good at this. Had a lot of practice?”
He didn’t answer.
“Naturally,” she said under her breath.
They chipped and plowed for another few minutes when she saw Dave Ruiz signaling with his mag light.
They’d cleared about thirty feet of iced-over berm.
“That’s good enough to start,” she told Grant, and his rhythmic swinging immediately ceased. He hooked the deadly tip of his pickax over his shoulder and headed off.
“Thank you,” she called after him.
He didn’t pause. Didn’t look back. Merely lifted his left hand in acknowledgment.
The less he said about anything, the more curious she got.
The feminine side of her wished she wasn’t so darn predictable. The cop side of her just accepted the fact that she was always curious where all people were concerned. Not just enigmatic, aqua-eyed men.
She propped her shovel against an upturned wheel on the trailer as she walked back around it, stomped her feet hard against the road to make sure she still had some feeling in them and returned to the first car in the lineup. “I’m going to walk ahead of you until you’re past the trailer,” she told the driver. It wouldn’t speed up the process any, but she wasn’t taking any chances on an impatient man going off into the ditch and suing the department as a result.
And one by one, that’s how she slowly cleared enough of the road on her side to allow traffic on Dave’s side a chance of squeaking around the trailer.
Eventually, she was able to get back into her own SUV, crank up the heater and call in the progress as the traffic slowly crawled along the flare-lined path. About two hours after they’d started, three heavy-duty tow trucks arrived and they had to block off the road again from both sides to allow them space to get the semi back up on its wheels.
The only saving grace was that the snow stopped falling halfway through the mammoth task. But when it did, the temperature dropped another ten degrees and the wind—always pronounced, particularly along this highway cut into the hills—picked up.
But finally, the deed was done. The semi was hitched to the back of another tractor and was headed down the road to Braden. The highway returned to its usual quiet midwinter-night state. Dave and Ali congratulated each other on getting the job done without any collisions or injuries, and they all headed home.
When Ali finally made it there, she noticed Greer’s car parked in her half of the detached garage behind the house. In the kitchen, the slow cooker was sitting on the plywood counter. Stone-cold. Full of uncooked ingredients. Ali had forgotten to turn it on when she’d left the house this morning.
She clamped the lid back on top and left it. It wouldn’t be any worse come morning and she could deal with it then.
She dragged herself up the narrow staircase and decided she was too tired to worry about waking up her sister to beg to use her fancy-ass bathroom. Instead, she turned on Maddie’s shower and stripped once the bathroom was full of steam.
Then she finally stepped beneath the blessedly hot spray. She expected her mind to go blank as she stood there, unmoving, her eyes closed while the water rained down on her head. But she was wrong.
She kept thinking about Grant Cooper. Working beside her. Without being asked. Without complaint. Then just walking away.
She shivered, and realized the water was running cold. She shut it off, stepped out and wrapped a towel around her body. Then she wrapped another towel around her head, returned to her own bedroom, climbing in bed just like that, and pulled her quilt up to her ears.
She wasn’t even able to enjoy the grateful thought that she didn’t have to work the next day before she was out cold.
Grant eyed the cardboard box sitting on the front porch.
He hadn’t noticed it the night before when he’d finally gotten home after the mess on the highway. The bulb in the porch light fixture still didn’t work even though he’d replaced it, and it was a wonder he hadn’t tripped over the carton in the dark.
He didn’t have to open the box to know what was in it. His publisher’s logo was imprinted on the side. The address of his cabin in Oregon was crossed out. The address where he stood now had been marked over it in slashing black ink. Because, God forbid, his author copies of CCT Final Rules should have remained behind at the cabin, along with everything else he didn’t want.
Just like Officer Ali Templeton, his ex-wife publisher had found him.
He grabbed the box and carried it inside, dumping it on the fireplace hearth.
He’d burn them right now, except he’d probably also end up burning down the entire house. Considering the overall condition of the place, he wasn’t setting a match to anything in the fireplace until he got a chance to have the chimney inspected.
He knew he had electrical problems. The porch light was just one example. He also knew he had plumbing problems. The kitchen faucet only worked on hot. The shower in his bathroom upstairs only worked on cold, which meant he was out of luck because the bathtub in the bathroom downstairs was too damn short. He was also pretty sure he smelled something burning every time he turned on the furnace, which was why he wore a damn coat inside the house, even when he was sleeping.
He could make things a lot easier on himself by giving up the notion of living here.
He could go back to Oregon anytime he chose. Calling his place there a “cabin” was basically just a nod to the fact that it was located on a remote, forested ridge that overlooked the wild coastline. But it had plenty of amenities. All the electrical outlets there worked. His shower had eight jets, and they all produced hot water. He could also go to the condo in Los Angeles that had sat vacant for more than a year while he’d holed up in Oregon pulling words out by his teeth to finish writing the book he hadn’t planned to write in the first place. And if he really wanted a different flavor, he’d never gotten rid of the New York brownstone that he and Chelsea had shared. When they’d gotten divorced, she’d moved into an apartment closer to her Manhattan office. He’d gone to Los Angeles, putting as much distance as he could between them.
Any one of those properties was by far better than this run-down ranch house he’d decided to fix up himself. But he had no desire to go anywhere else.
He just wished the box of books hadn’t found its way to him. It meant that he’d be hearing from his ex-wife sooner or later. Not because she harbored some emotional leftovers from their marriage, but because she still wouldn’t accept his decision to quit writing.
She called it a waste. Accused him of being lazy. Lacking ambition.
His gaze landed on the ancient mirror on the wall. The image looking back at him seemed to smirk.
“Right.” He grimaced. “That’s what you get for being married to your publisher.” He turned away. Nobody stood to make more money on another CCT Rules book than Chelsea did.
Not even him.
It was too cold inside the house to paint the walls. Besides, the holes in the plaster that he’d spent the previous evening patching were still damp. The gas stove in the kitchen worked—and he had even installed a couple of the cabinets now—but there was nothing in the refrigerator. That was what had driven him out the front door in the first place when he’d spotted the book shipment.
He went back outside and pulled the door closed behind him. Out of habit, he started to lock it, but didn’t. If anyone wanted to break in to steal a couple gallons of paint, they probably needed them more than he did. If they stole the plastic-wrapped couch...well, he could order another one online the same way he had this one.
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