Snow Jam (3 page)

"You've gone past ten," Jenna said dreamily.

"So I don't math well." I lay back on the sofa with my beer resting on my belly, cupped in one hand. "What about you?"

She'd thought briefly and complied. I didn't remember all her cities. A lot of them were in other countries, and I was nowhere near brave enough to try that.

We sat in silence for a little while, until Jenna, who had a boyfriend, said thoughtfully, "What about Tony? You'd take him with you, wouldn't you?"

And I'd realized I wouldn't.

That had been a surprise. It had been years since I hadn't hung onto whatever boyfriend I was currently with no matter how wrong he was for me. I kept dating completely inappropriate men and then when time came for me to leave them
–
or more likely when the time came for them to dump me
–
I hung on for dear life.

I knew this. I just didn't think Jenna knew this, though her phrasing indicated she did.

It also came as a surprise to realize that for once I'd choose to be alone, on my own, than in a nowhere relationship.

Huh.

I came out of my memory because Rick had stopped the car and opened the door and the cold was flooding in. He stood beside the Jeep, holding his hand out. Assuming he meant to help me down, I took it. Rick just rolled his eyes.

"I was going to take your bag." The one I'd been clutching like an idiot.

I stuck my chin up. "And here I thought you didn't want me to slip in the snow."

"You're a big girl. You can take care of yourself." He turned around and started for the cabin, leaving me fuming.

It didn't stop me from admiring the view, though, and by that I didn't mean the trees all covered in snow and the silly log cabin I had no desire to set foot in. I meant the guy marching up to the log cabin, the one wearing jeans that fit very nicely from the back. His sheepskin jacket came to his trim waist. It looked rugged and western, though I got the idea he'd be as comfortable in a leather jacket hanging around a city somewhere.

Having him stalk off like that left me not only admiring the view, but carrying my own bags, one of which I kept hanging onto like a lifeline.

Getting out of the Jeep, I slid in the snow and caught myself on the fender. I cursed inventively and tried again. And slid again. The back of the vehicle where he'd stashed my bags
–
the carry-on and my purse, I hadn't let go of my messenger bag
–
was still shut and locked under one of the hard shell Jeep tops. I'd have to go around to the driver's side and release the latch. If he hadn't locked it.

He hadn't, but if there was a latch, I didn't find it, and I ended up crawling between the seats on my hands and knees, dragging the bags back a little at a time as I tried to support my upper body while kneeling and reaching. The inside light was on, illuminating my struggles. I hoped if he was watching, that he was enjoying the show.

Growling, I got my bags free and followed his footsteps through the dwindling snowfall. I slipped again on the porch, the slick stamped down snow icy. I caught myself against the door, grabbed for the knob with one gloved hand.

And discovered it was locked.

I could sense him standing just on the other side of the door. If it had been daylight, I might have tried to make it back to the highway. The snow was slowing, a lot. It was still overcast, so while the sun wouldn't melt anything even if it was still up, it would have been warm enough not to freeze.

But it was night. And my options were rotten.

I knocked.

Before I lost my job as an economic development specialist, I was a lot more fearless. Maybe not ten cities in ten years fearless, or even eight cities in eight months each, which would take half the time, kind of fearless. But I handled things better. I traveled on my own if I needed or wanted to. I knew what I could do in my job, and I did it well. I had friends, boyfriends, lovers, a mother I liked but didn't have to depend on. I could get my car serviced and feel fairly certain I wasn't getting ripped off. Those sorts of things. And I was fully capable of making a move on a man I found interesting and attractive.

Since losing my job six months earlier, I'd lost most of that. It was probably best that Sunny had been halfway across the country from me or I might have crawled into her lap and stayed here, too scared to do anything else. Jenna wasn't the kind of friend I automatically went to when I needed to be put back together. A good friend, but the kind you're not ready to "burden" with your problems, not yet, anyway. My sister Jill and I are so different I can't even imagine her reaction if I suddenly called her with such a request.

So even with the distance between us it was Sunny I turned to. Sunny I talked to in my head and sent mental and real texts with the most inane problems and pretenses. Should I buy a cheesecake for book club? Should I go on the singles hiking trip I was only kind of interested in? Should I apply for this job? Wear this suit (photo attached) to the interview?

I didn't lose my job for malfeasance or because I wasn't good at it. It was purely an economic decision. But it left me demoralized.

So I followed Rick into the cabin with a curious blend of feelings
–
anger building at myself, and at the stranger who claimed to want to rescue me and who just left me standing in the snow.

I'm not used to being ignored. I may be shy, but at five-six, one hundred twenty pounds, with nearly blue black hair and olive skin, I'm used to drawing attention, even when traveling in sweatpants (they were the warmest thing I had with me) and sitting in my car, petrified of the snow.

Rick didn't seem to see it that way. That made him kind of fascinating in a scary way.

What bothered me was under the challenges he'd issued
–
you're a big girl, you can take care of yourself
–
I thought I saw a spark of something in his eyes.

I mean, past the amusement he seemed to derive from my predicament. For just a second I wondered if he was a plant, someone sent by Sunny to pick me up. It wouldn't be impossible for her to do something like that.

And if Rick was just some Jeep rescue volunteer stranger? Then he had a nerve talking to me that way. He hadn't saved my life or anything like that. He'd just gotten me out of what, for anyone else, would have been nothing more than an inconvenient waste of time.

I
can
take care of myself. Growing up the way I did, you learn.
Fast.

Rick's voice trailed out of the cabin where the front door was open. "You coming, princess?"

"Don't. Call. Me. That."

Gonna be a long night.

The snow was still falling. I didn't think Georgia got this much snow. It was one of the reasons I was going after the job in Hanlin. It wasn't like I wanted to leave Vegas for, say, Iowa.

But Georgia had Sunny in it, and it had a potential job I was sure enough of to have flown out for the final interview. If I got it, Sunny and I would be living about an hour apart. Yes! I had missed my best friend. We grew up together in California only she went away to college and I went to Los Angeles and she got married. And yep, I was a bridesmaid.

I stood on the porch where the snow wasn't falling on me anymore and brought out my phone. To my surprise, I had a perfectly good signal. I texted Sunny.

"Do you know this guy you sent in the Jeep?"

"Devious silence," she sent back so quickly she'd clearly been waiting for something. My suspicion of having been set up deepened.

"Yes or no, Sun. He's bought me to a remote cabin. Do I drink cider by the fire or run into the storm?" And hurry up and tell me, because my fingers are freezing off and I have to pee, I mentally finished the text.

"Really wouldn't send serial killer to rescue you," she sent back. "Defeats purpose."

I bit my lip. I could hear Rick inside doing something that required banging metal. Using rapidly numbing fingers, I sent, "Have you seen this guy?"

"Hot, huh?"

"Smoldering," I typed.

Rick shut the cabin door. I jumped and turned around, expecting him to be standing behind me. Nope. No one there. He'd just shut the door. With me on the outside.

"But short on charm," I sent, and was about to put my phone away when Sunny replied.

"Maybe he'll grow on you."

Like fungus
, I thought, and grabbed the doorknob.

It was locked.

* * *

When Rick opened the door, I was torn between actual gratitude, because spending the night on the porch wasn't possible and the Jeep wouldn't be much warmer, and irritation for that stunt.

So I didn't say anything, just stepped past him into the cabin. Where I stopped, appalled.

It was a total fishing cabin. By which I mean pictures of fish, dead and mounted and stuffed fish. Tiny galley kitchen, living room with leather armchairs, rag rugs. The walls weren't just logs on the outside, they were logs on the
inside
. My skin started crawling instantly with the idea of bugs. Bugs in the wood. Bugs freely leaving the wood.

When Rick stepped behind me to take my coat, I nearly screamed. No way he'd missed the expression on my face as I surveyed my home for the night. As I turned back to face him I expected a look of derision, of disgust or pity or anger.

But when I met his eye, he looked sheepish. "I know it's not much. It's a fishing cabin. My friends and I, we've been coming here since we were kids. My father." His voice broke. Not much but I heard it. "Left it to me."

"You lost your father?" I asked. He couldn't be much older than my twenty-five. And then, since my question was out of line, "I'm sorry. That must be hard."

That deserved snark too
–
it was totally lame. But when I glanced at him, he just looked withdrawn, like he was thinking about something. His father, probably. While he was distracted I took the opportunity to get a good look at him.

He wasn't really tall, not like a lot of the men I've dated. He was probably five-ten or so. But all of it worked. And it wasn't a hunting-fishing-wilderness-adventure kind of vibe I was getting from him. There was something about him I couldn't nail down.

Next instant he answered my lame remark with, "Yeah, whatever."

That's what I had been expecting. I was still covertly watching as he hung my coat on a hook by the door while I instantly grabbed my messenger bag again, then looked around for somewhere I could put it. Not likely the resumes and sample presentation were going to slip out on their own and run away, but the bag represented my new life I wanted so very much to be starting about an hour away from Sunny. Good girlfriend times. New job. Money again. I could buy new bags so when I traveled again it wouldn't be with a messenger bag with a hole in it.

"Going outside. Smoke," he said. He'd taken off the jacket and rolled up his sleeves and I could just see the edge of a tattoo on his right forearm. Now he shrugged back into the jacket and went to stand on the porch. It occurred to me to lock the door behind him. I resisted.

I watched him through the window for a couple minutes. He stood still, only his right hand rising and lowering as he took hits off his cigarette which smelled suspiciously like cloves. Broad shoulders, trim waist. The golden hair was sleek to the collar and then where it was cut it frothed into curls. Made me kind of want to run my fingers through them.

Damn! No, I did not. That wasn't what I needed. I needed to get out of this tree house and get myself to Hanlin.

I'd planned the trip so carefully. The flight into Atlanta, rental car, an extra day to make sure neither the flight nor I was late. Drive from Atlanta to Hanlin, hotel reservations in place. Damn! I needed to call and cancel those.

Then the rest of the plan. Wowing them at the interview with the sample presentation, everything about how I'd work to bring a new company into the area, what I'd do for incentives that didn't undermine local taxes going back into the economy, questions I'd ask the company leaders about workforce
–
were they bringing more people into the area (considerations about spouses, housing, schools) or did they want to hire local (good for the economy, workforce training, educated workforce). And after my presentation, which wouldn't be anything they hadn't seen in real life but would show them what I could do in real life, then would come the hiring process. And then the reward
–
four days with Sunny at her place. Then the flight home, inevitable lunches and girls' nights out with friends I'd lose touch with eventually, in a way that would never happen with me and Sunny.

The plan did
not
include a forced delay on snow-covered highways followed by the arrival of a knight whose armor I suspected was rusty, followed by a layover at his creepy cabin surrounded by fish memorabilia.