routine.
He passed her a card. “I wrote my cell phone number on the back. You can reach me on it anytime.”
“Fine.” She glanced down and read, “Dillon Broderick, Architect,” before shoving the card into the back pocket of her jeans to keep it from getting wet.
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”
She was still a little rattled but determined to fulfill her promise to Stacy, despite the storm, despite the accident, despite everything.
“Yeah. You?”
“I’ll have a stiff neck tomorrow, but I’ll live. Take it easy,” he said, and pulled away before Chantel made it back to her car.
DILLON BRODERICK put his Landcruiser into four-wheel drive and merged into the traffic heading up the hill, cursing under his breath.
As if his week hadn’t gone badly enough. Now he had the bother of getting his truck fixed—the estimates from body shops, the insurance claims, the rental car—and beyond all that, the maddening knowledge that his new Landcruiser would never be the same.
“‘I wasn’t tailgating you,’” he mimicked. She’d dogged him since Auburn, when it had started to snow. He’d flashed his brake lights several times, trying to get her to back off. But she’d come right up again and again, nearly riding on his bumper. If a man had done that, he’d probably have broken his nose for risking both their lives, but what could he do with a tall, beautiful woman?
Grin and bear it, just the way he did with his ex-wife.
He glanced at the paper where Chantel Miller had written her name and address. She lived in Walnut Creek, not far from his own house in Lafayette. At least they were both local. That should make things easier.
He shook his head at the thought of the damage the accident had done to her Jaguar XJ-6. What a sweet car! Her husband wouldn’t be pleased when she got home.
If she got home.
The thought of Chantel Miller heading up the mountain with only one headlight caused Dillon a moment of guilt. It was difficult enough to see the road with two working lights. He probably should have waited to make sure she had chains and could get them on. But he was already late. His friends had been expecting him for hours.
He flipped open his time-planner and turned to the page where he’d jotted down the information about their rental cabin. He punched in the number, and a cheerful voice greeted him on the other end. “Hello?”
“This is Dillon. Is—”
“Hey, guy! It’s Veronica. We were afraid you’d gotten into an accident or something.”
“Actually I did, but no one was hurt.”
“Omigosh! What happened?”
“I’ll tell you when I get there. I just wanted to let everyone know I’m still a half hour away. Traffic’s been moving pretty slow in this mess.”
“Don’t worry, the drive’ll be worth it. The ski resorts are getting something like sixteen inches of snow.”
He smiled. He needed a rigorous physical vacation to steal his thoughts away from his ex-wife and all the dirty custody tricks Amanda was playing on him with their two little girls. “That sounds great.”
“We’ll see you when you get here.”
He was just about to hit the “end” button when his call waiting beeped. He looked at the digital readout on his caller ID, wondering who’d be phoning him this late, but didn’t recognize the number. He switched over. “Hello?”
“Mr. Broderick?”
“Yes?”
“This is Chantel Miller. You know, the woman who just…well, we were in an accident a little while ago.”
How could he forget? He pictured her almond-shaped eyes gazing up at him, the high cheekbones, the small cut on one pouty lip, and refused to acknowledge how incredibly beautiful she was. Only, she sounded different now, almost…frightened. “Is everything okay?”
“Well, um, I really hate to bother you. I mean, you don’t even know me and I can’t have made the best impression—” she gave a weak laugh “—but, well, it looks like I’m lost and—”
“Lost! How could you be lost? I left you not more than fifteen minutes ago. Aren’t you on Highway 80?”
What was this woman? Some kind of trouble magnet?
“No. Actually I turned off about ten minutes ago. I’ve got directions to a cabin where my sister is staying, but it’s so difficult to see through the snow. I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.”
“Can’t you call your sister and find out?”
“The cabin’s just a rental. I don’t have the number. I was in such a hurry to get going tonight and the directions seemed so clear. I never dreamed the weather would be this bad. It’s been nothing but sunny at home.”
It was March. Who would have expected a storm like this when it was nearly spring? He hadn’t checked the weather himself, but then, he had a four-wheel drive and probably wouldn’t have checked it even in the dead of winter. “Do you have your chains on?”
‘Yeah, I paid one of the installers to put them on just after you left, but they’re not doing any good.”
“What do you mean?”
“My car’s stuck.”
“It’s what?”
“Stuck. There hasn’t been a plow through here for a long time, and the drifts are pretty deep—”
“And you drove into that?”
Silence. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you,” she said softly, and with a click she was gone.
“Dammit!” Dillon tossed his phone across the seat. How stupid could this woman be? Anyone who drove a wrecked sports car onto an unfamiliar side street in the middle of a storm like this had to be a few cards short of a deck.
“Let her call the Highway Patrol,” he grumbled, and tried to forget her, but another mile down the road, he saw the dim shadow of an exit sign. He’d left Chantel Miller not more than fifteen miles back. She couldn’t be far. It might cost him another hour, but he could probably find her more easily than anyone else. More quickly, too.
Veering to the right, he headed down the off-ramp. All roads, except the freeway, were virtually deserted and lay buried beneath several inches of snow.
He stopped and flipped on his dome light to study the sheet of paper with Chantel’s personal information.
She hadn’t included a cell-phone number. He tried her home, hoping he could at least get hold of her husband. Someone should know she was in trouble, just in case she didn’t have sense enough to call the Highway Patrol or tried to walk back to the freeway or
