With only a few days until Christmas, Bonnie Sherman picked her way among the snow in the cemetery to her son’s grave. It had snowed a couple of days ago, and the weak December sunlight hadn’t made much of a dent in the precipitation. More fog and snow was predicted this holiday season, much to the delight of all who wanted a white Christmas.
Bonnie arrived at the headstone bearing her son’s name. Only four when he passed, Jeff would’ve been rooting for the magic of snow on Christmas Eve. The thought brought a haunted smile to Bonnie’s face. She ran her fingers across the top of the stone, the chill of it radiating deep inside her soul.
She couldn’t remember the last time she felt warm. Probably that summer day she’d taken Jeff to the sports complex to fly the kite her mother had given him for his birthday.
Two minutes.
She’d lost sight of him for two minutes.
The next time she saw him, he was dead.
She inhaled, the emotion she usually kept tucked away roaring to the surface. She had good days, and she had bad. Sometimes she’d be going along, busying herself in the third grade classroom where she worked as a teacher’s aide, and something would hit her that would release the floodgate on her feelings.
A smell. A random thought. A smile of a student passing by with reddish blonde hair like her son.
She tucked her own strawberry blonde hair behind her ear, wishing she’d worn a hat. Jeff’s grave sat in the far south corner of the cemetery, and she laid the denim blanket she’d brought on the ground so she could sit awhile.
She didn’t cry, a feat Bonnie had been working on for seemingly ever. It had been five years since Jeff’s death, and she thought time should’ve done a little more healing by now. She started reciting the things she could be grateful for in her life, a strategy her mother had suggested when Bonnie’s husband had filed for divorce and left for Maine.
“I have a good job,” she said to the silence in the cemetery. Maybe to Jeff. She wasn’t sure. She normally didn’t talk to him specifically when she came here. She didn’t believe he was there, listening.
“I like my job,” she continued. “I know some people have good jobs they don’t like. But I like working with the kids at the elementary school. They’re good kids.”
The wind tried to steal her scarf and get its icy tendrils down the collar of her coat, but she pulled the fabric against her skin.
“I have friends. In fact, they’re expecting me tonight for dinner and a gift exchange.” Her lips curved the slightest bit as she thought about her forthcoming evening of fun, and food, and Christmas spirit.
“My parents have a Christmas Eve dinner planned too.” Bonnie didn’t hate her life. A life that had been reduced to a few evenings out each month with her friends and remaining family. Most days, Bonnie didn’t mind. Some days, she did.
She honestly didn’t know how she felt that day.
Sometimes Bonnie simply felt nothing at all, and as the wind whipped up the top layer of dusty snow and attempted to throw it in her face, she couldn’t work out how she felt. So it was one of those days.
“Well, my boyfriend is waiting.” She smiled at Jeff’s name on the headstone and hesitated before standing.
A terrible crash sounded behind her and she turned to see what had caused it. A horse the color of midnight thundered toward her, his head down, his eyes clearly unfocused. She tried to stand, but couldn’t, the blanket tangling around her legs.
Snow pushed up her pant leg and all she could see was white—with a huge horse barreling down on her.
“Ho!”
She heard a deep voice echoing in the sky, almost splitting it.
“Over here!” someone else called.
Someone whistled, and Bonnie blinked, trying to get herself to ignore the wild look in the horse’s eyes.
“Come on, Bonnie,” a man said, latching onto her arms and pulling her out of the way. Pain shot through her body; her heart crashed against her ribs; Fingers and hands like iron kept her moving though her legs acted as dead weight.
She landed in the snow on her back a few gravesites away just as the black horse trampled the blanket beneath his hooves.
She breathed. Her lungs worked.
The whistling started again. Men continued to yell to each other and at the horse.
Bonnie looked up into the most handsome face she’d ever seen. It almost hurt to look at, and she recognized the man immediately.
“Sam.” She tried to sit up, but he helped her anyway, the pressure of his hand on her back practically burning through the layers of her coat and clothes.
Sam Buttars. Of course it had to be Sam Buttars with the beautiful face, the strong hands, who’d rescued her. The one man who had caught Bonnie’s interest. They’d gone out a few times last summer and into the fall, and then he’d just…disappeared.
He stood and brushed slushy snow from his jeans and offered her his hand. She took it, trying to coach her body to contain the tremor threatening to explode across her shoulders. It didn’t work, and her skin tingled where it touched his.
“Hullo, Bonnie.” He didn’t release her hand but squeezed it. His intoxicating brown eyes captured hers and she couldn’t look away. “Sorry about Thunder Mountain. He’s a real pain.”
Bonnie couldn’t make her voice work, which was absolutely ridiculous. She was thirty-four-years-old, had been married before, had a child, had endured a funeral and a divorce. And yet the simple sight and touch of Sam Buttars stole her breath and rendered her mute.
“Hey, you okay?” His cowboy boots shuffled him a little closer to her and he leaned down to peer at her.
She wished he wouldn’t. Because now she could smell him, and though he’d clearly been working all day, the delicious scent of birch trees, leather, and horses accelerated her pulse.
“I’m fine,” she managed to say though her legs trembled. “I’m—I just haven’t eaten in a while.”
Sam finally dropped her hand and fell back a couple of steps. He ducked his head so the brim of his cowboy hat hid his expression. She hated that about him. He’d done it whenever they were talking about something he didn’t want to discuss any longer—like why he thought they couldn’t have a relationship.
He’d tried to explain, got frustrated, and that was that. Cowboy hat down. Conversation over.
“I need to go help my brothers get that horse,” Sam said.
“Yeah, of course.” Bonnie moved to retrieve her blanket and brushed the snow and frozen dirt from it. She let her gaze linger on her son’s name for a couple of extra seconds before turning to go.
Sam still stood there, and she paused.
“Bonnie,” he said, and she wanted to hear him say her name every day. Soft and full of emotion, like the way he just had. In a normal tone, as he called up the stairs so he could ask her a question. In a panic, when he needed her help because the dog was muddy or the kitchen pipes had burst.
“Better go get your horse,” she said. “It was good to see you, Sam.” She forced her feet to move her further from him.
“What are you doing tonight?” he called after her.
She froze and turned around. “What?”
“Maybe we could go to dinner or something.”
