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“She’s the reason for everything I’m doing,” he said.
The vehemence in his voice startled her. It shouldn’t have, though. Throughout yesterday evening, he hadn’t wanted to talk about his job or his home, but his daughter was one topic he didn’t mind sharing. Dana had no doubt whatsoever that he loved his child fiercely.
Was that why she found him so attractive?
There, she’d admitted it. Yes, she found him more than attractive. His outlaw good looks alone would have caught the notice of any red-blooded woman, but it was the sensitive—and vulnerable—man inside that really appealed to her.
Here was a man who knew what love and commitment were, she thought. He wouldn’t disappear when the going got rough, the way Hank had. John would be willing to go to any lengths for those he loved….
She jerked her thoughts back from that useless direction. Her imagination was getting the better of her again. How could she think she could know a man after only a day in his company? She had spent four years with Hank, and she’d been wrong about him, hadn’t she? Why would her judgment be any better now?
John picked up his shoes from in front of the hearth and carried them to the door.
“Wait,” she said. “You can’t go like that.”
He paused. “What?”
“The snow’s too deep for sneakers.” She hurried over to take her coat from its peg. “I can get a pair of my cousin’s boots from the lodge. He’s about your size—”
“Dana…”
“It wouldn’t be any trouble. I have to go over there later, anyway, to check the heat since I skipped yesterday.”
“Dana, no,” he said. “You’ve done more than enough.”
“But those running shoes aren’t meant for conditions like these.”
He shoved his feet into the sneakers. “They got me here, they’ll get me back to the road.”
“At least let me give you a hat.” She hung her coat up and stretched to take a knitted cap and a pair of padded snowmobile mitts from the shelf above the pegs. “Here, you can use these, too.”
John shrugged into his overcoat. “I can’t take those, Dana. I don’t know when I can return them.”
She held them out. “It doesn’t matter. I trust you, John.”
Something flickered in his expression. Beneath the bristling black beard stubble, his jaw flexed. He fastened his coat, then took the hat from her and put it on. He tucked the mittens under his arm. “Thank you. For everything.”
“I only did what anyone would.”
“No, Dana,” he said quietly. “There aren’t many people who would be so kind to a stranger.”
“You’ve been good company. Besides, I always welcome an excuse to put off working for a little while longer,” she said. “No self-discipline, you see. I don’t know how I ever get a book done.”
“We all have to do things we don’t want to sometimes.”
“Hah. I see you know about editors.”
Her weak attempt to lighten the mood didn’t work. He regarded her in silence for a moment, then extended his hand. “Goodbye, Dana.”
She slipped her hand into his…and her breath hitched.
She had touched his bare skin before—heck, she had seen practically every square inch of skin he had—but this was different. She was aware of the firm warmth of his palm, the subtle swell of his calluses, the strength that pulsed beneath the surface of the polite gesture. And she was very, very aware of how close they were standing.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, she told herself. It was only a handshake. “Goodbye, John.”
“Take care of yourself.”
“You, too.” She swallowed, trying to keep her voice normal. “And say hello to Chantal from me.”
A muscle twitched in his cheek. “I will.”
Without thinking, she lifted her free hand to his face, pressing her fingertips to the tense knot in his jaw.
His gaze met hers, his dark eyes swirling with expressions she couldn’t name. “Dana.”
The way he said her name warmed her right through to her toes. This was too fast, she thought. Circumstances had thrust them together. They were like strangers on a train, two ships that passed in the night, all the old tired clichés. They would probably never meet again.
So she couldn’t really be considering kissing him goodbye, could she?
He tilted his head, leaning into the gentle caress of her palm.
Yes, she could. That’s exactly what she was considering. What did it matter how they had met or how long they had known each other? Maybe she had made the same kind of instinctive judgment as Morty. She tipped up her chin and focused on the lips beneath John’s desperado mustache.
A log popped in the fireplace. In the silence that had fallen between them, it sounded like a gunshot. John jerked back. “Dana, I’m sorry.”
“Mmm?”
“I’ve got to go.” He dropped her hand and turned away to open the door.
“John…”
Cold air surged over the threshold. He pushed his way through the snow that had drifted over the yard, carving a knee-deep path in the blanket of white. He stopped when he reached the beginning of the lane and turned to look over his shoulder.
Dana waved, then stepped back inside and swung the door shut. Biting her lip, she let her forehead thud against the wooden panels.
Oh, God. What had she been thinking? She had almost made a complete fool of herself.
Must be lack of sleep or barometric pressure or phases of the moon or…
Or maybe she had been living on her own too long. It had been two years since Hank had left. Maybe that’s why she was ready to throw herself at the first man who happened by.
But it wasn’t just any man. It was John Becker, with his haunted eyes and his endearing, rebellious hair and his tender smile and his love for his child…
“You’re pathetic,” she muttered to herself. “Right round the bend. First you’re worried because you’re trapped here with him, then you’re upset because he leaves.”
Morty meowed and sat on her foot.
“It was my imagination, that’s all,” she said to the cat. “All this creative energy floating around, ready to make up stories. I should put it to work, that’s what I should do. That’s what I’m being paid for, right?”
But instead of heading for her drawing table, she went to the window and watched until John was out of sight.
The rest of the day was a total loss. Dana did everything she could think of to get her mind back on her work. She put on her most comfortable sweater. She made endless pots of camomile tea. She organized her papers and sharpened all her pencils, but the drawing that took shape wasn’t a marmalade cat and pirate mice. It was a man’s face.
“Argh!” Dana tossed her pencil on the floor and tunneled her fingers into her hair. It was more of a doodle than a drawing, only a few vague lines, but the long hair, the mustache, those dark, haunted eyes were unmistakable.
“This is pointless,” she muttered. She needed some fresh air, she decided, going over to put on her coat. It was high time to switch into her role of caretaker, anyway.
She had almost cleared a path to the main lodge when she heard the clinking rumble of the snowplow. She leaned on her shovel and waved a greeting.
The driver turned around in the parking lot and lowered his window. “Everything okay here, Miss Whittington?” he called.
“Just fine, thanks, Mr. Duff,” she shouted over the noise of the engine. “That was some storm.”
“Forty centimeters. We been doing double shifts for three days and still aren’t finished.”
“Did you see a car in the ditch?” she asked.
“More like a few dozen. The roads are a mess with all the wrecks.”
“Any cars in the ditch near here?”
“Nope. Lucky, eh?” The engine revved loudly as the driver put it back in gear.
Dana smiled. John must have managed to get his car out and get home after all. “Thanks for swinging by,” she called.
The driver touched his hand to his hat in salute. “No problem. Take ’er easy.”
Dana waved and turned back to her shoveling. By the time she had cleared the front entrance to the lodge, she was out of breath and in need of a shower. She took the keys from her pocket and opened the front door.
A puff of warm air greeted her, along with the ringing of a phone. It had been so long since she’d heard the sound, it startled her. She stamped the snow off her boots and crossed the floor to the registration desk. “Hello, Half Moon Bay Resort,” she answered.
“Dana! Are you all right?”
It was her sister, and she sounded on the verge of panic. “Hello, Adelle,” Dana said. “I’m fine, how are you? Is everything okay?”
Adelle ignored the question and rushed on. “Why haven’t you been answering the phone? I’ve been worried sick.”
“The lines were down because of the storm.”
“That’s what the phone company said, but they claimed the problem was fixed last night.”
It couldn’t have been, Dana thought. She had checked an hour ago and there hadn’t been any dial tone.
“I’ve been trying the number at the cabin all day,” Adelle continued. “When you didn’t answer, I started leaving messages on the lodge number.”
Dana glanced at the answering machine behind the desk. Sure enough, the red light indicating recorded messages was blinking furiously. Why would the phone in the cabin still be out if the one here was working? They both branched from the same line, didn’t they? “Adelle, relax,” she said. “It was probably just some glitch at the switching station or something like that. You know how things are up north.”
“Yes, I do. Which is why I wish you’d come back to the city.”
“I will come back. As soon as I finish my book.”
“What if the power had gone off? What if you had run out of food?”
“There’s a back-up generator for the power, and there’s enough food in the lodge freezers to keep me going through ten books.”
Adelle paused, as if searching for something else to focus her worry on. “You sound out of breath. What’s wrong?”
“I’ve been shoveling snow.” Dana sighed and transferred the phone to her other ear as she slipped her arms out of her coat. She grasped the front of her sweater and flapped it away from her body to let in some cooling air. “It’s wonderful exercise.”
“That’s what health clubs are for.” Adelle huffed. “And doesn’t that skinflint Derek have a snowblower?”
“Yes, he does, but it broke down last week. I really don’t mind, Adelle. It helps take my mind off…things.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Positive. I’m sorry you were so alarmed. Is everything okay with you?”
“Sure, everything’s fine.”
“Did you get much snow down there?”
“I’ll say! We got so much the mayor declared a state of emergency and called in the army.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Haven’t you seen the news?”
“I don’t have a TV in the cabin, remember? And the radios there decided to break down yesterday.”
“Then you’ll have to catch a newscast, now that you’re at the lodge. The blizzard shattered all the snowfall records from here to Montreal.”
Dana toed off her boots and hitched herself up to sit on the desk. “Wow. If it was that bad in the city, no wonder you were so worried about me.”
“You’re not the only one in the family with an imagination. Remember those stories grandpa used to tell us about trappers in the old days?”
“Vividly.”
“When you didn’t answer your phone today, I was picturing you lost out in the snow somewhere and slowly freezing into a lump of ice.”
“Mmm.”
“Don’t say I’m overreacting. It could happen.”
“Oh, I know. It almost did.”
“Dana! You said—”
“Not to me, Adelle. Two nights ago I found a man on my doorstep. He was practically frozen.”
