Dawn Temple - Moonlight and Mistletoe

“Shayna!” His shoulders slumped in relief as he lowered the poker to his side. “Damn it, I thought you were still upstairs asleep.”

“Nope.” Refusing to notice his cute case of bedhead or the fact that the top three buttons of his dress shirt were undone this morning, she brushed past, tossing him the car key as she went. “I went down to check on your car. It looks totaled.”

He caught the key smoothly. “You walked down that ice-covered mountain all by yourself?”

“Brinks went with me.”

“The dog doesn’t count.”

“The dog counts more than most people I can think of.” She shot him a glare, then grabbed the phone and began dialing. Her eyes tracked him as he returned the poker to its spot next to the fireplace.

After the third ring, a familiar gravelly voice filled her ear. “Robertson Feed and Seed. Charlie speaking.”

“Hey, Charlie. It’s Shayna.”

“Hey, girl. Heard you got some weather up there.”

“Yeah, between the bridge and the sinkhole, I’m penned in. Listen, is Danny there?”

“He’s around here somewhere. Hang on a sec, and I’ll find him for ya.”

“Thanks.” She waited several long minutes, concentrating on the sounds of a busy sales day filtering through the phone rather than thinking about Kyle, who had returned to the kitchen and was rattling around behind her.

Finally Danny picked up. “Hey, sweetie, you missed a great spread yesterday. How’d you weather the day?”

“Cold and cranky. You’ve got no idea how much I wish I’d been able to make it to dinner.” She could have avoided her current pickle altogether if she’d been able to stick to her original plans. “I know you’re busy today, but I need a favor. A big one.”

“Anything for you. You know that.” His immediate assurance warmed her heart. They didn’t come any better than Danny.

“Can you meet me on the north side of Hunter’s Pass?”

“Hunter’s Pass? This time of year, the path will be little more than a cow trail. What’s going on?” The question was a mixture of worry and suspicion.

“Well, the storm stranded an unexpected visitor up here, and he needs to get off the mountain. As soon as possible.”

“Shayna, are you okay? Has this guy-”

“No. No. Nothing like that.” Okay, so it was way too much like that, but she didn’t see any reason to share her embarrassment with anyone else. “But now that the storm has passed, it would be best if we weren’t stuck up here alone any longer. You know how people love to talk.”

A warm, creamy cup of coffee appeared at her elbow, startling her. She turned her head and saw Kyle, his expression blank, a cup in both hands.

“Okay, there’s obviously more going on here than you can tell me about right now.”

She wordlessly accepted the cup Kyle had doctored for her. “That’s right.”

Danny’s breath huffed through the phone line. Shayna could easily picture her abnormally tall friend towering above everyone in the store, raking his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, his mind sorting and organizing, seeking solutions to problems, looking for a way to answer her plea while still tending to his business.

Guilt started working its way through her pique. She was asking too much. “Listen, don’t worry about it. I’m sure the store is really hopping today. Mr. Anderson will just have to cool his heels one more day. The sand truck will have the bridge cleared by tomorrow.”

“Nonsense. You obviously need to get rid of this guy, or you wouldn’t have called. I can be there by noon. Can you hang in there for a couple more hours?”

“Noon is perfect. Thanks, Danny. You’re the best.”

Kyle pounced the instant she disconnected the call. “Shayna, talk to me. What’s going on?”

“The bridge is still too dangerous to cross today, and your rental’s not going anywhere under its own steam. The only other way off the mountain is on foot, so a friend of mine is gonna meet us on the other side of the gulch in a bit. I don’t suppose you had hotel reservations, did you?”

“Of course not. I wasn’t planning on staying overnight.”

“Oh, that’s right. You expected me to fall for your charm and blindly sign that paperwork so you could get back to your rich, powerful L.A. life.”

She tried to push past him, but he grabbed her arm, stopping her. “Shayna, last night-”

“Last night I let myself forget you were just a pawn in my father’s power play, and as a pawn, you simply do whatever you’re told. Apparently you were told to get into my pants if that’s what it took to secure my cooperation.” The faint flush creeping up his face confirmed her suspicions. Gosh, these people were something else.

“But thanks to Patty-” man, didn’t that sound odd “-I’ve got my head back on straight. You need to leave, today, and the only way to do that is on foot, so I suggest you bundle up. I’ll get you some duct tape to wrap around those fancy shoes of yours. Might be the only chance you have to get out of here without breaking your neck.”

She shrugged out of his grip and dug through the kitchen junk drawer, pulling out a roll of gray tape.

“You can’t kick me out without giving me a chance to explain.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Kyle. This is my home, and I can do whatever I damn well please.”

“Fine.” He snatched the tape from her hands. “I’ll go, but this isn’t the end of things. Not by a long shot.”

Kyle feared his lungs would explode before they reached wherever the hell Shayna was leading him. He wanted to ask her to slow down, but since her legs were a good six inches shorter than his, his pride wouldn’t allow it.

They’d been hiking up and down a pig trail at breakneck speed for nearly an hour. After fifteen minutes of trying to get her to talk to him, Kyle had given up and concentrated on not passing out. At home, he spent four days a week in the gym, religiously. He could bench press two-hundred thirty pounds and run an eight-minute mile, but scaling this mountain in a pair of tape-wrapped Italian loafers was kicking his butt.

To top it off, in an effort to stave off hypothermia, he’d piled on his suit, the coveralls, the stained sweatshirt and his wool trench. He felt like the freaking Michelin Man, waddling instead of walking.

Finally, the forest thinned and Shayna stopped. Here, the water was shallow enough to see the pebbles littering the bottom. The gulch was approximately thirty feet wide, and on the other side the mountain looked even steeper.

Brinks charged into the water, but after a few steps, he quickly turned and retreated. “Water can’t be more than forty degrees,” she said, although not necessarily to him. She hadn’t spoken a word to him since before they’d left the cabin.

She took a swig from a canteen then held it out to him. He drank gratefully, trying not to gulp it down like a dying man in a desert.

“The ride back to town shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes from here. I called Mrs. Windsor, who runs the Sheltering Arms Bed and Breakfast, and she’s got one room available. I told her you’d take it. Danny can drop you off. When you contact a wrecker, make sure you call a local service and tell them your car’s in the ditch about a tenth of a mile northeast of the bridge at Shiner’s Gulch.”

After such a long stretch of silence, her words flew fast and furiously, but when she’d said what she needed to say, she locked her lips and turned her gaze to the far bank.

Now that he finally had her contained, he tried again to apologize. “Shayna, I’m sorry about last night.”

“I’ll bet you are. If only Patty had waited another half hour or so, you could have finished the job.”