Chapter Fifty Fifty Five - Winter Conditions - Possible Black Ice
"So." Lucille grunted, then relaxed and managed to smile. "Is that hard lump poking me in the lower belly a sign that you're going to tell me yes?"
"Nope, it isn't. That's simply my body's reaction. After all, I'm a sixteen-year-old guy, and my body is showing its appreciation for a sexy woman who demanded to be taken to bed."
"What do you mean?" She stiffened and pressed her body upright.
"Well, in the first place, you're jumping to conclusions on a basis of only part of the facts. In the second place, you're attempting to make binding decisions for me, but basing them on your point of view, not mine. In the third place, Mom is interfering in my love life once more." I spoke quietly but forcefully. "I'll tell you right now that I don't like any one of those things at all. I am getting very tired of women trying to run my life and I'm not about to stand for it any longer. From now on any decisions that affect my life strongly are going to be made by yours truly and no one else."
"But ..."
"Lucille, be quiet for a moment and let me speak." I growled, interrupting her. "Just because Sandy isn't pregnant doesn't change my feelings about her. It doesn't change the fact that I have feelings toward the other two young women either. On top of that, although you and Mom may have wrapped your heads around the fact that you were adopted, I really haven't come to grips with it. And, before you argue about it, yes, we did just have sex, but part of the thrill of doing that is the basic hint of incest. Even sleeping in the same bed as you gives me erotic feelings. It seems as if we're breaking or at least bending the law and being obscene in some way or another."
I paused for a moment and she was about to speak, but I looked her in the eye and shook my head.
"Then too, I still don't know you well enough to trust you implicitly." I added quietly. "I spent years thinking of you as a snotty little bitch, so part of the thrill of having you around is a sense of risk. I've really only known you for a little more than a month, but I've known Sandy and Carissa for years. Your father and his cohorts took advantage of us for years and mentally I still have a hard time thinking of you in any other terms than as someone who rode on our backs with them. Whenever you act kindly toward me or my friends, I find myself looking for a reason that you're doing it. It's almost as if I'm wondering if you're planning to take advantage of our trust or something. I can't help that; it's the way I am. I guess I'm simply not an exceptionally trusting person."
"But your Mom and even Uncle Toby have learned to trust me. I mean, Uncle Toby even gave me Aunt Tilly's ring." She protested, vehemently.
"Ah, yes, the ring." I nodded and sighed. "Grampa Bender had that ring on a rawhide cord around his neck for years. I'd be willing to bet when he took it off, he left it on that cord and actually told you to give it to me, didn't he?"
"Uh, yeah. When he gave it to me it was on a leather cord, but the cord stank and ..." Her nose curled and she frowned as her voice slowly lost volume.
"Unh huh. It probably did. After all, he'd worn that thing around his neck for years." I managed not to grin at the thought of her holding the cord and smelling the odour of years of Grampa Bender's stale sweat. "However, he didn't tell you to take that cord off and put the ring on your finger, did he?"
"No." She admitted very quietly. "He told me to give the whole thing to you. Then he told me I should take you to bed and prove I was a woman. He said that if you were smart you'd make the right choice."
"That's what I thought. I think the point he was making to you was that the choice was mine, and then it was your choice to accept or reject what I decided. I don't think Grampa Bender would have tried to dictate something like that to either one of us."
"Yeah, I guess I fucked up." She admitted, using her right hand to slip the ring off, then handed it to me.
"Thank you." I surprised myself and managed to say it without smiling, then I reached over and set the ring on the night-stand beside the bed.
"I didn't even throw the cord away. It's in a plastic bag in my purse."
"The cord isn't important to me."
"It is to me, because it was important to Uncle Toby." She sniffled. "I'm sorry I screwed up."
Then, she flopped down against my chest and began to quietly cry, so I simply held her and let her cry herself out. She actually fell asleep lying fully on top of me and at first, I was surprised, then I decided that I liked the idea. I realized that if she fell asleep in such a vulnerable position, it meant she was comfortable, but it also meant that she trusted me. I decided that I really liked that.
I slid one hand to the middle of her back and the other hand down to cover one cheek of her butt, then relaxed myself. I had some thinking to do and it seemed like a very good time to do any thinking I might want to do.
First, I had to decide on a way to get Mom to keep her nose out of my love life. It seemed to me that she was changing her mind about who was the most suitable woman in my life on almost a weekly basis. On top of that, she'd decided I was some sort of reincarnation of Grampa Bender, but I knew that wasn't true either.
Second, I had to let everyone around me know that I wasn't in any rush to get married. After all, even though I'd been declared a legal adult, that didn't mean I was willing to settle down and get married. I felt I was too young to be saddled with a wife and kids, and I wanted to do a lot of things before I got married, most of which involved education of one kind or another. Mostly, I wanted to take several courses about farming and ranching, but I still had the urge to know more about electronics.
Third, I decided that it might be an idea to buy a large supply of condoms and remind myself to use them at all times. I did not want to go through the worry about unwanted pregnancies that I'd suffered earlier in the week again, not at any time in the future. I reasoned that it wasn't up to the women I was involved with to protect themselves, in fact after the two scares I'd had, I wasn't certain I trusted them to do that. Entrapment by way of pregnancy was too damn easy.
Fourth, I decided I'd been too trusting in many ways. I seemed to have a blind spot where women were concerned. I didn't want to become a misogynist, but at the same time, I didn't feel I should give my trust as easily as I had been either.
I sighed deeply at that thought and disturbed Lucille, who woke from her nap. She surprised me by smiling slightly.
"Umm, I like this, lying in bed with you, I mean." She murmured softly and wriggled slightly. "Unfortunately I need the bathroom and we didn't pull up the covers, so the cheek of my butt that your hand isn't covering is cold."
"But ..." I frowned, wondering at the change in her reactions.
"I've been awake for a few minutes, so I watched your face and I know you've been thinking." She announced. "I want to know what you've decided, but I really need the can right now. Just wait, I'll be back and you can tell me about it."
With that, she pushed my hands away and rolled out of bed. As she ran across the floor to the master bathroom, I got the urge to go as well, but since the cabin now had three bathrooms, that was no problem. Lucille was back in bed and snuggled under the covers when I returned. She smiled widely this time and lifted the blankets to invite me back to bed, then snuggled tightly against me.
I stared at her in surprise. She simply wasn't reacting like I'd expected her too. I wasn't complaining, but I'd expected her to get angry and I certainly hadn't expected her to be cuddly.
"What is going on with you? I thought you'd be disappointed or even angry with me." I said quietly.
"No." She sighed. "I was disappointed at first, but when you were talking it dawned on me that I didn't know you any more than you know me. I was always taught that your side of the family was silly to stay on the farm, but at the same time I knew how much the money from the farm meant to everyone. Now that I've been getting to know you, I'm ashamed of my parents and that whole group. I can understand exactly what you mean about feeling they were acting like leeches and I even sympathize with you not being able to fully trust me yet."
"That quickly?"
"Oh, come on. It hasn't been all that quickly at all." Lucille snapped as she lifted her head to stare down at me. "I moved away from home almost two years ago because I didn't want to live with a control freak. Then when I moved from Calgary and took a job in the local hospital, I literally got disowned by the old prick."
She sighed then and flopped down, but pulled away from me slightly, then I could see tears come to her eyes. "I think subconsciously, I even tried to use the bastard's own techniques in order to get you to marry me. When I think about it, I was pushy and overbearing, so it's no wonder you're having a hard time trusting me."
"So, is that why you wanted me back in bed with you, to try to convince me that I was wrong?"
"Nope." She said flatly, then slowly her face twisted into a grin.
"What is it your reason then?"
"Well, I have an ulterior motive. Cuddling in bed with you is great, but sex with you is wonderful. And, you're probably right, part of what makes it great is that deliciously naughty feeling that we're family. Even though I know it really isn't true, it feels like we're committing incest. It adds a certain spice to the act of screwing each other." She broke into giggles then. "You can call it weird and twisted if you want, but in some ways I hope that feeling never stops."
"Never?" I grinned at her, reaching out and caressing her gently under the covers.
"Never!" She grinned back. "Not until both of us are old and helpless. The only other thing I want from you is that I have a chance to do it for a long, long time."
Then she paused and frowned. "I think I'm going to make a pact with Sandy and Carissa."
"Oh, what sort of pact?" I was frowning now.
"Just that no matter who you marry, the other women in your life won't be shut out." She smiled slowly. "I'm like your Mom and Uncle Toby, I think you're a natural born polygynist and I don't think we should fight it."
"I think I'm just young and taking advantage of all the willing women who've been throwing themselves at me." I laughed aloud.
"Well, catch me then." She giggled and rolled toward me.
So I caught her and tried my best to show my approval of her changed attitude. We did manage to get out of bed to do the evening chores, slopping around in the slushy snow that was being melted by the chinook. Then we had a quiet evening, but just before we went to bed, Lucille made a big deal out of presenting me with that rawhide thong that had held Gramma Bender's ring for years.
The chinook played out during the night and a sudden cold snap moved into our area. The slush and water, left behind from the chinook's melt, froze where it lay and we were surrounded by a skating rink. Even the snowmobile was useless in the mess that was left behind and four-wheel drive vehicles were even worse. Lucille and I were stuck in a valley, with our only road up to the plateau covered in ice.
The two of us were isolated from anyone else for a full week. At least there was no service break in either the phone or the electricity, and I'd stocked up on enough food for two months for three guys. Then too, I'd just had a fuel delivery of heating oil for the cabin, and the new furnace kept the whole place pleasantly warm, so we were in good shape. Most of our days were spent either looking after the animals or working on the house, but we filled in several spare hours acting deliciously naughty. Somehow the word 'Cuz' took on a definitely sex-filled overtone.
Actually, conditions for us were a lot better than they were for many others in the municipality. The hardships that the frigid weather created were quite general. In fact it affected everything from road conditions to school openings and I heard later that the unseasonable weather pretty well wiped out Halloween celebrations in our local town. Our local weekly newspaper actually came out with a prediction of a coming ice age, but in actual fact anyone who was prepared for a normal fall and winter lived through it with little problem.
Personally, it let me get to know Lucille much better and surprisingly, one phone call changed Mom's attitude toward me as well. We weren't able to go to see anyone, but the telephone conversations we had certainly accomplished a lot. Actually, I found that Lucille used the telephone much more than I did. She talked to Mom every day and with both Beth and Jasmine at least every two days. But the surprising thing was the amount of time she spent on the phone to Sandy, Carissa and Jackie. She must have talked to each of them for at least an hour a day. The result of all her phone calls was that she heard a lot about my school days and knew much more about me than I did her. I didn't realize it then, but during those phone calls, she also changed the attitudes of Sandy and Carissa, both toward me and toward herself and all of the changes were positive.
On the Friday following Halloween, a chinook came blowing in and by late Saturday evening, the roads out of the valley were passable. Early Sunday morning, Lucille left for town and not long afterward, Dad arrived with Matt and John, but John was just there to pack up his clothing. He wanted to move to Innisfail to be with his other brothers for the winter, and told me he was going to go back to school after Christmas. However, he wanted to come back the next summer and I did promise him a job. That's when I found out that Dad had offered him one as well, so when they left John was in a great mood. He knew he was welcome to come back and he even had his choice of jobs in the spring.
Matt and I were working out at the barn later that afternoon when we saw a strange car come driving into the yard. Sandy and Carissa had brought Jackie out for a visit because she hadn't spent much time with her brother for months and was going to the hospital in Edmonton in two weeks. She was scheduled for tests and surgery in mid November, so I offered to pay for a pair of motel rooms for Matt and his brothers during the time she'd be there. From the way the two of them reacted, you would have thought I'd offered them the moon.
Carissa and Sandy left for town that afternoon, but Jackie stayed behind, supposedly to spend time with Matt, but that night she made it clear that she was sleeping with me. Even though the doctor had warned her not to be involved in any kind of penetration during sex, she'd have been willing to risk it. I wasn't though. Instead for the next few days she cuddled with me at night and spent her days getting to know her oldest brother.
I found the fact that they barely knew each other very weird, but considering the way they had been raised, it shouldn't really have been a surprise. Even though they'd often lived in the same house, the only times they'd seen each other were during church or at meals. Even during the meals Jackie hadn't eaten with the boys. Instead she had served their meals, but had been taught to be silent while the family was eating, then she and her mother had eaten later. In other words, women in that household were treated as servants and little more. On top of that, Matt had been away from home for years. At the age of sixteen, all the boys had been forced to find jobs and support themselves, so he'd been away from home for most of the last six years. In that time both of them had changed. So in some ways it was as if they were getting to know strangers.
I'd thought Matt and his brothers were raised in isolation, but as I talked to Jackie, I realized that she had literally been kept away from any way to learn about the real world. Her main view of what Calgary was like was seen from the perspective of her home and that of the homes of four other families who were involved in similar situations. A trip to a bargain clothing outlet or a fabric store had been a big deal for her, because that meant she would wear new clothing. However, she'd often worn hand-me-downs.
Since both Matt and Jackie had been home schooled, there were woefully huge gaps in their education. Current affairs and recent history were blank pages for both of them because they'd only seen TV or heard the radio on odd occasions. Matt was in better shape than Jackie was, but not by that much. Actually Matt was now taking grade nine and ten courses by correspondence and when Jackie saw them, she devoured the books. By the time she left four days later, she had made up her mind to do the same thing.
When Carissa came to pick Jackie up, the two of them went into a huddle. By the time they came up for air, they'd decided that Jackie would apply to school in town and see if she could repeat her grade nine or at best go into grade ten. I suggested that she bone up on her grade nine courses that she had taken, then arrange to take any other essential courses by correspondence during the time before school started. That way she'd be able to start in high school and although she'd be two years older than most of her classmates, she wouldn't be that far out of sync with them.
Since it was less than a week before Jackie had to be in Edmonton for tests and possible surgery, she and Carissa were in a rush to leave that day. Not only did they have to get ready for that trip, but now they had Jackie's education to consider. Jackie was extremely emotional when they left, but she promised us that she'd be back and Carissa managed to let me know that she'd be back to see me as soon as she could.
Sandy showed up two days later and she brought enough clothing and paraphernalia with her that I knew she planned on moving in for a while.
"What's up with all this?" I grinned as I looked in her car.
"Well, Carissa and Jackie are coming to get Matt tomorrow to go to Edmonton, so I'm here to see that you aren't spending any time alone. If I'm here with you, you won't get lonely." She grinned at me. "Besides, both Lucille and Jackie got to spend several days with you on their own. It's my turn."
"I see." I laughed, wrapping her in a hug and getting a short kiss as well.
"Besides, we didn't tell you, but my family is hoping to spend Christmas with you. In fact, if Jackie is out of the hospital, Jackie, Matt and the other boys are planning on spending a few days here then. Oh, Lucille and Carissa will probably spend some time here too, but with them there are other family members that they'll spend time with as well."
"It sounds like you have the next month and a half of my time all planned out." I grinned at her. "Are you women getting uppity again?"
"Not really." She broke into laughter. "Actually, I was supposed to ask you if it's alright, but I got carried away. So now I'm asking, can we impose on your hospitality and join you for Christmas?"
"Well, since we have six weeks to plan for it, I guess that's okay." I tried to keep the grin from my face.
"Well, it's not as if things are set in stone. I know your family has plans as well and we aren't going to interfere too much with those." She giggled then. "I think your mom would have our hides if we did."
"Yep, she probably would at that." I chuckled. "Now do you want all this stuff inside? If so, I'd better call Matt since there's so much of it."
"Well, it's not all mine." She giggled. "We talked it over and since people seem to end up being stuck here for days on end, we decided to buy a few emergency supplies to keep here, just in case. Not many of us gals like the idea of wearing guys' used gaunches and things of that sort."
"Well, I'm sorry. I wasn't planning on having a bunch of women underfoot when the blizzard happened."
"Yes, but it happened twice. Lucille wasn't any happier than I was about having to borrow your underwear." She giggled as she grabbed a big bundle of clothes. "We've decided that you have the weatherman in your pocket and you're bribing him to keep us here for extended periods. However, now that we've got some essentials here, it probably won't happen again."
"I wouldn't count on it. The weather does what it wants and we live with it." I laughed and followed her inside with a couple of boxes.
Unfortunately, Sandy coming with a lot of clothing served to illustrate the fact that there wasn't enough furniture for the rooms in the new addition. The whole cabin was woefully short of drawer space for all the additional clothing and Sandy got on the phone as soon as we realized how short of storage space the cabin was. She must have been quite effective with her plea for used furniture. It was snowing lightly the next morning, but Frank Dolens followed Carissa out with a big truck and it was loaded to the hilt. He had a whole master bedroom set and two extra dressers from the Coulters, but he'd also decided to donate his family's old living room furniture. When we unloaded it all, I saw that he had a used snowmobile hidden under everything else.
"Whose snowmobile is that, Frank?"
"That's mine or rather it belongs to my family." Sandy grinned at me. "I asked Frank to keep an eye out for a good used one. Jessie, Jean and I want to have some fun, but I thought a second snowmobile was essential up here anyway. You don't mind it we keep it here, do you?"
"I guess not." I shrugged, but winked at Frank. "But, I don't know where we'll store it."
"Well, while we're on the subject of space, John and I have been talking about your ranch. You need more buildings." Frank said quietly. "I don't know if John has said anything to you about it, but we were thinking that you have an ideal spot here for scenery and protection. Have you ever considered starting a dude ranch?"
"A what?" I looked at him in astonishment. "This is a working ranch. I'm really not into babysitting a bunch of people."
"Well, we looked at what you've done in the past six months or so. In that time you've taken several young people under your wing and helped straighten them out."
"I didn't do that alone. My family did more than I did."
"No, you didn't do it on your own and you are quite young, but it's something for you to consider in the future. You're very good at teaching greenhorns about rural life. You might want to think about it as a way to add income with a relatively small investment." He said seriously as he untied the snowmobile from the tethers in the truck. "Now where should we put this thing?"
"Well, for now let's put it with mine, in the lean-to beside the barn. I guess since Matt is leaving with Carissa, Sandy and I are going to have to shift things around to make space for it."
Frank just laughed at that, and shortly after we'd unloaded the snowmobile, then covered it with a tarp, he left. After he was gone, I had a chance to go inside again. Sandy and Carissa were driving poor Matt crazy as they shifted and shuffled the various pieces of furniture around the new living room, trying to find a layout they both could agree on. I watched the circus for a moment, then I stepped into the fray.
"Enough!" I barked quite loudly. "As long as I'm the person who owns the house, don't you think I should be consulted?"
Carissa looked ready to argue, but Sandy looked chagrined, meanwhile I wasn't waiting for them to say anything.
"Matt, give me a hand, the couch sits facing the fireplace." I grabbed one end of it and watched him grin slightly as he grabbed the other.
"But how will you watch a TV from there? Where will you put it, beside the fireplace?" Carissa pleaded.
"Carissa, this place is in a deep valley. You can't get TV here."
"Oh." She muttered quietly. "Well, there goes that Christmas gift idea."
"Is that what this was all about?"
"Unh huh." She looked upset. "I miss having a television. Are you sure you can't build a bigger antenna or something?"
"There's no way to build one anywhere near tall enough." I chuckled. "TV signals go in a straight line, and pass about a quarter of a mile over our heads. There is no way we can build a tower that high and if we did, the signal wouldn't get from the antenna to the TV because of the resistance of the lead-in wire between them."
"Oh. Okay, but why does the couch have to go there of all places. It's right in the middle of the room and ..."
"And from there, if I'm lying down on the couch, I can look out the window and see both the driveway and the barn." I interrupted as I pointed a few feet from one end of the couch. "However, since I like to sit down and read at times, I want a comfortable chair right about there. I'll pick a comfortable chair and set it right there, then I can do the same thing from that seat. I designed this place to be practical and comfortable, not to be a showcase of style or anything else. Don't forget, this is a log cabin in the boondocks, not a mansion on an estate just outside of town."
Once I got it through everyone's heads that I wanted things to be practical and comfortable throughout the house, we got the furniture shifted around quickly and easily. It wasn't long after we finished moving the furniture into place that Matt and Carissa left.
Sandy and I were alone once more and as we watched Carissa's car disappear around the last bend and into the cut that lead up the hill, she broke into giggles.
"What's so funny?" I frowned at her.
"Well, when you did your imitation of a grizzly bear and barked at us, I thought Carissa was going to pee herself." She snickered. "She gets so wound up with the idea that she's right that she forgets things like the fact that you own the place."
"Yeah, she has a tendency to want her own way and I hadn't realized it until just a while ago, but she had me wrapped around her little finger for most of the summer."
"I can't complain about that." Sandy leaned over and snuggled up to me. "I don't think I'd be here if she wasn't a bit pushy with both of us."
"Well, it seems to me that all of our families got into the act as well."
"Let's not go there, huh?" She sighed and leaned against me. "That's really not something I want to be reminded of right now. There are still some uncomfortable memories tied into that sort of thing."
"Sorry, I didn't think about that."
"Umm, I know. That sort of thing happens." Then with another sigh, she grabbed my hand and turned us toward the door of the cabin. "Right now I'm getting chilled from just standing here. Let's go do something. Either inside or out, but if we're going to be outside, let's dress for it."
Instead of going outside, for the rest of the day I did my best to make her forget those uncomfortable memories. I know I succeeded some of the time.
Over the next six weeks, between gifts from friends and purchases that we made, we finished the furnishing of the new addition. While we were at it, we bought curtain and drape material, then both Mom and Sandy sewed up new curtains and drapes. While they were at that, I built some bookshelves as well as finishing the painting in the place. We even spruced up the old part of the cabin with new curtains and new paint and extended the kitchen, turning the rest of the old living room area into an eating area. I added a large propane kitchen stove and set it up right beside the old electric one, then made Sandy's day by buying and installing a dishwasher as well. With a few new counters and new doors on the cupboards, the old section of the cabin felt new.
While we were doing that, we found time to go to town and see Grampa Bender several times. Lucille managed to come out and visit us a few times, but she had to work her visits around both her duty schedule and the weatherman. She didn't want to risk being caught in another blizzard or ice storm. Of course on the weekends, if the weather looked good and there was no risk of a storm, we brought Jess and Jean out to the cabin. Tom, Jasmine, Beth and George often dropped around on a Saturday or Sunday. However, we also had visits from Mom and Dad as well as Uncle Tom and Aunt Alice. In fact we had visits from a lot of other people as well.
We did arrange to have Tom and George handle the chores the first weekend in December. We left the cabin after doing the chores on Friday morning and drove to Edmonton in my pickup in order to visit Jackie. We arrived in the afternoon and went to see her, but at that time she was still recovering from the operation. We hadn't realized that it had been postponed until that morning while the hospital did several tests in order to know what to do once she was in surgery.
We met Carissa and Matt at the hospital, then stayed in the same motel as the Coulters and Jackie's brothers. In a way it was sort of like being home away from home, but we weren't in the mood to party. Instead, we were all worried about Jackie's future health, Carissa more than anyone else. In fact, after all the tests and all the waiting around, Carissa looked worn out.
It seemed that Jackie had developed a cyst and the doctors had removed it, however they were afraid the cyst was cancerous, so it was being tested. Now, they were waiting for the results of the tests to find out if a further operation was needed. If the cyst was cancerous, she was going to have to go through the possibility of another operation and even chemotherapy. Unfortunately the doctors wouldn't know that until Monday morning, but we had to be home by Sunday night.
That night Wilma and John took the two late shifts of sitting with Jackie. When John came back to the motel in the morning, after being replaced by Matt, he and I talked for a while. He asked if Sandy and I would take Carissa shopping to give her a break since Jackie wouldn't really be recovered from the anaesthetics until later in the day.
So I went Christmas shopping with two women. Mostly I acted as a beast of burden, carrying parcels and packages, but I did get away from the two of them for an hour or so and quickly found a jewellers who sold me four identical lockets. Then I slipped into a woman's wear store and bought each of them a cashmere sweater. After those purchases, my personal bank account was sorely depleted, so from then on my purchases for other people on my list were less extravagant. But, for everyone's enjoyment, I bought a few Christmas decorations for the cabin and a several sets of lights for a decent sized tree.
Sandy and Carissa both had credit cards and to my way of thinking, they went crazy. I teased them that I was glad I had a pickup with a covered box. Otherwise, we'd never fit everything into it to take them back home. Then while we were driving from one mall to another, I noticed a restaurant supply store. I pulled in there and bought a complete service for two dozen people, checking to be sure that it included everything from plates and glasses to silverware. By the time we'd had lunch, then gotten back to the motel, the back of the truck was almost full and I was tired of walking and carrying things. Carissa looked in a better mood, but as we separated Carissa's parcels from ours, I think it was dawning on Sandy just how much we had bought. Now, she was the person who had a frown on her face, but she shrugged it off quickly.
When we got to the hospital, Jackie was looking much better and could recognise each of us. The hospital had been a little worried because she'd taken so long to recover from the anaesthetics, but they seemed to be quite relaxed when I spoke to anyone. We wished Jackie the best of luck when we talked to her that afternoon and then again the next morning, but she seemed pessimistic in some way. The only times she brightened up were when either Carissa or Mrs. Coulter were in the room.
By noon on Sunday, Sandy and I were on our way home. We'd been watching the weather and it seemed like there might be a storm on the way. In fact for the last fifty miles, we drove through a light snowfall and almost as soon as we drove into the yard, Tom began to prepare to go home.
It was a good thing he did. By the time we'd unloaded the pickup and finished the chores, the snow was falling heavily. At least the wind didn't blow hard, but by morning we had to contend with six inches of snow when we went out to do the chores. By the time the storm had petered out in the late afternoon, we had eight inches of snow on the level. The late afternoon light showed a winter wonderland outside the cabin windows and Sandy went shutter happy with a new camera I'd bought her as a belated birthday gift.
That night Carissa phoned us to let us know that all the tests were back and that Jackie was doing well. Unfortunately one of the tests had been inconclusive and they wanted to repeat it. She made that call to us on the second of December, but it wasn't until the nineteenth that she called again to let us know that they'd be home for Christmas and that Jackie definitely hadn't had cancer. When Carissa made that call, she was almost ecstatic and I didn't blame her a bit. I think we all felt like celebrating.
Actually, right about then we'd needed some good news to lift our spirits a bit because we'd grown to feel a bit boxed in by the weather. We'd had several more storms over that two-week period, but we had settled into a routine of clearing the snow from the roadway and keeping ourselves safely entertained. On that Friday, we went to town and stocked up for Christmas. Since we were expecting a lot of people to spend Christmas day with us, we bought a lot of groceries. As an example, we bought two turkeys, a huge ham and an extra large roast of beef, then we added all the fixings to go with that. On top of that I bought the regular amount of supplies for two people for a month. While I was at the store, I set up a deal that either Matt or Sandy could buy groceries and charge it to the ranch account in case weather made my trips home from Olds difficult.
Since high school had let out for the holidays that day, we picked up Jess and Jean on our way back to the ranch. Then early on Saturday morning, the four of us hopped onto the two snowmobiles and towing a toboggan behind one of them, we went out to cut a Christmas tree.