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Jilly let out a startled cry and stomped on the brake as a doe leapt from the cover of the trees and directly into her path.
Luckily, she managed to stop before she hit it. And then it did what a deer always does. It froze directly in front of her vehicle and stared into the beams of her headlights, an expression of total surprise and dumb-animal disbelief in those big, sweet, bulging brown eyes.
Jilly rolled down her window, stuck her head out into the freezing storm and yelled, “Go on, you! Get out of here! Get lost before I make a jacket out of you!”
The doe blinked and took off, disappearing into the leafless bushes and pine trees at the other side of the driveway. Jilly pulled her head back inside, rolled up the window and brushed the snow out of her hair. Then she drove on, straining to see, the snow hitting the windshield so hard and thick, there was nothing but whiteness three feet beyond her front bumper.
The driveway was very long. Or at least, it seemed that way in the dark, with near-zero visibility. Jilly rolled along with great care, hunched over the steering wheel, peering into the wall of white in front of her, trying not to run into a pine tree or another startled deer.
Okay, truth. She was getting worried. She could end up snowed in up here in the middle of nowhere, with nobody but Missy to turn to. “Oh, not good,” she murmured under her breath. “Not good at all….”
But then she reminded herself that she did have her cell phone, that people knew where the old house was and knew she was headed there. She would be all right. She could call for help and get it eventually if it turned out she really needed it.
However, on the subject of the house, where was it? What if she’d somehow managed to miss it? What would happen if she—
And right then she saw it.
“Oh, thank you,” she cried. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, God!”
Not twenty feet ahead, the driveway opened out into a clearing. And in the middle of the clearing she could make out the looming shadow of the old house, with its high-pitched roof and long, deep porches. Smoke trailed up from the chimney-pipe and the golden light inside shone like a beacon through the swirling, blinding—
Wait a minute.
The golden light inside?
The house was supposed to be unoccupied.
Jilly reached the clearing. She pulled in beside the vehicle already parked there. Then she turned off the engine and sat for a moment, staring at the lighted house as snow gathered on the windshield, obscuring her view. Who could be in there? What in the world was going on?
About then she turned her head and looked through her side window at the other car. The window was fogging up. She rubbed at it with her open palm and peered closer.
“Omigod.”
It was Will Bravo’s car. She was sure of it. It was a very distinctive car, the Mercedes Benz version of a sport utility vehicle. Silver in color. What did they call it? A G-Class, she thought.
Will Bravo’s car.
Jilly shivered. Will was Caitlin’s middle son. The only one of Caitlin’s three sons who remained a bachelor, the other two having married Jilly’s two dearest friends, Jane Elliott and Celia Tuttle.
Will Bravo’s car….
Everything was starting to make way too much sense. “Caitlin, how could you?” Jilly whispered under her breath. She felt tricked. Used. Thoroughly manipulated.
She grabbed her purse from the floor in front of the passenger seat and fumbled through it until she came up with her phone. She’d stored Caitlin’s number, just in case she might need it. She punched it up. But when she put the phone to her ear, instead of ringing at the other end, all she got was static.
Jilly yanked the device away from her ear and glared at it. Terrific. So much for being able to count on her cell.
Missy meowed.
Jilly shoved the phone back in her purse, stuck her arm over the seat and got her coat and hat. She pulled on the coat and jammed the hat on her head. Then she hooked her purse over one shoulder, grabbed the cat carrier, leaned on her door and climbed out into the raging storm.
Chapter Two
Will Bravo was just about to sit down to his solitary dinner of franks and beans, with a copy of Crime and Punishment for company, when someone knocked on the kitchen door.
What the…?
His grandmother’s cabin was off the beaten path in every way. To get there, you had to have directions. Even when the weather was good, nobody ever just dropped in. Which was why he was here in the first place. He wanted to be left alone.
Whoever it was knocked some more.
Will went over and pulled open the door, and Jillian Diamond blew in on a huge gust of snow-laden wind. She was wearing a red wool hat, a big shearling coat, faded overalls, lace-up boots and a red-and-green striped sweater with a row of red reindeer embroidered on the turtleneck collar. In her left hand, she clutched an animal carrier from which suspicious meowing sounds were issuing.
Will couldn’t believe this. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Now, wasn’t that going to be fun to explain? Jilly thought. She caught the door and pushed it shut, then set Missy’s carrier on the warped linoleum floor, sliding her purse off her shoulder and dropping it next to her unhappy cat.
“I asked you what you’re doing here,” Will demanded for the second time.
She didn’t know where to start, so she countered provokingly, “I could ask you the same question.”
He studied her for a moment, his head tipped sideways. And then he folded his big arms across his broad chest and informed her, “I’m here every year from the twenty-second or twenty-third until the day after New Year’s.”
Jilly swiped her hat off her head and beat it against her leg to shake off the snow. “Well, sorry. I honestly didn’t know.”
He grunted. “You could have asked anyone. My mother—” Oh my, Jilly thought, surprise, surprise. “—my brothers. Even, more than likely, your two best friends.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. Really.”
“Well, this may come as a rude shock to you, but asking if you were going to be here never even occurred to me.” Yeah, okay. Maybe it should have occurred to her. Given what she knew about Caitlin Bravo, it all seemed achingly obvious now. But that was called hindsight and it and $3.49 would get you a venti latte at Starbuck’s.
He was glaring at her, as if he suspected her of all kinds of awful things, as if he didn’t believe a word she had said. She didn’t even want to look at him.
So she didn’t. She looked away, and found herself staring at the single place-setting and the thick hard-bound book waiting on the ancient drop-leaf table about three feet from the door. Delicious comfort food smells issued from the pot on the stove.
“Answer my question,” he growled at her. “What are you doing here?”
From the carrier, Missy meowed plaintively. “Look,” Jilly said with a sigh. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you. I swear I didn’t have a clue that you were going to be here.”
He made a low scoffing sound. Jilly could see it all, right there in his gorgeous, lagoon-blue eyes. He thought she was after him. He believed she had known that he was staying here, that she’d followed him up here to the middle of nowhere to try and hook up with him.
She threw up both hands. “Think what you want to think. The deal is, though I truly hate to put you out, it’s very bad out there. I’m stuck here for the night and we both know it.”
He did more scowling and glaring. Then at last he gave in and muttered grudgingly, “You’re right. You’re going nowhere tonight.”
Oh, thank you so much for admitting the obvious, she thought. She said, “Right now, I need to get a few things in from my car.” Missy meowed again. “Like a litter box and some cat food, for starters.”
“All right. That’s reasonable.” Various coats and wool scarves hung on a line of wooden pegs beside the door. He grabbed a hooded down jacket. “Let’s go.”
Nothing would have given her more pleasure than to tell him she didn’t need his help. But there was her pride—and then there were her suitcases, the cat supplies and the various exotic lettuces and veggies and the hormone-free fresh turkey she’d brought to roast for her happy single-girl’s Christmas feast. And what about that bottle of good pinot grigio she’d bought to enjoy with her Christmas dinner, not to mention the pricey champagne she’d bought to toast the New Year? No way she was leaving them outside to freeze. If she trekked everything in alone, it would take two trips, maybe three. And it really was cold out there.
“Thank you,” she said tightly as she stuck her hat back on her head.
Outside, even under the protection provided by the porch, the icy wind seemed to cut the frozen night like the blade of a bitterly sharp knife. Once they moved off the porch and into the open clearing, it got worse. They struggled against the wind, getting beaten in the face with freezing snow, finding no shelter as they passed beneath the single bare maple tree between the vehicles and the cars. It wasn’t really all that far; it only felt like a hundred miles.
When they reached the cars at last, she went around to the rear of her Toyota and lifted the hatch. She passed him a twenty-pound bag of cat litter and another bag containing cat food and a plastic litter box. He managed to handle all that with one arm, so she also gave him the smaller of her two suitcases—it had her pjs in it, and a change of underwear, all she’d need for one night. Then, after giving him a backhanded wave meant to dismiss him, she turned to the bags of groceries and started going through them, consolidating the food items that had to go inside.
Will hadn’t budged. “What the hell are you doing?” he yelled at her over the howling of the wind.
“Just go on inside!” she shouted back.
But of course, he didn’t. What was it about some men? Congenitally incapable of following instructions.
“I asked you what the hell you’re doing!”
So she told him. “Perishables!”
He didn’t say anything after that. Just stood there, looking at her, eyes narrowed, mouth turned down at the corners, ice collecting in his bronze eyebrows, his ears and that handsome blade of a nose turning Rudolph-red.
Jilly turned back to her bags of groceries. It didn’t take all that long to get everything that wouldn’t hold up in a freezing car down to four plastic bags—one of them being the turkey. She hefted the bags out of the car and shut the hatch.
“Here,” Will shouted. “Give me—”
“No,” she hollered back. “I’ve got the rest. Let’s go.”
He gave her another of those dark, mean looks he was so good at. Now what? He was peeved because she wouldn’t let him carry the heaviest load? Was there no end to reasons for this man to be mad at her?
She turned her back on him and started for the porch. He was right behind her when she got to the front door. She set down the bags in her right hand to reach for the knob—and his hand came around and grabbed it first. She resisted the urge to glare at him over her shoulder. He pushed the door inward. She picked up her bags again and stepped inside.
It only took a few minutes to set up Missy’s comfort station in a corner of the bathroom, which was right off the kitchen. She let the cat out of the carrier as she dished up the Fancy Feast and filled a water bowl.
Once Missy was taken care of, Jilly joined her in the bathroom, shutting the door on Will, who was standing by the ancient drop-leaf kitchen table, staring bleakly at the bags of groceries.
Jilly used the facilities and washed her hands. When she entered the kitchen again, he’d moved her grocery bags to the long counter beside the darling, classic-looking round-sided Frigidaire. “What is this turkey doing in here?” he demanded.
“The rumba?” she suggested cheerfully.
He opened the Frigidaire and began stashing her lettuce and vegetables inside. “You know what I mean. You could have left it in your car.”
“No way. If I’d wanted a frozen turkey, I would have bought one. That’s a free-range, all-natural fresh turkey and it’s going to stay that way.”
He grumbled something under his breath. She couldn’t make it out and decided it was probably better if she didn’t try. He moved stuff around on one of the shelves in the fridge, then he picked up the turkey, stuck it inside and shut the door. “All right. Your cat is taken care of and the food’s put away. I’m going to eat now. It’s only franks and beans, but you’re welcome to join me.”
Oh, how she longed to hold her head high and refuse. But Jilly really loved franks and beans. As far as she was concerned, franks and beans ranked right up there with Dinty Moore chili. With Kraft mac and cheese. With bacon burgers. With her hands-down favorite of all time: Cheez Doodles.
And speaking of Cheez Doodles, she had several bags of them stowed out in the 4Runner. She should have thought to bring some along when they were lugging everything else inside.
“Do you want the food or not?” her ungracious host inquired darkly.
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
He got down a plate, dug a fork out of a drawer. “Milk?”
“Yes, please.” She found a glass in a cupboard and poured it for herself. Then they sat down, put their paper napkins in their laps and dug in.
Oh, it was heaven. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. With effort, she restrained herself from making ecstatic groaning noises. At that moment, eating the hot, lovely food, she could almost be grateful that she’d found Will Bravo here, that she hadn’t arrived to find it all dark and deserted, had to start the fire herself and worry about being all alone out here in this creaky old house while a blizzard raged outside and her cell phone was on the blink.
But then she looked up and caught him glaring at her and all her good will evaporated.
He said, “Now tell me. Why are you here?”
She shoved in another mouthful of beans, chewed them and swallowed. Then she gulped a little milk. Let him wait, she was thinking. It’s not going to kill him. Outside, the wind wailed.
Will went on scowling. Good gravy. How could she ever have imagined she might get something going with him?
And okay, she’d admit it. At one time—up until just a couple of weeks ago, as a matter of fact—she’d cherished the doomed hope that she and Will might get it together.
They had seemed to have a lot in common. Both from the same hometown, which was New Venice, Nevada, in the Comstock Valley, about twenty miles away from this dreary old house, down a number of twisting, turning mountain roads. They had both settled, at least for now, in Sacramento. And then there was the most obvious connection: his two brothers had married her two best friends.
And also, well, she might as well admit it. She’d been blinded for a while there by the kinds of minor details that have made women fools for certain men since the dawn of time. Blinded by things like his good looks and his social veneer—okay, it was hard to believe, looking at him now, but Will Bravo could be a major charmer when he chose to be. And along with the charm, he had that slightly dangerous rep as one of those yummy bad Bravo boys. Oh, and she mustn’t forget his impressive professional credentials: Will was an up-and-coming attorney on the Sacramento scene. For a while there, she’d dared to imagine that just maybe Will Bravo could turn out to be the man of her dreams.
But not anymore. Her eyes were wide open now. She saw him for what he really was: sour, sad and angry. Lost and alone—and determined to stay that way.
So let him. Tomorrow, when the storm was over, she’d pack up her Toyota, put Missy in her carrier and make tracks for home.
“Jillian,” he said in a low, warning tone.
She set down her glass and wiped her mouth with her napkin. “All right. It was like this. I needed an isolated cabin for a holiday piece I’m working on.”
He was staring at her, a sneering curl to his mouth. She knew what he thought of her. That she was shallow, one-dimensional, flighty in the extreme.
Far be it from her to disappoint him. “Originally, of course, I imagined a place with cable and central heat and a nice view of Lake Tahoe. One with a fully equipped kitchen and chef-quality appliances.” She waved her fork airily. “Unfortunately, it’s just been too crazy lately. One project after another, if you know what I mean. By the time I got around to making the arrangements, options were limited. More than limited. I couldn’t find a place.”
“So you called my mother.”
“No. First, I called Celia.”
He blinked. Then he gave out grudgingly, “Makes sense.”
And it did. Celia Tuttle, who was now Celia Bravo, had spent most of her working life as a personal assistant, first to a television talk-show host and then to the man who was now her husband, Will’s brother, Aaron. It was part of Celia’s job to know how to find just about anything anyone might need on very short notice.
“Celia reminded me about this house,” Jilly told him.
“And suggested that you give Caitlin a call.” He was getting the whole thing into perspective now, she could see it in his face. He was accepting the fact that she had been tricked every bit as much as he had.
Caitlin Bravo was a hopeless matchmaker when it came to her sons. And Aaron and Cade were all taken care of now. Only Will had yet to find a wife.
