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Sophie awoke to panic and pain. The panic was locked in her chest, squeezing her lungs and keeping the screams inside. The pain was in her head, making her dizzy and weak. And she was freezing—not just a little “time to go put on a sweater” chill—but a deep, bone-hurting cold that surrounded her, consumed her.
She struggled against the sensations, trying and failing to push away from whatever terrible nightmare gripped her. Then the world shifted, reeling around her. Light intruded, forcing her to squint against the stabbing glare.
“That’s it, Sophie. In and out,” a deep, masculine voice said from very close by. “You can do it. Breathe in and out.”
The pressure on her lungs let up, and some of the pain cleared. The world stopped spinning and she could move again. Moments later she could see again, though seeing didn’t do much to clear her confusion, because she found herself lying on her back, with her handsome boss, Griffin Vaughn, leaning over her.
In his late thirties, with short dark hair that was frosted with silver at the temples, Griffin was a hard, no-nonsense businessman with chiseled features and elegantly arched brows. He was clipped and to the point, and rarely let his face show the slightest hint of emotion. Which was why it was shocking to see worry in his dark green eyes, and hear it in his voice when he said, “Hey. Welcome back to the land of the living. You scared the heck out of me.”
“Sorry,” she said inanely, too aware that his face was close enough that if she reached up just a little, they’d be kissing. Which was the sort of thought she usually relegated to the “don’t go there” section of her brain, along with thoughts of her mother’s illness and her own crippling debt load.
She stared up at him, blinking, trying to figure out what had happened. As she did so, she realized she wasn’t really even that cold anymore, just numb, almost going to warm now, kindling to heat. She smiled, dazed. Griffin didn’t smile back, though. Instead, he touched her cheek, though she barely felt it. “You’re freezing.”
“Not really. I’m actually sort of warm.” Her voice sounded strange, a deep rasp she wasn’t used to, and her throat hurt with the effort.
His expression went hard. “That’s even worse, because it means you’re going into hypothermia. We’ve got to get moving. Come on. Your arms and legs are working fine—nothing’s broken. I could carry you, but I think it’d be better if you walked and got your blood moving.” He eased away from her and stood, then reached down to pull her up. The world tilted beneath her feet and she sagged against him, feeling his hard, masculine muscles beneath his sopping-wet button-down shirt.
Wait a minute. Why was he wet?
Her fuzzy brain finally sharpened and she became suddenly cognizant of the fact that he wasn’t the only one who was wet to the skin. Her own clothes were glued to her body, cold and soaking. And it was freezing out; a sharp wind cut through the pitiful protection of her wet clothing, and as she watched, a few fat flakes of snow drifted down from the leaden sky above. The blizzard, she thought, heart kicking with belated panic. The bridge!
She gasped as she remembered the accident, the pop of the airbags, and then—
What then?
Heart hammering, she pulled away from her boss and looked at the lake. The bridge was a wreck, with a big section missing from the middle and chunks of cement hanging from mangled steel reinforcements. There was no sign of the SUV.
“Wha-t-t-t…” The last word turned into a stutter when huge shivers started racking her. With the exertion of standing and beginning to move around, the numbness she’d been feeling had changed to a huge, awful coldness. Wrapping her arms around her body as her muscles locked on the chills, she turned to Griffin. “You pulled me out-t-t?”
“Come on.” He slid an arm around her and urged her uphill. “We’ve got to get up to the house.”
He was shivering, too, she realized. She could feel the tremors racking his large, masculine frame, could hear them in his voice, warning her that the two of them were far from out of danger. They could very well freeze before they reached safety.
As if called by the thought, a storm gust whistled across the lake and slammed into them, nearly driving them to the ground. Wind-driven snow peppered them, the icy pellets stinging Sophie’s hands and face. The pain was a sharp heat against the background of bone-aching cold.
“It’s not supposed to s-start snowing until l-later,” she stuttered, not even able to feel her lips moving.
He didn’t answer, just started walking, keeping a strong grip on her waist and urging her onward. Knowing he was right, they had to get moving, she put one foot in front of the other, forcing herself to keep up with his long-legged strides.
From the feel of gravel beneath her low-heeled boots—which were not designed for snow trekking—she figured they were following the driveway. She couldn’t see it, though; it was covered with a layer of white. Snow had already blanketed the ground and frosted the trees, and more of the cold, wet stuff was plummeting down from the sky every second. Sometimes it drifted along, white and fluffy, looking almost pretty. For the most part, though, it blew sideways with stinging impact, eventually forcing her to slit her eyes against the storm. She put her head down and tried to shut out the cold and the snow, tried not to focus on anything but trudging along.
You’re still on probation for this job, whether he’s admitting it or not, she told herself. Now is not the time to wimp out.
Granted, she could argue some seriously extenuating circumstances, and even a terrifyingly in-control man such as Griffin would have to give her a pass on losing it just now. But thinking about it that way, like it was a test she needed to pass, gave her the strength to keep pushing forward.
She needed this job more than he had any reason to understand. She knew he thought she was too young and inexperienced to fill Kathleen’s size-ten shoes, but she was bound and determined to do just that, because if she lost this job…
No, she wouldn’t think about that, either. She’d just keep walking, keep proving herself.
They struggled against the wind, headed toward the mountainside house, which had seemed very close when they’d been driving over the bridge, but now felt very far away. Eventually they passed into the tree line and the wind abated slightly, but the steady incline of the driveway sapped Sophie’s strength, and the temperature was dropping with the incoming storm. She’d all but stopped shivering, which she knew was a bad sign, and a glance at Griffin showed that his face reflected the gray of the sky, and his lips were tinged with blue.
They didn’t have much time left.
He caught her look, met her eyes, and in his expression she saw only determination, and a flat-out refusal to admit defeat. Sounding far more like a drill sergeant than the efficient businessman she’d come to know over the past month, he growled, “Move your ass. That’s an order.”
If he’d coddled, she might have given in. Instead, the grating rasp of his voice had her stiffening her spine, gritting her teeth and forging onward as the snowfall thickened, going from stinging ice to fat flakes that whipped around them, swirling and turning the world to white. They were no longer a mismatched pair of boss and assistant—they were just two very cold human beings struggling to reach the basics: shelter and warmth. Safety.
Sophie’s breath burned in her lungs, and her muscles felt dead and leaden. She stumbled and caught herself, stumbled again and would’ve fallen if it hadn’t been for Griffin looping a strong arm around her waist. His silent strength urged her to keep going, not to give up.
Then, miraculously, the snow-covered surface beneath their feet changed, going from gravel to rough-edged cement bricks. Sophie jerked her head up and peered through her ice-encrusted lashes, and gave a cry of joy when she saw that they’d reached a parking area that encircled a central planting bed. Beyond that was the modern, pillar-fronted house.
“Come on, we’re almost there!” Griffin said, shouting encouragement over the howling wind.
Through the whipping ice pellets, she could see the details that distance had obscured: the touches of stained glass on either side of the carved main doorway, and the intricate stonework and terraced landscaping leading up the walk. There were no lights, no sign of habitation, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was the promise of getting out of the wind and—please, God—getting warm and dry.
The possibility spurred her on, and she felt a renewed burst of energy from Griffin, too. Together, they hurried up the wide stone steps leading to the front door. She grabbed the knob and twisted, her fingers slipping in the icy wetness. Her breath hissed between her teeth. “It’s locked. D-do you have a key?”
“It’s in the lake with the rest of our stuff.” He cast around, kicking at several half-buried rocks that were frozen into the planting beds on either side of the entryway. When one came loose, he grabbed it, returned to where Sophie was waiting and used the rock to smash one of the narrow stained glass panels. The glass held against the first two blows, then gave way on the third, shattering inward in an act of destruction that would’ve bothered Sophie under any other circumstance, but in this case seemed very much like Griffin himself—direct and to the point.
He took a moment to clear the sharpest shards away from the edges, then stuck his arm through, and felt around.
“No alarms?” Sophie asked.
“Not yet,” he replied, face set in concentration. “Too many workmen to bother. Besides, the cops are, what? Half an hour away? Forty minutes? Not worth it.”
The reminder of how isolated they were, even more so with the incoming storm, brought a renewed chill chasing through Sophie. If Griffin hadn’t gotten them safely out of the SUV, it might’ve been days, maybe longer before rescue personnel arrived. By then it would’ve been far too late.
Then again, if they didn’t get warm soon, the same logic could very well apply.
The click of a deadbolt followed by the snick of a door lock came through the panel. Sophie twisted the knob, and nearly fell through when the door swung open beneath her weight. Griffin grabbed her and they piled through the door together. He kicked the panel shut at their backs, closing out most of the storm. The air went still, save for the draft that whistled through the broken window.
But it wasn’t the sudden quiet that had Griffin cursing under his breath. It was the sight that confronted them, laying waste to any hope of an easy fix to their predicament.
“Oh,” Sophie breathed, because there didn’t seem to be much else to say.
The place was a wreck.
They were standing in a grand entryway—or what might’ve been a grand entryway in a previous life. Just then, though, it was bare studs and two-by-four construction, with electrical wiring spewed haphazardly around and the flooring pulled back to the plywood subfloor. The skeleton of a stairwell rose up to the right, leading to a second floor that wasn’t much more than framework, and Sophie could see straight through to the back of the house, where nailed-down tarps seemed to be substituting for the back wall.
Worse, it wasn’t much warmer inside than out, and she didn’t hold much hope for a working heat source if the rest of the place looked as rough as the entryway. No doubt the hot water heater was off-line. Probably the electricity, too.
“Son of a bitch.” Griffin took two steps away from her and stood vibrating with fury, his hands balled into fists. “That thieving bastard. Look what he’s done to this place. That no-good, lying—” He snapped his teeth shut on the building tirade, and shook his head. “Never mind. I’ll kill him later.”
Sophie was startled by the threat, and by how natural it sounded, as though her slick businessman boss might actually be capable of hurting his contractor. Then again, she realized, looking at him now, this wasn’t the Griffin Vaughn she’d grown more or less used to over the past month. He was wet, cold and angry, and should’ve looked like an absolute mess in wringing wet business clothes furred with globs of melting snow. But he didn’t. He looked capable and masculine, and somehow larger than before.
He glanced over at her, his eyes dark, but softening a hint when he looked at her. “Let’s get moving. There’s got to be at least one room that still has walls and a working fireplace. That may be the best we can hope for.”
Sophie nodded shakily. Trying to force her rapidly fuzzing brain to work, she said, “The housekeeper and her husband live here, right?”
He snapped his fingers. “Good call. Gemma and Erik are gone, but they’ve been doing the repairs to their quarters personally. Erik didn’t want anyone else messing with his space. Which means there’s a good chance that their apartment is in better shape than this disaster area. It’s probably even still got electricity.” He gestured off to the left, where drywall had been hung in a few places, though not taped or mudded. “Their quarters are in the back corner.”
She expected him to head off and leave her to follow, reverting to business as usual now that they were, at the very least, out of the whipping wind. Instead, he took her arm, which probably meant she looked as bad as she felt. Telling herself she could be tough and self-reliant once they found someplace to hunker down and get warm, Sophie leaned into him as they walked down a short hallway, skirting drop cloths and torn-up sections of flooring.
“Obviously the generator’s not running, but it’s a standard model. I should be able to get it going again,” Griffin said, sounding as though he was thinking aloud. “If not, hopefully Gemma and Erik’s fireplace will be usable. I’d say we should try the guesthouse if we don’t have any luck here, but Perry stripped it last month after the pipes froze and burst, and the barn and woodshed have zero in the way of amenities.” He shot her a wry look. “If worse comes to worst, we can lay out some kitchen tile and build a campfire on it. There’s plenty of scrap wood.”
“True enough,” Sophie murmured.
Moments later, they reached a closed door. Griffin tried the knob. “Locked.” He glanced at her. “In this case, expediency trumps privacy.”
Putting his shoulder to the door, he braced against it, half turned the knob and then gave a sort of combined jerk-kick that looked as if he’d practiced it to perfection. The door popped open, swinging inward to reveal a simply furnished sitting room.
“Thank God,” Sophie breathed. Telling herself not to wonder where he’d learned how to pop a door off its lock without breaking any of the surrounding wood, she stumbled through the door.
Gemma and Erik’s apartment proved to be a small, simply furnished suite done mostly in neutral beiges and browns, with accents of rust and navy. There was a kitchen and bathroom off to one side of the sitting room, and two doors leading from the other side. Sophie made a beeline for the doors. One opened into a small office filled with landscaping books and magazines. The other yielded pay dirt, not in the neat queen-size bed and southwestern-print curtains, but in the dresser and his-and-hers closets, which were full of clothes.
Wonderful, warm, dry clothes.
There were also photographs everywhere, scattered around the room in a variety of wood and metal frames. Even though she was freezing, Sophie couldn’t help pausing for a quick scan of the pictures. She’d always been fascinated by families, and that was clearly what these photographs chronicled: a man and woman’s lifetime together.
The earliest of the pictures showed the couple mugging for the camera from atop a pair of bored-looking horses in Western tack, against a backdrop of purplish mountains and a wide-open sky. The woman looked to be in her early twenties, dark-haired and pretty, with regular features and an open, engaging smile. Her eyes twinkled with mischief. The man was maybe a few years older, blond and fair-skinned, with the beginnings of a sunburn. He was looking at her with an expression of complete and utter adoration.
The other photos showed the couple at different points in their lives together—their wedding; a baby, then two; family candids as the children grew. The man’s hair went from blond to white, while the woman’s stayed relentlessly—and perhaps unnaturally—dark brown, but her face softened with age, and living. There were other weddings, other vacations, until the last photo, which sat on the beside table and showed just the man and the woman, in their late fifties, maybe early sixties, wrapped around each other at the edge of Lonesome Lake, with the now-demolished bridge in the background.
The woman’s expression still twinkled with mischief. The man still had eyes only for her. That love, and the sense of family unity that practically jumped out of the photos, put an uncomfortable kink in Sophie’s wind-pipe, right in the region of her heart.
“Here.” Griffin appeared in the doorway behind her and tossed an armload of terrycloth towels on the bed, having apparently raided the bathroom. He moved past her and rooted through the dresser and closet, coming up with jeans, a shirt and thick sweater, along with two pairs of wool socks and a worn men’s belt. Then he headed back out, saying over his shoulder, “You take this room, I’ll change in the office.” Then he paused in the doorway. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She made herself move away from the bedside photo and start picking through the dresser. “I’m guessing we’re out of luck in the shower department?”
“Sorry. The pump is battery-powered, so we’ve got running water, but it’s going to be cold. I’ll have to get the generator going for hot water. First, though, I want to get us dry and see about starting a fire.”
Sophie nodded. “Of course.” As he left the room, she pawed through the dresser, telling herself not to waste time feeling squeamish about going through a stranger’s things. The worst of the bone-numbing cold had eased now that they were out of the storm, but getting dry and warm was still a major priority.
“I’ll reimburse them for the clothes,” Griffin said unexpectedly from the other room. “So stop stalling. If I don’t hear you getting naked in the count of ten, I’m coming in and doing it for you.”
From another man the words might’ve been a tease, or a threat. Coming from laconic Griffin Vaughn, who didn’t seem to suffer from the same zing of chemistry Sophie felt every time she was within five feet of him, they were simply a fact. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t even noticed she was female—theirs was purely a business relationship. Or rather, the possibility of one, if she worked very hard and managed not to dump any more coffee on him.
Unfortunately, she got clumsy when she was nervous, and something about the way he looked in the throes of negotiation—all stern-faced and dark-eyed, with a flash of excitement when he moved in for the coup de grâce—well, that made her all too aware that he was male. Which made her nervous, and therefore clumsy.
“Sophie?” Griffin called, and his low-voiced inquiry buzzed along her nerve endings like liquid fire, the heat brought by the thought of him undressing her, and focusing all that dark-eyed intensity on her.
But the threat got her moving, and she started stripping out of her wet, clinging clothes. “You don’t have to come in,” she called after a moment. “I’m naked.” She blushed at the echo of her own words, bringing stinging warmth to her cheeks. “Never mind. Forget I said that, okay?”
She grabbed the towels he’d left for her and scrubbed them over her skin, warming some life back into her chilled flesh, which seemed strange and disconnected, as though it didn’t belong to her anymore. Soon, though, life began to return—pins and needles at first, then stinging pain. Skin that had been fish-belly-white moments earlier flared to angry red, and she hissed with the return of feeling as she drew on a pair of borrowed jeans and a turtleneck, socks and thick sweater.
She soon realized that she and Gemma were built very differently: the other woman was taller and significantly narrower in the hips and bust. Doing the best with what she had, Sophie rolled up the cuffs to deal with the too-long jeans, and hoped the sweater was loose enough to disguise how tightly the clothes fit across her chest and rear. Like Griffin, she skipped borrowing underwear, instead going commando beneath her clothing.
Logic said that shouldn’t have felt daring under the circumstances, but she was acutely aware of the chafe of material against her unprotected skin as she left the bedroom. Not that he would notice, because he was all about business. Which was a relief, despite the fact that she’d developed a mild crush on him. Indeed, she only allowed herself the crush because he wasn’t interested. After what had happened at her last job, where she’d been romanced and played by a jerk of the first degree, and said jerk had set out to destroy her career options, the last thing Sophie was looking to do was get romantically involved with her boss. No thanks, not going there again.
Heading out of the bedroom into the main sitting area, Sophie found Griffin crouched by the fireplace. Kindling and mid-sized logs were neatly organized in a burnished copper tub to one side of the hearth, and a small drift of ashes and charred wood inside the fireplace suggested it was fully functional, which was very good news indeed.
Griffin had used some of the kindling to build a neat teepee, with crumpled paper in the center, and a trio of larger logs crossed in a tripod arching over the kindling. The setup, like the hip-check he’d used to open the door, looked practiced and professional, which didn’t fit with the image of the polished businessman she’d spent the past month assisting.
The Griffin Vaughn she worked for wore custom suits and monogrammed shirts, yet cared little for fashion. His entire focus was centered on VaughnTec. He was seeking to grow the company by shrinking their products even further while increasing the functionality of each unit. VaughnTec, which was part R & D, part mass market, combined cameras, computers, phones, music, video games and a host of other functionalities into small handheld units so simple that even the technologically challenged could figure them out within a few minutes. It was Griffin who’d moved the company in that direction when he’d taken it over from his uncle, Griffin who’d made it into the powerhouse it was today. He was ruthless without being cruel, cold without being unfriendly. But even when he was being his most cordial, she’d noticed, he maintained a thick barrier between him and the world, a reserve that she’d only seen soften when he was talking to his young son, Luke, on the phone.
Despite the pressures of Sophie’s job situation—i.e. that losing it was a real threat yet absolutely not an option—she had grown, if not comfortable with Griffin’s business persona, at least confident that she knew where she stood with him. He was polite but not terribly friendly, and had made it obvious that he considered her too young and green for the position. But at the same time, he’d been clear about his needs and wishes, and had given her ample room to perform the tasks Kathleen had laid out for her, which had mostly consisted of scheduling his travel and juggling calls, retrieving information and hunting up the occasional meal. All of those things were well within the skills she’d learned in the courses she’d taken for certification, and if she’d fumbled a few times when nerves had overcome training, he’d seemed to let those instances go. All in all, she’d found him a tough but fair employer. Yes, he was far too attractive for her peace of mind, but she thought she understood the Griffin Vaughn she’d been working for.
However, she didn’t know the Griffin Vaughn who was crouched down in front of the fireplace wearing a fisherman’s sweater and faded jeans, blowing a small ember into a flame, then feeding it strips of kindling until the fire flared up and lit the teepee he’d built so carefully. Logic and what she knew about her boss suggested that he should’ve looked like a man completely out of his natural element. Instead, he wore the borrowed clothes like they were old familiar friends, and he moved with neat economy as he built the fire up, coaxing it to accept the first of the logs. His towel-dried hair was engagingly rumpled, making him seem younger, though his face still gave away little of the man within.
Illumination from the flames danced across his forbidding features. The warm light was a welcome contrast to the dimness outside, where the world had gone to grayish-white and the day was fading hours earlier than it should have.
The fire drew Sophie forward, even as nerves warned her not to get too close to this new version of Griffin Vaughn. She stood beside him and stretched her hands out toward the fire, but felt little relief from the cold.
“It’ll need to warm the brickwork before much heat starts bouncing out into the room,” Griffin said.
“Were you an Eagle Scout or something?” she asked, unable to help herself, because too many things weren’t quite lining up between this Griffin and the one she thought she knew.
“Or something.” He rose, dusting the ash from his hands, and wound up standing very near her. Too near.
She could see the hints of hazel in his green eyes, saw them darken when tension snapped into the air between them. She was suddenly very aware of his height and strength, and the way the smell of wood smoke fit with the sight of him in jeans and a sweater—raw, masculine and elemental. And in that instant, she realized she’d been wrong about at least one thing: Griffin most definitely knew she was a woman. The knowledge was in his eyes, which were more alive than she’d ever seen them.
Heat flared suddenly, not from the fireplace, but within her. The warmth spread from her core to her extremities, which still tingled with the aftereffects of the freezing conditions, and the danger they’d survived together.
Maybe it was that danger that had her leaning into him, maybe it was the attraction she’d told herself to ignore all these weeks. Either way, she was suddenly very close to him, and he to her, their lips a breath apart.
A log shifted in the fireplace, sending sparks. The noise startled her, breaking through the sensual fog and slapping her with a shout from her subconscious. Danger!
Grabbing hold of herself, she took a big step back, away from the fireplace. Away from the man. As she did so, she was aware that he did the exact same thing, levering himself away. In that moment, she saw the shields drop back down over his expression, distancing him more surely than the floor space now separating them. Suddenly, he was no longer a regular guy starting a fire in the fireplace; he was a millionaire businessman who ate small companies for breakfast, and just happened to be wearing a sweater and jeans.
More important, he was her boss.
Heat rushed to Sophie’s cheeks and she berated herself for being stupid, for getting too close to the line with the man who had far too much control over her future, more than he even realized. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have—”
“I’m going out,” he interrupted, heading for the door, where he grabbed a pair of tired-looking boots and a heavy, bright-red waterproof parka, borrowing more of Erik’s clothing. “I want to look around a little and get the generators going. There are a bunch of outbuildings—barns, a guesthouse, that sort of thing. I want to make sure they’re as secure as they’re going to get before the main force of the storm hits. I’d appreciate it if you’d check the kitchen and see about some food. Do you still have your PDA in your coat?”
A unit of his own design, the PDAs combined a phone, computer and GPS functionalities into a single small unit.
Sophie nodded. “Yes, I do. But won’t it have shorted out?” They were seriously useful little machines, but still, they were machines.
“Sometimes the little buggers come back to life after they’ve gotten wet. Say, for instance, after a toddler tries to flush one of them.” His expression softened a hair at the tangential mention of his son, but his eyes stayed cool on hers, as though he was waiting to see what she would do next, how she would handle herself in the aftermath of the sensually charged moment they’d just shared.
She was going to ignore it, that was what she was going to do, Sophie decided on the spot. Just as he’d done.
Plastering a neutral expression on her face, she tried to drop herself back into the executive assistant’s role, even though it didn’t seem to fit quite right under the circumstances. She nodded. “Food and PDA. Got it. If I get the phone up and running, do you want me to call Sheriff Martinez and let him know what happened?”
Griffin glanced through a window, at the whiteout conditions outside. “Definitely. See if he can get someone out here to pick us up.” He lifted a shoulder. “It’s a long shot, but you never know. Maybe this is just a squall before the blizzard.”
A howl of wind hit the side of the mansion and rattled the windows in their frames, seeming to mock the idea. Somewhere else in the house there was a crashing noise, suggesting that Perry and his work crew hadn’t secured the construction zone sufficiently against the force of the incoming blizzard.
