LITMIR.BIZ

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animal and taken her to the veterinarian clinic. The mother hadn’t survived the birth, and Luke had been determined to ensure that her efforts to give life to her pups weren’t in vain.

      Thankfully, Karen had stepped up to help, and between the two of them, they’d made sure that the puppies were fed and nurtured and loved—and then they’d given them to good homes. But Luke had always known that he would keep one, and Einstein was the one he’d chosen. And he loved the crazy animal, even if he wasn’t exactly the genius of his namesake.

      When the puppies were first born and required almost constant care, it made sense for them to be at the clinic. Luke also believed it would help with their socialization, getting them accustomed to being around people and other animals, and so he’d continued the practice with Einstein long after his brothers and sisters had gone to other homes. Unfortunately, one of Einstein’s favorite places in the clinic was wherever he could find Karen’s feet.

      “I swear that animal is trying to kill me.” But despite the annoyance in her tone, she bent to rub his head, giving him an extra scratch behind his left ear because she knew that was his favorite spot.

      “Only if he could love you to death,” Luke assured her.

      She shook her head as she made her way to the door. “You should go home, too,” she said again. “No one’s going to come out in this weather.”

      As it turned out, she was right. Aside from Raphael’s owner who came to pick him up, the front door didn’t open and the phone didn’t ring. So promptly at three o’clock, Luke locked up the clinic and headed out to his truck with Einstein.

      Of course, this was the puppy’s first exposure to snow, and when he stepped out onto the deck and found himself buried up to his chest in the cold, white fluff, he was not very happy. He whined and jumped, trying desperately to get away from it. And when he couldn’t escape it, he decided to attack it. He barked and pranced around, clearly under the impression that he was winning the battle.

      Luke couldn’t help but chuckle at his antics. The animal would probably play in the snow for hours if he let him, so he finally picked up the pup and carried him to the truck. He sat him on the floor of the passenger side and let the heater blow warm air on him while Luke cleared the thick layer of snow off of his windows.

      Luckily he’d found an old hat and a pair of gloves in his office, and he was grateful for both. The unexpected snowfall might have been fun for Einstein, but driving through it was a completely different story, even with all-wheel drive. The snow had been falling steadily and quickly and the plows hadn’t yet been around, so he knew the roads would probably be slick—a fact that was proven when he fishtailed a little as he pulled out of the clinic’s driveway and onto the street.

      Warm and dry once again, Einstein hopped up onto the passenger seat and pressed his nose against the window, his breath fogging up the glass. When Luke finally turned onto Terrace Drive, the pup barked excitedly, three quick little yips. The snow was still falling with no indication that it would let up anytime soon, and he was as happy as Einstein to know that they were almost home.

      The cold had come after the snow, so the first layer of flakes had melted on the road, then frozen. Now there was a dangerous layer of ice beneath everything else, and Luke suspected the tow trucks would be working late into the night. It would be too easy to slide off the road and into a ditch in these conditions—as someone had apparently done right in front of his house.

      * * *

      Julie clenched the steering wheel with both hands and bit down on her bottom lip to hold back the scream of frustration that threatened to burst from her throat. A quick detour through Pinehurst to meet with a friend of her brother’s from law school had seemed like a great idea when she’d called and made the appointment a few hours earlier, but that was before the snow started.

      Still, she’d no intention of being dissuaded by some light flurries. Except that those light flurries had quickly escalated into an actual blizzard. Weather reports on the radio had warned people to avoid unnecessary travel. Since Julie had been on the highway between Syracuse and Pinehurst at the time and pulling off to the side of the road in order to be buried in snow didn’t seem like a particularly appealing option, she decided her travel was necessary.

      And she’d almost made it. According to her GPS, she was less than three miles from Jackson Garrett’s office—but it might as well have been thirty. There was no way she could walk, not in her condition and not in this weather.

      Tears of frustration filled her eyes, blurred her vision. She let her head fall forward, then jolted back again when the horn sounded. Great—not only had she driven into a ditch, she’d just drawn attention to the fact by alerting anyone who happened to be passing by. She didn’t know if she was more relieved or apprehensive when she realized that no one seemed to be anywhere in the vicinity.

      She was sure she’d seen houses not too far back. In fact, she specifically remembered a sprawling ranch-style with a trio of grinning jack-o’-lanterns on the wide front porch, because she’d noted that it wouldn’t be too long before those pumpkins were completely blanketed by snow.

      She closed her eyes and silently cursed Mother Nature. Okay, maybe she had to accept responsibility for the fact that she’d been driving through a blizzard with no snow tires—but who the heck would have thought that she’d need snow tires on the first day of November?

      She felt a spasm in her lower back in conjunction with a ripple of pain that tightened her whole belly. Julie splayed a hand over her tummy, silently trying to reassure her baby that everything was okay. But as the first tears spilled onto her cheeks, she had to admit—if only to herself—that she didn’t know if it was. She didn’t know how being stuck in a ditch in the middle of nowhere during a freak snowstorm could possibly be “okay.”

      She drew in a deep breath and tried to get the tears under control. She didn’t usually blubber, but the pregnancy hormones running rampant through her system had been seriously messing with her emotional equilibrium. Wiping the trails of moisture from her cheeks, she tried to look on the bright side.

      She knew she wasn’t lost. She wasn’t exactly sure where she was, but she’d followed the directions of her GPS so she wasn’t actually in the middle of nowhere. She was in Pinehurst, New York. An even brighter side was found when she pulled her cell phone out of her purse and confirmed that her battery was charged and she had a signal. Further proof that she wasn’t in the middle of nowhere.

      Confident that she would be able to get some roadside assistance, Julie leaned over to open the glove box to get the number and gasped as pain ripped across her back. Gritting her teeth, she blew out a slow, unsteady breath and prayed that it was just a spasm. That the jolt of sliding into the ditch had pulled a muscle in her back.

      On the other hand, it could be a sign that she was in labor. And right now, that was not a scenario she wanted to consider.

      “Please, baby—” she rubbed a hand over her belly “—don’t do this now. You’ve got a couple more weeks to hang out right where you are, and I’m not even close to being ready for you yet.”

      Moving more carefully this time, she reached for the folio that contained her vehicle ownership and warranty information and—most important—her automobile association card. Hopefully there wasn’t any damage to her car and as soon as it was pulled out of the ditch, she could be on her way again.

      Except that when she dialed the toll-free number on the card, she got a recorded message informing her that all of the operators were currently busy assisting other customers and to please hold the line if she wanted to maintain her call priority. She disconnected. It would probably be easier—and quicker—for her to find the number of a local company and make a direct call. Or maybe, if she was really lucky, a Good Samaritan with a big truck conveniently equipped with tow cables would drive down this road and stop to help.

      A flash of color caught the corner of her eye and she turned her head to see a truck drive past, then pull into a driveway she hadn’t even noticed was less than ten feet from where she was stranded. The vehicle stopped,

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