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Snow Follies
     
     
     
     
    Eric Hanley didn’t often talk to a car, but sometimes circumstances called for the practice. He spoke in a soft tone and praised his sister’s baby for climbing the hill without too much trouble. Hill. Who was he kidding? He just lied to this car. It was a mountain, and a steep one at that. He hoped it was the last one until he got to Flagstaff. He realized now that he should have at least looked at a map, but it was a straight shot from Phoenix to Flagstaff. One road, no turns.
    Eric’s six-foot-two frame was shoved into his sister’s compact sedan. He felt like he was folded in half. Shannon’s transmission had gone out when she was in Phoenix last month, her mechanic took his sweet time fixing it, and Eric said he would bring the car back when he moved to Flagstaff. He had let Shannon take his truck back up the hill with her. He missed his truck. At least this would be the last day he would have to accordion himself into this car. The moving men had packed his apartment this morning and put all his belongings in storage until he found a house.
    Eric had spent the last semester teaching a special physics class at Arizona State University. He liked ASU, but the desert was just not for him. He had been living and teaching in North Carolina for the last five years and felt like he needed a change, and that his sister lived in Arizona had made up his mind. He hadn’t realized how big Arizona was, and he thought that Shannon and he would be closer. When he had been offered a tenured position at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, he’d jumped at the chance. He was looking forward to spending the holidays with his sister in his soon to be hometown.
    Flagstaff—thirty-five miles. Finally. He should be there in a half an hour or so. He was always late, no matter what he did… alarms, setting clocks ahead, or people calling him. His sister just expected him late (or told him an earlier time). The clouds that were forming over the mountains concerned him. The forecast called for a couple of inches. It had started to snow as soon as he climbed out of the Verde Valley. The flakes at first were coming down slowly and gently. Now the snow was getting thicker and the wind was starting to blow. At the Stoneman Lake Road exit, there were Department of Public Safety cars, lights flashing, with the officers pointing people to a gravel “chain up” area. What was a chain up area?
    He pulled up to the officer and rolled down his window. Eric was stunned by what he saw. The man before him was gorgeous. Mid-twenties, strawberry-blond hair, hazel eyes, and just the right amount of freckles across his nose and cheeks, which were blossoming with color in the cold wind.
    “Sir. You need chains to go any farther north.”
    “Chains?” It sounded kinky to say it like that to a man in uniform.
    “Yes, sir. For your tires. To drive in the snow. Do you have any?”
    Eric looked at the man’s coat and saw his nametag said C. Gallagher. “Officer Gallagher, to be honest, I have no idea what they are.”
    “Well, then you are going to have to turn around and go back down to Camp Verde and get some, or come back tomorrow after the roads have been plowed.”
    “This is my sister’s car and she lives in Flag. Would she have them?”
    Officer Gallagher barely kept his eyes from rolling. The people coming up from the valley during the winter set his teeth on edge. He smiled instead and said, “Why don’t you pop the trunk, and I’ll take a look.”
    Eric pulled the lever for the trunk and stepped out of the car. He rounded the side just in time to see the officer take a gray plastic box out of the trunk labeled “tire cable chains.” “These need to be installed on the front tires. Take your time. I’ll come back and check on you later.” Eric turned and watched as Officer Gallagher walked away to direct the traffic that was coming down the interstate. Eric shook his head and stood there, not quite