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“We’ll do official introductions if the two of you actually get together, okay?”
“Okay with me,” he’d said, figuring nothing would come of this odd conversation anyway.
“She’s a Wyoming girl, Mr. Cowboy. I have a feeling you’ll ride off for bluer skies and fresher air soon—and I think she will, too.”
The deliberately mysterious woman’s cell had rung again and while she’d answered it, she’d scribbled down Charlotte Morgan on a napkin, along with the name of a popular dating site.
Even though he’d basically just been playing along, passing the time, Jax had realized he was curious enough to take a look at Ms. Morgan’s profile.
He’d never even considered online dating. Later, when he got home, he’d typed in the information and, eventually, been completely...well, the English would have called it gobsmacked.
Charlotte Morgan was beautiful, all right. More than beautiful.
They’d exchanged a few tentative, getting-to-know-you emails over the coming days, and one fine day they’d agreed to meet for coffee. He’d been doing a stint at a small animal practice just across the state line, so the trip had involved trains and various other methods of transportation.
When he’d finally met Charlie face-to-face, Jax had discovered that her pictures hadn’t done her justice, and on top of her good looks, she was sexy, intelligent, charming...
A whirlwind romance later, Charlie still lived in New York and he’d had to go back to Idaho to help his dad, also a vet, after he’d had a heart attack.
Jax had missed Charlie, but he’d also learned something about himself. The West was still his home, the place where he belonged. He’d realized he wanted to stay—not necessarily in Idaho, since his father, once fully recovered, didn’t really need his help, but somewhere out there, under that sweeping sky.
He’d asked—okay, practically begged—Charlie to join him, but for reasons he still didn’t fully understand, she’d dug in her heels. Yes, she longed for the wide-open spaces sometimes, she’d said, but she liked her job, her neighborhood, her friends.
All of a sudden, she claimed to love the city, despite her colleague’s assertion to the contrary, back at Remy’s wedding reception.
They’d been at an impasse. He wanted to settle in a small town on the other side of the country. She wanted to stay in the city.
Jax recalled all too well the last time they’d tried to discuss the situation rationally, to arrive at some compromise. They’d just made love, she was still in his arms, but her averted face had made her feelings clear. It was true that she couldn’t have a job making the same sort of salary anywhere except a place that was a major financial and cultural center. It was also true that in a small town she couldn’t walk down the street and pick from a dozen different types of restaurants. No shopping, no theater, no symphony... The list went on.
A classic standoff. He might be Dr. Locke, but he didn’t have a glamorous profession like most of the men she met. He helped cows give birth and he treated horses, driving to some remote places at some strange hours to do so. He vaccinated dogs and cats, spayed and neutered house pets. No, the work wasn’t glamorous, but it was satisfying. Jax loved animals, loved his job and honestly couldn’t see himself living in a big city for very long. He’d grown up bottle-feeding abandoned kittens and baby goats, ridden horses every day, dug fence posts with the best of them and rarely went to art galleries or museums, her favorite forms of recreation.
He liked the outdoors; she liked skyscrapers.
Let’s call the whole thing off.
They had. Sadly, regretfully, unable to agree, they’d gone their separate ways.
The trouble was, Jax had never been able to get her off his mind.
So he was on his way to Mustang Creek, of all places.
What were the chances he’d know someone from her hometown, wind up practicing there?
Maybe this was more than a coincidence, a meant-to-be kind of thing. Like sitting beside the woman at Remy’s shindig—her name turned out to be Kendra Nash—and just happening to hear about Charlie for the first time.
Was fate intervening again? Jax hadn’t expected a job offer when he’d contacted Nate; he’d just wanted to know if there might be openings in the area.
Charlotte’s last Facebook post had said: “Catching a flight back to Wyoming soon. Goodbye, NY. It’s been nice but I’m heading home. Merry Christmas.”
Jax punched the hands-free device when his phone rang, startling him a little. Beyond his windshield, the weather was getting worse by the second. “Hello.”
“Jax, you’re still driving, right? Making progress?”
Nate Cameron, the man he’d be sharing a practice with.
Jax answered a little grimly, “Sort of, if you call thirty miles an hour progress. I was hoping to outrun the storm, but obviously that didn’t happen.”
“I booked you a room at the motel on Main about two hours ago. Last room, in fact. I’d be happy to have you stay with me, but you’ll never find my place in this mess. People miss the drive in broad daylight, never mind the middle of a blizzard. Besides, the way the snow’s drifting, I don’t care what kind of truck you have, you might get stuck. That’s one wicked wind. In town at least they’ve got the snowplows out.”
That sounded like a plan. He was starting to doubt he could even find the town; the road ahead was disappearing before his eyes. “Thanks. I’ll call you tomorrow morning.”
“Let’s just meet up. This is supposed to blow through pretty fast. Betsey’s Café is where I usually have breakfast, and it’s next to the motel. Eight o’clock?”
“See you then.”
When Jax finally saw the lights of Mustang Creek glowing in the distance, he felt a measure of relief. His shoulders ached from the tension, and what he really needed was a soft bed and a good night’s sleep.
It wasn’t hard to spot what he suspected was the town’s only motel. The parking lot was full, and the one car that had been in front of him for miles pulled in, too. After searching for ten minutes or so, he found a parking spot then grabbed his suitcase and ran for it, flipping his collar up.
The dated lobby was empty except for the clerk and a very dismayed-looking young woman at the counter.
She said, “No rooms?”
“None. I’m sorry. The storm and all.” The young man did seem apologetic.
Glossy dark hair swung as she turned around, obviously disappointed, and then she froze. “Jax?”
Charlie. She stared at him, incredulous recognition in those gorgeous green eyes.
“Yep. Hi.” He was almost too stunned to speak.
Coincidence? No way. Fate or something was definitely messing with his head.
Yes, he’d expected to run into Charlie—Mustang Creek was a small community after all—but he’d never dreamed she’d be one of the first people he encountered, especially in the middle of a snowstorm.
“What are you doing here?” Charlie’s eyes were wide and a little wary. Did she think he was stalking her?
“Job offer,” he said lamely.
“Oh...well...” She seemed to be struggling for words, too. Small comfort. “What are the odds of that?”
Good, when a person actively pursues a goal, he thought wryly.
He cleared his throat. “I have a room if you need a place to stay.”
The clerk hit a few keys on his computer. “You’re Dr. Jaxon Locke? Last person to check in tonight. Room 215. Two queen beds. Maybe there’s some holiday magic in the air, since you two seem to know each other. Let me get your key cards.”
Just then, the sound system began to play “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
Maybe he would, Jax thought. Maybe he would.
2 (#ulink_82c20a31-d3c5-5ca5-a824-acfa17a864bf)
No way was she sharing a room with Jaxon Locke.
Charlotte was incredulous, completely thrown off balance by seeing him there, the last person in the universe she would’ve expected to run into in Mustang Creek, of all places. This was her hometown, damn it, her safe place, her sanctuary. What was he doing here? She could almost believe she was dreaming, except that every part of her ached with travel fatigue and the rigors of driving for hours through that wicked snowstorm.
Nope, this was real. And just to make it worse, the man had the gall to look good, too, even with tousled hair that still had flecks of snow, rumpled clothes and the slope of weariness in his broad shoulders. His beard was coming in, an attractive stubble, and there was a hint of lively amusement in his eyes.
“I don’t need a key card,” she told the clerk in a more abrupt tone than she’d intended. She immediately felt bad because he’d been accommodating, this young, apologetic local. More graciously, she added, “Thanks for trying, though.”
“I didn’t help much. I’m afraid there’s no place else to stay.”
He was probably right about that. Despite its relatively close proximity to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, not to mention the ski slopes that attracted winter-sport enthusiasts from all over the world, Mustang Creek was still a small town. Other than this hotel, there were a few modest motels and B and Bs, of course, but on a night like this one, and so close to the holidays, those places would fill up fast.
Jax stepped past Charlotte to slap his credit card down on the counter. Was that a smirk she saw, that faint twitch at one corner of his mouth?
“There are two beds, Charlie,” he reminded her with a brief, sidelong glance. “Count ’em, two. Trust me, I drove here all the way from Idaho, and I’m so tired I might forget my own name. Your virtue is safe, for tonight, anyhow.” He paused—he was smirking, damn it—and then brought the whole matter in for a landing. “Besides, what other option do you have? Sleeping in your car? Sounds chilly to me.”
The clerk swiped the card with a cheerful flourish of resignation and said helpfully, “The temperature is supposed to drop like a rock falling off a mountain.”
Great analogy. Maybe Mrs. Klozz was still awake...
She doubted it.
It was pushing midnight. Aunt Geneva would’ve been in bed hours ago. And what if Millicent Klozz was hard of hearing and Charlotte stood there knocking on the door, shivering?
Ending up here—with Jax—was an unexpected twist to a long, long day.
“Key card?”
Jax offered it.
After a moment she took it. “Don’t look so smug.”
“This isn’t smug,” he said, grabbing her suitcase and his. “I feel confident that my normal expression of wry triumph would be considerably better than anything I can summon up at the moment. Let’s go find our room so I can collapse. It might be the holiday season, but there’s no cheer in my spirit right now. I’m damned tired.”
And no room at the inn.
Ironic.
She followed him. This was definitely going to be awkward, and not just because she hadn’t planned on having a roommate. Jax Locke might not be an ax murderer, but he wasn’t precisely harmless, either, like a favorite cousin or an old friend or a trusted business colleague.
Oh, no.
She and Jax had a history. The last time she’d seen him was in New York, and suddenly, out of nowhere, he was in Mustang Creek?
What exactly was going on?
Something weird, that was what.
With a sense of the world being off its axis, Charlotte followed him down a hallway to the appropriate door and watched him open it. He waited for her. “After you,” he said with the slightest bow.
This was such a bad idea. But so were her only other choices: waking up an elderly lady in the middle of the night, risking hypothermia by bedding down in her rental car or crashing in the lobby, which would be embarrassing.
The room was okay, she decided. It was generic, but what would anyone expect? There were the requisite furnishings—two beds facing a long, narrow dresser with a TV on top, a round table with a chair on either side and a hanging lamp suspended above it. The decor also included heavy draperies with plastic pull rods and colorful but highly forgettable art on the walls.
The place looked and smelled clean, thank heaven.
And it was blessedly warm. No small consideration, with the wind howling outside the window.
“I hope they have a generator,” Jax remarked, probably in an effort to make conversation. “This storm is amping up into a full-scale blizzard.” He sighed and added, “I’m going to take a hot shower and then sleep for about a hundred years. If you want the bathroom first, go ahead.”
The window rattled under a fresh assault of ice-barbed wind.
Charlotte was just as tired as he was, and it was too much effort to argue, even though she had a question—or two—about what he was doing there. He’d had his reasons for leaving New York and settling in Idaho, but what could possibly have brought him to Mustang Creek? A job offer, he’d said. How...coincidental. Or was it? “Just give me a moment to brush my teeth.”
“Help yourself.” Jax sank down on the edge of the bed closest to the window and started hauling off his boots.
She hurried into the bathroom, clutching her cosmetic bag and the flannel pajamas from her suitcase. After closing the door with a firm click, she brushed her teeth, changed and emerged to find Jax wearing only his jeans, brows raised as he took in her less-than-sexy garb.
What had he expected? A little number from Victoria’s Secret, maybe?
Since his bare, muscular chest reminded her of other times, better times, she looked away.
“Pink kitty cats?” he teased.
Charlotte took a deep breath. “My aunt gave me these pajamas,” she said tersely, “so I wear them. They’re comfortable. Not to mention warm.”
“I believe that. Finished with the bathroom?”
She flounced toward her bed. No one ever flounced that she knew of—besides maybe a few select romance-novel heroines who did not do it in kitty-patterned flannel pajamas—but she tried anyway. She waved toward the bathroom door. “Yep. It’s all yours.” With that, she threw back the covers and scrambled beneath them.
“Thanks.” He disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door, and she finally relaxed a little, settling in and staring up at the ceiling.
Then she heard the water running.
He was naked in there, she realized, with sudden, visceral clarity. She imagined water streaming in rivulets over the chiseled landscape of his body, a terrain she knew all too well...
You’re hopeless, she told herself. Then, with tired resolution, she jerked the blankets up to her chin and once again came to terms with the baffling fact that that was then and this was now. And despite the bizarrely coincidental It Happened One Night situation she found herself in, things would return to normal in the morning. All she had to do now was close her eyes and let sleep take her under, enfold her in blissful oblivion.
Exhausted as she was, however, her brain remained busy, chewing and fretting, gnawing at a single thought.
Jaxon Locke was in Mustang Creek.
While she was in New York and he was in Idaho, she’d managed to ignore his existence. Mostly. She’d gotten on with her life, learned to live, even thrive, without him.
Mostly.
