Snowed in with the Boss. Jessica Andersen

you saying that Griffin is?”

      “Yes, ma’am. It popped up on the background check we ran as part of the Del Gardo investigation. So the way I’m figuring it, if you had to be stranded up at Lonesome Lake for a few days, you picked a pretty useful guy to be stuck with.”

      “I didn’t pick him,” she murmured automatically, but her brain was spinning.

      Eagle Scout, indeed. He’d been a marine, had he? Well, that probably explained the skills he possessed that were decidedly non-MBA-approved, and the quiet reserve that sometimes seemed as much about survival as it did business. And yeah, under their current circumstances it helped her to know that he could deal with dangerous situations better than the average tycoon—if there was such a thing. But at the same time, the revelation put a serious shiver down the back of her neck.

      She hadn’t known about his military service. What else didn’t she know about him?

      A tap at the door to the apartment had her spinning with a gasp. She relaxed only slightly when Griffin’s voice said, “It’s me.”

      “What’s wrong?” the sheriff asked quickly, still on the phone.

      “Griffin’s back.” She unbolted the door and let him through, then held out the phone. “The sheriff wants to talk to you.”

      He nodded and shucked out of his gloves and parka, and hung them near the door, where a mat was set out to catch the wet. When he reached for the phone, his fingers brushed against Sophie’s. Warmth kicked at the contact, but she forced herself not to jerk away, forced herself to act as though she hadn’t felt a thing.

      From the way his green eyes darkened, though, he knew. And he’d felt it, too.

      So much for there being a safe distance between them. She had a feeling the next few days were going to be very dangerous to her equilibrium. But she needed this job. She needed to be able to stay in San Fran near the facility where her mother was being treated now, and she needed to make a good enough salary to cover more than the bare minimum payments on her various loans. Which meant she couldn’t risk making the same mistake she’d made at her last job. What was more, she couldn’t risk Griffin knowing about that mistake. Kathleen had overlooked the rumors and hired Sophie anyway, but Sophie had a feeling Griffin wouldn’t be nearly so sanguine about it. The members of upper crust San Fran society tended to stick together.

      After a moment, Griffin nodded, though neither of them had said anything. Then he took the phone, headed into the office and shut the door behind him.

      Sophie stood for a moment, staring after him. Irritation rose. Granted, he was the boss, and he certainly had the right to take private calls in private. Hell, he’d have that right even if their roles were reversed. But what could possibly be private about a conversation with Sheriff Martinez? Whatever the sheriff was telling Griffin, it had to be related to the situation out at Lonesome Lake…and that most definitely involved her.

      Setting her teeth, she marched toward the office. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do when she got there, but that didn’t matter because the door opened before she reached it, and Griffin stood there, filling the doorway with his face set in harsh, unyielding lines.

      She halted an arm’s length away, tension coiling in her stomach. “What’s wrong?”

      “Perry’s wife hasn’t spoken to him since right after you called to tell him we were coming to meet with him.” He paused, and held up his hand to show her a slender wire attached to a round, circular metal scrap, which he held pinched between his thumb and forefinger. “And I found this down by the bridge.”

      She stared. “What is it?” she asked, even though on some level she already knew.

      “A piece from a radio-controlled detonator. The bridge didn’t just give way. Somebody blew the damn thing out from underneath us.”

      

      GRIFFIN WATCHED Sophie’s color drain and hoped she didn’t pass out on him. If she did, though, he’d deal with it, just as he was doing his best to deal with the situation that was developing around them.

      After finding the detonator scraps and evidence of a blast pattern, he’d raced back to the mansion, hoping to hell he’d find Sophie intact, that the bomber hadn’t been waiting for them to split up before he made his move. But there was no sign of the bomber, no evidence of another move.

      So what now? He didn’t know.

      His first instinct had been to not tell her about the bomb, which was why he’d talked to the sheriff in private. That wasn’t because he was trying to keep her from worrying, either. It was more that he was used to keeping the most important pieces of information to himself. Whether in battle or in business, information was power. Besides, he was used to being alone, dealing with things alone, and didn’t see any need to share.