Snow Jam (5 page)

So I didn't have to worry about Rick being overcome with lust for me. And I wasn't still sitting in my car on the interstate. That was good too. Tomorrow morning he'd drive me back to my car and that would be the end of it.

And I felt
fine
about that.

But the spark was there. At least to the girl in the mirror, all long dark hair and olive skin, the slim girl, at least I could tell all five-foot-six of her the truth.

The truth was, Rick was rugged, outdoorsy, he looked like he could have built this cabin from the ground up. He was smart, he read, he'd loved his father. All pluses on the checklist of guys. He was gorgeous, smoldering hot body under the Henley and flannel he wore, and even if I wasn't the kind of girl who checked out asses? His was pretty nice. OK, it was awesome.

Add to that every time he brushed against me, which seemed to be more often than strictly necessary, I felt this
–
spark. No, flare. Like a flame. It went shooting through me like electricity. Like the good kind of surprise, when you realize something fantastic has happened. The way you open the gift you most wanted or wake up on a special day or
–

Or the way you feel about a brand new relationship. The way everything comes alive when he calls. That instant between the ring of the phone and the sound of his voice when it's still just his name on Caller ID. That breathless moment.

So maybe that was OK. If Sunny were here and Rick wasn't Kurt's friend, she might say
So? Like him. Have some fun. You're getting a job, not joining a convent
.

I didn't trust myself. Not enough to not throw away all my options on another relationship that might not go anywhere.

And there was the other half of the time. The times when he was a jerk.

There. He was a jerk half the time. I wasn't going to fall for him and end up hanging out in a fishing cabin a couple hours outside Atlanta.

I went back out to play Scrabble.

Snow continued to fall but so lightly it wasn't filling in our footsteps. I could still easily see the trail the Jeep had left in the virgin snow glowing whitely under the moon. The cabin had warmed up, probably more than Rick preferred, but I didn't protest. I was still scared. I didn't know how to look up the weather report for the next day, or exactly where I was. What if when I wanted to leave it went on snowing or snowed harder? What if the rental car was towed or the roads impassable?

"It's your move," Rick said, as if we were playing chess instead of Scrabble.

I'd lied about knowing how to play. I really just know words.

He had an x in a word he'd created. I had a Y. The fire was burning down to a comfortable glow. Shadows stretched long in the cabin. My heart still pounded uncertainly, uncomfortable with the rural setting, the distance from much of anywhere, the snow that kept falling. But within hours I'd be out of here, less than 12 hours, and then up to Hanlin and then off to play at Sunny's.

I could do this.

I put an S and an E in front of the X and the Y.

Rick raised a brow at me. My breathing went shallow. Really shouldn't have done that.

We held eye contact longer than I was comfortable with it, before he looked away, looked at the clock, and suggested we do something else. I felt vaguely insulted and told myself I felt relieved.

"So if it's not a secret," he said, folding up the board, "Why are you going to Hanlin?"

"Job interview." I thought I'd said it before. I couldn't resist the temptation to look at my bag where it sat propped on a chair at the tiny kitchen table. Messenger bag, with laptop and presentation. It would be crazy to go get the bag and hold it all night.

"Yeah, you said that." He looked comfortable, a little sleepy in the fire's glow. "Secret job?"

I bit my lip, and finally laughed. "Superstitious applicant. But it's the last interview. Sunny thinks I've got it."

I saw him start to form the word
who
? before he said, "Right, Kurt's wife. So what do you do?"

It spilled out in a rush then, because I wanted it. Like when new relationships came along, that same pulse-pounding hope and
will he call?
Only this time the
he
was one Jared Flenderson who was said to be the managing partner who did the hiring.

"I'm an economic development specialist," I said, and to his credit he didn't blink, laugh or ask what that was. "In Vegas I was working with a local agency. We've had kind of a silo mentality going on for a while, all municipal, county, regional and state level economic authorities all kind of doing our own thing."

The firelight caught in his golden hair and outlined the clean square jaw and the sensual mouth. He kicked back on the futon and put his hands behind his head, staring past where I huddled in the one of the armchairs, and into the fire.

He listened, to how Nevada had pulled itself together after the last recession, the Governor's Office stepping into unify all the different silos into one umbrella with all the regional and city authorities under it.

Which was great for the state and for the economy, but meant my position, one of the many vice presidents in a Southern Nevada authority, was duplicated and unnecessary.

None of it was very interesting, how I lost my job. Just disheartening and it reminded me of the charge on my credit card, that I should go grab my phone and cancel the damn hotel reservation, but even as I thought that I realized I didn't have a clue what he did, and asked, phone in hand, one thumb hovering over dial.

"Advertising," he said, as if waiting for me to make some kind of discouraging remark.

"My sister Jill is in advertising," I said instantly, happy for the connection.

"Is she local?"

"Jill? Los Angeles." No connection. "So how did you get into advertising?"

He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "Creative writing meets inability to hold a normal job."

"Advertising's not normal?" I asked. Jill was normal. Jill was
dull
even if she was my sister.

"I don't know. I took business, too, dual major. So it's like the sides of my brain fight."

I stared at him.
Seriously not time for jokes about schizophrenia, dude, I'm alone here with you
. "Um. What?"

He laughed, which didn't endear me to him, but went on. "Creative work uses the right side of the brain, intuitive, silly, playful side. Business uses the left, which is alarming and frightening and analytical and serious."

I probably used that side. You get that way when your father alters your entire childhood in one week. Being playful and silly means taking a chance at blurting out something that will make everyone hate you.

Rick worked for an advertising agency in Atlanta, one with a long name made up of partners' last names. He didn't seem any more interested in that than I was. His work was routine, or maybe he was just ready for a change. I would have listened, but he didn't talk about it.

We went on talking like that as time crept by. I wasn't ready to try and let go of the day and neither was he. It was just conversation, less spicy than before, less direct disagreements and rudeness.

The fire was almost out. I was getting really cold again, bundling into the afghan I'd taken off the back of the futon a while ago and wondering if the tiny bedroom I'd passed on the way to the bathroom had enough quilts to share because the afghan wasn't going to do it overnight unless we kept the fire going a lot hotter than it was now.

I thought it was getting on toward ten but a glance at my phone showed two things
–
first, it was nearly midnight, and I wanted to get an early start in the morning, get back to my rental car as the sun came up and burned off the snow, and second, I had no signal anymore.

That scared me enough to get up off the futon without thinking. It's all claustrophobia, really, the snow and now the fact that I couldn't communicate with anyone. I didn't really think Rick Barnes was going to murder me in my sleep. I just hated being trapped.

"What's wrong?" he started, when the cabin-jarring crash came from outside.

Rick was still wearing his boots. He'd never taken them off. He was on his feet before the cabin stopped vibrating, before the light over the tiny kitchen table stopped swinging. He grabbed his coat from the rack by the door and was outside with a mega bright flashlight before I had even thrown off the afghan and started looking for my shoes.

"Wait!" I shouted.

Right. Because what I really wanted to do was run out into the freezing night after whatever had caused that.

But that's what I did.

Rick was outside laughing.

OK, good. Great. Wonderful. My host had lost it. Something like a comet had just hit the cabin and he was laughing.

"What was that?" I shouted. From where I stood, I could see a few other people from the circle of cabins coming out to investigate. For a few minutes the moonlit snow was full of was full of voices and shouted questions and answers. No one seemed upset like I was. My panic rode high in my throat, making me cough around it. The evident lack of concern from everybody else was just obnoxious. They were all acting like it was a party.

I found Rick in the glow of porch lights and moonlight. "What was that?" I demanded. My stomach muscles were still shanking.

"Where's your coat?" he asked.

As if alerted to the cold, I started shivering.

Rick said something rude and abrupt, but he was still laughing. He put an arm around me, tucking me against him, then called to the neighbors, "Best of all possible results!"

Laugher, a few equally incomprehensible responses, and we were back inside.

"Are you an idiot?" He plunked me down on the couch, knelt at my feet, took both my hands and started chaffing warmth back into them. "You can't do that. Hypothermia, frost bite, freezing to death. Any of these ring a bell?"

I shook my head. "I was right outside the cabin!"

He just looked annoyed. "Right. I should have realized you were in the banana belt."

That almost made me laugh except he wasn't laughing, he looked like he meant to yell at me, and I wasn't having any of it.

"Look, I can take care of myself. All I did
–
"

"It's below freezing outside," he interrupted. "Other hand."

I'd have argued, but it felt too good. Deep shudders were happening now and my teeth started to chatter as I warmed up. I gave him my hand.

"You could have gotten seriously hurt."

"I get it." My cheeks were hot. I'm twenty-five. I can take care of myself. Sunny sent Rick Barnes to me. I would have gotten out of the snow jam if she hadn't. On my own. In the rental car. I'd probably be in Hanlin by now, reclining in the hotel room I still hadn't canceled the booking for.

Damn.

Rick was still talking about what could have happened.

"I get it," I snapped, yanking my hand back from him and standing up so fast he staggered up out of his crouch. "I'm not stupid and I'm not helpless. I appreciate your coming to get me out of the traffic jam and all, but Sunny called you. I didn't call for anyone."

Rick had gotten to his feet and stood in the center of the living room, looking furious. "Well, excuse me, your highness. I didn't realize I was intruding on your independence."

That just made me mad. "I didn't
say
that. I didn't say
anything like that
. Damn it. But your acting like
–
"

"Like you went running outside in twenty-two degree weather in the snow without a coat."

"Because I wanted to know what was happening! Don't these places have propane or kerosene or something? How was I supposed to know the cabin wasn't blowing up?"

He looked incensed. His cheeks had gone red, and he was squinting at me. "Do you
feel
blown up, princess?"

My fists tightened. "Stop. Calling. Me.
That
."

"That's what you're acting like!" he shot back. He'd started to pace. There wasn't room for him to pace. It was a very little cabin. Every circuit brought him into my sphere and every time he got close to me the shivers got worse. Almost like it was him, and not the cold.

I wasn't that cold anymore. I was hot. Getting hotter by the minute.

"You send out to social media to everybody you know that you're stuck in the snow and you're afraid of snow!" He said it like that was stupid.

"I'm afraid of driving in it!" I snapped back. "Lots of people from Las Vegas are."

"That's not what Sunny said. She said you're afraid of snow. She thinks it's cute." He said it tauntingly, leaning in as he paced by me.

Damn it, Sunny
.