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She fought a guilty conscience for taking advantage of his offer, knowing she wasn’t the cousin he sought. However, she had to protect her brother, and that surely outweighed Zack’s concern for his uncle. Didn’t it? Anyway, he was the one who’d insisted she come with him, and truly she didn’t mean the Daltons any harm.
While he drove, she studied him covertly. He was an attractive man. He wore no ring and had mentioned no wife in his list of family members, so she assumed he wasn’t attached. If circumstances had been different, they might have met, fallen in love, even married.
Ah, she’d always been a romantic. A sigh, filled with sadness she couldn’t quite fathom, worked its way out of her. At his quick look, she managed a smile.
Life was what it was, she reminded herself sharply. All the wishing and hoping and dreaming she’d ever done had never changed her fate, not one iota.
As the day grew longer, she became weary. She’d had no sleep the previous night due to her preparations for leaving. Her head dropped forward, startling her as she drifted into sleep. At last she asked, “Are we going to travel all night?”
“We’ll stop at the next town if you’re tired.”
“How far are we from the ranch?”
“Four or five hours.”
“I can make it. Are we in Idaho yet?”
“Just about.”
She fell silent as tension crept up her neck. Whatever happened, she was committed to this course. For a moment she felt the way she had the day the social worker left her and Adam at her aunt’s house, only this time she didn’t have her brother’s hand to cling to. She exhaled shakily. She was really, truly on her own.
Darkness closed around them. She glimpsed the sign that welcomed them to Idaho as it flashed past. At one point she heard his voice, but the words didn’t register. “What?”
“You can let the seat back a little,” he said more loudly. “The barrier keeps it from going very far.”
She did so. The act was merely a blink on her consciousness, then it was gone.
Sometime later she was woken by a curse. She grasped warm flesh and felt the contraction in his thigh muscles as he braked, then the wild skid of the SUV as it swung in an arc. The rear end slid past the front and they came to an abrupt halt facing back the way they had come.
“What is it?” she asked, releasing her hold on him.
His snort was sardonic. “There’s water across the road. Sit tight.” He removed his shoes and socks, got out and checked the depth of the water.
Cold air swirled into the warm vehicle. Rain splattered in waves across it. She shivered and pulled her shirt closer around her. August in Idaho was definitely cooler than in Las Vegas.
The deputy returned, letting in another blast of chilly air. She looked around. There wasn’t a house or building in sight, not even a distant light to indicate civilization.
Hail suddenly hit the windshield. “It’s cold,” she said. She was shivering.
“Yeah. We’re caught in a freak storm. We’re stuck until the water goes down.”
Her escort dried his feet on a handkerchief, put on his shoes and socks, then restarted the SUV. He parked off the road at a wide point that looked out on a shallow valley and a long range of mountains. The landscape all around them was lit by flashes of lightning.
She could detect evergreen trees and the ever-present desert sage. Along the edge of the road, Russian thistle and wallflowers formed soft mounds that constantly changed their shapes in the brisk wind. She shivered as if someone was walking on her grave.
“What do you mean, stuck?” she finally asked.
“As in, we can’t go on.”
“Well, let’s go back,” she said, wary of the storm and the dark.
“Where?” His tone was sardonic.
“The last town. We can stay in a motel until the storm is past.”
He shook his head. “Sorry, but the last town was a hole in the wall with one quick-stop market-gas station combo, which, I might add, wasn’t open.”
“No motel?” she asked. Something akin to panic shot through her. She forced herself to stillness.
“Nothing.” He slammed his fist on the steering wheel, the perfect picture of male irritation.
After a couple of minutes of silence, she dared ask, “What now?” The fact that not one car was visible in any direction wasn’t lost on her.
“There’s a town fifteen or twenty miles down the road. That’s a far piece to walk for help, even if we got across the flood over the road.” He glanced at her. “The current is swift, but I could probably make it.”
The thought of being left behind caused the near-panic to stir painfully. “Maybe the water will subside soon.”
“Probably not before morning.”
He picked up the handset of a police scanner, his manner resigned but not particularly worried. All she heard was the crackle of static with a sharper crack at each flash of lightning on the horizon as he turned the dial. He tried calling several times, but got no answer.
When the lightning hit close, he turned the radio off. “Too dangerous in this storm,” he muttered.
“I have my cell phone.” She got it out of her bag. When she tried to reach an operator in order to locate a nearby town and, she hoped, a place to stay, she got mostly static and faintly heard a recording that told her she was out of range. “Out of range.”
He didn’t appear surprised. “Yeah. There’s nothing open now, anyway.” He yawned and stretched. “We’ll have to wait it out. Luckily the land drains fast. I have a sleeping bag.”
With that enigmatic statement, he got out, opened the rear door and climbed in. He laid the rear seats flat and spread a puffy bag over the cargo space.
“I can move our luggage so you can curl up back here and sleep,” he told her.
Silently she watched while he stacked her three bags and one other against the back of the front seat.
“Sorry, no pillows,” he said. He twisted and looked at her. “Your bed’s ready.”
The cold was getting to her now, and shivers racked her. “Where are you going to sleep?”
“In the front seat.”
She immediately saw that this wasn’t fair. “You’re taller than I am. You take the back and I’ll stay in the front.”
He yanked a heavy parka from his bag and pulled it on. “I want to keep an eye on things. Excuse me,” he said, then headed into the trees with a flashlight.
When he returned, he handed the light to her, got inside and slammed the door. She sat there for a minute, then also headed for the trees.
The rain had lightened to a fine mist, but the wind was still fierce. Upon returning, she hesitated, then climbed into the back of the vehicle since he already had his legs stretched along the bench-type front seat.
Even with the sleeping bag, she was aware of the cold seeping into the truck now that the engine was no longer supplying them with heat. The wind rocked the SUV like a dog shaking a bone as it moaned through sparse trees, across the road and over the ledge overlooking the valley. Other than the wind, no sounds disturbed the night.
She wondered where her brother was and if he was safe in bed somewhere. She thought of her aunt, who hadn’t wanted two extra children to raise, and her cousin, who had tormented her until Adam bloodied his nose one day. She remembered her mother, who used to sing her to sleep with soft lullabies and old church songs.
Tears pushed upward from that deep place where she’d buried all painful memories. She couldn’t afford to think of home or family or the things she didn’t have.
Instead, she gazed at the night sky as the storm passed, heading east across the high desert, which appeared desolate to her eyes. A person could die out here and no one would know. Adam might never find out what had happened—
Stop it! There was no use in growing morbid. So she felt lonelier than a howling coyote, so what? There were worse things—like being dead.
She forced her eyes closed. Her muscles ached from fatigue, and her feet were slowly turning to ice. She slept, but she woke up cold and whimpering in fear.
“Honey? Wake up. You’re dreaming,” an oddly familiar voice told her.
“A nightmare,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “I was in the Arctic or somewhere. It was so cold. I thought I was freezing. My feet still feel like ice cubes,” she said, putting a humorous twist to the words.
“Do you have a coat or something?”
She retrieved her old trench coat from her duffel and slipped it on, then pulled the sleeping bag up to her neck.
“Hand me my bag, will you?” he requested. “I can’t sleep without a pillow.”
She heard the chain divider rattle, then in the dim light of a pale moon she saw he’d let one side down. She handed his nylon bag to him. He squashed it until he was satisfied with its shape, then snuggled down.
Zack was aware of his passenger’s unease and wariness. He knew fear could produce a chill and regretted the trip had turned into more of an adventure than he’d expected. “I’ll warm the truck.”
He cranked the engine and turned the air vents so the warm air would circulate into the back. He flicked on the radio and ran the tuner through the channels. Nothing.
“Has the water gone down?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
After a few minutes he heard her sigh and sensed the relaxing in her vigil. She was asleep.
A spark shot through him, causing heat to spear through his groin. It had been a while since he’d slept with a woman in a space this small. Not that they were actually sleeping together in a physical sense. But he was aware of her.
Work had kept him busy. Summers were harried because of tourists getting themselves into some jam or another. Winter heralded hunters who got themselves lost. A spring blizzard had brought its own woes. He hadn’t thought about dating in months, much less more interesting things.
So here he was, sleeping in the truck with a woman he’d found in the casino capital of the world, bringing her home to possibly become part of his family. He was worried about that. He didn’t want Uncle Nick to be hurt in case they were wrong to trust her.
He went over the facts. Gone was the shapely, thickly painted waitress. In her place was a slender female who had actually fooled him into thinking she was a boy. Well, only for a short time. Without makeup, she was prettier and softer-looking.
That was what bothered him. There was something vulnerable about her, as if she needed lots of TLC.
Huh, he’d always been a sucker for every lost dog or cat to cross his path.
Pushing his lumpy pillow against the door for a back rest, he stared into the night. From over the far peaks, he heard the rumble of the passing storm. He hoped it wouldn’t rain anymore so they could get on their way at the crack of dawn.
Honey stirred and gave a slight sound in her sleep. A bolt of hunger went through him like the heat lightning on the eastern horizon. Now he was more than hot. He was rock-hard and tense with needs that weren’t going to be met in the near future.
Damnation, she might be his cousin, he reminded his libido. Since he hadn’t grown up with her, it would be hard to think of her as such if that turned out to be the case.
If not, there were other possibilities.
Waitress, tomboy, lover. There was a certain irony in the chain of thought, but at the present he didn’t find it humorous. Too much need raged through him.
From the other side of the seat, she moved again, pushing the sleeping bag aside as she grew warm. He cut the engine. The silence closed around them. He heard her sigh.
An electrical current shot through every nerve in his body. The dark felt sweetly intimate as he listened to the wind outside and the quiet sound of her breathing. If he woke her now, who would she be? Waitress? Cousin? Tomboy? Or lover?
None of the above, he mocked the thought.
It was his last thought before he fell asleep, the odd bliss of some forgotten happiness filling his dreams.
Chapter Three
Honey awoke with a groan. Her companion chuckled. She realized his stirring had disturbed her.
“The truck makes for an uncomfortable bed,” he mentioned cheerfully. “Even with carpet and a sleeping bag.”
“I noticed.” She peered at the faint light in the sky behind the hills. “What time is it?”
“Late. A little after five,” he added when she frowned at him. “I want to get home before noon.”
“Why?”
“Work,” he explained patiently. “I have to take you to the ranch, then head back to town.”
“You wouldn’t be going to the ranch if it weren’t for me, would you?”
“That’s right.”
“You don’t live there with your uncle?”
“Not all the time. I have a room in town.”
Combing her fingers through her hair, she watched him get out and walk to the rear of the SUV.
“Sorry about the cold,” he said, opening the rear door. He removed, then set up a little camping stove, poured water from a plastic jug and put it on to boil.
“Tea or coffee?” he called.
“Coffee.”
“Sugar? Powdered milk?”
“One sugar, please.” She cautiously pushed the covers down, creeping tentatively from the warmth of the sleeping bag. The temperature felt frigid to her.
“I’ll bring it to you.”
When he handed her the cup, she was almost too surprised to thank him. “It’s nice to be waited on.”
