Free Snow Angel by Chantilly White Page A

the freeway still took forever.
    “In-N-Out!” Christian and Wendell chorused from the third row, evidently coming awake through some cosmic sixth sense of awareness as they passed the fast-food restaurant sitting at the corner of Main Street and the freeway entrance.
    “Shut up, we’re not stopping already,” Gabe said from his seat behind Danny. “Go back to sleep.”
    “They’re not even open yet, morons,” Jacob grumbled.
    Wedged in the middle row behind Melinda, Jacob had his long legs stretched through the space between her and Danny, resting his sock-covered feet on the center console, and sounded like he was less than half awake.
    “Fifteen north and straight on ’til evening,” Danny said, far too cheerfully, when they hit the onramp.
    “ Mmmph ,” was the most Melinda could manage, her face buried deep inside her blanket.
    She already had a crick in her neck from leaning against the passenger window. Twisting to the other side, she laid her left arm across Jacob’s legs, pillowed up her blanket on top of it to cushion her head, and shuffled around until she found the right spot.
    By the time they’d wound through Victorville and out the other side, the car was quiet again, and Melinda happily drifted off.
    Less than forty minutes later, she woke to the slowing of the SUV as they exited the freeway toward the McDonald’s at Barstow Station.
    “You’ve got to -o-o be kidding m-me,” she yawned, stretching her legs as far as they’d reach. “We’ll never get there at this rate.”
    “Grown-ups need coffee,” Danny said, following the first car into the parking lot. “As long as we’re here, children, anyone need to pee?”
    Melinda dragged her blanket off and kicked out at him with her foot raised over the center console and Jacob’s dangling legs, but he batted her away with ease.
    Much grumbling and shifting around of big, male bodies came from the backseats before the driver’s side passenger door opened. Gabe and Wendell practically fell out onto the asphalt before they gained their feet and loped into the nearly-empty restaurant, Wendell’s red hair glistening like a halo in the light of the just-rising sun, a sharp contrast to Gabe’s long, dark locks.
    “Didn’t they have a ton of coffee in their thermoses?” Melinda asked through another yawn, rotating her head left and right to work out kinks caused by sleeping scrunched over in the seat.
    “A ton ,” Christian echoed grumpily from the back.
    Jacob leaned over the top of Melinda’s chair to rub her neck and shoulders, pressing expertly into the knots and melting them away. He’d always had a talent for backrubs. The firm touch of his strong, lean fingers made her hmmmm with pleasure, which brought her previous night’s dream, and that— wow —kiss, strongly back to mind.
    She shifted uncomfortably as her nerve endings sat up and purred.
    Hot. That dream was very hot. And…
    “God, I can’t wait to get out of this freaking desert for good,” Jacob said, and reminded her once again why they’d always be friends and nothing more.
    Pasodoro and the high desert meant home for her. For Jacob, it was a no-man’s land to escape as soon as possible.
    Melinda rubbed a hand over her heart. Did Jacob realize how often he said those exact same words? He repeated that sentence almost every time they drove past the cemetery or visited Seth’s grave. He said it almost every time they went out to the memorial garden to sit on their bench overlooking the riverbed, too.
    She closed her eyes. He said it a lot, period.
    And every time, the words stabbed a little harder into her heart.
    She’d miss him so much when he finally left for good.
    “According to your dad,” Danny said through a wide stretch, dragging her attention back to him, “there’s not enough coffee in the world to compensate for being on the road this early.”
    Honestly. Every year.
    “He set the damn schedule,” Melinda answered, getting her head back in the