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He waited for a response but got none. Fool woman! Just like a mare he’d bought two years ago. Didn’t have a whit of common sense.
He gave her another thirty seconds. Still nothing.
“Suit yourself,” he called, then turned and began re-climbing the hill, the howling wind nearly blowing him down again. He knew it couldn’t be any warmer than ten degrees. When the sun set even that scant heat would disappear. With the wind chill it would be so far below zero the number would be irrelevant. Anyone without proper shelter would freeze to death. Even if that kid had a blanket—four blankets—she and her baby would freeze to death.
Shoot!
He let the wind blow him back down to her car, then tapped on the window and jumped out of the way as the glass lowered, just in case she aimed the barrel of the gun at him again.
“It’s going to be below zero tonight. You are not going to survive in that car.”
“We’ll be fine.”
“No, you won’t!” Getting angry now, he tried her door but it was locked. “If you didn’t have a baby, I wouldn’t give a flying fig about you freezing to death. But you’ve got a kid. You have to be reasonable.”
“I am reasonable.” She sighed and rolled down the window. Cooper couldn’t help noticing her blond hair, clear pink skin and cornflower blue eyes. “Look, I called a friend. Any minute now I’ll be rescued.”
At that Cooper laughed. “Rescued? Haven’t you heard the weather?”
Her pretty eyes narrowed. “Yes and no. I heard about a snowstorm, but it’s always snowing here. I live on the other side of this mountain. I’m so used to the snow I hardly pay attention.”
“Well, you should have paid attention because this is a blizzard.” He drew in a quick breath and his lungs rebelled at the cold. “The temperatures are falling faster than normal. They’re predicting two feet of snow. If your friend is smart, he’ll stay home.”
Waiting for her reply, he blew on his hands. Even with gloves his fingers were going numb.
When she said nothing, his patience suddenly evaporated and he yelled, “Come out in thirty seconds or I’ll break your car window to save your kid.”
He swore he heard her sigh with disgust, but decided it had to be the wind. Then she kicked open her door and pushed herself out. A blast of air caught her pale hair and fanned it away from her head.
More concerned with getting them safely to shelter, he barely noticed the pretty feathery locks. “Where’s your hat?”
She turned and her blue eyes pinned him with an exasperated look. “It’s in the car.”
“Good, put it on and let’s get the hell going. It’s cold.”
She said, “Right,” then bent and reached inside her vehicle. Her red leather jacket only came to her waist and when she stretched he got a full view of the enticing curve of her bottom.
Cooper quickly turned away. Since she had a baby, the woman was obviously married, and staring at her behind, no matter how nicely rounded, was inappropriate.
The wind kicked up. From the back of her car, the woman pulled out a white plastic contraption lined with pink and navy blue plaid padding. She set it on the driver’s seat, then reached into the back again and extracted a baby wearing a pink snowsuit and wrapped in a pink blanket. She sat the kid in the padding of the white plastic thing. When she looped a handle from beneath and snapped it into place, Cooper guessed the contraption was some kind of baby carrier.
“I should take her,” Cooper said, assuming the baby was a girl because of all the pink.
“I’ll carry her,” the woman disagreed, leaving the baby on the front seat of her car so she could dig out an enormous diaper bag. Pink plaid to match the travel seat, it was stuffed to capacity and looked more like a trash can with a strap. “You take this.”
She shoved the two-ton diaper bag into Cooper’s arms just as a gust of wind hit him and he nearly fell backward. But he didn’t. He didn’t fall. He didn’t curse. He didn’t even yelp. Instead he saw the nice, quiet evening he could have had blow away on a frigid blast of air.
He nodded up the hill. “The cabins are this way.”
He turned to begin the upward trek, but she caught his arm with her glove-covered fingers.
Everything inside of Cooper stilled. It had been so long since anybody had dared to touch him—except in a fight—that his hands automatically curled into fists. But before he instinctively took a punch, he looked into her round blue eyes and a tingling sensation exploded in his gut. Now he understood why she mistrusted him. She was gorgeous and he was about to spend the night with her.
With her body shielding the open car door and Daphne from the wind, Zoe Montgomery stared at the man in front of her, pretending her shivers were from cold, not from fear. She shouldn’t have touched him. Until she’d touched him he’d seemed like a grumpy Kola bear. Now he looked like an angry panther. His green eyes glittered, his hands were fisted and his body was stiff, poised and ready to strike.
Tall and lean, with a black Stetson pulled low over his eyes, her rescuer was definitely all male, but he also had an air of trouble. For all she knew he could be an escaped convict. Well, actually, he’d said he drove a truck and she’d seen an eighteen-wheeler pass her about ten minutes after her car had simply stopped. But truckers weren’t always reputable. Some were hellions who took advantage of roaming the country doing all kinds of crazy things and this guy obviously had a hair trigger.
Still, not all truckers were bad. Some were Good Samaritans. Touchy though he was, this man could be one of those who saw it as his responsibility to help anyone on the road when problems hit.
Also, her options were limited. Whoever he was, he was right. If her car hadn’t died because it was old, but because it couldn’t handle the snow on the mountain, then LuAnn—her rescuer—wasn’t getting up here, either. And if the temperature was about to plummet, Zoe knew she and Daphne would freeze to death in the car.
She wasn’t sure she was any safer in a cabin with a stranger, but technically she didn’t have to “stay” with him. There were lots of hunting cabins on this mountain. Many of them were in clusters. He could sleep in one. She and Daphne could sleep in another.
She took a silent, life-sustaining breath. Not only was that a safe plan, but also it was a smart plan. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who wanted anyone invading his space, and she didn’t need anyone helping her. When her ex-husband had discovered Zoe was pregnant and left her, she’d gotten a crash course in taking care of herself. Brad had moved on so quickly, he hadn’t bothered divorcing her. She’d had to divorce him. And even though there was a court order filed for child support, Brad didn’t honor it.
Zoe knew some men saw responsibility as a frightening trap, but more than that, she’d learned the value of standing on her own two feet and she wasn’t letting anybody steal her independence away from her. She liked taking care of herself. This trucker didn’t want her around and she didn’t want him around. Separate cabins worked.
She pulled her fingers off his forearm and smiled slightly to take the sting out of her forwardness of touching him. “Or we could go down the mountain with the wind rather than against it. I live around here, remember? This part of the mountain is used almost exclusively for hunting. We’re bound to find more cabins on the way down. In fact, we’ll probably find clusters of cabins,” she added, preparing him for the fact that they would stay in different shelters, if he hadn’t already decided that himself.
He grunted as he hoisted the diaper bag on his shoulder where it settled beside his backpack. Then he turned and began walking down the hill.
Zoe grabbed Daphne’s baby carrier from the front seat of the car, slammed the door, and followed him. The wind picked up. Swirling along the ground, it gathered fallen snow and propelled icy crystals upward, causing them to slap against Zoe’s face. She pulled Daphne’s blanket loosely over her head to shield her from the blasts, then lifted the carrier to chest height and slanted it toward her to provide even more protection for her baby.
“By the way, I’m Zoe Montgomery,” she shouted to be heard above the wind. “And this is my daughter, Daphne.”
For several seconds the trucker said nothing and Zoe worried that he wouldn’t tell her his name. Not that she really needed to know his name, but if he wouldn’t tell it, there could be a reason. Which took her back to her concern that he might be a criminal. Or worse, he could be a sex offender who had unspeakable plans for her. His not telling her his name was not a good sign.
Adrenaline pumped into her bloodstream and she remembered the gun in her jacket pocket. As a single mother, who lived alone on the edge of a small town that was too close to the turnpike, she frequently carried. Her cousins had shown her everything she needed to know about guns when they’d taught her to hunt, so she wasn’t an amateur. And she also wasn’t a hothead. She wouldn’t arbitrarily shoot this trucker, but if he tried anything she wouldn’t hesitate to defend herself and her daughter.
But right now, because they weren’t too far from her car, simply running back to her vehicle and locking herself in was much smarter than shooting somebody.
She was formulating her plan of how to most effectively bolt when he said, “I’m Cooper Bryant.”
So grateful she nearly collapsed with relief, Zoe said, “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Cooper Bryant.”
But Cooper Bryant said nothing. Either he didn’t agree that it was nice to meet her or he wasn’t the kind of guy to make small talk. Fine. She’d already figured out he was a loner. She respected that. He would probably jump for joy when she told him she preferred her own cabin and was perfectly capable of keeping a fire going all night.
They struggled another ten feet down the mountain. With every step they took, the temperature seemed to fall. The inside of Zoe’s nose began to freeze. She huddled the baby carrier closer to her chest, protecting Daphne. She didn’t need a thermometer to know it was much colder than it was even ten minutes ago. This storm was worse than any she’d ever seen.
The stranger beside her tapped her arm. Rather than try to speak above the wind that now roared through the trees and hollows, he pointed to the left. Cuddling Daphne’s carrier against her, Zoe squinted, trying to make out what he apparently saw, but the only things in her line of vision were the black trunks of barren trees and swirling white snow. Visibility was down to about three feet. And that was another problem. If the wind and snow took away their ability to see, they could easily get lost in the woods.
She shook her head, indicating she saw nothing, and he caught her arm and hauled her across the road and up the slope into the woods.
Clinging to the baby carrier, which bounced precariously because of the trucker’s hold on her arm, Zoe barely kept up with him. Fear churned through her at the way he was dragging her as if she were a kidnap victim. In her head she said every prayer she knew, hoping she hadn’t gotten herself and her baby into terrible trouble, as the stranger propelled her through the woods, almost toppling her when he turned her to walk into the oncoming wind again. She gasped for breath, and righted herself, tightening her hold on Daphne. But as she did, she suddenly saw what he must have seen—what had motivated him to shove her through the forest.
A house!
Even if they had to spend the night, they would have a bathroom, food…and be among people! She wouldn’t be alone with him!
Trying to run in the deep snow while hugging a bulky baby carrier, Zoe nearly fell twice. But her escort was running, too. She’d never felt the temperature fall so quickly and knew they had to get to shelter now or die.
With her boots clumped with snow, she stumbled on the front porch steps. When Cooper Bryant reached the top, he turned and grabbed the baby carrier from her hands, hauling it to his side before he caught Zoe’s hand and pulled her up, too.
Still holding Daphne’s seat, he ran across the plank porch to the door and pounded. Huddling into her insubstantial leather jacket and shivering violently, Zoe noticed there were no lights on in the house. A new fear tumbled through her. If there was no one home, they were in big trouble. God only knew how far they would have to go to the next shelter. And even if they did easily find another building, there was no guarantee it would have a stove. And if they found a cabin with a stove, there was no guarantee it would have wood.
If this house didn’t pan out, there was a very good possibility she and Daphne would die.
“Here!”
Cooper Bryant shoved Daphne’s baby carrier at Zoe and she caught it in trembling hands, again clutching Daphne close to her to protect her from the freezing wind. Cooper Bryant reached into his back pocket and retrieved his wallet. Just as quickly, he pulled out a credit card. Before Zoe realized what he was doing, he was sliding the card into the space between the doorknob and wood frame.
“You can’t!”
He peered at her from beneath his Stetson. His green eyes glittered with annoyance. The angles and planes of his face were drawn in stern lines. Yelling to be heard above the roar of the wind through the trees, he said, “In case you haven’t noticed, we don’t have a choice.”
He shimmied the card a few times, jiggling the doorknob as he did. The wind howled. Frigid air pricked at Zoe’s cheeks. The lock on the door gave and Cooper shoved against the wood closure, opening it.
He grabbed Daphne’s seat and Zoe’s arm, propelling both Zoe and her baby into the house before him. Still holding Daphne, he slammed the door closed and for ten seconds or so they stood in the entryway of the simple two-story frame house, just breathing.
When it sunk in that they were out of the cold and safe, Zoe reached for Daphne, taking the handle of her baby carrier from Cooper Bryant’s hand. They might be out of danger from the elements, but the ease with which this man had gotten them into a locked house increased her fears about him. Worse, she couldn’t send him out into the cold to look for another shelter. Visibility was so bad now that he might not get back to the road.
“You’re very good with a lock.”
He returned the credit card to his wallet. “I knew this probably wouldn’t be much of a lock.”
She swallowed. “Really?”
He sighed. “I’m not a criminal. It’s just that this house is so far out in the woods I’m surprised the owner bothers with locks at all. I’m from a very small town in Arkansas where locks are more or less for show, so people frequently forget their keys. Everybody in Porter’s good with a credit card.”
Cooper reached for the light switch. At his touch, the entryway lit. “Hey, we’re in luck. If the electricity is on, that means there’s likely a furnace and maybe even food in the fridge.” He walked down the corridor and flipped a second switch, turning on another light and revealing the square corner of a bed in the room at the end of the hall.
“And here’s a thermostat. It’s set at fifty-five—just enough to keep the pipes from freezing. The person who owns this place obviously planned to be away awhile.” He shifted the knob of the gadget to the left and the sound of a furnace rumbling to life came up from the basement.
Zoe glanced around nervously. “I don’t feel right about this.”
“You’d rather freeze to death?”
“No. But this is somebody’s home.”
Cooper tossed Daphne’s diaper bag to the floor along with his backpack before he removed his jacket, revealing a red plaid work shirt and nice-fitting jeans.
Zoe blinked. She’d already noticed that he was handsome, but in the silence of the foyer she was suddenly taking note of other things. For one, he was older. He had the air of experience that made a man sexy. Add that to his dark, dangerous, mysterious personality and he was one seductive guy.
She swallowed. Luckily, that was exactly the opposite of the kind of man she wanted. She was no longer “into” sexy guys.
Once he’d hooked his coat on a peg, he glanced around. “I don’t think this is somebody’s home. From the setting on the furnace and the dust on that TV,” he said, pointing into a sitting room off to their left, “it looks more like a weekend retreat.”
“It still belongs to somebody.”
“Who would probably welcome us to spend the night in his house rather than freeze to death.” He grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulder, then like a boss accustomed to giving orders, or a chauvinist who thought all women were pea-brains, he nudged Zoe to look down the hall. “There’s your bedroom. You can have the one on the first floor to be closer to the kitchen since you have a kid. I’m going upstairs.”
She tried to pretend she didn’t notice his high-handedness and smiled graciously. “Don’t you want to wait until I fix us something to eat?”
He patted the backpack. “I have a thermos of coffee and two sandwiches. No need for us to even speak another word.”
Though Zoe had planned for them to separate, something about his tone confused her. She hadn’t asked for his help. He had volunteered it, yet he was acting as if she was an unwanted thorn in his side. “You’re leaving?”
“Think of it as me giving you your privacy. I don’t need to entertain you just because I rescued you.”
There was that tone again, the one that said having her around was a huge inconvenience. She couldn’t argue that he hadn’t rescued her. Not realizing the severity of the storm, she would have waited for LuAnn until it was too dark to find shelter. So, technically, he had rescued her. But she’d certainly never asked him to entertain her.
“No one said you had to. In fact, I was going to suggest you find a different cabin once we were settled.”
“Right,” Cooper scoffed, starting up the steps.
Zoe knew she should have let him go, but she hated that she’d never gotten the chance to prove to her ex-husband that she wasn’t a wimp, that she wouldn’t have smothered him, that he could have stayed with her if he’d just given her a chance. She wasn’t letting another man on the face of this earth believe she was a clingy female. She was defending herself. “I did intend to take care of myself.”
Cooper stopped walking and sighed. “Oh, come on. A woman who looks like you doesn’t ever have to worry about taking care of herself.”
Zoe felt her eyes widen at the insult. “I’m a single mother. I have to know how to handle anything that comes along.”
“And that’s why you called somebody—a man, no doubt—and were waiting in your car.”
“LuAnn would be insulted to hear you call her a man.” Zoe drew a quick, bolstering breath. “I didn’t realize the storm was as bad as it was or I would have looked for shelter, not called someone to come and get me.”
He shook his head, and didn’t even try to hide his smirk. “Right.”
She gaped at him. “What kind of experience do you have with women anyway?”
“Enough to know that the really good-looking ones take advantage of their assets.”
This time her mouth fell open. “As if good-looking men are any better! I married a good-looking man and he left me alone to have his baby. While I was fighting morning sickness and wondering how I’d pay the bills, he used his assets to very quickly replace me, as if to prove to me he didn’t need me. So don’t stand there like the pot calling the kettle black.”
Clearly exasperated with her, he said, “Look, I’m—”
Zoe didn’t want to hear what he had to say. The best way to prove she could handle any problem that came along would simply be to do it. To hell with him and his opinion. “Save your piddly explanation for someone who cares. You and your thermos of coffee can go upstairs. I want a good man, not just a good-looking man. You and your assets aren’t needed down here.”
Chapter Two
At the top of the steps Cooper found two bedrooms. He peered into the first, which had two single beds, then looked into the second and found a queen-sized bed with a thick comforter.
If the huge bed hadn’t won him over, the thought of being wrapped in a comforter would have. His toes had long ago frozen. He didn’t think the inside of his nose would ever be the same and he was sure his Arkansas-transplanted-to-Texas bones now had ice chips for marrow.
He tossed his backpack on the dusty dresser and sat on the bed to pull off his work boots and rub his feet. Though he had ratcheted up the furnace, the house wouldn’t be warm for a while, if it truly heated up at all in the face of the biting wind. He massaged his sock-covered feet, trying to increase circulation, but in the quiet of the bedroom, he could hear Zoe Montgomery’s movements below him.
Guilt tapped him on the shoulder, but he ignored it. He hadn’t come upstairs because he liked to be alone. That was just a perk. He’d left to show her she was perfectly safe with him. She was a pretty girl with a face and figure that could set any man to drooling, and her physical appearance probably caused most men to make at least one pass at her. That was the best explanation for why she was skeptical of help from a man. Undoubtedly lots of the men who had offered her assistance in the past had counted upon something in return—most likely sex.
But Cooper wasn’t interested. Well, he was interested if she was looking for a quick roll in the hay. But he was just about positive she wasn’t. She’d admitted in her parting shot that her marriage had failed, so she was available. But she’d also said she wanted a good man, not merely a good-looking man, and when a woman said that it usually meant she was seeking a commitment. Rolls in the hay were not commitment-based. The way Cooper had it figured, she was one of those women who was searching for that special man who could make her trust again.
