Stuck With A Stranger

CHAPTER ONE

Rachel Thompson took a sip of her coffee and stared
out the window at the curtain of thick, heavy snow swirling
outside.
Shit!
This was just her luck. Every time she went
out on a limb and tried something new, or something different, or
something that looked like it might pan out and change her life,
luck always seemed to turn against her.

The first straw had been losing her accounting job
the month before, just when she needed it most. Corporate
downsizing, they called it, which was just semantics. Just another
way of saying pack up and get the hell out, we don’t need you
anymore. Then, as if on cue, her five-year relationship with an
asshole who will remain nameless imploded, even before she’d
received her first severance check.

And now this. And who was she kidding, anyway? What
were the odds of meeting a rich, handsome man through an online
introduction service? She’d been crazy to think it would work.

She had signed up with Rich & Amorous on a lark,
after hearing about it from a friend. But now, as she sat stranded
in a truck stop diner in Lone Pine, Colorado, without even a motel
room for the night, the whole thing seemed totally ridiculous.
What was I thinking? If I wanted to waste a weekend and a whole
lot of money on a wild goose chase, I should have booked a flight
to the Bahamas instead. At least I’d be warm there, and I could’ve
spent the weekend sipping daiquiris on the beach.

Rachel signed and took another sip of her coffee. The
irony of the whole situation was that she wasn’t the adventurous
type - in fact her ex had accused her of being too conservative and
“boring” on more than one occasion. But after losing her job she
thought that something bold and daring might do her good. And
Tracy, one of her friends for high school, had planted the whole
Rich & Amorous idea in her head.

"You should check it out," Tracy had told her one
evening as they sat in a quiet Dallas restaurant and worked on a
pitcher of margaritas. “Maybe you’ll meet a great guy, somebody who
can take care of you. Not a loser or a jerk like Mark. He took you
for granted, you know he did.”

"What the hell are you talking about?" Rachel had
said, the tequila settling like a warm electric blanket in her
stomach. "Rich & Amorous? That sounds like some kind of crazy
escort service or something."

“It’s more like a private online club for
millionaires,” Tracy told her. "Most of the members are men, and
most of them are single guys looking to meet someone of the
opposite sex.”

Rachel gave Tracy a dubious look. “You mean like one
of those Sugar Daddy sites that they talk about on TV? Where fat,
middle-aged rich guys troll the Internet looking for young women to
be their ‘companions?’”

“It’s not like that, Rae. R&A is more like a
introduction service. They introduce you to one of their members,
and if you seem compatible, they arrange a weekend getaway where
you can meet and....”

“And what?” Rachel asked, stifling back a giggle.
“Fuck each others brains out?”

“Don’t make it sound so cheap,” Tracy said, grabbing
the pitcher and re-filling her margarita glass. “It’s all very
upscale and professional. They do background checks, income
verification, all that stuff. They have a very good
reputation.”

“So how come you know so much about it? Have you
signed up yourself or what?”

Tracy scowled across the table. “I’m married to
Steven, remember? But I do have a friend from work who tried it,
and in fact she met her fiancé through R&A. And she’s never
been happier.”

Rachel frowned and rubbed her eyes. She thought of
herself as an attractive and desirable woman who was still in her
prime, and the idea of resorting to a glorified dating service to
find a man–-even a rich one--seemed ludicrous to her.

“I can see the wheels turning,” Tracy said. “But why
not try it? If nothing else you’ll get away somewhere interesting
and have a weekend of great sex. And girl, you look like you could
use it.”

"I don’t know. How can I be sure who I'll be getting?
How do I know it won’t be some wacko or Internet stalker or
something?"

“Because they do background checks,” Tracy said,
exasperated. “And there’s an entire personality profile that
everyone has to fill out. They promise to match you up with someone
you'll be very compatible with."

“It sounds expensive.”

“That’s the best part,” Tracy said. “You can submit
your profile for free. If they match you up with a member, he
agrees to foot the bill. You really have nothing to lose.”

Rachel wanted to change the subject. Desperately.
“All right, I’ll check it out when I get home.”

“You should,” Tracy told her. “You should.”

Rachel had intended to put the idea out of her mind
entirely, but that night she couldn’t sleep, so she went online and
found the Rich & Amorous website. She had half-expected to see
a photo of every girl’s dream wedding, complete with a princess
gown, a horse-drawn carriage, and of course, a devastatingly
handsome groom. But instead the site was a simple brown background
with an elegant “R&A” logo in the center.

Creating a user account was easy, and so she decided
to go ahead and fill out her background information and personality
profile. Suddenly intrigued by the idea of meeting someone new,
someone who might take her mind of her shitty existence, she
completed the lengthy form and uploaded her profile photo. Feeling
like an excited schoolgirl, she skimmed through the user agreement
and then hit the “submit” button.

But as the days passed, and she heard nothing more,
her enthusiasm began to wane. Oh well, she thought, nothing
ventured, nothing gained. Then two weeks later, when she’d almost
forgotten about Rich & Amorous entirely, she received an email
from someone in their admin. department.

Hello Rachel,
the message began
. We believe
we've found a great match for you. His name and profile are
included below. He has already viewed your profile, and would very
much like to communicate with you. You can email him through our
secure message system at your convenience.

If you both agree to an adventure weekend, we have
selected a backcounty ski trip that you both selected as your first
or second choices. We have arranged for a reservation in a yurt in
the Colorado high country. Once you fly into Denver, a rental car
will be provided for you, and you can drive the 50 miles up to
Aspen. There you’ll be able to rent cross-country skis for the trip
up to the yurt.

Please select from one of the two suggested dates
below, and let us know which one would work best for you. We will
then match the date up with your companion. We've also listed
airline flights schedules for those dates and times. Have an
enjoyable adventure, and be sure to fill out the feedback survey on
our website once you've returned.

Best regards, Rich & Amorous.

Her heart racing, Rachel clicked on the link in the
email and viewed the Mystery Man’s profile. His name was Andy
Hubbard, and he sounded almost too good to be true. He met almost
every one of her profile preferences to a tee. Including height,
weight, skin complexion, age, income, interests and hobbies,
religious affiliation, etc. Then she looked at his photo. Not
devastatingly handsome, but not bad, either. He looked younger than
his stated age of 39, and he had wide shoulders and strong,
masculine features. His chocolate brown eyes looked kind and
thoughtful.

Rachel got up from the computer and walked out onto
her apartment balcony. She couldn't help but be a little skeptical.
What were the odds of meeting a man who matched her wants and
desires almost exactly, and was rich to boot? And on the Internet,
no less? It almost seems like a fairytale, and she’d stopped
believing in fairytales a long time ago.

Still, it was worth a try. If nothing else, she'd get
some fresh air and aerobic exercise, and get to see some beautiful
scenery in the Colorado Rockies. She’d be out the air fare to
Denver, but her severance checks were coming in now and she could
use a break from the stress and anxiety of being temporarily
unemployed.

CHAPTER TWO

But now, sitting in a greasy-spoon diner in rural
Colorado, snowbound and miles from Aspen, she was beginning to
think the weekend was going to turn out to be a colossal disaster.
Mother Nature was conspiring to keep her and Andy Hubbard apart,
and it was looking like she wouldn’t even get a chance at some
relaxing solitude in a remote yurt high in the mountains.

“Have you heard any news about the weather?” Rachel
asked the waitress as she walked by.

The waitress shrugged. “They said we’d probably get
six more inches before the storm lets up. The interstate’s closed
all the way up to the Eisenhower Tunnel, and they probably won’t
get it plowed off until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.”

“Do you think there are any motel rooms available in
town?”

The waitress shrugged again. “I could bring you the
phone book and you could call around and find out.”

Wonderful. Instead of curling up in front of a fire
with the man of her dreams, it looked like Rachel would be spending
the night alone in a cheap motel – if she could even find a room at
this point. She tried not to slip into self-pity, she tried to tell
herself that “shit happens” sometimes, but it did little to
brighten her ever-darkening mood.

"Another cup?" The waitress asked her, holding up a
pot of coffee.

"No thanks. I want to get some sleep tonight.”

“We’ve got decaf.”

Rachel shook her head. Glancing around the diner, she
saw that most of the dinner crowd had emptied out, and only a
handful of patrons remained. Most appeared to be truckers stranded
by the blizzard--the delay costing them both time and money--and
they looked none too happy about it. Rachel was thankful for the
fact that she was in Colorado on a weekend getaway and not work,
and maybe she’d be able to at least have Sunday to do some
site-seeing before she had to fly back to Dallas.

Her gaze wandered to the other side of the diner,
where a man was sitting alone at the counter. At first glance there
didn’t seem to be anything extraordinary about the guy, but as her
eyes adjusted to the dim light and she got a better look at him,
she saw that he was actually quite handsome in a rugged, Marlboro
Man sort of way. Dressed in a sweater and designer jeans, he had
olive skin, chestnut-brown hair, and a strong jaw. His shoulders
were broad, and even from across the room she could see a
well-muscled torso hiding beneath the folds of his sweater.

He was staring straight ahead with a vacant
expression that said his mind was somewhere else. He probably
wished that he was somewhere else, Rachel thought. Suddenly, as if
sensing that he was being observed, he turned and looked at her. He
gave her a nod and a wry smile. She returned his smile, then
quickly glanced away, embarrassed that she'd been caught gawking at
a strange man in a diner.

“Here you go,” the waitress said, returning to
Rachel’s table. She handed her a laminated sheet of paper which
turned out to be Lone Pine’s “phone book.”

Wonderful
. Rachel opened her purse and was
rummaging for her cell phone when a shadow appeared above her. She
glanced up and found Marlboro Man standing there, his coffee cup in
his hand.

"Mind if I join you?" He asked.

"Ah, sure," she stammered. "That would be nice."

“It looks like we’re stranded in this crappy little
town for the duration,” he said, sliding into the seat opposite
her. He had a deep, resonant voice that was easy on the ears.

“It certainly looks that way,” she agreed. “Unless we
get some sort of miracle heat wave in the next twenty minutes.”

He smiled, white teeth glinting she caught the scent
of his aftershave, something musky and earthy. Something in the
scent aroused her, and she had to fight back the urge to lean
across the table and touch him.
Jesus
, she thought,
I
must be lonelier than I thought
.