It wasn’t easy being proper, but it was all she had, all she had been told to be, raised to be. The Cassandra Mercer who lived in the real world—as opposed to the Cassandra Mercer who sang and played inside her head, or the one who had rebelled, once, so long ago, for that short, terrible time—was entirely too responsible and lacking in gumption to ever do any of the things she was thinking.
She simply couldn’t. Really.
Bummer.
Banishing her irreverent thoughts, and knowing she’d hate herself in the morning either way, Cassandra edged the Jeep forward until she was beside Sean Frame, lowered the passenger-side window and tooted her horn to get his attention.
“Need a lift?” she asked. Drown, sucker! her inner imp wanted to say. Clearly she was still having trouble with this Good Samaritan stuff.
And then Sean Frame, father of a wonderful if troubled young teen, and probably the main reason poor Jason was acting out in school to the point of having been put on three-day suspensions twice this term, pushed his designer-cut but now sopping wet golden brown hair out of his eyes and wiped a long-fingered hand over his handsome, wet face.
That done, he glared at Cassandra through the gorgeous, long-lashed hazel eyes the “inner” Cassandra had seen in entirely too many of her embarrassingly romantic dreams, and said, “It took you long enough, Ms. Mercer. What were you thinking as you hovered back there? Were you wondering if you could give me a small bump, pushing me off the mountain? Were you judging your chances of getting away with murdering your least favorite school board member? Or were you going to just gun the motor a time or two and then shoot past me, hoping to splash me with mud from head to foot?”
Because he was uncomfortably close to being right, Cassandra took refuge behind her twenty-seven years of experience in saying what she should say instead of what she wanted to say. In other words, she took a deep breath, reluctantly beat down the inner voice that wanted to shout back, “Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah?” and proceeded to lie through her teeth.
“I haven’t the slightest idea as to what you’re implying, Mr. Frame,” she said tightly, “and can only wonder what sort of mind would think up such nonsense. I am not in the habit of picking up lone male strangers, no matter how dire their circumstances. Only after assuring myself that you were indeed who I thought you were, did I offer to assist you.”
There you go, Sean baby—now, stuff that in your nifty rainproof hat and smoke it!
“How very, um, prudent of you, Ms. Mercer, I’m sure. My apologies. However, I believe I can manage on my own,” Sean said, somehow managing to look intimidating, determined, successful and too damn gorgeous for Cassandra’s good—and at the same time beginning to look like he’d gone through a car wash while forgetting to bring his car.
Cassandra was tempted to take the proud, stubborn man at his word and leave him to walk the three miles to the bottom of the hill and the first service station that might still be open. Sorely tempted.
“Are you quite sure?” she asked before he could step away from the open window.
Don’t be an idiot, she meant.
“There was just a flash flood and mud slide warning on the radio,” she added, to drive home her point.
If they find you dead tomorrow, I’ll feel bad, she wanted to say. Not terribly bad, but bad. After all, I think Jason might miss you. Though I’d be hard-pressed not to do a dance of joy around my kitchen table with a rose stuck between my teeth. At least then maybe I’d stop dreaming about you!
“I’m wet and my boots are full of mud,” Sean said, spreading his arms as if inviting her to inspect his long, lean frame.
She didn’t think that was such a good idea. No, thanks. I’ll leave that image in my dreams, where it belongs.
“Besides, Ms. Mercer,” he added as she told her inner self to be helpful and just shut up, “I’ll ruin your upholstery.”
Cassandra pushed at her glasses, shoving them back up on her nose. Handsome or not, in her dreams or in her nightmares, this guy was really starting to get on her nerves.
“You can take off the boots and pay to have the upholstery cleaned,” she suggested reasonably, wondering if he noticed that she was now speaking through clenched teeth. “Or are you simply afraid to be in a car with a woman who, if I remember your words correctly, ‘mollycoddles students with her harebrained theories and lamentable lack of discipline’?”
Sean opened his mouth, probably to say something particularly cold and cutting. A brilliant flash of lightning was followed almost immediately by a crack of thunder that shook the Jeep. The instant increase in rain would have made a lesser man think Mother Nature had just yelled, “Hey, bozo, buy a clue, why don’t you—you can’t win against me!”
Cassandra hid a fairly triumphant smile as Sean closed his mouth, reached for the door handle and climbed inside the Jeep. With the door still open, he efficiently slid out of his boots and put them on the rubber mat behind the front seat, then shrugged out of his wet raincoat, revealing his expensive three-piece suit—which was still dry except for the pant legs, damn him.
She could smell his aftershave, and the tangy scent quickly traveled through her bloodstream and dissolved her kneecaps. Damn him, damn him, damn him!
“Are we going to sit here all night, Ms. Mercer, or had you planned to drive on anytime soon? And where were those mud slides you heard about on the radio?” he asked as Cassandra, who was now seriously considering having her head examined next chance she got, eased her foot back onto the gas and leaned toward the windshield, trying to see through the deluge outside.
“I don’t know,” she told him nervously as another streak of lightning split the sky. She realized she was grateful to have company for the ride down the mountain. Any company. Even Sean Frame’s most disturbing, infuriating company. “The radio cut out in the middle of the warning at the beginning of the seven o’clock newscast. I think the station went off the air. And I haven’t seen any lights on when I can get a glimpse of town through the trees, even though it’s getting dark, so I have a feeling the power is out all through the area. There’s a towel in the back seat you might want to use.”
“My cell phone wasn’t working, either,” Sean replied. “But it never does on this section of the highway. Building Burke up here farther from town where land is cheaper might have been good economically, but at times like these it’s a real headache the school board should have considered. Once we’re out of the hills and I get reception I’ll phone ahead and see what’s going on. Jason might be worried.”
Jason is probably hoping you’ll be marooned at the high school for the weekend. And is there anything the school board did before you were on it that meets with your approval? Like, how they signed me to an ironclad contract, which has really got to twist your tail? Cassandra thought those questions, but she only said, “That sounds like a good idea. I suppose.”
And then she said nothing at all, because simply driving the Jeep took all her attention—and she could only spare a small part of her brain to take in Sean’s closeness, the way his towel-dried hair made him look so boyish, so human.
Human? Oh, Cassandra, her inner self tweaked at her. Get a grip. Don’t let’s get carried away here….
And then it happened. Swiftly. Quietly. Without warning. The seemingly solid wall of rock and dirt to Cassandra’s left, the rock and dirt that made up the mountain drive, collapsed. Just fell.
Chapter Two
Boom, and the solid wall of mountain was gone. Like a sand castle undermined by an incoming tide.
One moment there had been a mountain wall safely straight and solid on the other side of the two-lane highway, and the next moment the Jeep was sliding sideways onto the wide gravel shoulder of the road, surrounded by a river of living mud and boulders, being swept along down the hillside