strength that kept her upright. By the time they reached the truck, her lungs burned, the pain in her back was a solid six, and her face felt frozen.
“You okay?” Jack asked as he tossed her bag into the pickup’s bed before he yanked open the door.
“Sure,” she lied, leaning wearily against the wheel well. Out of breath, she mentally apologized to him for her earlier intolerance.
“Good.”
He’d lost his hat. He looked younger without it. His windblown hair was dark and thick, as glossy as a child’s. For some reason, that bothered her. Before she could decide why, he stepped over and dusted the snow from her head and shoulders with his gloved hands. Then he lifted her up, swung her around and deposited her on the car seat, where he brushed off her pant legs, stripped off her snow-caked boots and tossed them, the rope and the flashlight into the narrow storage area behind the seat. “Scoot over,” he instructed. Stamping his own booted feet, he yanked off his gloves, shrugged out of his coat and climbed in beside her.
Tess slid over to give him more room, steeling herself against the pain squeezing her back. The well-insulated cab seemed hushed after the din outside. It was also pleasantly warm. In contrast, Tess felt chilled to the bone. She began to shiver, her teeth chattering like maracas.
Something that might have been compassion flared briefly in Jack’s pale eyes. He turned up the heater fan, retrieved his coat from the back of the seat and tucked it around her. “That better?”
She nodded, incapable of speech.
That appeared to suit him just fine. Mouth set once again in a grim line, he pulled her shoulder harness around her and buckled it. Then he secured his own, released the brake and put the truck in gear. It rolled forward, fishtailing a little before the tires caught.
Tess pulled his coat tighter around her, burying her face in the soft shearling collar. The distinctive scent of horses and damp leather, familiar from her childhood, tickled her nose. Oddly comforted, she leaned back and closed her eyes.
She wasn’t sure how much time passed, but eventually she began to feel less like a Popsicle and more like a person. She stretched, sighing with pleasure at the stream of hot air from the heater that blew over her stocking toes as she tried to find a position that would alleviate the persistent pain in her back.
She wound up canted sideways, toward her companion. Veiling her gaze with her lashes, she covertly studied him. She had to admit she was a little intimidated by his continuing silence. Her reaction surprised her. She’d grown up around cowboys, and she was no stranger to private, taciturn men.
Jack didn’t seem to be thinking so much as brooding, however. And that tight look on his face was hardly benign. In point of fact, he had the air of an individual who kept to himself not because he preferred his own company, but because he didn’t trust anyone else’s.
And yet...he had come to her rescue. And for all his brusque manner, his hard-fingered hands had been carefully gentle every single time he touched her.
More to the point, what did it matter? Soon they would both go their own ways, never to clap eyes on each other again—
“Didn’t anyone ever teach you it’s rude to stare?” Jack asked abruptly.
Tess started, then forced herself to relax, the willful part of her nature asserting itself. It was one thing to privately confess that she found him intimidating. Letting him know was something else entirely. “You’re right,” she said calmly. “Sorry.”
“You want to explain what you’re doing out here?”
Why, she wondered, did he have to be so abrupt? “Visiting my grandmother.”
“Ah.” He imbued the single syllable with a wealth of disdain. “But instead you got lost.”
“I wasn’t lost. I missed my turn.”
“Right.” He didn’t sound as if he thought much of that, either. “I don’t suppose it occurred to you when the snow started to fall that maybe you were out of your league?”
“I grew up here,” she said patiently. “I know about snow.”
“Huh. Could have fooled me.”
“For your information, the only reason I had a problem was because I slowed down to let you pass, so I could turn around.”
He snorted. “Because you were lost.”
If he was trying to annoy her, he was doing a good job. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“I suppose it’s all right for you to be out in a blizzard?”
That granite face didn’t change. “Damn straight. I’ve got heavy-duty snow tires, four-wheel drive, and I know what I’m doing. Besides, I’ve got obligations. If I don’t get home, my stock won’t get fed.”
“Where’s home?” She was certain he hadn’t lived around here when she was a teenager. She’d remember.
“Cross Creek Ranch. We should be there in another few minutes.”
Tess made no effort to hide her surprise. “Oh. But—”
“Look,” he said sharply. “I’m not wild about taking you there, either. But we need to get in out of this storm while we still can, and mine’s the closest place for miles.”
Tess let a moment of silence pass. “Are you finished?” she asked finally.
His jaw bunched. “Yeah.”
“Good. For the record, going to your place is fine. It’s extremely nice of you to offer, and I appreciate it. I appreciate everything you’ve done.”
“But—?” He kept his gaze glued to the road as he carefully braked to make a wide left turn, the headlights flashing across a sign that bore the ranch’s name above a stylized carving of a rocking horse.
“When I lived here, this ranch was owned by some people named Langston.”
He shot her a sharp glance as they rumbled across a cattle guard marked at both sides with orange reflectors. Around them, the landscape was hard to make out. The few trees and low-rising hills were nothing more than a series of ebony shadows against a charcoal night shrouded with blowing snow.
He slowed even more as their ride grew bumpier over the graveled drive. “You really used to live around here?”
She sighed at his obvious skepticism. “Yes. At the Double D. Mary Danielson’s my grandmother.” That earned her a single sharp look. “I can’t figure out how I missed the turn for the driveway.”
He was silent. He shifted the automatic transmission into low as the truck slid on a shallow grade. “Maybe,” he said finally, “you weren’t looking in the right place.”
She waited for him to say more. When he didn’t, she had to swallow another sigh. “Do you think you could explain that?”
He shrugged. “Your grandma cut a new road a few years back, when she had to redrill the well at Shell Butte. That must’ve been right after I bought out Langston, and that’s been—” he shifted the truck back into regular drive “—seven years ago.”
“Oh.” Even though there was no way she could have known, she felt foolish. Perhaps that was why she was less than enthralled with his next, comment.
“Too bad you don’t bother to come home more often.”
She frowned,. taken aback by his obvious disapproval. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“Yeah? Well, it is when I’m stuck with you.”
“Trust me. Just as soon as the storm passes, someone from the Double D will be over to get me.”
He gave her another narrow look. “Your grandma left three days