said a familiar gentle voice. “It’s me again. Lucy.”
Lucy. He grimaced, fighting to keep his mind from going numb. His senses from going to static. To keep the steel around his heart.
“I can see you’re not thrilled I bothered you again,” she went on, apologetically but obviously not sorry enough to hang up and put him out of his misery. “Believe me, I called everyone else I know. The trouble is I don’t know all that many people, at least anyone I can call during a blizzard to come get me.”
“To come get you?” He swallowed hard, grateful his guards were still up. Now he just had to keep them there. “That sounds like car trouble. Won’t it start? I’ll call the auto club. I’ll have someone here immediately.”
“Oh, if only that was the problem. Then it would be easily solved.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The snowplow went by and buried my car. I can’t get it out. I don’t suppose you have a shovel I can borrow.”
“A shovel?” He put a hand to his forehead and started rubbing as if he had a sudden, mammoth headache. “No. Sorry.”
“Okay. Just thought I’d ask.” She could see him across the parking lot. His forehead was still in his hand. There was no missing that grimace of his. She turned away, not wanting to see it. Not wanting to watch him when he thought he was alone. She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter. Spence McKaslin was more like the abominable snowman whenever he was around her, which is why she stayed away from him whenever possible. She knew him only in passing; she hardly knew him at all. But she did know that he was very standoffish. She should give him a break and figure out someone to call—like a cab company.
“Sorry to bother you. Goodbye.” She disconnected and pocketed her cell phone. The wind gusted, and she was shivering in her new goose down coat, which was supposed to keep her warm in minus twenty degrees. She was just a little cold. She clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from clacking together.
Her phone rang. She checked the screen. It was the bookstore. She unclenched her jaw enough to speak. “Spence?”
“Where are you?”
He sure didn’t sound happy. She glanced across the parking lot, and the light in his office was out. Her teeth were chattering again. “I’m on the n-north side of the complex. I p-parked along the street.”
“Why did you do that?”
Take a deep breath, Lucy. It wasn’t his fault that he was the one man who could make her feel, well, less than adequate. “Because I had errands in a few other stores, and I didn’t want to waste gas, so I walked.”
“Why?”
“You’ve heard about the greenhouse effect? How about that walking increases cardiovascular health?”
Total silence.
Great. She took another breath and really wanted the phone call to end. No one—no one—made her more uncomfortable than Spence McKaslin. “Anyway, thanks. Bye.”
“Wait.” He barked out the word like an order.
That annoyed her, too. She didn’t want to be annoyed, but it was almost a reflex when it came to Spence. He was a hard man to like.
“I’m not going to shovel you out with a wind chill of minus twenty and falling, but I will give you a ride home.”
Oh, joy. Beware of getting what you pray for. She’d wanted help, but she hadn’t wanted it in the form of Spence McKaslin. A grizzly bear would be a friendlier commuting buddy. If there was any simpler solution, she would take it hands down. But she’d been outside only a few minutes, and not a single soul had driven by. Everyone was gone from the other stores and shops in the shopping complex and along the opposite street, so she said the fateful words, “That would be great. Thank you.”
Accepting his offer wasn’t the most comfortable idea she’d had in awhile, but it beat standing out in an approaching blizzard.
“I’ll be right there.” He sounded so grim, he could have been accepting an appointment for five consecutive root canals. The line clicked off abruptly.
Her teeth were clacking together again, so she clenched her jaw. The wind cut through her layers of clothing, past her skin and went right into the hollow of her bones. Yikes, she was cold. But headlights flared to life at the back of the row of stores and swept around snowdrifts and parking curbs in her direction.
She was too cold to brace herself, as she always had to whenever she was in the vicinity of Mr. McKaslin. She had a short and unpleasant history with him—the unpleasant outweighed the short. When she’d moved from Portland to Bozeman, she joined a reader’s group to get to know some people and because she loved reading. She had made many friends, Katherine McKaslin Munroe, who’d been the assistant manager but who was now on leave, her sisters Danielle, Ava, Aubrey, Lauren and Rebecca. She had heard about the Gray Stone Church from Katherine, joined and made a new circle of friends. But every time she stepped foot inside the bookstore or spotted him in church, Spence scowled at her, turned his back and acted as if she did not exist.
The ride home ought to be interesting. She wondered if he would even say two words to her. She lived a long way from town. Did she really want to be in Spence’s presence the entire way?
His huge green truck skidded to a halt beside her. The door swung open. The dome light shone down on the big man, looking bigger in his thick winter coat, and seemed to emphasize his frown. He did not seem happy to see her.
He wasn’t going to be happy when he found out where she lived. Maybe having him drive out all that way was too much. She could always stay in a downtown hotel. She stepped up into the truck not too clumsily, considering how she was nearly frozen solid. She collapsed on the seat and pulled the door shut, sprinkling large chunks of snow all over the pristine interior. “Sorry,” she said.
He stared at her without acknowledging her apology. He would be totally handsome if he stopped scowling. He had wide set dark-blue eyes that would put a movie star to shame, high granite cheekbones and a straight blade of a nose. A mouth that might be bracketed by dimples, if he ever actually smiled. He had one of those strong square jaws that spoke of integrity and manliness.
“Where can I take you?” he asked in a baritone devoid of warmth or friendliness.
She felt colder in his truck with the heat blasting almost lukewarm than she’d felt outside in the minus degree windchill. Why did she want things to be different between her and Spence? She never could explain her feelings, why she felt sad whenever he behaved this way toward her. He wasn’t the kind of man she even liked.
But he was a decent man. He was helping her when she really needed help. “Let’s head toward the university.”
“Sure.” He put the truck in gear. “I know you’re cold, but put on your seat belt.”
That almost didn’t come out sounding like an order. Wow, this was going so much better than she expected. If only she wasn’t board-stiff in the seat, she would be able to get the seat belt around the fluff of her inches thick coat.
Take a deep breath, Lucy, she instructed herself. Maybe the problem with Spence McKaslin was that he had
