number. He hung on, waiting to leave a message for her husband, and was surprised to hear her continue, “Or, if you’d rather try me on my car phone, just call—”
Bingo! He scrounged for a piece of paper and a pencil and jotted down the number, then dialed it.
Chantel answered, a measure of relief in her voice. “Hello?”
“It’s me, Dillon Broderick. I’m coming back for you. Tell me where you are.”
She paused. “It’s all right, Mr. Broderick—”
“Dillon.”
“Dillon. Maybe I need a tow truck. I’m thinking about calling the police.”
He thought of her sitting in her wrecked Jag, the cold seeping into the car, the storm howling around her, and for some reason, remembered her smile. This woman had just smashed the back end of his truck, but for a moment that didn’t matter. She was alone and probably frightened. “Well, maybe you should do that, but I’m coming back, anyway, just to see that you’re okay.”
“Are you sure? I feel really bad. I mean, for all I know, your wife and kids are waiting for you, worried…”
“No wife and kids, at least not worried ones.” Just the rest and relaxation he’d been craving. He thought of his friends sitting around the fireplace, drinking wine, laughing and talking, listening to Janis Joplin or Patsy Cline, and turned around, anyway.
“Now,” he said, “how did you get where you are?”
CHAPTER TWO
“FORTY-FIVE BOTTLES of beer on the wall, forty-five bottles of beer, take one down, pass it around, forty-four bottles of beer on the wall.”
Chantel gave up trying to distract herself with the repetitive chant and glanced impatiently at her watch—again.
She’d talked to Dillon Broderick more than a half hour ago. Where was he? Her hands and feet were frozen, but she dared not run the car’s engine any longer for fear she’d use all her gas. Fueling up was one of those things she hadn’t had time for when she’d dashed out of the house four hours earlier. Now she could only stare, disheartened, at the gas gauge, which read less than a quarter of a tank.
Closing her eyes, Chantel rubbed her temples and willed back the tears that threatened. She’d been so stressed with the move and her new job, and so focused on reaching Stacy at a decent hour, that she hadn’t done anything right. Now her new car was wrecked, and she was stranded on some nameless street in the middle of a snowstorm.
She let her head fall forward to rest on the steering wheel, hearing Wade’s voice, despite her best efforts to banish it from her mind. That’s what you get when you don’t use your head. You never think, Chantel. Never. What would you do without me?
Well, she was finding that out, wasn’t she? She’d left him six months ago, and despite all his calls and letters, she wouldn’t take him back. She was fighting for the person she used to be, before Wade and modeling had nearly destroyed her—the girl her father had raised.
But it all seemed so hopeless sometimes. Or at least it did right now.
She glared miserably at her car phone. She didn’t even have anyone to call. The only friends she’d had when she and Wade were living together in New York were his friends. The only hobbies, his hobbies. He’d made sure her whole world revolved around him, and she’d been as stupid as he always told her she was, because, to save their relationship, she’d let him. You’re just another pretty face, Chantel. Good thing God gave you that.
The phone chirped and Chantel grabbed it.
“Hello?”
“I can’t find you. Are you sure you turned right and not left at the second stop sign?’
It was Dillon Broderick. He was still coming.
She said a silent prayer of thanks and tried to retrace in her mind the route she’d taken. When she hadn’t been able to find the street her sister had written down, she’d taken several turns, always expecting the cabin to appear around the next corner. Now it was hard to remember exactly what she’d done.
“I turned right,” she insisted with a sigh of defeat. She was tired, so tired she could barely force herself to stay awake. After six months she still wasn’t completely recovered, she realized. “I don’t know why you can’t find me.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, and Chantel pictured his face, with its strong jaw, chiseled cheekbones and light eyes, which had been filled with anger about the accident. Would he get frustrated and decide not to continue searching? Her stomach clenched at the thought.
“Did you call the police?” he asked.
“Yes, they said they’d send a car.”
“And you gave them the same directions you gave me?”
Chantel felt another pang of despair. “You’re saying the police won’t be able to find me either, right?”
He cleared his throat. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions. They certainly know the area better than I do and might have some idea where to look. I’ll go back the way I came and try another route from the freeway.”
Chantel knew that courtesy demanded she tell him to return to his original route and not to trouble himself further. The police were coming—eventually. But the snow piling ever higher on the hood of her car would soon block out everything else. And she already felt so alone.
“Dillon?”
“Yeah?”
She wanted to ask him to keep talking to her, not to hang up, but her more practical side admonished her against running up his car-phone bill, to say nothing of her own. She wasn’t in any real trouble, not with the police on their way. She didn’t need anyone to hold her hand. “Nothing. Thanks for trying.”
“That sounds like you think I’m giving up. I can’t let anything happen to you. How do I know your insurance will take care of my truck?”
He was teasing her. Chantel heard it in his voice and smiled. Fleetingly, she wondered about his wife and kids—the ones he’d said weren’t worried about him.
“Where were you headed before you came back for me?” she asked.
“Tahoe. I’m going skiing for a week. What about you?”
“Same here. Just for the weekend, though.”
“So you know how to ski?”
She got the impression he was just being nice to her, trying to calm her down, but she didn’t care, not as long as his voice hummed in her ear. “Yeah. My dad used to take us when we were kids.”
“You ever been to Squaw Valley?”
“Not yet. I grew up in Utah and used to go to Snowbird or Alta.”
“That’s some great snow there. My buddies and I took a trip to Utah when we were in college.”
