The Captain's Snowbound Christmas by Eleanor Harkstead

Author:Eleanor Harkstead [Harkstead, Catherine Curzon and Eleanor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LGBT Romance Fiction
Publisher: Totally Entwined Group
Published: 2020-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Reuben started his car and put the radio on. He rubbed his hands as he listened to the weather report. It was much colder now than it had been when he’d arrived in Chichester that morning, and the weather report didn’t fill him with glee.

Unexpected snow flurries were coming in from the north-west, looping round the edge of Ireland and cascading their way across Cornwall.

The roads would be gritted, though. It was A-roads and motorway for most of Reuben’s journey. He just hoped that when they said unexpected, it hadn’t taken the gritters too much by surprise.

As Reuben skirted the edges of Portsmouth and Southampton, he watched the temperature gauge on his car plummet. At least he had his heating on. But as he went through the New Forest a thin rain started to fall, and within minutes it had turned into flecks of icy snow. The snow got heavier once Reuben had passed Bournemouth, his windscreen wipers squeaking with effort as they shovelled the snow away. The sides of the road were beginning to clot with drifting snow, and his satnav warned him that the road up ahead was closed.

Reuben slapped the steering wheel in annoyance. He was a few yards from a turning, and was now stuck with the option of sitting for hours immobile on a road that was rapidly turning Siberian, or attempting to pick his way through side roads that might be even worse.

But if he drove up to Blandford Forum, he’d still be on a main road and he’d be able to rejoin the route to Cornwall farther along, after the closed section.

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends!” Reuben declared. At least it was an improvement on the catchphrase that had been rattling around his head for the past few weeks. He turned off the road.

But as he drove, his satnav didn’t recalibrate and kept nagging him to turn back onto the road he’d just left. And before long, Reuben realised he’d lost all sense of direction. He had a horrible feeling that instead of going north to Blandford Forum, he’d instead somehow ended up going south-west. The roads got narrower, the snow more enthusiastic, and as his trusty Renault picked its way up a snowy incline, it came to a shuddering halt.

“Once more unto the massive fuck-up.”

Reuben sighed. Why had he left the main road? Why had he thought this was a sensible idea?

He got out and reluctantly prodded the engine, but he had no idea what he was looking at, so he called the breakdown service. The fact that he couldn’t describe where he was, other than that he was on a dark, snowy hill somewhere in Dorset, didn’t help, until his satnav at last chimed in with his location. Reuben was looking at a wait of several hours, so he flipped on his hazard lights, pulled a blanket out of his boot and wrapped it round him. Before his eyes, the snow turned into fist-sized fluff and hit his windscreen like snowballs.

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