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    The Firefighter in the Snow
    The Firefighter in the Snow
    The Firefighter in the Snow
    Ebook66 pages57 minutes

    The Firefighter in the Snow

    By Leska Beikircher

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    About this ebook

    Cody Laughman, a lonely firefighter in New York City, gets a blast from the past when his late father’s lawyer approaches him with news. It has been three years since Cody’s father’s death, the family house needs to be sold. Although Cody is glad to get rid of this part of his life, there is one final thing he needs to do -- fly home to Muffin, Alaska, and make the property presentable.

    He expects this to be a quick visit, just cleaning up some old memories he usually ignores. But memories are stubborn, and on top of everything else, he finds a real Christmas elf living in the attic of his house. Not a tiny fairy, but a full-grown, deliciously handsome man. He doesn’t even have pointed ears.

    But can Cody open up to the possibility of finding love, when the ghost of Christmas past is still haunting him?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJMS Books LLC
    Release dateDec 1, 2013
    ISBN9781611525168
    The Firefighter in the Snow
    Author

    Leska Beikircher

    Leska Beikircher is a German-Italian Waldorf classroom teacher and freelance writer. She has been living in different countries and was fortunate enough to have met with many cultures in her life—more is yet to come! Leska is mainly writing stage plays for kids and teens.

    Read more from Leska Beikircher

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      Book preview

      The Firefighter in the Snow - Leska Beikircher

      11

      Chapter 1

      It had been a beautiful house, 1313 Aurora Avenue. The façade painted blue, the windows big and arched, the front door inviting. The garden once won the local Beautiful Landscapes at Home award four years in a row. It had been a welcoming house. Warmly illuminated windows at night, and meticulously arranged Christmas lights during the season.

      Now it stood empty; the only house in Aurora Avenue that was a part of the dark. Not even the festive lights from the neighboring garden reached all the way through the trees and the hedge to it this year. It seemed surrounded by a cloud of impenetrable glumness. As if it were hiding in the darkness of the arctic. As if it weren’t a part of this world anymore.

      * * * *

      All the way across the United States, New York City was drowning in Christmas decorations. During the day, honking cars and chatting pedestrians competed with random Christmas songs that wafted out of shops and into the streets. Beautiful people whose lives were perfect smiled down from advertisements on the world below. Santa Claus took the subway, and his elves worked at the mall. At night, when the traffic slowed down, it was difficult to make out the stoplights amidst all the blinking and glowing. Three days ago, it had snowed, but the only thing that hadn’t melted was the wet chill.

      A countdown glowed on a larger-than-life billboard in a quieter part of Brooklyn. It was on top of a parking garage, opposite an apartment building that had seen better days. White digits on a red background. Its light shone all the way across the street and through the window of a living room that was, ironically, perfectly devoid of any seasonal decorations. A small apartment with second-hand furniture that gave the place a random look. What could have been turned into hip, thrift-store chic by someone who cared, looked thrown together in this place; desolate. Few books were on the bookshelves. No trinkets on the windowsills, no unnecessary clutter. Even the kitchen looked like an abandoned showcase rather than a lived-in room. It held no warmth. The only thing that looked well loved was the toaster oven. The trashcan was digesting a bunch of pizza cartons.

      The tenant of the place was in the tiny bedroom, also illumined by the billboard. Thirty-two-year-old Cody Laughman was dreamlessly sleeping through the first night in weeks. His black hair was trimmed short, and when he wasn’t asleep, his eyes were blue and wary. He was a firefighter; he had just got off the night shift three days ago. It always took him a couple of nights until he adjusted to the new rhythm. The red and white light of the billboard shone through the curtains and painted numbers on Cody’s exposed chest: 12:22:37. Days, hours, minutes until Christmas.

      Cody turned in his sleep, in sync with the minutes on the billboard changing to 36.

      Chapter 2

      Cody had always wanted to be a firefighter; it had been a childhood dream. As a boy, it had seemed to him the noblest of professions. He had also always wanted to leave his hometown and go to a big city. In a way, he had made both his dreams come true. It had been bliss for the first few years. Slowly he had come to realize that sometimes dreams were but shiny fruit on a tree that turned out rotten on the inside. Living in New York was both curse and blessing—blessing, because in the anonymity of the megalopolis it was easy to withdraw; curse, because in the anonymity of the megalopolis he had learned that nobody truly cared.

      Cody Laughman had left his hometown to be alone; now he was lonely. He ate breakfast alone and dinner by himself. When he wasn’t on the job, he was at home, doing chores, reading a book, or, more often, catching up on sleep. He didn’t own a phone. For work emergencies, he had a pager; for everything else, there was a pay phone in front of the parking garage across the street. No iPad, no computer—Cody didn’t believe in availability. He had nobody to be available for.

      Which was why the information came via a letter.

      He found it when he checked the mailbox after a very late breakfast. Expensive, heavy paper, an elegant header. Waterman & Son Law Firm. The letter was addressed to him; it simply stated to get in touch with the office as soon as possible. A phone number he found at the bottom of the page. Cody had never heard of them, but a chill crept down his spine when he read the location of the firm: Fairbanks, Alaska.

      As it turned out, Waterman was a harsh-sounding woman with little time.

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