Small Town Christmas

Chapter 5: Elizabeth

I started my journey to my brothers house as soon as I was packed and ready. I said my good byes to Aspen, which took a long time, and left. Since my Cousin's son was allergic to dogs I had to leave her behind. My good friend was coming by to make sure she was good.

As I drove out of the driveway I turned on the music. I sang to 'White Christmas', 'Have yourself a merry little Christmas', and more songs. Even though I was a terrible singer I sung till my heart was filled with Christmas spirit.

Cliche right!?
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For the fun of it I counted every single hill I went over. I got to 18 when I came down this one will, I saw a truck at the end of the hill. A man was standing by it, a dog was sitting at his feet. I slowly came to a stop behind the truck. For my car I could see the man was shivering.

I stepped out and pulled on my jacket. The dog was a big border collie. I looked up to see the man that stood in front of me.

He had brown hair that was slicked back. He was tall and very handsome. His hazel eyes looked at me. Even with the freezing cold temperatures and snow gently falling his eyes seemed warm. He smiled and my insides melted.

"Um, my car is having troubles." He gestured to his truck. "And my phone is died." The border collie walked up to me and sniffed my pant leg. The man gently tugged on the leash, the dog got the hint and trotted back to his owner.

"Do you need jumper cables?" I offered. I was strangely calm to this extremely attractive man. He nodded.

"Ok, I have them in the back of my car. Just hold on." I said and walked to my trunk and grab them. Before I walked back to him I quickly checked myself in the reflection of the back window.

My short brown hair was down and framed my thin face. My makeup was good and thankfully I had no cheeseburger on my face from earlier. He was gently walking in place when I came back. I pulled my car in front of his and helped hook things up.
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"Nothing" he said frustrated. "Great".

I wiped oil off my hands with a towel he found in his backseat. After figuring out it was not going to be fixed by a simple jump start we tried fixing it. My phone was died too so yay! Note the sarcasm.

"Where are you heading?" I asked.

I passed him the towel. "Denver for a meeting." He looked at the snow falling. The snowflakes had grown bigger since I stepped out of my car.

"Oh I'm heading there too. Well I have to go through Denver." He looked at me with a weird look. It wasn't happy but not necessarily sad.

"Well there's got to be a town close up, I can give you a ride there and you can find a mechanic." I suggested and folded my cables neatly.

"Yeah that would actually be perfect." He smiled. Again it wasn't happy or sad, just like a look.

Walking back to my car I asked, "Do you have any stuff you need to bring along?"

He nodded and started to walk away, he suddenly stopped. Turning with a worried face.

"Can I bring...?" He looked down at the border collie and then back up at me.

I smiled. "Yeah I don't mind."

After a minute or two he came back to my car. I opened the door for the collie. I noticed the gray fur on his nose and slowly developing around his eyes. The man gently picked him up and placed him in the backseat. After getting settled in, he introduced himself.

"Sorry I'm Michael Holt." He offered a handshake.

"No problem, Elizabeth." I shook his hand. His hands were warm, he smiled and seemed to be happy. This time he didn't give me that weird look.

"Oh I almost forget this old guy. Ryder." He glanced back to his dog. I turned to look at him and was surprised to find him standing up and suddenly licking my face.

I laughed a little. Michael saw me and pulled on his collar.

"Ryder" he sighed."Stop it no" he gently said. The dog stopped and sat down.

"It's alright. I have a dog of my own, it's not like I haven't been covered kisses before." I laughed. He slightly smiled and looked out the window.

He turned back to me. "Yeah I know what you mean." His smile faded and looked back out the window. "It's really coming down out there."

I pulled back onto the rode and looked outside. Fresh snow lightly covered the road. Blacks and gray trees where also lightly sugared with snow.

"Yeah." I said. The rest of the way was silent.