It was nearly ten. The storm had softened to thick flakes that fell with less rage and more persistence. Jack was teaching Claire how to make gravy the Brennan way in a small saucepan on the back burner—"one spoon of Walter from the tin, rest Mae's method, salt like you mean it but not like you're angry at the cow"—when someone pounded on the locked front door hard enough to make the paper turkeys shiver.
Jack tensed. The ladle paused mid-stir. Mae reached under the register for the baseball bat she kept there "for raccoons, fools, and traveling salesmen who don't understand closed." Claire's heart climbed into her throat and sat there like a stone that had learned to beat.
Jack flipped the lock and opened the door to a man in a soaked overcoat, hat crusted with ice, leather suitcase in hand as if he had packed for persuasion. He was handsome in a careful way, clean-shaven even in a blizzard, the sort of face that photographed well on insurance calendars. When he saw Claire, his expression broke into relief so sharp it looked, for a dangerous second, like ownership.
"Claire. Thank God. Your mother called every inn from here to Stowe when you didn't check in at Ruth's. I drove up. The car died a mile back near the old covered bridge. I saw your diner lights through the trees."