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“Pop your trunk,” he said as he headed to the rear of the car.
She found the lever by her seat and waited while the man checked the trunk. Moments later she heard it slam shut. Then the stranger was back by the window. “No chains.”
She sank back in the seat. “No driving.”
“No driving,” he echoed.
“Were you going into Bliss?”
“Through it.”
“Could you send someone back with chains or something so I can get going?”
“There’s a garage. They might have chains.”
“Perfect. I’ll just wait here.” She reached for the window button, but the man stopped her, gripping the top of the window with one hand.
“Not so fast,” he said, and she stared at his bare hand. A very large hand with strong fingers, short nails and weathered skin. And no rings. “You can’t just sit here while I go off to get help. That could take a long time, and unless you’ve got a full tank of gas, it’s going to be a long, cold wait.”
“Would it take you that long?”
“Who knows on a night like this?”
If he was trying to scare her, he was doing a good job. She had visions of being found when the spring thaw came, clutching the useless phone and frozen solid. “You think it’s that bad tonight?”
“You can see it yourself. This car isn’t going anywhere.” She heard him exhale. “I don’t think you have any option but for me to give you a lift. My truck’s a four-by-four and can get there. I can drop you at the garage and they can bring you back with chains.” He paused. “And you can call your James from there so he’ll know you’re safe and sound.”
Her James? She regretted the spur-of-the-moment lie, but didn’t bother to correct it. What she regretted was that she’d put herself in a situation where she had little to no choice about accepting a ride from a stranger. That wasn’t in her comfort zone at all, but sitting in this car in the storm, wasn’t anywhere near her comfort zone, either. She choose the lesser of two evils.
“Are you coming?” he asked.
She exhaled. “I’m coming,” she said, turning the car off. She dropped the keys in her purse, along with her phone and charger, but kept the pepper spray in her hand. She looked around, saw the files she’d read on the plane and decided to leave them on the passenger seat. She wouldn’t be gone that long. Gripping the suede straps of her purse with the same hand that held the spray, she reached for the door. She’d barely clicked the lock up before the man jerked the door open, letting in a blast of cold that almost took her breath away.
She climbed out and the instant she was standing, she knew that her clothes weren’t much protection from the cold. The driven snow stung her face, and she ducked her head into the collar of her jacket, but nothing helped against the chill that was robbing her of body heat at an alarming rate.
Hugging the purse to her chest, she turned and the stranger was there. He looked to be a couple of inches over six feet, but she barely caught more than a glimpse of a dark cowboy hat, before she walked toward his truck. That feeling of being out of control came back with shattering force as she headed away from her car and the known, and toward the truck of the stranger and the unknown.
Her feet sank deeply into the drifting snow, her leather boots offering no protection and no traction at all. She moved cautiously toward the headlights and was very aware of the man following her. As she stepped around toward the passenger side of the cab, the snow seemed deeper.
Just then her feet shot out from under her. She went flailing wildly, grasping for anything to stop her fall. Her right hand hit hard metal, sending a stinging pain up into her arm, then she was falling backward, only to be stopped with jarring suddenness. It took her a second to realize that she’d hit a hard body, that arms were going around her and circling her just under her breasts, and keeping her on her feet.
She suddenly felt safe as the stranger pulled her back against him. “Whoa there,” he murmured by her ear as if soothing a skittish horse.
Kate felt the heat of his breath on her skin before he released her. The cold was there full force again and she quickly reached for the hood of the truck to steady herself. The throb of the engine vibrated under her hand in the warm, damp metal hood.
“You okay?” the stranger asked from somewhere behind her.
“Sure, fine,” she said, and meant it until she realized that both her hands were pressed palms-down on the warm metal—her empty hands. No purse and no pepper spray. “Oh, shoot, my purse and my…” She twisted around and saw the stranger hunkered down in the snow with his back to her. In the bright lights she saw a dark suede jacket pulled taut over broad shoulders and fur at the collar. A huge man.
Her pepper spray was all she had to protect herself. She’d never taken those karate classes she’d promised to take years ago. All she had for self-defense was that little cylinder of spray, and it had flown off into the snow when she fell. She moved toward the man in the snow, frantically looking around in the brilliance of the headlights, but not seeing anything but snow and more snow.
Suddenly the man was standing and saying, “Found it,” and turning around to face her. She knew he had her purse in his hand, but all she could do was stare at the man caught in the brilliance of the headlights. The harshness of the glare cut deep shadows at his eyes and mouth, the hat adding its own shadows, but for a second she was certain she was looking at a rough, unkempt version of Dr. Mackenzie Parish.
No Gucci loafers or Armani suits, but the lines and angles of the face were there the way she remembered from the photos. That frozen moment in time on the tape in James’s office. The same face, but different. There was roughness there now. Then again, maybe snow caused hallucinations. Maybe she’d been staring at his pictures so much on the flight out here that she was imagining it now.
Was she imagining this huge man was the famous, playboy doctor to the stars? She had to be. Those hands, large hands, blunt fingers. Not the fingers of a surgeon. She blinked into the driving snow, and the man moved. The shadows claimed his features again as he pulled his hat brim lower to hold the driving snow at bay. “Here,” he said, coming closer.
Hallucination. It had to be. She took the purse, the chilly dampness of snow all over the suede, and clutched it to her as she turned away from the man. A moment later she was startled by his touching her upper arm to urge her toward the side of the truck. She moved quickly, getting away from the contact, and wondered if she should just go back to her car.
She didn’t turn back. Instead, she slogged through the deepening snow, feeling the coldness go up the legs of her jeans and into the tops of her boots. Finally she got to the passenger side of the large truck, and the man was there, pressing against her back to reach around her, grab the handle and pull the door open.
He didn’t have to tell her to get in. She scrambled up and into the high cab of a very old, very used pickup truck. The plastic seats were cracked, the interior showing more metal then upholstery, but the luxurious wave of warmth from the heater was inviting. She slipped onto the seat and the door slammed shut behind her.
She watched through the windshield as the man walked through the beams of light. Dr. Parish? What a joke. She held her purse tightly to her chest. Nothing about the man matched the doctor. Not the clothes, not the ruggedness, not this truck. Parish’s last car in L.A. had been a Porsche, and not just any Porsche, but a prototype delivered straight from Germany. This truck had to be twenty years old and worth maybe a thousand dollars.
She turned as the driver’s door opened and the man climbed in behind the wheel, then turned and took off his hat. As he dropped it on the seat between them, whatever she’d passed off as a hallucination took on hard reality. She met shadowed eyes under a slash of brows, a strong chin and high cheekbones set in an angular face. Mackenzie Parish? Twenty pounds lighter, appearing older than his pictures, more rugged and weathered, with flecks of gray in hair that was carelessly brushed back without any attempt to style it?
Could she really be sitting next to the man she thought she’d have little to no chance of finding out here? Was this the famous doctor wearing the rough clothes of a stablehand? She tried to reconcile his appearance with the pictures she’d seen, but then the door slammed shut and the light was off before she could do so.
She turned, closing her eyes, but keeping that image in her mind. Almost, she could almost believe it was him. It was the right place, just the wrong circumstances. And far too much of a coincidence that he’d stumble on her in a storm. She exhaled a shaky breath. Far too unbelievable that the “doctor to the stars,” in a storm, in some godforsaken area of Montana, had found her.
Her mind raced. If it was him, she had to be very careful and figure this out before she said or did anything that could jeopardize her assignment. He couldn’t be a twin. There weren’t any relatives. The brother had died. She stared out at the night, instead of at the man a foot away from her. But she was totally aware of everything he did. The shifting on the hard seat, putting the truck in gear, carefully inching to the left and away from her car, which was slowly being covered by the drifting snow.
The logical thing to do was introduce herself. Then he’d introduce himself. Then she’d know. Simple. She braced herself, then turned and looked at him. “I’m Katherine.”
He twisted to look over his shoulder and away from her, then they were on the road and the old truck gained traction, along with some speed. The man didn’t say a thing. Maybe he hadn’t heard her? She cleared her throat and repeated herself. “I’m Katherine, but my friends call me Kate.”
His only response was an abrupt question. “What are you doing here?” He looked straight ahead as he spoke.
She blinked at his profile, and it never occurred to her to tell him the truth, that she was here looking for a man who looked remarkably like him. She’d thought about what to say, what her cover would be, and she went with the story she’d thought up on the plane. “I was going to go to Shadow Ridge, and I thought—”
“You’re hell and gone from Shadow Ridge,” he said. “You’re more than a little lost.”
She’d been going to say that she was going to Bliss to spend some time alone before heading out to the ski resort. People in a small town wouldn’t doubt that someone from the city would want to get away for a bit, to take a breather. But he’d made that part of the lie unnecessary. He thought she was lost. So she’d be lost. “I asked the man at the car rental at the airport for directions.” That was the truth, but the directions were for Bliss, not for the ski resort east of here.
“You should get your money back,” he muttered.
“I must have taken the wrong turn after I left the airport.”
That did make him cast a quick, shadowy glance her way, and for a minute she saw the man in the pictures. The softness of the dash lights hid the deeper lines on his face, the tightness in his mouth and eyes. Soft shadows etched the almost movie-star-handsome features, and in that moment she was stuck hard by the same innate sexiness she’d noticed in the freeze frame on the video. In a closed truck cab, that look was more disturbing than she’d imagined it would be. She’d found Mackenzie Parish, and judging from what she’d seen so far, there was plenty to write about him.
“You didn’t even make a turn,” he said, the image gone as he looked back to the road.
Her heart was racing. Luck was ninety percent of life, she’d always been told, and she’d just had a stroke of luck. Dumb, stupid luck, but she’d take it any day. “I guess I didn’t,” she said, trying to think of something to keep him talking so she could ask questions. “You live in Bliss?”
“No.”
A single word. Nothing else. Just no. “You aren’t from around here?”
“Born and raised.”
“But you said you weren’t from Bliss.”
“I said I didn’t live in Bliss.”
It shouldn’t be this hard to get simple information out of him. All he had to say was “a ranch outside of town.” Simple, but she had the feeling that nothing was simple with this man. “Just where do you live?”
“Around.”
Damn him. He wasn’t just in hiding, he was shut down completely. And that only made her more curious. “Around where?”
“Bliss,” he muttered, and shifted gears.
She needed to take a new tack. She felt in her purse, found the phone and cord and pulled them out. “Can I plug my phone into your cigarette lighter to charge it?” May as well be sure it wasn’t dead once she did get a signal. Plus it gave her something to do, for a moment.
He waved at her. “Go for it.”
She shifted, pulled the lighter out and plugged in the phone. “Thanks,” she said, sitting back as she laid the phone by his hat on the seat.
They hadn’t been going terribly fast, but now they were almost crawling along the dark, snowy road. She turned from the man and looked ahead. There were lights, faint and almost swallowed up by the snow, but lights to the right and to the left. “Is this Bliss?”
“Main Street,” he said.
She could barely make out the surroundings, except for a few neon lights that managed to penetrate the storm and night. The Alibi Diner & Bar was to the right; Lou’s Seed & Feed was to the left; then an orange ball that seemed suspended high in the night was to the right. Gas. The truck slowed even more, then swung toward the sign and stopped.
“Carl’s garage,” he said as he put his hat on and exited the truck, leaving the engine idling.
Kate braced herself, gripped her purse, then opened her door to jump out of the cab. She felt herself sink into almost knee-deep snow and saw the man ahead of her, a dark silhouette against the weak light coming from high, leaded windows in a sprawling building that was almost lost in the night. She hurried after him, then a door opened and more light spilled out. She made her way toward it and stepped into warmth that was heavy with the scent of oil and grease.
The door closed behind her and she was in a room divided by a counter, with auto supplies at the back, hubcaps lining the walls near the ceiling, tires stacked by the door and a potbelly stove in one corner sending off wonderful waves of heat. A man stood behind the counter in greasy gray overalls. He was a pale man, with freckles, thinning reddish hair and bright blue eyes. When he saw the two of them, he grinned.
“Hey, Kenny, what’s happening?” the man said.
Kenny? She looked at the man she could’ve sworn was Dr. Mackenzie Parish.
“Hey, Carl. The lady’s car’s stuck south of here and needs chains. Compact car, fourteen-inch tires, two-wheel drive.”
Carl looked at Kate. “You were out on a night like this in something like that?”
She stuck with the story Parish had given her. “I thought I was going to Shadow Ridge and ended up here.”
“Well, you’re way off the track for Shadow Ridge.”
“Hell and gone from it,” she murmured.
“I’d say so. Now you hold on, and I’ll check in the storage room for the chains,” he said as he stood.
She turned to the man by her, the man she knew was Mac Parish, despite the fact that Carl had called him Kenny. He was taller than she imagined from the pictures, just one more discrepancy in her preconceived ideas about the man. Then again, he’d always been with tall women.
“So, you’re Kenny,” she said, not speaking until he glanced at her so he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t heard her.
He shrugged. “To some.”
“And to others?”
“Whatever they want to call me,” he said, and deliberately turned from her to get closer to the counter. “Carl, I have to get going. I’ll see you later,” he called out to the man in the back room.
“You do that,” the disembodied voice responded.
Then he turned to her, his eyes, a deep, rich hazel. The color she expected. He touched the brim of his hat. “Good luck,” he murmured, and would have moved right past her, out into the night and storm to be gone forever, if she hadn’t acted instinctively and touched his arm.
The rough material of the heavy coat didn’t hide the sudden tensing in him at the contact, and on some level it pleased her. He wasn’t as closed and indifferent to her as he was acting. Whatever, she wasn’t going to let him just walk out after Fate had dropped him in her lap. “I didn’t thank you,” she said quickly, staying firmly between him and the door.
“No need,” he said, then broke their contact to move around her.
The only thing she could have done to stop him right then was throw herself at the door to block his escape. She didn’t think that would be a good idea with this man. Instead, she had to watch him tug his hat lower, pull up the collar of his jacket, then, flashing a glance at her, walk out the door.
“Great, just great,” she muttered, considering running after him for something…anything.
“Bolted, didn’t he,” Carl asked from behind her.
She closed her eyes for a long moment when the headlights of the truck flashed on. He was leaving. She turned to Carl, the only connection she had to Parish now. “He’s in a hurry.”
Carl shrugged. “I’m surprised he stopped to help you.”
She moved closer to the counter. Carl was obviously friends with Parish. He’d know something. “I’m glad he did.”
“The Kenny I grew up with would have helped anyone just like his dad did. But he changed after he came back.”
“Came back?”
“He left for a while, went to California.” Carl shrugged. “And when Kenny came back to that mess…” He exhaled. “That’d change anybody.”
That mess? She’d struck gold. “What happened?”
Before she could ask anything else, the door swung open and cold air rushed into the shop. “Talk of the devil,” Carl murmured as he looked past her. “That was fast.”
Kate turned as the door slammed shut. Parish was there, snow on his Stetson and shoulders. She felt like jumping up and down for joy, but one look at his face, and she knew he wasn’t happy at all. But she’d do whatever it took to keep him right here.
Chapter Three
Mac stood in the middle of the room, cold and wet, clutching the cell phone and charging cord that Katherine had left in the truck. He’d almost driven off, but it had fallen on the floor when he’d started out. Now he was back where he didn’t want to be. Involved. He worked at not being involved. His life was involved enough to keep him busy without any outside force intruding on it. Something in him felt as if with one slip on his part, this woman could be very involving. He’d make this fast and get out.
It was the first total look he’d had of Katherine, tall and leggy in a blue corduroy jacket, slim-fitting jeans and boots that would probably fall apart in snow, not any sort of protection. He looked up and met her gaze.
That was another thing he’d hadn’t seen in the truck. Her eyes. They were the greenest eyes he’d ever seen, thickly lashed, set in a finely boned oval face. There were freckles on the small, straight nose. Just a few. He hadn’t noticed them before, either. And her hair, an almost silvery blond, wasn’t done in any fancy way, just pulled straight back from her oval face into a single braid that fell down her back.
It had been a long time since he’d noticed a woman. And now wasn’t the time to start. He held out the phone to her, and when she didn’t step forward to take it, he moved closer to put it in her hand. The heat was there, on the fingers that brushed his, and he jerked, almost dropping the phone. Then she had it and stepped back, stirring the air around him.
