Bella plucked a mug from the tray, holding it high. “May we all enjoy the comfort of a solid roof over our head, good food in our bellies, and friendships—both new and old—warming our hearts.”
“To peace, in this holiest of seasons,” Cassie agreed, taking the second-to-last mug. She looked expectantly at Steve, who realized she wanted him to add a toast.
“Uh…to finding these two young gentlemen alive.”
“And to making it back alive,” Joey added, clinking his mug against his friends’.
David blinked, then nodded. “To being rescued, even when I made an a—” He caught Bella’s pointed glare and changed his wording. “A donkey of myself.”
“To, um…tolerance, and the holiday spirit,” Pete agreed.
“To a Merry Christmas, a happy hajj, and a joyous Hanukkah,” Rachel offered. Then blinked and looked at Cassie. “Um…what celebrations do Buddhists hold at this time of the year?”
“The day the Buddha began his search for Enlightenment, but that was earlier in the month,” she dismissed with a smile. “I’m perfectly fine with the idea of toasting happiness, merriment, and joy, since you’re all safe and sound.”
“Then to happiness, merriment, and joy,” Rachel allowed, clinking her mug with the others.
“Good! Now it should be cool enough to drink,” Mike told the others, smiling. They lifted their mugs to their lips, finding the cinnamon-laced apple juice just on the tolerable side of hot.
Rachel lowered her mug and gestured everyone into the front parlor. “Come, sit! Shed a few more layers as soon as you’ve warmed up enough. If anyone needs a hot shower, we have three of them available, but the water tanks can only reheat so much at one time.”
“That’s assuming the power doesn’t go out,” Pete muttered, taking a seat on a padded calico footstool. “Storm this bad’ll probably knock out a substation somewhere, plus all them power lines coming down.”
“Naw, the county got smart along this stretch of road, an’ buried all the lines,” Joey reminded his friend, stretching out his legs. He’d claimed the rocking chair in the corner by the stove. “Power’ll only go out if the substation goes. Of course, that makes it a pain in the b—uh, backside when it comes to findin’ the road if the drifts get deeper than the ditches, since there’s no poles to watch for.”
“Well, if the power goes out, we’ve got a portable generator in the lean-to, just off the mudroom out back,” Steve told the others from his seat on the sofa, freeing one hand from the mug of cider so that he could tuck his wife-to-be closer against him. Having cheated a frozen, swirling death, he appreciated Rachel a whole lot more today.
“Speaking of which…shouldn’t at least one of you gentlemen cough up a credit or debit card, so that our hostess can register you for your stay?” Mike inquired gently, giving the three boys a pointed look.
“You can’t be serious about that,” Dave scoffed.
“Quite serious,” Bella stated before Rachel or Steve could speak. “Two of you owe your very lives to Mr. Bethel and that rope of his that guided us safely back to this shelter.”
They looked at each other, then Joey grumbled under his breath, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. “You can put it on mine, Miz Rutherford. I’ll beat it outta the other two later.”
Pete snorted. “As if you could!”
“Let us not test that theory in person,” Mike chided them. He turned to their hostess, who had leaned fully into her fiancé’s side, her slippered feet curled up next to Bella’s hip. “So, what shall we be having for our lunch?”
“Tomato soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, and steamed vegetables,” Rachel replied promptly. “With more cheese smothered over the top.”
Dave scratched his chin. “Well, if it’s the Bethel Inn cheese, I suppose I could stomach ’em…”
“It is,” Rachel promised, reluctantly uncurling from Steve’s side to take the credit card Joey extended her way. There was a credit reader in the kitchen she could use to bill him with. Credit wasn’t quite as good as debit, since it wasn’t an instant transfer of funds, but it would have to do.
“Well, in the meantime, why don’t we play a game?” Cassie offered. “Something to warm us up in both body and mind, like charades!”
The others groaned, but conceded the idea. With the snow swirling outside the house, the front room was cozily warm in contrast, thanks to the cheerfully burning woodstove. Bella volunteered to go first, rising to her feet and holding up three fingers.
“Okay, three words,” Mike agreed.
She held up two fingers, and Joey said, “Second word.”
Two more fingers, and Pete offered, “Two syllables?” Bella shook her head, so he changed it to, “Two letters?”
A nod and a tug of her ear, then a fluttering of her fingers, her thumbs intertwined, forming the shape of a bird. Steve narrowed his eyes. “Sounds like…dove—of!”
The black-clad woman nodded, unbuttoning her overcoat. Naturally, she was wearing an all-black ensemble of wool slacks and an angora sweater underneath. She held up her first finger after passing her coat to Dave, who draped it over the arm of his chair, and then she held up four fingers.
“First word, four letters,” the dark-haired youth offered, and received a nod.
A tug of her ear, and she stretched her hands out, as if expanding something. Steve tried to guess it. “Sounds like…stretch. Expand?”
Bella shook her head twice. Mike tried a guess next. “Lengthen?”
She swirled her fingers, encouraging that line of thought. Pete blurted out, “Long?”
Grinning, Bella tugged on her ear and pointed to him.
“Wrong, bong, thong,” Dave muttered.
“Song?” Steve asked, and received a sharp nod, three fingers, and then seven more in reply. It popped into his head. “‘Song of Solomon’?”
“You got it!” Applauding him, Bella reseated herself on the other end of the couch. “Your turn, Mr. Bethel!”
“Steve, please,” he urged. Thinking for a moment, he rose and began his own charade attempt with a smile and six fingers.
By the time Rachel returned, the others were laughing at her betrothed, who was flapping his elbows and making faces.
“Six words, Miz Rutherford!” Joey gasped, wiping at the tears in his eyes. “We can’t figure it out!”
“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” she stated, and grinned as the others gaped. “He did the exact same one when we first played charades together at a party back in college.”
“Cuckoo?” Mike snorted. “He looked more like a drunken chicken! No offense meant.”
“None taken,” Steve agreed, straightening with a grin. He took his fiancée’s hand and kissed it impulsively, remembering that party and how she had found his silliness endearing rather than off-putting. “Your turn, love.”
“HEY.”
The soft-spoken word turned Steve’s head. Pete stood in the doorway to the mudroom, watching him tug on his boots. “What do you want?”
“That gal, Bella, is right. I owe you my life. Me an’ Dave both do.” He scratched at the back of his head for a moment, then asked, “You gotta go milk your cows, right?”
“That’s right,” Steve agreed. “It’s almost time for their afternoon milking.”
“Well, I can help you. I’ve done it before, at my uncle’s place,” Pete offered with a diffident shrug. “If nothin’ else, you’ll need help clearin’ a path to th’ barn.”
Steve hesitated only a moment before nodding his head. “There’s only the four of them that need full milking; one of them’s at the first-milk stage, so that’ll need to be set aside; there’s a bottle of colostrum started in the dairy’s fridge. But the offer is appreciated. Get your things, and put them on in here. I’ve already strung a rope from the house to the barn, so we’ll be following that from here.”
Nodding, looking relieved at having his offer accepted, Pete vanished from the doorway. Steve finished settling his snow boots on his feet, and hoped that this peaceful coexistence would continue. The two boys did owe him their lives, true, but he didn’t do things like that to hold any favors over the heads of others. He had done it because it was the right thing to do.