“Caleb, that’s sweet of you to consider but—”
“My motives were purely selfish, Esa. No sweetness involved.”
His sigh of disappointment brought her eyes up to his face.
Jeez, he was almost as gorgeous as Finn. She was the one who was masochistic around here. If she’d wanted clear evidence that what she’d felt for Finn was far beyond simple lust she’d just had it handed to her on a silver platter. If it had just been about a couple rounds of great sex with a yummy man, Caleb would undoubtedly fill the bill, in spades.
But she didn’t want that. The knowledge hardly reassured her.
“It’s okay, Esa,” he said when he saw what must have been a desperate plea in her eyes for him not to ask her out mixed with a mute apology.
“I’m sorry, Caleb. It’s just not a great time for me…”
He nodded good-naturedly. “Enough said. I understand.”
“I’m not sure you do,” she muttered uncomfortably. She stepped back
when she realized he still stood close. “I’d better get going.”
“I’ll see you around.”
Esa smiled and nodded her head as she turned. She was just being polite, of course. It would be strange indeed if she ran into Caleb Madigan again…unless he pulled her over to give her a speeding ticket.
That was entirely possible, of course.
“Hey, Esa,” he called.
“Yeah?”
“Be extremely careful on the way home. It’s getting really bad on the interstates but we hear the side streets are much worse. The snow is really wet and falling heavier in a shorter period of time than I’ve ever seen. Not only can’t the plows keep up, unprepared for the storm as the Illinois Department of Transportation was, but even the cleared areas are turning slick and thick within twenty minutes after the plow passes. Add to all that the temperature is supposed to drop ten to fifteen degrees and the wind is going to pick up in the next few hours. The Dan Ryan is going to be a skating rink, but I wouldn’t advise taking any of the alternative routes. The Cook County police are considering closing Stony Island.”
Esa sighed. She’s been taking the alternative route of Stony Island all week, ostensibly to avoid the Dan Ryan traffic, in reality to avoid the chance of seeing Finn. Driving Stony Island Avenue had been just as teeth-grinding of a traffic experience as the Dan Ryan.
“Thanks for the advice, Caleb. Good luck out there tonight.”
“Thanks, you too,” he said with one of those flashing Madigan smiles. “I have a feeling we’re both going to need all the luck we can get. It’s going to be one hell of a Friday the thirteenth.”
Esa decided an hour and a half later, after having traveled a total of twelve miles on I-57, that she didn’t need luck. She needed a miracle if she—or any of the other unfortunate individuals on the road tonight—was ever going to make it home in one piece. She gripped the steering wheel tightly and forced her tensed shoulder and back muscles to relax but it was difficult. Constant vigilance was required to drive in the swirl of snow that encapsulated her car in a cloud of near invisibility.
The snow was so thick on the road that driving either too fast or too slow was dangerous. She’d seen two cocky motorists going thirty-five miles per hour suddenly lose control, sliding into nearby lanes. Luckily the cars behind them were traveling slow enough to avoid colliding but they’d been near misses.
Drivers who hesitated and went too slow were just as bad off. The snow on the pavement had the consistency of an eight-inch-thick Dairy Queen Blizzard. A certain amount of momentum was required to plow through the thick mess.
Esa’s eyes burned as she strained to see through the veil of the snow as it flickered back and forth from a barely translucent veil to an utterly opaque gray curtain. She turned off the traffic report as she ever so carefully navigated the ramp onto the Dan Ryan Expressway. She required every last bit of attention she possessed to manage the slippery stretch of curving road safely.
After being in Dan Ryan traffic for almost an hour she felt like screaming in frustration. There were three times as many cars there as compared to I-57. Because of the narrowed lanes due to road construction, things were ten times more dangerous.
And Esa had only to glance ahead and see the ocean of red brake lights to know that she was royally screwed. Some kind of forward acceleration was required in the rapidly accumulating snow. Once she was forced to stop she knew there was a good chance she’d be stuck.
Where the hell were the snow plows and the IDOT trucks? She’d seen so many cars marooned at this point that she’d lost track of the count.
“Damn. Plus one more,” Esa mumbled to herself. A black sedan three cars in front of her and one lane over was stuck. The driver gunned the engine in a frantic attempt to get out of the thick furrow of slippery snow. He overdid it and the car’s rear end swung crazily around, hitting a car in Esa’s lane. She braked with a pumping motion and brought her car to a dreaded stop.
In the distance she saw a lime green IDOT truck also spinning its wheels in the snow and going absolutely nowhere, blocking the newly opened express lane that Finn had let Esa drive in on Halloween night. About ten men were unsuccessfully trying to push the large truck out.
Esa rifled through her purse and found a bottle of water. She sipped it, feeling like she was viewing some kind of slapstick comedy unfolding through her front window. The ten men scattered in every direction, including upward onto the top of the truck, as a car tried to stop unsuccessfully and slid into the IDOT vehicle in slow motion.
“This has got to be one for the Chicago record books,” she muttered. All the cars she could see at this point, in every direction, had come to a standstill. They were all going to sit here helplessly while the snow buried them.