Footprints in the Snow
Lily Baldwin
It was a cold Christmas eve night, even for New Hampshire. Mia pulled the collar of her jacket up around her ears just as the 9:30 train to Boston rumbled out of the university station, leaving the platform empty. She listened to the train’s churning gears and whistle long after she lost sight of its lights. And then, after a while, there was nothing. No sound, but for the occasional car. The world lay beneath a blanket of snow. Winter came with a silence that was palpable. It could be felt bone-deep, just like the cold. She shoved her hands into her jacket pockets, trying to not think about Christmas without her dad. With every exhale, her hot breath clashed with the icy air, creating puffs of cloud from her lips.
“Good evening.”
She jerked around, her heart pounding. “You scared me,” she said, narrowing her eyes on the young man standing beneath the light of the single street lamp. He was tall and lean with a clean shaven head and thick black brows.
“I didn’t hear you come down the stairs.” She wrapped her fingers around a small tube in her pocket, feeling the contours to ensure she gripped pepper spray and not strawberry chapstick.
He stepped forward. “Forgive me. I did not mean to frighten you.” His voice was deep yet gentle.
She shrugged and turned away, straightening in her seat. In the distance, she could see the lights of the dairy barn on the outskirts of campus.
“May I?”
Without looking up, she moved to the far side of the bench. At length, she glanced sidelong at the man who wore a long gray wool coat with gold buttons lining both sides and stripes of blue sewn onto the lapels.
“Are you in the military?” she asked.
“I was,” he said.
She glimpsed unguarded eyes the instant before he shifted his gaze to look at an oncoming train. She leaned past him, hoping to spy the 10:00 to Portland, but the train’s slow progress told her it was only a freight. Graffiti covered carts lumbered by, churning the powdery snow near the tracks into a flurry.
She glanced over her shoulder at the stairs, wishing she could climb to the top and begin the long, icy walk back to her dorm. The idea of spending Christmas with just her mother was agonizing. Expelling a long breath, she turned away, once more staring past the tracks to the cow barns in the distance.
“My father was a vet,” she said out loud, though more to herself than the stranger next to her. Her father had been many things in life, a war hero, a music teacher, a friend. He had been gentle and funny while her mother had always been restrained and controlling. The great irony is that she grew increasingly like her mother with each passing year.
“Are you journeying home for Christmas?” he asked.
She nodded but kept her eyes forward.
“What is your Christmas wish?”
“Do you mean other than for Christmas to go away?” She dropped her head in her hands not believing she had just said that out loud. Resuming her former position, she shoved her hands back into her pockets. “Sorry. I’m not the holiday type.”
“It is quite alright.”
There was something about his voice that she liked. It was formal yet warm and somehow familiar. At length she said, “What do you want for Christmas?”
“What everyone wants,” came his reply.
“A jet pack,” she said dryly.
He laughed. “No. Something much simpler. Love.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right, love.”
“You do not believe me?”
She shrugged. “No, it’s not that. It’s just”¦I mean, seriously, love?”
“Do you know what love is?”
She cut another glance his way, then looked straight. “Of course I know what love is. Love is”¦Love is everywhere.”
From the corner of her eye she saw him lean toward her. “I suppose it is,” he said. “But so are many other things.”
She turned to look at him headlong, meeting his gaze. His deep set eyes were dark and earnest. His nose was somewhat crooked giving him a tough appearance, but his lips looked full and soft. They curved into a slight smile, and she quickly looked away, realizing she’d been staring.
“To say love is everywhere is empty,” he said. “It would be the same as a teacher instructing a student on the importance of gravity by simply stating gravity was everywhere.”
She raised a skeptical brow at him. “But gravity is everywhere””thankfully, I might add.”
He smiled. “Indeed, but simply defining gravity as everywhere does not get to the heart of it.” He shifted in his seat to face her fully. “What is significant is not that gravity is all around us. It is the relationship between our feet and this train platform, the platform and the ground, the ground and the center of the earth because of gravity. Without it we would all float away into nothingness. The same goes for love. It is the relationship between two people that exists because of love which matters. Love is what binds lives together so that we all don’t float away into nothingness.”
She closed her eyes for a second against the jolt of regret his words evoked, but when she opened her eyes a moment later, he was gone. Jerking around in her seat, she looked toward the stairwell. It was empty. She stood then and scanned the platform. He was nowhere to be seen. Shaking her head, she slowly sat back down, her eyes raking the snow around the bench. Only small footprints marred the fresh white powder, her footprints.
“I’m going crazy,” she said just as a train appeared in the distance.
A short while later with her forehead pressed against the window, she watched the platform fade to black. Then she leaned back against the stiff vinyl seat and heard a deep, gentle voice reminding her on Christmas eve that love is what binds people together. Tears flooded her eyes, and she reached for her cell phone.
“Mom,” she said when her mother answered. “I’m on my way. I should be there in a couple hours.”
“I look forward to seeing you, Mia.”
“Me too, Mom. And Mom”¦”
“Yes.”
Mia chewed her bottom lip, searching for courage. She closed her eyes and at last blurted, “I love you, mom.”
Silence as deafening as winter’s chill hung in the air and then Mia heard a quiet sob through the phone. “I love you too, baby.”
She has never met a man like him before. Then again, he has never met a lad like her.
In 1802, Edinburgh’s poverty-ridden Old Town is rife with danger, but it is the only home Robbie MacKenzie has ever known. To safeguard herself against the worst villains of the street, Robbie conceals her femininity behind her shorn hair, dirt-smeared face, and tattered breeches. To all the world she is a lad, but beneath the ruse is a woman aching to break free.
Leaving his beloved Highlands behind in pursuit of his prodigal brother, Conall MacKay journeys to Edinburgh. There, he solicits the aid of a young street lad named Robbie. But Conall soon realizes that there is more to both Robbie and Edinburgh’s Old Town than meets the eye.
In a world where wickedness governs and darkness reigns, a savage struggle for dignity, survival, and love begins.
EXCERPT:
Robbie’s feet lifted off the ground, sending the pit of her stomach in the opposite direction. Her heart pounded, and her breath fled her throat in a rush as she soared higher.
“Sweet Jesus,” she said, finding herself suddenly nose to nose with a giant of a man with hair so long and wild she might have thought he was the Devil himself, were it not for his gentle eyes. He was at once terrifying and strangely compelling.
And those eyes”¦
She could not utter another word as she met his gaze. She felt as though she was sinking below the surface of a pure blue sea. They shone crisp and clean, and in their depths she glimpsed a fineness she had naught by which to compare. His eyes made her heart ache for goodness, for a place far from the lecherous demons of the streets and farther still from the worst demon of all””hunger. It was too much to bear. She lowered her eyes to escape the sweet possibilities she glimpsed in their depths. It was then she saw his kilt and sporran.
“You’re a savage from the north,” she blurted.
“Ye call me a savage?” the man said with a look of disbelief on his face as he examined her from head to bare feet. She knew what he saw: several months’ worth of dirt and grime coated her limbs. Not only was bathing a luxury she could not afford, her foulness saved her from the true dregs of the street. To all the world, she was a lad, from her shorn hair to her tattered breeches, to the affected timbre of her voice. The filth that layered her body was her armor.
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Happy holidays!
Award-winning Historical Romance author Lily Baldwin loves writing, Scotland, her wonderful husband and beautiful young daughter–though not necessarily in that order. She has a BA in anthropology from the University of New Hampshire, and an MA in International Studies from Birmingham University in the UK. She daydreams constantly, and gets her best story ideas while running. She also finds inspiration in Nature, a quality revealed through the powerful description and drama in her books.
Lily lives in New England with her cherished husband and daughter.
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