Between Strangers

As his car skidded past, the dark form became a human being hunched against the wind and carrying an oversize load wrapped in a blanket. Checking his rearview mirror, Lance spotted the outlined shadow of a car at the side of the road a few yards back and figured the guy must have broken down.

Poor bastard would soon freeze to death out here. Talk about bad luck. Lance had been driving these back roads for six hours now and hadn’t run into a single soul who was stupid enough to be out in such a blizzard.

As much as he needed to keep going, Lance certainly couldn’t leave a fellow traveler stranded on a deserted country road in this weather. During emergencies, people had to stick together for survival. If he’d been stuck, he would hope someone would have stopped to help.

Lance was pretty handy at car repairs, maybe he could help the guy get his car going. And maybe it wouldn’t take too long for him to be on his way home again.

Stopping in the road, but leaving the engine running, Lance opened the car door and stepped out onto the highway. A strong gust of Arctic wind blasted him as ice crunched under his boots. He hung on to his Stetson and tried to peer through the blowing snow while he fought his way back to the stranded motorist.

Through the haze of snow flurries and sleet, he managed a clearer glimpse of the person coming toward him. Lance was stunned to realize it was a woman.

Her head was covered by a thin scarf made of some drab-colored material. And she was burdened down with an oversize bundle that she’d covered with an old army blanket.

She came closer and after another second he finally caught his first glimpse of her eyes. They were light brown and a little overly bright in the low light of the snowstorm. Her face was thin and her lips were pursed with the effort to breathe.

Her clothes were covered with snow and getting wetter by the minute. While her face was devoid of makeup, her skin was smooth and what hair he could see looked like a fine golden halo around her face. She looked like an angel in distress.

The woman must be totally insane to be out here alone in this storm. Or maybe she was on drugs. He figured he’d better watch his step with her.

“What’s wrong with your car?” he yelled over the howling wind.

She was still breathing hard from the exertion of walking against the wind while carrying the heavy-looking bundle. Her every gasp was outlined in the crystallized air.

“I’m afraid it’s done for,” she wheezed. “I know there’s plenty of gas, and I just had the battery charged at a gas station in Minneapolis. But it stopped dead in the middle of the road. And after I coasted to the side, the engine refused to turn over again. Nothing happens when I crank the key. Absolutely nothing.”

“Get in my car before you freeze to death out here,” he shouted. “I’ll take a look at it. Give me your keys.”

As she came nearer, the woman’s eyes became wary, hesitant. “I have…” she gulped as she handed over the car keys and held up her burden.

Heaven help her, he muttered under his breath. Whatever she had with her wasn’t worth her life. Why didn’t she just set the thing down somewhere and come back for it later?

He skated back to the SUV he’d left idling in the middle of the deserted road and ripped open the back door. “Throw it in the back seat and get the hell inside now!”

She tossed him a quick, glaring look and shook her head. “I have to keep her close to my body until she warms up some.” As she unwrapped a tiny edge of the blanket to show him, he saw the top of a woolly baby’s cap that was almost covering curly blond hair.

Lance nearly lost his footing altogether as he raced to help the woman get herself and her child into the front seat by the heater. Whatever in the world would possess a woman to take a kid out in such a storm?

Though a little frightened and somewhat hesitant to accept help from a complete stranger, Marcy Griffin had no choice but to climb into the front seat of the cowboy’s SUV. Another fifteen minutes in this cold and the baby might’ve gotten chilled through and be on her way to pneumonia.

It was a terrible decision to have to make: risk getting involved with a stranger who could be a crazed maniac, or take a chance on the life and health of her precious daughter. Actually, there hadn’t been much of a choice.

The man wearing the cowboy hat had shut the car doors to keep the interior warm and then headed back through the storm to look at her car. Marcy looked down at the child in her arms and found that her baby was still sleeping soundly.

It would be just as well if Angie slept right through this ordeal. Marcy knew her child was hungry, cold and tired, and she wished with all her might that things could be different, for her daughter’s sake.

But at least the two of them were still alive. And one way or another, they were headed toward a better life. That was the most important thing right now.

Ten minutes later, just as Marcy was beginning to feel her fingers and toes again, the cowboy opened the rear passenger door and began installing Angie’s car seat.

“You were right,” he told her. “Your car is a goner. I think you must’ve cracked the block.”

“If we’re going to ride with you, can you get Angie’s things out of my trunk, please?”

“Things?”

“Diapers, baby food, bottles…” Marcy couldn’t see his expression under the brim of the hat, but she imagined he was scowling at his bad luck, stopping for such high-maintenance passengers.

“I’ll get them moved over,” he muttered. “You make sure the baby’s seat is secure and get her loaded in. I’ll be right back.”

She scrambled out and made short work of getting Angie buckled into her seat. Angie shifted around and nestled down in the familiar form-fitting cocoon but never opened her eyes. She’d been so quiet for so long that Marcy put her cheek against the child’s forehead, hoping to find that nothing was seriously wrong with her. Thankfully, Angie’s temperature seemed fine.

There was no third seat in the SUV and it didn’t take the cowboy long to fill up the cargo space with their things. Once they were all buckled in and cautiously on their way, Marcy closed her eyes and gave a silent prayer of thanks for their rescue.

Peeking out through half-closed lids to check on the stranger who’d picked them up, she decided to thank him for being their hero only when they were safe and sound and she was sure he wasn’t really a serial killer. Marcy studied his profile while he concentrated on the slick road.

What kind of man was this?

He’d pushed the hat back on his forehead so he could get a better view out the windshield. She remembered thinking how tall and broad-shouldered he was as they’d been standing out on the side of the road.

Now she could see that he was also powerfully built. He had what could only be described as a commanding presence. Just by breathing, he seemed to suck up all the oxygen and space surrounding his body, and Marcy could imagine him as a leader of troops. A man others would respect.

Thank heaven. Perhaps they would all get out of this storm safely.

Looking closer, she noted the jet-black, slightly too long hair under his gray cowboy hat…and quickly scanned the rugged angles and jutting jawline of his face. The lighting wasn’t very good, but his bronzed skin, high cheekbones and Roman nose all looked Native American.

Which was why the first thing out of his mouth surprised her so much.

“The name’s Lance Steele,” he said without looking directly at her. “What’ll I call you?”

“Oh, please excuse me. Things have been so…” She caught herself and began again. “My name’s Marcy Griffin. And my baby is Angelina…. ‘Angie’ most of the time unless I’m frustrated and trying to get her attention.” In her daughter’s entire nine months of life, Marcy hadn’t come that close to apologizing for simply being alive—the way she would’ve done in her best-forgotten past.

She had no intention of ever allowing herself to become such a wimp again.

The corner of his mouth cracked slightly but not enough to actually call it a smile. “Is the kid…Angie…okay? She’s not sick, is she?”

“She’s fine. It’s just been a long, hard day for her.”

“Where are you two headed? And what the devil were you thinking to bring a child out in a—” He screwed up his mouth and looked as if he was about to spew a raft of curse words at her.

After he breathed deeply and rolled his shoulders for a second or two, he seemed a little more in control. “Sorry. But you two should be someplace dry and warm right now. Not out becoming stranded in one of the worst blizzards in history. Where’s your husband? What will he have to say when he finds out how much danger you two were in?”

The flash of a reminder about Mike made her forget to be careful and thoughtful before she answered the questions of a cowboy who had yet to completely prove he wasn’t a maniac. “If my ex-husband cared one way or the other about being a father in the first place…or if he’d ever bothered to meet the baby he helped to create…I’m sure he would have nothing good to say about anything I did.”

She folded her arms across her chest and stared out at the inhospitable landscape. Well, that little speech was more than she’d said to anyone in months. And it had been much more venomous than was strictly necessary. She had better find a less combative way to get to know their rescuer.

“I’m sorry,” she said with a sigh. “I realize you don’t know anything about my divorce. Angie and I are on our own. I’m trying to get to a new job. It’s really a great opportunity. But we have to be there by the first of January. I thought we had lots of time, but…”

“How far away is this new job?” he interrupted.