Snow Baby

“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 something. A person could easily freeze to death in this weather.

After five rings, a recorder picked up, and Dillon recognized Chantel’s voice telling him to leave his name and 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.”