Page 3 of Once Upon a Christmas Carol

After finding an unoccupied outlet, she plugged in her charger and started her search for small farm towns near Grand Rapids with a water word in the name.

After trying Sugar Springs, she tried Venus Lake and then Miller’s Creek and got lucky.

A Donald and Maria O’Harney appeared to be residents with ages listed as mid-seventies.

That seemed to fit. Encouraged by this, Carol even put the extra directory charge on her credit card in order to obtain their number and full address.

And suddenly the phone was ringing ...

and ringing ... and ringing. She checked the terminal clock overhead, worried perhaps she was calling too early.

But it was after seven now, and if they were a farm family like Mom had said, they should be up.

“Hello?” an elderly female voice crackled over the phone.

“Hello?” Carol tried not to sound too desperate. “Is this the O’Harneys’?”

“Yes, and if you’re trying to sell me something, you can just—”

“No, no, I’m sorry to disturb you, but I think you might be my aunt.”

“That’s just fine. Now, if you’re a scammer, and you’re about to tell me you’re in jail and need bail money, you can go jump in a lake. I already got troubles aplenty, thank you very—”

“I’m really sorry to bother you.” Carol couldn’t help but smile. This woman had spirit. “But can you tell me, are you Maria? Is your maiden name Banducci?”

“Yes...?” Her tone, still laced with suspicion, softened slightly.

“And is your younger sister Rosa Louise Banducci?”

The other end went silent.

“Hello?” Carol worried she’d lost the connection—or that the woman had hung up.

“Is this about Rosa?” Maria asked with quiet urgency. “Did something happen to her? Is she, is she ... dead?”

“No, no, not at all. In fact, I just spoke with her. She’s alive and well in Phoenix, Arizona. I’m her daughter, Carol Langstrom.”

“You’re Carol? Carol Louise? Goodness gracious ... Well, I never.”

“I’m not sure how close Miller’s Creek is to Grand Rapids, but I’m on my way to the Bahamas for a vacation and got stuck at the airport.

I really could use a shower ... and a bed.

Even for just a few hours if flights ever get going again today.

” Her nerves spiked at the silence on the other end. “I mean, if you have room.”

“Of course. I have plenty of room.” Maria paused. “But I’m not able to come get you.”

Carol’s heart sank. “I know this weather is atrocious. I didn’t expect you to drive.”

“Oh, it’s not that. I drive in weather like this all the time. It’s just that I can’t right now. Not today anyway.”

“I thought I could take an Uber?”

“A what?”

“A taxi. Do you think a taxi would go that far?”

“Oh, goodness, that’d cost a fortune, honey.

No, don’t do that. Tell you what, I’ll send Victor for you.

He owes me a favor since he’ll be driving Don’s old Chevy.

I was about to call him just now anyway.

Give me your number, and I’ll call you right back if he can go fetch you.

And even if he can’t, we’ll figure some way to get you out here. ”

Carol recited her number, then said goodbye and ended the call.

After about five minutes, her phone chimed, and her aunt said to look for “an old red pickup with rails and a plow” and that Victor would be there in about an hour.

“Due to the snow. Otherwise, it’d be half that time.

But you gotta take it slower in the snow. ”

Carol thanked her and hung up, then wondered if this was a ridiculous plan.

She looked around the still-crowded terminal, seeing weary travelers, most with dismal expressions as they looked at their phones.

All gates still proclaimed that flights were canceled.

Well, for better or worse, she would meet her aunt and uncle today.

If nothing else, it should be interesting.

Carol had never experienced much family growing up.

Her dad had one younger brother who lived in eastern Washington.

She’d met him and his relatively large family only a handful of times.

As she recalled, his four kids were all very loud boys.

Plus, they’d been quite a bit younger than her, and she’d never had much fun with them when they came to visit.

She was always glad to see them loaded back up in their minivan heading for home.

After about forty minutes passed, she went down to the passenger pickup area and stared out the window.

Still pondering over family and relatives, she wondered if she might have other cousins.

If Maria and Don had kids, they’d most likely be older than Carol since it sounded like Maria was at least ten years older than Mom.

Maybe Victor was their son, which would make him Carol’s first cousin.

Might be nice to have a cousin. She saw a red pickup pull up, but it was a newer model driven by a woman, and a man and teenager ran out to get inside.

She kept her eye on the busy lanes of traffic and wondered what rails and a plow were, anyway? Was Victor driving a tractor?

She checked her phone to see that nearly an hour had passed.

The blizzard was still raging. What if roads, like the runways, were closed and Victor wasn’t able to get through?

Would someone let her know? She was about to call Maria back when she noticed an older pickup that, beneath its coat of snow, appeared red.

A big thing on the front bumper was probably a snowplow and alongside the bed were wooden boards that resembled a fence.

She figured those must be the plow and rails.

This must be her cousin. Waving, she stepped outside, toting her carry-on with wind whipping at her flimsy, unbuttoned cardigan.

She shivered and attempted a feeble smile as a tall, lanky man dressed in a fleece-lined leather coat, blue jeans, and a cowboy hat hopped out and jogged around to meet her.

“I’m Victor. You must be Carol. Let’s get out of this pronto.

” Just as he reached for her carry-on, a strong gust of wind flipped his hat off his head.

She reached up to grab it, but a thin leather strap beneath his chin kept it from taking flight.

“Stampede strings,” he said, winking. “Now get inside”—he yanked open the passenger door and practically shoved her in—“before you freeze your, uh, rear end off.”

He slammed the door with a loud clang and swooped up her bag, easily tossing it into the pickup bed—right into a heap of snow.

Then with his hat flapping in the wind behind him, he ran around to the driver’s side and hopped in.

As she watched him remove his hat, giving it a shake before hanging it on a gun rack behind him, she wanted to comment about how he’d buried her bag in the snow, but then she saw how cramped the cab was and kept silent.

Her waterproof bag was probably snow-proof as well.

Her feet felt icier than ever, but at least it was warm in here.

Or warmer, at least. She shivered. Maybe calling it warm was an exaggeration.

“Here,” he handed her a plaid wool blanket. “Put this around you.” He shook his head. “Man, you sure don’t know how to dress for weather, do you?”

“I wasn’t planning on being in Michigan today,” she replied a bit sharply.

“Obviously.” He put the truck into gear and pulled out.

“I’m supposed to be in the Bahamas right now.” She knew her tone was haughty, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

“Well, someone must’ve got confused.” He laughed.

She suspected he meant her but didn’t see the humor in the situation. “My flight got redirected. But if I was in the Bahamas, I assure you I’d be quite comfortable. They happen to have a very warm climate down there. Unlike here.”

“Well, you’re not in the Bahamas. And any seasoned traveler flying in wintertime should be prepared for any kind of weather or possible layover. Neither are uncommon during the holidays.”

As much as she tried, she couldn’t think of the perfect smart aleck response to his derisive comment.

And he was probably right. She should’ve been prepared.

If any of the terminal shops had been open, she would’ve bought some warm socks and shoes and perhaps even some kind of jacket.

But she decided not to pick a fight since her cousin was focused on driving—probably a good thing considering some of the mishaps she witnessed along the side of the road—and since he’d traveled a fair distance to get her.

She wasn’t sure if the cars she saw were abandoned or stranded or what, but a number of vehicles were partially buried in snow here and there.

Conditions really were hazardous. Perhaps she’d have been safer at the airport after all, but it was too late for that now.

“I, uh, I assume you get weather like this a lot in Michigan?” she queried. “People are used to driving in it?”

“Not necessarily. I mean, the weather. Our winters can do just about anything from be unseasonably warm to something like this. It’s not very predictable. At least not for the last five years or so. But the severity of this storm did catch some folks by surprise.”

“Apparently.” She pointed to a pair of cars that had clearly collided at an intersection up ahead. “I just figured people up here would know how to handle driving in snow better than this.”

“They do handle it better when it’s only snow, but this storm started with rain that turned to a sheet of ice and was then covered with snow. Have you ever driven on ice?”

She tried to remember. “I, uh, I don’t think so. We really don’t get too much ice in Seattle. And when we do, I stay home.”

“You’re from Seattle?”

“Yes. Didn’t your mom ever mention that?”

“Not that I recall.” As he waited for the light to change, he turned to look at her, a curious expression on his face. “Should she have?”

“I guess not.” She pointed ahead. “The light’s green.”

“Thanks.” He gently moved forward. She had to give him credit.

He was a cautious driver. As he navigated the mostly empty city streets, finally turning off on a more rural sort of road, she studied him.

He was definitely good-looking. With his thick, wavy hair and dark eyes, he appeared to take after the Italian side of the family.

She’d only met her maternal grandfather once.

She’d been four years old when Mom had taken her to visit Poppy Banducci, as Mom had told her to call him.

They’d taken a train somewhere back East, but all Carol really remembered was a big, dirty city and having to climb stairs up to an apartment that was too hot and smelled strange.

All to see the white-haired old man who never budged from his recliner, held an unlit pipe, and kept telling her to “speak up!”

She glanced at Victor again, wondering if he’d ever met Poppy Banducci.

But unless she was mistaken, her cousin wasn’t much older than her .

.. or he was aging well. So his experience with Poppy, if he’d had any, was probably similar to hers.

Even so, for the sake of conversation, she was about to ask when he spoke up.

“I was pretty surprised to hear Maria has a niece.”

Carol felt her brows arch. “That’s what you call her? Maria?”

He shrugged. “We’re pretty informal around here. I could call her Mrs. O’Harney, but I doubt she’d like that much.”

“No, I guess not. I just assumed you’d call her Mom . I tried calling my mom by her first name once when I was a teenager, because she was, well, let’s just say she’s never been terribly maternal. But when I called her Rosa, I thought she was going to knock me down.”

He raised his brows. “Did your mom hit you?”

She couldn’t help but chuckle. “No, but she had quite a temper.”

He laughed. “My mom is hot-tempered too, but she mostly just yelled when I was a kid. I guess it comes with being Italian.”

“That’s what my dad used to say about my mom. Probably not very PC, but he called it her hot Italian blood. Her temper was one of the reasons they split. Just one of many.”

“Your parents divorced?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I was just a kid so it was a long time ago. I don’t think I was scarred too much by it.” She forced a laugh. “I’m not seeing a therapist or anything.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That I’m not seeing a therapist?” she teased.

Now he laughed, making the edges of his eyes crinkle in an attractive way.

Maybe he was older than she’d guessed. Well, if first impressions were true, and she knew from experience that a person could be fooled, Victor was a good guy.

And perhaps this unplanned visit with relatives would turn out better than expected. Any port in a storm, right?