Lars laughed. “Put the No Vacancy sign on and get your butt in here. I saw the way you were looking at that fella.”
“Shoot, you know I don’t like those good-looking, strong, rich, still-single types.” She leaned against the counter and felt his gaze take in the deep V of her shirt. Before turning around at the sound of his voice, she’d released a couple of buttons to expose part of her lacy bra. Lars wasn’t blond or rich or really single or even all that good-looking. But he had a way about him. He made her feel desirable because he couldn’t stay away from her—even though he had one hell of a lot to lose if they got caught.
“What if more good-looking guys like him come in tonight looking for a room?” she asked, still not moving.
“They’ll be out of luck. You heard me, Shirley. Turn on the sign.”
She grinned and reached behind her. Outside the No on the vacancy sign came on, barely visible through the falling snow. “Wanna tell me what you’re here for?”
“I’d rather show you,” he said. “Damn it, woman, quit playing hard to get. I don’t have much time before I have to go home.”
Just the reminder of his girlfriend waiting for him was almost enough to make her send him packing without what he’d come for. But the truth was she wanted him as much he wanted her. Also she understood Lars’s situation.
He had moved in with the daughter of the town’s wealthiest family. Not only that, his employer was Tina’s father. Axel Mullen owned the grocery store, acted as pastor on Sundays at the small church and owned a string of cabins where you could rent horses in the summer. The Giddy-Up Cabins were closed for the season. But Lars also plowed snow for the incorporated city, of which Axel was mayor.
If that wasn’t enough, a rumor had been circulating that Tina was pregnant. Lars swore there was no way it was his. He and Tina had been on the outs for months, according to him. If she really was pregnant, Lars said, it was someone else’s child. But now Axel and his wife, Vi Mullen, the local postmistress, were both pushing Lars and Tina toward marriage.
Shirley could understand the kind of pressure he was under. He wanted to move out, but the house he and Tina lived in was the only one available in Buckhorn right now. He’d have to wait until spring or have nowhere to live—not to mention he’d be out of both jobs.
As much as Lars had talked about marrying Shirley, they both knew it would mean leaving Buckhorn broke with no idea what they would live on. Their love for each other was just another complication, especially in the winter.
She brushed her short bleached blond hair back from her face and turned out the office light. Good sense told her that what she was doing was dangerous. Axel Mullen owned this town, almost literally. He and his wife could make their lives miserable. Not to mention that Tina was just unbalanced enough that she might come after them with a gun.
Shirley barely stepped through the apartment door before Lars grabbed her and kissed her hard. One hand went straight to her butt as he pulled her tight against him to show her just how serious he was. The other hand had dipped down the V at her throat to unerringly find a nipple and pinch it to a hard pulsing point.
Desire sent heat straight to her center. If she was going to die, she wanted it to be in Lars’s arms. She leaned back as his mouth dropped to her throat and began that familiar trip down to that magic spot he could always find.
At times like this, she didn’t care how dangerous what they were doing was.
CHAPTER FOUR
“FRED SAID HE’LL have to order the part,” Collin announced as he came into the café the next morning in a flurry of snowflakes. He joined Kate opposite her in the booth where she’d been waiting for him. “I talked to the rental-car agency. They’re paying for the repairs. They’d rather do that than try to get us another vehicle since they don’t have an office for hundreds of miles from here. So, we just have to wait until the part comes in tomorrow—if the highways haven’t closed because of the storm.”
She looked at him blankly.
“What?” he asked, looking genuinely confused.
“I’m waiting for the good news?” Outside, the snow continued to fall in a curtain of white. When it wasn’t piling up on every surface, it was blowing around to form giant sculpted drifts. The latest one was blocking most of the front window of the café. When she’d sat down, she’d felt a chill and noticed the ice on the inside of the window. Texas born and raised, she’d never experienced anything like this.
Through the condensed view of the window, she’d been watching a man about her age with a large shovel trying to clear the sidewalks along the short main street. She wondered why he bothered since the moment he scooped a pile of snow, it quickly piled up behind him again.
While waiting for Collin, she had sat watching the world outside the window. An older man had walked up to the man shoveling. They’d stood in the storm visiting before the man had crossed the street to disappear down a short alley. She’d noticed him fighting the wind and snow, curious about where he’d been going as the younger man went back to his shoveling.
That she’d spent so much time watching the two men told her just how bored she already was. It made her worry how long before they could leave here. She feared she was responsible for them being in Montana to start with because she’d foolishly said she’d never seen more than a skiff of snow and had always wanted to make a snow angel. Once the car was fixed, she was hoping to talk Collin into flying somewhere warm for the rest of their engagement trip.
Now as she listened to him relay the news, she realized that she didn’t need him to tell her that they might be snowed in here in this tiny town somewhere in Montana for the duration. She’d heard about the storm on the news this morning and the possible road closures. Apparently people really did get snowed in here.
Collin rubbed a hand over the back of his neck for a moment. “The good news,” he said as he picked up the menu lying on the table between them, “is that we aren’t out there broken down somewhere on the highway, because I’m hungry. Instead, we’re sitting in a warm café, and I smell bacon.”
She shook her head, losing some of her irritation at finding herself in the middle of Montana in a blizzard because of some offhand comment she’d made. This morning she’d promised herself that she was going to make the best of it. “Are you always like this?”
“Like what?” he asked, still considering the menu.
“So annoyingly positive for no good reason.” She laughed when she said it, taking some of the sting out of her words. It wasn’t his fault they were trapped here.
He peered at her over the top of the menu and seemed glad to see that at least she was smiling. He did have beautiful blue eyes. She was glad they weren’t brown like Danny’s had been. “No. I can be disagreeable when things don’t go my way.” The way he said it, she believed him, though she’d never seen any indication of it. Look how patient he’d always been with her.