LITMIR.BIZ

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is a little cold out here.” Her words were visible puffs, ringing around her head. Since New Year’s the week before, the weather had plummeted, bringing with it an uncommon amount of snow.

      She was relieved when Shane looked again at the wreckage, then nodded. The driver apparently didn’t find the EMTs’ assistance objectionable the way he had hers. But then, they hadn’t helped his car fly into a ditch, either.

      Shane told her to go wait in his SUV, and she was shaken enough that she obediently turned away and started up the incline again. She heard her brother ask the driver if the registration for the vehicle was in the car as she went. Shane’s SUV was idling, and she climbed up into the passenger seat where it was toasty warm. She flexed her numb fingers in front of the air vents and watched the men.

      Of course there would have to be an accident report. No need to worry over it. The worst that would happen is that her insurance rates would go up.

      Again.

      She rubbed her hands together. Cupped her fingers over her mouth and nose and blew on them. She loved living in Lucius, Montana, but honestly, there were times she’d be happy to spend the winter lolling on a warm, sandy beach somewhere. If she closed her eyes, she could practically feel the heated kiss of sunlight on her face.

      “Hand me that clipboard.”

      The only warmth came from Shane’s heater vents. She opened her eyes to see her brother standing inside the opened door, his gloved finger pointing at the items on his console.

      She handed the clipboard to him. Looked around his broad shoulder to see that the driver was now sitting on the back of the ambulance, submitting to Palmer’s belated but thorough examination. She could see Noah behind the wheel talking on the mic. “Hate that paperwork,” she murmured lightly, eyeing her brother.

      He grunted. “Be glad neither one of you was hurt. Otherwise there’d be a helluva lot more.”

      “I am.” She couldn’t have lived with herself if she’d harmed someone else. Still, she’d never been fond of putting her name on a bunch of legal documents. A trait passed down from her mother.

      “Shane—”

      “Don’t sweat it, turnip,” he advised after a moment.

      She rolled her eyes at the old nickname, but subsided against the seat. The interior was getting cold. She had on a wool jacket and Shane’s heater was blasting. The driver wore only a leather bomber jacket. He’d surely be freezing by now. “Couldn’t Palmer give him a blanket or something?”

      Shane glanced over his shoulder. “S’pose so,” he agreed, then turned his attention back to the report he was writing, his gaze sliding over her. “Stu was yakking my ear off on the phone about the way you ran out on him and Wendell when you called.”

      “What’d he think you were going to do? Arrest me because I didn’t stick around until he could force me into having dinner with Wendell Pierce as well as lunch? Give me a break.” Stu had manipulated her into going out to his ranch, playing on her sympathies to cook a meal for him since his left hand was currently in a cast, knowing full well that she’d be too polite to walk back out again when she found Wendell there, too.

      She peered around Shane again. The driver was watching her and she felt the impact of his striking gaze across the yards. Her skin prickled.

      It was a decidedly unusual sensation.

      “Stu wants you to be happy and settled.”

      “Like the two of you are?” She forced herself to look back at her brother, raising her eyebrows pointedly. “Like Evie is?” She shook her head. Neither of her brothers were married, or currently involved with anyone for that matter. And their sister, Evie, was… well, Evie was another story entirely. “It’s pretty humiliating that my own brothers think I can’t find a man for myself,” she said half under her breath.

      Even if it were true.

      Not that she intended to admit it. She was already a pathetic marshmallow where her family was concerned. No need to provide them with her more ammunition.

      “You’re twenty-seven,” Shane said. “When’s the last time you went on a date?” His pen scratched across the paper. “With someone other than Wendell Pierce.”

      One lunch inadvertently shared at the counter of the Luscious Lucius did not really qualify as a date in her opinion, and she hadn’t ever intended to repeat it, not even in the sunny kitchen of Stu’s ranch house. But if she didn’t count that… well then, she really was pathetic.

      There was nothing wrong with Wendell, except that she had little in common with the brown-haired, tall, gangly forty-year-old rancher and even less of an attraction for him.

      “Maybe I’ve been busy. Watching Evie’s kids. Helping Stu out at the garage whenever Riva’s gone. Doing your filing down at the station.” All when she wasn’t busy with her own responsibilities at Tiff’s, the family’s boardinghouse, and trying to carve out enough time on her own to do what she loved best—writing.

      Shane barely gave her a second glance. He finished scratching on his clipboard, and strode across the highway toward her pickup truck, studying the snowy blacktop as he went. A wrecker had pulled up on the shoulder, and Hadley saw Gordon and Freddie Finn get out and slide their way down the embankment.

      She closed the door again to preserve the heat and nibbled the inside of her lip as she watched Gordon hook up the wreckage to chains and slowly maneuver it back up the incline. It didn’t seem possible, but the car looked even worse as it peeled away from the tree trunk.

      She looked over at the driver again. His expression was unreadable, but a muscle flexed rhythmically in his jaw. She recognized that type of movement, having seen it often enough over the years on Shane’s face.

      She sighed a little, hauled in a deep breath and pushed open the truck door. She walked over to him and was grateful when he didn’t just sort of duck and run for cover. He undoubtedly considered her a menace. “I’m sorry about your car,” she offered. It came out more tentative than she’d have liked, but then, so much about her did. What was one more instance to add to a lifetime of them? “Have you had it a long time?”

      “Long enough.” His voice was surprisingly neutral, given the circumstances.

      “Indiana,” she murmured, spying the license plate on his car. “Where were you heading?”

      “Why?” His gaze sliced her way.

      She lifted her shoulders, hugging her arms to herself. “Most people come through Lucius on their way to somewhere else. We’re barely a bump in the road.” Maybe that was a slight understatement. Lucius had its own hospital, its own schools and three different churches. There was also a fairly decent crop of restaurants and even a movie theater, complete with four screens. “I, um, have a cell phone if you need to call anyone.” He didn’t wear a wedding ring, but that didn’t have to mean anything.

      And why she was noticing his ring finger she had no idea. Hadn’t she spent ten minutes that day already railing at Stu that she was not looking for a husband?

      His lips twisted a little. She thought he almost looked amused. Almost. “No, thanks.”

      Which didn’t exactly say that he’d had no one to call.

      She shifted. Pushed her fingers into the pockets of her jacket. Freddie had climbed up on the back of the tow truck and was guiding the chains in some complicated fashion as her brother controlled a lever. The car creaked and moaned as it was pulled upward onto the slanted ramp. She winced a little and looked up at the man again. “Does your head hurt very badly?”

      “Not as much as the car hurts.” As if he couldn’t stand to look at it any longer, he turned his attention to her pickup, where a good portion of candy-apple red from his car was decorating the side of her truck. It was the brightest color on what was otherwise pretty indeterminate.

      “Is

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