Montana Daddy

She turned and walked toward the examining rooms, leaving Rory wondering what she’d meant by her last remark. Whatever it was, he imagined neither one of them would get much sleep before they had to head out at first light.

DAWN BROUGHT very little illumination to the landscape. The gray light cast few shadows, making it difficult to follow the old roadway. Pine trees and firs were buried until only their snow-laden tips showed above the drifts. If there were any houses in the area, they were invisible beyond the curtain of falling snow. No glimmer of sunrise gave a hint of the direction they were traveling. Without Rory guiding her, Kristi would have been lost a half mile out of town.

She kept her snowmobile in the tracks left by Rory’s snowmobile and the sled he was pulling, letting him cut the trail. In addition to the medical equipment she’d gathered together, they’d brought along survival gear, including a rifle strapped onto Rory’s machine, which she sincerely hoped he wouldn’t have to use against a marauding black bear.

They were bundled up against the weather in so many layers of clothing, it was a wonder either of them could move. Even so, bits of ice and snow crept past zippers and slipped behind her visor, stinging her flesh and threatening to drop her body temperature to dangerous levels. They hadn’t gone far before she began to wonder how foolhardy this trip might be.

As long as there was some way to reach Everett Durfee and bring him to safety, her conscience wouldn’t have permitted her not to try. But she didn’t want to lose her own life in the process. She didn’t want to do anything so foolish that she’d deprive Adam of a mother, particularly since he was growing up without a father.

I’ll get you there and bring you back safely, Rory had said. Surely this time she could trust his word.

She glanced ahead, beyond the turkey-tail of snow blowing back from Rory’s snowmobile. How would he react if he knew the truth? Did she dare risk finding out? Or would that be even more dangerous than this freezing-cold rescue attempt through the woods.

The small radio in her helmet sputtered over the roar of the snowmobile, startling her.

“You okay back there?”

She quickly blocked the fears that had plagued her since she’d made the decision to return to Grass Valley to help her grandmother—and tell Rory the truth. “I’m mentally planning a trip to Palm Springs when this is all over,” she quipped.

“Great. We can get hot together there. Right about now a little slow heat sounds good to me, too.”

He’d responded in a low, intimate baritone, and a shudder went through Kristi. This time it wasn’t from the cold. They’d been hot together that summer she’d fallen in love, hot enough to singe the sheets. And once their fervent lovemaking had nearly melted a scratchy blanket they’d taken on a picnic to a secluded spot near the river.

“Come to think of it,” he continued, his disembodied voice caressing her in ways she hadn’t been touched in a long time, “I’ve never seen you in a swimsuit. The one time we went swimming in the river, we omitted that little item of clothing.”

The chips of ice that had reached her flesh melted with the heat that flushed her body. “Rory!” She swallowed hard. “Will you hush up. This isn’t a private phone line. Somebody could be listening to the radio.”

His warm chuckle made her acutely aware of the vibrating snowmobile she was straddling. Her whole body trembled with every motion of the vehicle, and a sensation of warmth formed in the overheated vee between her thighs.

“Not much chance of that, sweetheart. These radios only transmit about a mile. It’s just the two of us out here in the woods.”

“Well, there could be someone listening. I’d just as soon not give them your version of phone sex to talk about.”

“It’d make their day. I know it’s making mine.” His voice dropped to an even more private note. “We were great together, Kristi.”

Erotic images flooded her brain—of Rory kissing her, tugging and nipping at her lips. Rory laving her breasts with his tongue. Rory above her blocking out the sun as he entered her for the first time. Rory watching her with his dark, intense eyes as she came apart in his arms. An experience that transcended anything she had imagined could pass between a man and a woman.

She uttered a low, throaty moan.

“Something wrong?”

Oh, yes, everything was wrong—starting with her visit to Grass Valley that fateful summer. She’d only been a vacation fling to him. He’d been so much more to her.

“How do I turn off this blasted radio?” she asked in panicky retreat.

His laughter careened around her, and her eyes fluttered closed against the deep ache that filled her chest.

Another big mistake, she realized as her snow-mobile plowed its way out of the rut Rory’s machine had cut through the snow and she nearly stalled the engine before wrenching herself back onto the track.

She needed to concentrate, both on where she was going and on her life. Rory wasn’t a part of that picture except as a temporary guide to the Durfee cabin. A medical emergency had brought her out here, not the urge for a romantic interlude.

By not returning her phone calls, he’d chosen to not become involved with her. He’d found another woman. Yes, Kristi felt guilty about not telling Rory about her pregnancy—about his son. But dammit, she’d tried! And her guilty conscience—and her grandmother’s injured ankle—had forced her to confront what she feared most. Rory’s rejection of her and her son, and the possibility of a custody battle.

She had a lot at stake here, and her damn reawakened libido had better learn to behave itself.

Determined, she adjusted her position on the snow-mobile to ease the pressure and tightened her grip on the throttle. This time there’d be no burning up the sheets; she would stay in control of her emotions.

THE SNOWMOBILE SURGED beneath Rory’s legs and so did hot blood through his veins.

Had he imagined Kristi’s heated response to his teasing words? Did her low, throaty sigh mean she was remembering, too? Did she still want him as much as he wanted her?

The snow blew horizontally toward him, reducing his visibility to almost nothing. He let his instincts guide him, keep him on course. The feel of the terrain. A clue from a fleeting glimpse of cuts in a hillside that had been made when the old dirt road was laid out. The hundreds of hours he’d spent tramping through pine forests and exploring prairie grasslands gave him a sense of the land.

Navigating through a blizzard was a helluva lot easier than knowing what Kristi was thinking. One mistake with her and he’d be over the side of the road in an instant, his second chance lost.

But did he really have a second chance with a self-proclaimed city girl? Maybe Grass Valley wouldn’t be enough for her now.

Maybe he’d never been enough for her and that’s why she’d never written. Never called.

Clearing the negative thoughts from his mind, he spoke into his helmet microphone. “How are your feet doing?”

“What feet?”

His lips quirked. Despite the cold she was hanging on to her sense of humor. “I’m going to look for a place out of the wind to pull over. We need to get our circulation back.”

“Wonderful. Maybe there’s a four-star hotel over the next hill.”

He chuckled. “I’ll check my tour book.”

Within a quarter mile they rounded a bend in the road that was edged with a sheltered stand of pines heavily laden with snow. He eased the snowmobile in that direction and pulled to a halt, turning off the engine. Kristi followed him into the copse of trees.

Dismounting, he shrugged out of his backpack. In order to get at the contents, he had to shed his heavy snow gloves.

“Stomp your feet and walk around some,” he directed Kristi as she climbed off her shiny blue vehicle. Encased in the thick garb of a recreational snowmobiler, she looked like a delectable snowlady who’d had a helmet plopped on her head. Rory had the urge to uncover what was beneath those layers of fabric and insulation, garment by garment. Probably not a good idea with the temperature about twenty-five degrees and the windchill factor around zero.

He uncapped the thermos he’d taken from his backpack. “Hot chocolate whenever you’re ready,” he announced. “It’ll warm you from the inside out.”

She shifted her helmet toward the back of her head and reached for the thermos top he’d filled with the steaming beverage. “My insides aren’t the problem, but I could use a hot tub to stick my feet in.”

“Hot tubs are good. You still like to swim naked? Or have you become the modest type?”

Her head snapped up, and she sloshed hot chocolate over her gloved hand. “Since I’ve never been in a hot tub, I have no idea how I would like it.”

“Too bad we aren’t closer to Yellowstone. We could slip into one of those bubbling pools—”

“I think the Durfees would be happier if we just did what we came to do and get Everett to a hospital as soon as we can.”

He lifted one shoulder in an indolent shrug that was a sham. He cared too much about Kristi to be unaffected by her brusque tone. “A guy can dream, can’t he?”