherwise known as her seventeen-year-old son. Who was at home right now, presumably waiting for Ryan to pick up him and his brother. But never mind that-did he really think she would be on top of the milk situation just now?

Where are you?

Home.

Unbelievable. "Excuse me," she said to the interloper, who was now eying her bananas. She turned away from him so he couldn't see the flames of fury licking her face. She knew absolutely that she should not continue this text exchange given the total chaos here, but seriously, was Jonah for real?

Can't you go look?

I don't want to go downstairs rn. I'm playing a new game.

Okay. I'm not driving back to Willow Valley to look for you.

Amy turned back to Mr. Neely. She suddenly felt dangerously close to tears. She'd had her heart set on these two weeks. She could never afford to do something like this on her own, and it was only Julie's generosity that was making it possible. "I don't think you understand," she said to Mr. Neely. "My son just texted to ask me if we have milk."

He looked at her with confusion.

"But he's at home, where the milk is."

"Okay," he said uncertainly.

He didn't get it. How could he? "No, not okay. I need space from my family, Mr. Neely. I can't go back there. I can't. You don't understand-look, I love them more than life, and I would literally kill for them. But my forty-eight-year-old brother is sleeping on the couch because he broke up with girlfriend number eighty-two, for God's sake, and my ex-husband is trying to get back with me for reasons that I don't get and I don't want, and my oldest son has no sense of what he is going to do with his life, and I think he's smoking pot, although he denies it and says I am so extra, and my youngest son has anxiety so bad that sometimes he can hardly function but yet, he and his best friend, Connor, are building a flying machine"-and here, she used air quotes because there was no way that thing would fly-"that they intend to test off the roof of my house. Where is his anxiety when he needs it to keep him from killing himself, I ask you?"

"That does sound sort of dangerous," Mr. Neely said.

"Right? And I haven't even mentioned my boss, who thinks it is perfectly okay to mention a woman's breasts to me, and I'm his HR director! All I ever wanted was to be an artist, but nooo, I had to get married, and the years slipped by while I had babies, and life got in the way, and now I have a chance to recapture that dream, but it all boils down to two weeks at this house by myself, so you really need to leave." She stopped to take an enormous breath.

Mr. Neely frowned. "You seem distressed," he said.

"Ya think?"

"Look, I could give you a litany of woes, too," he said. "Which is why I need a place to recover and think, and which is why I paid in advance. So nothing like this would happen. So nothing like this," he said, gesturing between the two of them, "could interrupt. But here we are. Now, while I still believe you're the one who needs to leave, how about this? What if we just split it? There are two primary bedrooms. Plenty of space. We could just agree to stay out of each other's way."

Amy blinked. "Are you seriously suggesting that I live with a complete stranger for two whole weeks? That's how Dateline episodes are made, you know. How do I know you're not a murderer or something?"

His gray eyes widened. He glanced down at himself as if he thought maybe he was dressed like one. "Wait-how do I know you're not? Murder is an equal-opportunity activity. Or how do I know you're not planning a drug-fueled orgy?"

Amy snorted. "As if I know enough people for an orgy. And I'm pretty sure I can't be bothered to murder you unless you don't clean up after yourself. I'm on a break."

He almost smiled. "The point is, the only thing I want to do is try and rehab my knee and think carefully about my options. I can do that on the deck. Or in the living room. Or wherever you are not. All I need is peace and quiet."

"That's all I need," Amy said. Well, that and wine. And some potato chips. "I'm going to be in the studio most of the day." Wait . . . was this doable? She could feel herself warming to the idea.

"There's a studio?"

She nodded. "Separate from the house." She pointed at the small, cabin-like structure on the lower level of the yard.

"This house is huge," he said. "We probably wouldn't even see each other."

"It's so huge." She looked at him sidelong. He didn't really look like a murderer. And when he took a few steps backward to lean against the counter, she noticed his limp. He was eying her closely, too, she noticed. Sizing her up. Probably assessing how quickly he could take her in a fight. "Okay, Mr. Neely, I am willing to give this a try until we can get it resolved, as long as you stay out of my way and don't expect me to cook or do anything for you. And you can't eat my food."