she responded at a volume she hoped could be heard as she gave the tow rope attached to a four-foot-long, molded plastic toboggan another tug, “but I’m fine, thanks.”
She waved the man off with a mittened hand and trudged on, grateful for the snow glow reflecting off the lowered clouds. Without it, it would be impossible to keep her footing on the rutted shoulder of a ponderosa pine–lined road.
Maybe a December getaway to her family’s soon-to-be-sold mountain cabin in Hunter Ridge, Arizona, wasn’t such a good idea after all. But with her parents out of the country, the opportunity for a quiet retreat seemed ideal. Not only for soul-searching time alone—Decembers were always a bittersweet reminder of the precious life she’d once carried inside her—but to spare her two Phoenix-based sisters from having to host her for the holidays. Why put a damper on their and their children’s Christmas festivities?
“Ma’am?”
The man sounded as if he were addressing someone twice her age. But bundled in an oversize insulated coat and clunky boots she’d found in the cabin—and burdened by a backpack—she probably did look like a hunched-over crone of fairy-tale fame.
“I can throw that stuff in the back of my truck,” the voice came again as the pickup crept along beside her. “And take you to wherever it is you’re headed.”
She stiffened. Like she was going to climb into a vehicle with someone she didn’t know? The trusting brown eyes of Anton Garcia flashed through her mind. If only years ago she’d overcome her fear of telling him the truth, had accepted his marriage proposal. And if only he hadn’t volunteered to hitchhike for help on that deserted Mexican road.
Why, God?
Taking a steadying breath, she yelled over the rumbling engine. “Thanks, but I’m almost there.”
She could see the cabin’s porch light not too far in the distance as she dragged behind her the bright red toboggan she’d often ridden as a kid. Its load of groceries and other supplies hadn’t seemed cumbersome when she’d started back to the cabin, nor the journey ahead of her long. Growing up, she and her younger sisters had often traversed this route to run errands for their grandmother. But now her fingers had stiffened with cold and her arm strained at the bulky weight.
“You’re going to hurt yourself, ma’am.”
Enough of the “ma’am” business. Wanting to get away from the self-proclaimed Boy Scout—or was he only pretending to be a holiday helper?—she gave the tow rope an extra-hearty tug. The toboggan held fast to whatever abruptly anchored it under the frosty mantle and tipped sideways, spilling its load and jerking the rope from her hand. Thrown off balance, she toppled into the snow.
The sound of a truck door slamming tipped her off that the driver had exited his vehicle. Trying not to panic, she struggled to sit upright, but the weight of the backpack rendered her as helpless as a turtle on its back.
“Let me help you up.” Through the falling snow, she detected the man reaching out his gloved hand. What choice did she have but to accept his assistance?
Please God, let him be a good guy. After all, it’s only two weeks until Christmas. And despite what You may have heard my sisters say, I’m not a Grinch, a Scrooge or anything of the kind.
Not much, anyway.
Reluctantly, she grasped the hand that stretched out to steady her as she staggered ungracefully to her feet. Her hood fell back, snowflakes pelting her face and the cold wind penetrating her long hair.
“Jodi?” The man’s voice held an incredulous note. “Jodi Thorpe?”
She blinked, trying to focus through the falling snow.
“Garrett?” In a community of under two thousand residents, why did Garrett McCrae have to be her rescuer tonight? And what was he doing in a town he vowed never to return to once he could make his escape?
“Yeah, it’s me, Jodi.”
A familiar grin lit his face, and for a horrifying moment she thought he was going to hug her. But something in her eyes as she mentally flew back through time must have halted him. He plunged his hands into the pockets of his navy down jacket and took a step back, his eyes searching her face as intently as hers searched his.
Even though she and Garrett had been the best of friends as kids when she and her two younger sisters visited their grandparents’ vacation home in the mountains, she hadn’t seen or spoken to him in a dozen years. Not since that last ill-fated night when he’d crushed her teenage dream of them ever being more than friends.
But time had treated him well. Gone was the ponytailed hair that as a teen had nearly splintered his relationship with his dad, replaced by a conservative cut. Lines etched the corners of his eyes, evidence his sense of humor and love of the sunny outdoors had prevailed. His shoulders were impossibly broad. And those eyes...the same deep gray she too-well remembered.
“What are you doing in Hunter Ridge?” they said in unison. Apparently he was as thunderstruck by her presence in town as she was his.
“I’m working here. For a while at least.” His brows raised. “And you?”
“I’m helping my folks get my grandparents’ cabin ready to sell.” At least that was the excuse she intended to use for camping out here until after the holidays. Nobody needed to know the mixed-up mess of the rest of it.
“So, you’ve been living—where? Married, with a houseful of kids, I suppose.”
Her smile threatened to falter, but she held it steady. “None of the above. I’m living in Philadelphia, actually, where I’m a project manager for an athletic apparel company. SmithSmith. And yourself? Still river-running?”
It was a wild guess. Becoming a river guide was all he’d talked about after his first Colorado River rafting trip when he was sixteen, and her grandma had said he’d taken off for training right after high school graduation. So why should she be surprised to find him here in December? Most rafting companies operated with a full crew only in the summer. He probably worked at the family business in the off-season.
“It was the adventure of a lifetime while it lasted.” A fleeting shadow flickered through his eyes, then he shrugged. “But I gave it up a while back.”
At two years her senior, he would have recently turned thirty, an age that at one time appalled them both as prehistoric. Had a domestically inclined wife lured him away from his youthful obsession? “In other words, old man that you are now, you’ve turned river-running over to the younger generation?”
“Ouch!” His yelp was accompanied by an exaggerated flinch. Then he laughed that familiar laugh, and her heart inexplicably leaped. Why had she so easily fallen into teasing him just as she’d once done as his tomboy sidekick? They’d long ago left those days behind.
He openly studied her, and despite the chill air, her face warmed. Did he remember that night, too? She motioned briskly to the groceries strewn in the snow. “You’re responsible for this. If you hadn’t been stalking me, I—”
“Stalking you? I was trying to help you. ’Tis the season. You know, ho ho ho?” Before she could stop him, he snagged the toboggan in one hand and one of her grandma’s now partially filled grocery tote bags in another and slung them into the back of his pickup with what looked to be a dwindling load of firewood.
“What are you doing?”
“What’s it look like? Getting you and your stuff out of the cold.” He squatted to gather the scattered contents back into the other bags. Lifting a cereal box, he waggled it at her. “Still into Cheerios, I see.”
With a laugh, she snatched it out of his hand, recalling the afternoon that as an elementary schooler she’d been dared to sneak a family-size cereal box from Grandma’s pantry and devour the whole thing herself. Garrett couldn’t stop snickering when Grandma insisted she still clean her plate at suppertime.
“You