Shelter from the Storm

“You’re right. Absolutely right.” Her voice cooled several degrees in just a few seconds. “Who gossips to you will gossip of you, isn’t that what they say? And I certainly don’t need to be the subject of any more whispers in Moose Springs.”

The ghost of her father loomed between them and all the usual tension suddenly returned. He would have given anything to take his heedless words back, but like those snippets of gossip spreading around town, they couldn’t be recalled.

His hands tightened on the steering wheel and he made some innocuous comment about the weather. She responded in a quiet, polite voice, as if those shared moments of intimacy had never been.

It was nearly midnight when he pulled up in front of the clinic. Three or four inches of snow had fallen while they had been in the city and her aging Volvo was buried.

He reached across the space between them to his jockey box for his window scraper. The movement brought him closer to her and he was surrounded by jasmine and vanilla.

His mouth watered and his insides gave one big sigh, but he did his best to ignore his automatic reaction. He pulled out the scraper and returned to the safe side of the vehicle—but not before he heard a quick, indrawn breath from Lauren.

He chanced a look at her. The SUV was parked under a lamppost and in the pool of light, he found her blue eyes wide and her lovely features slightly pink.

He wasn’t quite sure what to think about that so decided to put it from his mind. “Wait here where it’s warm,” he ordered.

Her forehead furrowed with her frown and now any flush that might be on her features turned to annoyance. “Are you kidding? I just put seven stitches in your arm, Daniel. You wait here where it’s warm. Better yet, go on home and rest. I don’t need a police escort to scrape the snow off my car.”

“Wait here,” he repeated, in the same no-nonsense voice he used with the prisoners at the jail.

Her sigh sounded exasperated, but he didn’t let that stop him as he stepped out into the blowing cold that soaked through the layers of his coat to settle in his bones.

Nights like this made him feel all his thirty-three years—and more—and he couldn’t help but remember every single hit he took as a running back at Wyoming. He ignored the aches, especially the throb and pull of the stitches in his arm, as he brushed the snow off her car then scraped the thick ice underneath.

He wasn’t particularly surprised—just annoyed—when she joined him in the cold. She slid into the driver’s seat of her vehicle and turned over the engine. After a chugging kind of start, the motor engaged. A moment later, she emerged with another window scraper and went to work on the other side of the vehicle.

When the windows were clear, she stood back. “Thank you for your help,” she murmured. “And for the ride.”

He didn’t want it to end, he realized, as tense and uncomfortable as things became at the end there.

How pathetic was that?

“Don’t you have any gloves?” he asked. “Your hands are going to be freezing by the time you get home.”

“They’re around somewhere. I keep buying pairs and losing them between here and my house.”

He reached into the pocket of his parka. “Here. Take mine. I’ve got an extra pair in the squad vehicle.”

Her mouth lifted slightly. “No offense, Sheriff, but your hands are a little bigger than mine.” She waggled delicate fingers that would be dwarfed by his gloves and he felt huge and awkward. “Thank you for the offer but it’s only half a mile. I should be fine.”

“Good night, then,” he said. “Thanks again for your help earlier stitching me up.”

“You’re welcome. Be careful of those sutures.”

She smiled a little and it took all his willpower to keep from reaching between them, tucking her into his warmth and kissing the tired corner of that mouth.

She climbed into the Volvo and he returned to his Tahoe as she slowly pulled out of the parking lot into the deserted streets, her tires crunching on snow.

He pulled out behind her and they seemed to be the only fools out on the road on a cold January night. Everybody else must be snuggled together at home.

Okay, he didn’t need that image in his head. Suddenly the only thing he could think about was cuddling under a big quilt with Lauren in front of a crackling fire while the snow pelted the windows, her soft body wrapped around him and jasmine and vanilla seducing his senses.

Reality was light-years away from fantasy—so far it would have been amusing if he didn’t find it so damn depressing as he followed her through the snowy streets.

She lived on the outskirts of town, in a trim little clapboard house set away from her neighbors, the last house before the mountains. When they reached it, Lauren pulled into her garage and slid from her Volvo. In the dim garage light, he could clearly see her exasperated look as she waved him on.

He shook his head and gestured to the house. He waited until the lights came on inside and the garage door closed completely before he drove off into the snowy night.

She stood at her living room window watching Daniel’s big SUV cruise slowly down the street.

How very like him to follow her home simply to ensure she made it in safely. It wasn’t necessary. The distance between the clinic and her house wasn’t far. Even if her ancient car sputtered and gave out on the way, she could easily walk home—in good weather, she walked to and from work all the time.

Yet Daniel had been concerned enough to take time out of his busy schedule to follow her home. A slow, steady warmth spread out from her core as she watched his taillights disappear in the snow.

She shouldn’t feel so warm and comforted by his simple gesture, as if those big, strong arms were wrapped around her. It was foolish to be so touched, but she couldn’t remember the last time someone had fussed over her with such concern.

Just his nature, she reminded herself. Daniel was a caretaker. He always had been. She could remember watching him on the bus with his three younger siblings, how he had always stood between them and anybody who might want to bully them. He wouldn’t let anybody push them around, and nobody dared. Not if they had to run the risk of incurring the wrath of big Danny Galvez.

Oh, she had envied them. His sister had been in her grade and Lauren used to be so jealous that Anna had an older brother to watch out for her. Two of them, since Ren was just a year younger than Daniel.

She had longed for a noisy, happy family like the Galvezes. For siblings to fight and bicker and share with.

Siblings. Her mouth tightened and she let the curtain fall, hating the word. She shouldn’t feel this anger at her father all over again but she couldn’t seem to help herself.

She had siblings as well. Three younger brothers from her father’s second family, the one she and her mother had known nothing about until after R.J.’s suicide and all her father’s dark secrets came to light.

A few years ago she had met them and their mother—a woman who had been as much in the dark about her husband’s other life and Lauren and her mother as they had been about her. They had all seemed perfectly nice. Children who had adored R.J. as much as she had and a widow who had still seemed shell-shocked.

They hadn’t wanted any further relationship. Just as well, because Lauren didn’t know if she quite had the stomach to continue being polite to the innocent children who had been the cause of R.J.’s relentless need for cash. Maintaining two households couldn’t have been cheap and her father’s way of augmenting his income was dipping into the public till.

She sighed and pushed thoughts of her half siblings away, focusing instead on Daniel Galvez and his caretaking of the world.

She shouldn’t feel singled out simply because he followed her home to make sure she arrived safely. This wasn’t any kind of special treatment, just Daniel’s way with everyone.

Imagining it meant anything other than politeness would be a dangerous mistake.

She turned away from the window and the dark night. Returning to her empty house late at night always depressed her, highlighting the lonely corners of her life. She needed a dog, a big friendly mutt to lick her chin and rub against her legs and curl up at her feet on the rare evenings she was home.

With her insane hours, she knew that wouldn’t be fair to any living creature, though perhaps she should get a fish or something, just for the company.

She turned on the television for noise and headed for the bathroom. A good, long soak in hot water would chase away the tension of the day and perhaps lift her spirits.

She had no reason to be depressed. She was doing the job she loved, the one she had dreamed of since she was a young girl in junior high biology class. If she had no one to share it all with, that was her own fault.

She was lonely. That was the long and short of it. She longed for someone to talk to at the end of the day, for a warm body to hold on a winter’s night.

Too bad her options were so limited here—eligible single males weren’t exactly thick on the ground in a small town like Moose Springs—but she was determined to stay here, come hell or high water.

What other choice did she have? She owed the town a debt she could never fully repay, though she tried her best. She couldn’t in good conscience move away somewhere more lucrative and leave behind the mess her father had created.