as well as contemporary mainstream novels, the most recent of which is Roan (MIRA Books, July 2000). Jennifer has received many awards and accolades; among these are the fact that she was appointed Writer-in-Residence at Northeast Louisiana University in 1982, and in 1997, was chosen as the recipient of Colorado’s Frank Waters Award for Achievement in Fiction. Jennifer Blake understands, respects and values romance fiction—and romance readers—as her success has repeatedly proven.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
I’M NEVER GOINGto make it.
Chantel Miller hunched forward, trying to see beyond the snow and mud being kicked up onto her windshield by the semi next to her. She could barely make out the taillights of the Toyota Landcruiser she’d been following for miles, and she longed to pull over and give her jangled nerves a rest. But the narrow two-lane highway climbing Donner’s Summit was cut into the side of a cliff, and she didn’t dare stop. Not in a storm like this.
In the back of her mind she heard her father, who’d been dead for nearly five years now, telling her to slow down, keep calm. He’d taught her to drive and had offered all the usual parental advice—never let your gas tank get below half, keep your doors and windows locked, never pull over in the middle of a storm.
God, she missed him. How could so much have happened in the past ten years? At twenty-nine, she already felt battle-weary, ancient.
She shrugged off the memories to avoid the regret they inspired, and focused on her driving. Her sister, Stacy, was waiting for her in Tahoe, only an hour away. She’d be able to make it that far as long as she could get past the big rig that was churning up the mountain beside her, nearly burying her car with sludge.
She gave her red Jaguar—her only concession to the life she’d left behind—some gas and shot around the semi, then eased down on the brake. The road was covered with black ice. Her stomach clenched as the Jaguar fishtailed, but then its tires grabbed the asphalt and the taillights that had been her beacon appeared in front of her again.
“Hello, Mr. Landcruiser,” she breathed in relief, and crept closer, determined to stay in the vehicle’s wake. The plows were long overdue. Snow was beginning to blanket the shiny road.
Stretching her neck, Chantel tried to release some of the tension in her shoulders, then cranked up the defrost. A pop station played on the radio, but she barely heard the familiar lyrics as she listened to the wind howl outside. Ice crystals shimmered in the beam of her headlights, then flew at her face, clicking against the windshield.
She shouldn’t have left Walnut Creek so late. If it hadn’t been her first week at her new job, she would have insisted on heading home when everyone else had, at five o’clock. But she not only had a new job, she had a new profession, back in her home state of California, clear across the country from where she’d lived before.
Changing careers was probably the most difficult thing she’d ever done, but Chantel was determined to overcome her insecurities and be successful at a job that required a brain—if for no other reason than to prove she had one.
Overhead a yellow sign blinked Chains required over summit. To the right, several cars waited, engines running, as their owners struggled in the cold and wet to get chains on their tires. A couple of men wearing orange safety vests worked as installers for those willing to pay for help.
Chantel was studying the shoulder, looking for a place to pull over, when brake lights flashed in front of her. She screamed and slammed on her brakes, but the car didn’t stop. It slid out of control. With a bone-jarring crunch, her Jag collided with the Landcruiser ahead of her.
Pain exploded in Chantel’s head as her face hit the steering wheel. She sat, breathing hard, staring at the black snowy night and the back end of the white Landcruiser, which was now smashed. Then someone knocked on her window.
Dazed, she rolled her head to the side and saw a tall dark-haired man looming above her. “Are you all right? Unlock the doors!” he shouted.
Immediately her father’s warnings echoed back: Always keep your doors and windows locked….
When she didn’t respond, he scowled at her through the glass and tapped again. “Did you hear me? Open the door!”
She let her eye-lids close and put her hand to her aching head as her senses began to return. She’d just been in a car accident. This was probably the other driver. She had to give him her driver’s license and insurance information, right? Of course.
With trembling fingers, she sought the automatic door lock and heard it thunk just before the man flung her door open and leaned inside.
A freezing wind whipped around him and flooded her car, carrying the smell of his aftershave with it—a clean masculine scent, far different from the trendy fragrances used by the male models she’d worked with not so long ago. Then a firm hand gripped her chin and tilted her face up. “Your lip’s bleeding, but not badly. Any other injuries?”
She struggled to rearrange her jumbled thoughts. Stacy, accident, aftershave, blood…“Just a lump on my head, I think.”
“Good.” He stood and jammed his hands into the pockets of his red ski parka, frowning at the crushed metal in front of them, and it suddenly dawned on Chantel that he was angry. Really angry. The signs were all there—the terse voice, the taut muscles, the furrowed brow. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
He looked at her as if she had two heads. “You mean other than what you just did to my SUV?”
She winced. “I’m sorry. I’m worried about my car, too. I haven’t owned it more than a year. But you stopped right in front of me. There was nothing I could—”
“What?” He whirled on her, the furrow in his brow deepening. Ice crystals lodged in the dark stubble of his jaw gave his face a rugged appearance, but the long thick lashes
