Between Strangers

“Not that far, under normal circumstances. Cheyenne…in Wyoming.”

“Yeah, I know where it is. I’ve spent a lot of time in Cheyenne.”

“Is that your home? You aren’t headed there now, are you?”

The slight shake of his head was almost imperceptible. “Nope. I’m headed for a ranch outside Great Falls. That’s my home.”

He’d said the word home with such obvious reverence, she just knew some lucky woman must be waiting there for his return. Marcy didn’t think she’d better question him any further right now, however, especially on the subject of who he was fighting his way home to see.

Out of nowhere, a loud cracking sound split through the piercing noise of the howling winds. Lance slowly put his foot on the brake and the SUV came to a sliding stop…within a foot of a huge pine tree that had landed across the road directly in their path.

Both of them sat in stunned silence, looking out the windshield at nothing but pine needles and bark in every direction. There was total quiet for what seemed like a half hour, but it was probably only a few seconds.

“Stay put. I’ll go move it out of the way,” Lance growled.

“Is it the whole tree?”

He shook his head in frustration. “It’s just a damned big branch. I’ll handle it.” He got out and slammed the door behind him.

He knew he shouldn’t take his frustrations out on a perfect stranger. None of this was her fault. Whether she was in the SUV or not hadn’t caused the wind to take off the biggest branch he’d ever seen and lay it end to end blocking the road.

Okay, so there was nothing he’d like better than to never have seen her and her baby standing by the roadside in the first place. He had a timetable of his own and no time to deal with someone else’s problems.

But that little outburst of hers about the no-good scum of a husband abandoning them both before the baby was even born had made him furious. He’d known plenty of bums like that from his rodeo days. Men who would play around with women and then disappear when things got serious.

But knowing about it didn’t make hearing the truth from the woman’s side any easier. It was despicable. The thought of having a family right in the palm of your hand and casually tossing it aside rather than cherishing every minute made him angry and itching to hit something.

Nothing on earth would make him abandon these two to the storm. He didn’t know why he’d been hapless enough to be saddled with them, but it looked as if fate had stepped in yet again and changed his plans. At the very least, he would take them to a truck stop and make sure they were safe.

Pulling his hat lower and hunching down inside his jacket, Lance stepped out of the warmth of the running car and into a polar blast of Arctic air. The temperature must’ve dropped twenty degrees in the past hour.

He tried not to breathe too deeply in the sharp raw cold, knowing all too well how his lungs would burn if he did. A man couldn’t be a wrangler on a ranch in northern Montana without being fully aware of all the dangers lurking in the long, hard winters there.

By the time he made it around the hood through the blinding, blowing snow to the downed tree branch, he felt the bone-chilling cold penetrating all the way down to his internal organs. He quickly discovered that the pine branch was lying across the entire two lanes, making it impossible for the SUV to go around. The limb was thick, full of bushy needles and loaded with heavy snow.

There was nothing to do but drag it out of the way. But two major tugs against the full weight of the branch told him moving it by hand was out of the question. Man, what he’d give for a cross-cut saw just about now.

“Can I help?” Marcy’s question grabbed his attention.

“I told you to stay put,” he yelled against the wind. “The temperature out here has dropped beyond dangerous. Get back in the car.”

“You’ll never move anything that heavy by yourself,” she said, ignoring his question in a voice raised above the roar of the storm. “Can we use the SUV to push it out of the way?”

“No.” But her question gave him an idea.

Before buying the SUV, when he’d been checking out the compartment that held the spare tire, he was a little surprised to find jumper cables, a fold-up metal shovel, a cable-size rope and a thick blanket all stuffed in around the spare. The rental agent told him it was standard procedure to keep emergency supplies like those in every car they rented out during the dead of winter.

“That’ll have to work,” he grumbled to himself as he stomped to the cargo compartment of the SUV.

By the time he’d retrieved the rope from the compartment, Marcy was beside him again. “What’re you going to do?”

“We can’t push it out of the way. But maybe we can pull it aside far enough to drive around,” he told her.

Like most newer cars and trucks, this one didn’t have decent steel bumpers. But it did have a heavy-duty hitch installed to the frame under the rear bumper.

Lance glanced over at Marcy and caught the shiver that pulsed through her body. She wasn’t dressed warmly enough for this kind of weather. That coat of hers was worn out.

There was no question which of them would do what. “Do you think you can turn the SUV around so that it’s headed in the other direction? I’ll attach the rope and make sure it’ll hold.”

“Yes…yes, of course…” she stuttered.

When she was safely in the driver’s seat, he finally relaxed his shoulders. At least her feet wouldn’t be subject to frostbite while inside the warm vehicle.

He stepped aside and guided her by hand movements to a point he figured would be the best for moving the branch. After he’d made sure the rope was securely tied to both tree and SUV, he waved her ahead. She cracked the driver’s-side window to hear him over the wind.

She tried to inch ahead but the wheels were spinning against the icy patches and the building snow crystals. She couldn’t manage to get any traction.

“Let me try it,” he hollered.

Instead of scooting over the center console, Marcy hopped out of the driver’s door and started around the hood to the passenger side. She raised her hands to cover her mouth against the biting cold, and he got his first good look at her gloves.

Or her utter lack of adequate gloves would be a truer description of what he’d seen as she dashed past. He had originally thought she’d been wearing woolen mittens. Now he was shocked to see holes where her fingers poked through the thin material. She would have frostbite for sure.

Marcy climbed inside through the other door, and he slid into the driver’s seat. It didn’t take him but five more minutes to rock the SUV ahead, dragging the branch out of one lane. Two more minutes and the rope was untied and crammed back in the compartment with the spare. Then he successfully managed to turn the SUV once again so they could be on their way.

He eased the SUV down the road past the bulk of the tree. Once they were clear, he slowed and put it in Park.

Turning to face her, he tried to remain calm as he said, “Marcy, give me your hands.”

“What?” She swiveled and blinked at his odd demand.

Holding his own hands out, palms up, he cocked his head and waited.

She tentatively started to lay her hands in his, but looked wary and confused. It was all he could do not to break down and beg her to quickly do as he’d asked. He didn’t want to scare her, but this was too important.

Two

Marcy hadn’t realized how difficult it might be to give up control and let Lance take her hands. She should’ve known. After all, it had been more than eighteen months since she’d let a man so much as touch her.

When she glanced up to check the sincerity in his midnight-black eyes, her breath caught in her throat. Was that an erotic spark she saw in those eyes? Marcy had to fight within herself to ignore it and the powerful electric current she’d felt.

Eventually she surrendered her hands to him and stared blankly at where they were joined. The contrast between the golden skin of the back of his hands and the stark whiteness of her fingers drew her entire focus.

Lance studied their hands, too, his face contorted in a scowl. “We need to get these wet things off you in a hurry.”

“Huh?” That shocking sizzle of sensual awareness she’d just felt had obviously turned her into an idiot.

He didn’t wait for her to come to her senses. Tearing off her gloves, he dropped them in front of the heater. But he still didn’t let go of her hands.