Allison Leigh - Montana Passions - Stranded With the Groom / All He Ever Wanted / Prescription - Love

The driver gave her a wave in return and then backed to the street again. The plow, which had already made the Elk Avenue curve, headed east at a crawl, toward what was known as New Town, clearing the high white drifts into yet higher piles at the sides of the street as it went.

Justin turned to her. “Well. What next?”

A dragging feeling of sadness engulfed her: for all they had shared in the dim rooms behind them, for the uncertain future—which, she told herself firmly, wasn’t uncertain at all.

She and the man beside her had found something special. Nothing could change that. “Where’s your car parked?” she asked with a cheery smile.

“In the lot behind the town hall.”

“It’s not far, and mine’s there, too. Let’s get the steps cleared off and put the shovels away and then we’ll start walking.”

All along Main Street, folks were out with their shovels. The roar of snowblowers filled the icy air. People called out and waved as Katie and Justin walked by.

“Katie, how you doin’?”

“Some storm, eh?”

“Talk about your New Year’s surprise!”

“Come on. This is nothin’. Five or six feet. Piece a cake.”

“And they say it’s turning warm right away. In the fifties by Friday. What do you think of that?”

They waved back and called greetings and when they reached the hall, they found the front steps already cleared and the driveway to the back parking lot passable, as well.

They went in the front to ask after the things they’d left behind the night of the storm. Rhonda Culpepper, well past sixty with a white streak in her improbably black hair, waited at her usual post behind the reception desk.

Rhonda greeted Katie and nodded at Justin and announced with a wink, “I’ll bet I know what you two are after.” She bent down behind the desk and came up with Katie’s purse and Justin’s briefcase, phone and keys, along with a big bag for each of them filled with their own clothes and shoes. “Have I got every-thing?”

“Looks like it. Thanks, Rhonda.”

“Always glad to help.”

They went down a side hall and out a door at the back. A couple of guys were at work there, clearing the snow between the vehicles so people could get them out. Katie exchanged greetings with the men and then Justin asked which car was hers.

She pointed at the silver-gray Suburban, near where the men were working. “In a few minutes they’ll have me dug out.”

“Let’s get the snow off the roof and the windshield cleared, then,” he suggested.

She caught his hand. Even through their heavy gloves, she felt his warmth. Her pulse quickened. “It’s okay. Doug and Cam will help me.” She gestured at the two busily shoveling men.

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely. Where are you parked?”

His black Escalade was near the edge of the lot, not far from the drive that led around to the front. The snow had already been shoveled away around it.

She helped him knock some of the snow off the roof and the hood and he got inside and turned the vehicle on, ducking back out with a scraper. He set to work. She went on tiptoe and pushed more snow off the Escalade’s roof as he cleared the windshield.

It wasn’t all that long before he had the wipers going and he was ready to head out.

He cast a glance toward Cam and Doug, still shoveling away between the snow-covered cars and pickups. “Come here.” He grabbed her hand and towed her to the back of the Escalade, where they were out of sight of the working men. She went eagerly into the warm circle of his arms.

“Time to get out of here.” His breath came out on a cloud.

“Drive safely. I want you back soon. Very, very soon…”

By way of answer, he bent and pressed his lips—cold on the outside, so warm within—to hers.

The icy day, the growls of snowblowers on Main Street, the scraping of shovels on the frozen blacktop a few feet away—all of that faded to nothing. There was only Justin, his arms tight and cherishing around her, his mouth claiming hers in a bone-melting kiss.

With a regretful growl low in his throat, he lifted his head. “I’ll call you.”

She let out a laugh. “Good luck with that. You don’t even have my number.”

“Katie, you’re the town librarian and you’re like a daughter to Caleb Douglas, who happens to be a colleague of mine. I don’t think you’ll be that hard to track down. Plus, I’d bet the last strip mall I built that you’ve got a listed number.”

“Now, how did you know that?”

“You’re the listed-number type.”

She gave him a frown. “That’s good, right?”

He kissed her nose, her cheeks and even her chin, his lips warm now against her cold skin. Then he pulled away enough to look at her, a deep look, a look she couldn’t quite read. “I have to go.” His arms fell away and he turned toward the driver’s door.

She followed, already missing him, feeling bereft. He climbed up into the seat and shut the door. She went around the front of the vehicle to the other side, getting out of his way.

He saluted her—a gloved hand to his forehead. She mimicked the gesture. And then he was backing out, turning to get the right angle, and rolling forward. She watched as the big, black SUV disappeared around the side of the town hall, her heart pounding hard and heavy as lead beneath her breastbone.

She knew he would call her. Hadn’t he just told her he would? Still, she had the strangest, scariest feeling right then that she would never see him again.

Dinner at the Lazy D was a festive affair. Adele had the cook prepare a juicy prime rib and Tess Littlehawk, the ranch’s longtime housekeeper, set the long table in the formal dining room with the best china and crystal.

Riley, who’d been out earlier checking the stock, came in from his own place a half a mile from the main house to join them, his dark hair slicked back, wet from the shower he must have just taken.

“I was the lucky one,” he said, smoothing his linen napkin on his lap and sparing a wink of greeting for Katie. “Safe and sound at my place before things got too rough.”

Sy Goodwin, a feed-store owner and family man who’d decided to stay the night before heading back to his wife and four kids in Billings, laughed with Caleb and Adele over their shared “ordeal” in the hall—especially Sunday morning, when most of the others were suffering from an excess of beer the day before.

“A number of extremely discouraging words were exchanged,” Goodwin reported, his expression jokingly solemn, a definite gleam in his eye.

The creases in Caleb’s nut-brown face etched all the deeper as he let out his big, boisterous laugh. “I tell you, Katie, a bottle of aspirin that first day was worth its weight in gold.”

Sy laughed, too. “And anyone with a box of Alka-Seltzer could have gotten a fortune for it.”

Adele and Caleb agreed that Sy wasn’t exaggerating.

Caleb asked, a little too meaningfully as far as Katie was concerned, “And what about you and Justin? Stuck there in that musty old museum with nothing but mining equipment and Indian artifacts for company.”

Adele was shaking her head. “What did you do for all that time?”

We kissed, Katie thought. Forever. We spooned. All night. And I dropped in at State Street Drugs this afternoon and bought myself a box of condoms. Mr. Dodson hadn’t even batted an eye when she plunked it down on the counter.

She said, offhand as she could make it, “Oh, we found some books and board games in the storage room. We managed to occupy ourselves.”

Addy clucked her tongue and sent Katie a sly look. “A handsome guy, that Justin.”