Snow Falling on Bluegrass by Molly Harper Read Free Book Online

as she anticipated.
    Finally I heard a booming voice from the direction of the front desk. “Ladies and gentlemen! Everybody stay right where you are.” A flashlight clicked on, revealing Luke’s handsome face, lit from below like a camper telling scary campfire stories. “Don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t panic. If you all just wait a few minutes, I’m sure the power will come right back on. Everybody just have a seat and try not to run into anything sharp.”
    I looked up, my forehead bumping gently against Charlie’s chin. His grip loosened and his hands slid away. With one last deep breath of that delicious spicy smell—because I hadn’t tortured myself enough— I took a step away. And another, and another, until I bumped against a club chair and slid into it.
    We passed a half hour in darkness. We waited patiently for the insistent whine of electronics firing back up, but all we heard was the sluggish pattering of rain. We were tired and cranky, and our dinner of prepackaged sandwiches salvaged from the rapidly warming gift shop cooler hadn’t improved our collective mood.
    Luke was monitoring a weather radio, keeping it at a low volume so as not to freak us out. Sadie suggested a nightcap by candlelight, which temporarily raised our spirits, if for no other reason than that it was funny to watch former college bartender Jacob try to fix our drinks in such low light. A scene from Cocktail it was not, but he got the job done. He did, however, lean forward when he served the first few drinks, as if he expected us to tuck a tip in his shirt . . . which made me wonder exactly what sort of bar he worked at in college.
    The situation didn’t seem so dire with a (generously/sloppily poured) bourbon and branch in my hand. We gathered around the bar and watched through the picture window as the rain formed thick sheets of ice on the glass, blurring the world outside like a badly done watercolor. An hour later, the lights were still out and Sadie was calling a list of vendors to cancel various bonding activities she’d planned for us this weekend. The general response to her calls was (1) Duh, have you looked outside, lady? and (2) Good, because subjecting people to a firewalk in the middle of winter is barbaric.
    That last one wasn’t so much a general response as my response. But that didn’t make it any less true.
    Charlie’s phone beeped once, then twice, until he glanced down and switched it off. I wasn’t sure who was texting him, but he looked . . . pleased, happy even, with the messages he was getting. Charlie was never much of a texter. He was a phone call guy. Maybe he had a girlfriend now? It might explain his occasional distance. And how he suddenly figured out how to dress cute.
    Do not try to find logic in the male mind , I heard my friend Bud’s voice advise me. That way lies madness and sad conclusions.
    Josh sat in the corner with an increasingly fidgety Sadie, typing away on his smartphone, the light from the screen almost blinding now that our eyes had adjusted to the dark.
    â€œJosh, you might want to conserve the battery on your phone,” I told him. “Who knows when you’re going to be able to recharge?”
    He shook his head. “I’m checking on the storm damage. It’s pretty widespread already and it’s expected to get worse. Temperatures are dipping into the teens. We’re supposed to get several inches of snow on top of the ice.”
    Jacob tugged at the collar of his jacket, as if the idea of being snowed in with us didn’t fill him with incandescent joy. “We’ve never had an ice storm knock out power to half the state in one swoop, but that’s what happening right now.”
    â€œWhat are we going to do?” Bonnie asked. “We don’t have bread, milk, and eggs!”
    â€œPretty sure they have those in the kitchen, Bon,” I reminded