LITMIR.BIZ

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Where’s the discipline, the punishment? When does he learn that all actions have their consequences? Surely not in Ms. Cassandra Mercer’s office.”

      Cassandra felt her mouth open, heard words coming from it, and still couldn’t believe what she said. And, to her everlasting embarrassment, the words she had said, the words that hung in the stuffy air inside the Jeep for long moments, were “You, sir, are a horse’s ass!”

      “That does it!” Sean shouted over the roar of the storm as he started the Jeep, slamming the vehicle back into gear and easing his foot onto the gas pedal. “Either we get out of here or I’m going to murder you,” he said as he began rocking the Jeep, throwing it into reverse, pushing it into low gear—and getting them nowhere.

      Cassandra was furious. “Oh, stop it! We’re stuck, and that’s that!”

      “Damn it!” he exploded as he turned off the ignition and slammed his fist against the steering wheel before pressing his head back against the headrest. “I’d rather be in Alaska, snowbound with a polar bear!”

      Cassandra pleated the skirt of her long, full cotton dress with her fingers, wondering why her anger had felt so good, why she suddenly felt so free, so liberated. Why had watching the unflappable Sean Frame lose his cool made her feel so much more in control?

      Who knew?

      Who cared?

      She only knew she liked the feeling. “Oh, really, Mr. Frame?” she shot back, staring straight at him. “Well, I’d rather be tossed overboard into a school of hungry piranha. Or is that piranhas? Piranhi?”

      He turned his head on the headrest and eyed her carefully, assessingly. She saw the way his open, sparkling-white shirt collar pressed against the side of his tanned chin, and her stomach did a small flip. “I’d rather,” he bit out challengingly, “be in orbit for six months with a rabid rhesus monkey.”

      So, he wanted to play “can you top this insult?” did he? She narrowed her eyes, her heart pounding. “I’d rather be trapped in an elevator with an amateur rap group on their way to their first audition.”

      “I’d rather be locked in a bank vault with the entire Mormon Tabernacle Choir—all of them singing the Hallelujah Chorus and suffering with laryngitis.”

      This was fun!

      “Ha! Kid stuff!” Cassandra exclaimed joyfully, then struggled for another comeback. “I’d rather—I’d rather be shipwrecked with Bill O’Reilly!”

      Sean gave out a shout of laughter, then held up his hands in surrender. “You win, Cassandra. You win. Although, I must say, I didn’t know you had it in you.”

      “Neither did I,” Cassandra answered quietly, frowning at her own audacity, then smiling as she realized he had addressed her by her first name.

      Then Sean waved his right hand as if asking for silence. “I think I see something moving out there,” he said, using his sleeve to wipe steam off the inside of the window and peer into the now almost total darkness outside the Jeep. “Hand me my flashlight.”

      “Since you asked so nicely, Sean,” Cassandra grumbled, remembering again how much she really didn’t like this man, although it had been rather nice to hear him call her Cassandra instead of Ms. Mercer. But that didn’t change the fact that he probably couldn’t find the word please with half a dozen flashlights!

      “Here,” she said, shoving the thing at him. “Maybe it’s Bullwinkle Moose come to rescue us. Because, if you haven’t noticed, there aren’t any lights to be seen anywhere below us, except those at the hospital. The substation must have been knocked out by the slide, considering it’s only about a half mile higher up on the mountainside.”

      Sean didn’t answer her but only cursed as he reached to roll down the window, then realized that the Jeep had push-button controls and the engine had to be engaged in order to operate them. He turned the ignition key to the “accessories” position with a determined hand, then lowered the window and stuck the flashlight outside. “There! Over there! Some nut’s trying to walk out of here. Hey! Buddy! We’re over here!”

      Cassandra leaned across the seat, her chin on Sean’s shoulder as they both peered into the rain and darkness. “I see him!” she shouted excitedly, earning herself a dark look from her companion. “Sorry,” she added more softly. “But I do see him. If he can make it through the mud, why can’t we? I mean, anything has to be better than spending the rest of this miserable night up here.”

      She didn’t say it, but the words with you hung in the air, heard by them both. She took off her glasses, which she really only needed for driving—but wore almost constantly—and which were steaming up, anyway, and placed them on the dashboard.

      “Do you want to take the chance of being caught in another slide?” Sean leaned his head out the window, looking down. “There’s a boulder smack up against my door and the back door, holding both of them closed. Lovely dent in the metal, by the way. The road, if we could reach it from the shoulder, is nothing but a river of mud and boulders. We can’t get out your side because your doors are smashed up against the guardrail. If we do get out of here, it’s going to have to be through the back hatch.”

      “If we could reach it? If we get out of here?” Cassandra moved her body a little closer to his. “Don’t you mean when we get out of here?”

      He turned his head, looking at her from only mere inches away, then put his hand on hers, squeezing it—which was the first time she noticed that she had been gripping his shoulder tightly. “We’ll get out of here, Cassandra. I promise.”

      Well, as long as he promises, her inner self said, even as Cassandra tried, and failed, to relax her hold on his shoulders.

      Then Sean aimed the flashlight onto the muddy roadway once more, and at the man who now stood about twenty yards away from them, obviously not able to move closer without possibly injuring himself in the debris littering the roadside. “Do you think it’s really wise to try to walk out of here, sir?” he called over the sound of driving rain and crashing thunder.

      The man waved his hands as if trying to ward off some unseen danger. “I must go on!” he yelled at them. “I—I must go on!”

      “What a strange reaction. Do you think he’s injured?” Cassandra asked, immediately concerned for the man. “Do you recognize him?”

      “I wouldn’t recognize Jason in this dark and rain,” Sean told her, then motioned for her to be silent while he spoke to the man once more. “I think you can make it to the Jeep if I light the way with my flashlight. You’ll be safer with us until the storm’s over and somebody comes to check on the slide.”

      “No!” the man shouted back, sounding frantic. “I must go on! There’s something I must do…someone I must—I need your flashlight. Yes, that’s it. Give me your flashlight! I’ll send help.”

      Sean moved the flashlight, centering its beam on the stranger’s face so that Cassandra saw the man’s wet hair—it seemed to be blond, but she couldn’t be sure. His eyes, however, made her gasp aloud, for they were an intense blue, and they seemed oddly vacant, as if the man was unsure of himself, of his surroundings. Which was silly, because she had never seen a more determined-looking man—save Sean Frame, of course.

      The man held up his hand to block the harsh light from his eyes, took a few steps toward the Jeep, then called again. “The flashlight. Just give me your flashlight. And tell me the name of this road so I can give directions to a tow truck.”

      Cassandra rolled her eyes as Sean did as the stranger said, then watched as the flashlight arced through the air, to be caught by the tall, lean man with the strange blue eyes. “Well, there goes our only light,” she grumbled, not knowing why she was angry. “We could have used it as a rescue beacon, you know.”

      “I think he’ll make it,” Sean said as he watched the man moving away, picking his way through the mud and boulders. “The slide can’t

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