A Smoky Mountain Christmas

A SMOKY MOUNTAIN CHRISTMAS

CHAPTER ONE

Christmas was two days away.

So here she sat. Trapped. Trapped in The Smoky Mountain foothills in one of the worst snowstorms of the decade. Wasn’t that the pits? And, to top it off, not thirty minutes ago Tina listened through static on the radio, that two convicts had escaped a nearby prison. Wouldn’t you know they were seen heading into this area?

Snow continued to fall; a thing of beauty until its intensity turned nasty. Real nasty. The snow wasn’t all that was nasty. There’d be no more contact with the outside world, at least until her car was fixed or by some miracle there was life in this remote section of the mountains.

Snow crunched under her feet as she inched up the hill. Tina glanced back at her footsteps in the snow and the new BMW, its back tires half buried in the snow-bank. Old-Man-Trouble had hitched a ride up the mountain.

Oh, yeah—chalk another one up for Mom. As always, she’d pressed the necessity for snow chains before heading up the mountain. ‘You know, just in case,’ she’d said.

Had Tina listened? Of course not. Now her stubbornness had gotten her into a pickle. Her sister Rae’s cabin was tucked so far back in the mountains, she hadn’t a clue where the other graveled roads led. Neither had the two hundred dollar GPS that channeled through every pig-trail for miles around. So much for technology.

"God only knows where I am." Tina cupped her hands, blew into the gloves and wondered if her breath would freeze before it hit her fingertips.

A bitter chill wrapped around her neck as she slid fists inside her coat sleeves, leaned into the wind and snow and trudged upward away from the safety of her car.

"Smoke! Is that smoke?" She drew in a breath of cold air hoping against hope there was life in these God forsaken mountains. "Yes."

It was bad enough the conversation was one-sided, but the side roads had swallowed her up mile by mile. Lost was no way to celebrate Christmas. Or her twenty-fourth birthday.

Urgent situation here. Rubbish. She had rubbish for luck.

Anticipation and hope fed through the sun’s blinding shimmer on the snow as she searched in the direction of the smoke. She saw nothing, but since giving up wasn’t an option, she prayed for signs of life.

Then she eyed a wisp of smoke that spiraled from the top of the hill, and through a canopy of trees, her eyes feasted on a small cabin.

There is a God!

On a normal day, it wasn’t in Tina’s nature to forget her manners, nor was she bold enough to knock at a stranger’s door. But, hey, today was not normal.

Tina pulled her coat and a snug-wrapped cashmere scarf close to ward off the icy bite that crept in around her neck. Hesitant, she slid a numb-fingered hand from her coat’s short pocket and knocked on the solid wooden door.

She knocked once, twice, then a third time. "Anyone home?" She peeked toward the window, but the curtains shielded her view. "Please—my car’s in a ditch and won’t start."

While her hand slid down to the doorknob, she wondered how hard it would be to pick a lock, and in frustration gave the cold steel knob a twist. Much to her surprise the door creaked open.

Oops! She knew country people were trusting, still...who left a fireplace burning if they weren’t home? She called out again, but the only thing that met her ears, was the silence of the frosty winter’s day.