by Karina Bliss
“Bye, my dear,” the older woman said, pressing her face into Selina’s hair. “Call me if you need anything. I’ll drive down to get you if you need me to.”
“I won’t need,” Selina reassured her, which also made Marc feel better. “But I appreciate the offer. Thank you . . . for everything.”
Babe patted Selina’s face. Tears had returned to both their eyes. Fortunately, Selina’s face showed no signs of doubt. If he’d seen any regret on her face, he might have told her that they couldn’t do this. But she smiled at him as she pulled away from her friend.
He opened the passenger door for her, and she stepped up, putting her hand on the handle on the inside of the door. “I’ll text to let you know our progress. And send you pictures.”
The snow had started in earnest now, falling hard enough that it was sticking to Babe’s hat and covering the car. Babe nodded. “Do that. I’ll worry if I don’t hear from you.”
“I know.” Selina slid into the seat. “I’ll miss you.”
They both turned their faces to him, like they weren’t sure what to do next. He made ending the lingering good-bye easier on both of them by shutting the passenger door.
A scowl scrunched Babe’s face. “You take care of her.”
“I will.” Then he added, “And I won’t hurt her.”
The older woman rolled her eyes. “Right. That’s what all men say. And most of them even mean it.”
“Hey,” he said, affronted. “You’re assuming something more is going to happen on this road trip than what Selina and I talked about.”
He had never felt as stupid in his life as he did when Babe raised her eyebrows at him, snowflakes melting on her nose. “She said you were real smart, but now I have my doubts. Selina is cute. You’re not so bad yourself. You’re both young. You’ll be in a car together and then in hotel rooms together. Maybe nothing will happen. But I was young once, too. I remember.”
In a flash of insight, Marc saw Babe when she was young, when her face was smoother, her stomach not so generous, and her eyes less wary. He also saw that her remembered youth was both the reason she wasn’t trying to talk Selina out of going and the reason she worried about Selina.
“I have no interest in forcing her into anything, if that’s what you’re implying. As for the rest . . .” His voice trailed off because he had no idea how to finish that sentence with anything remotely truthful. If they did more than talk and share the car, he couldn’t promise not to hurt Selina any more than she could promise not to hurt him.
“Well, at least you’re smart enough to know your limitations. I’ll give you that.”
“Thanks.”
A couple of years ago, when he was younger and his ego hadn’t been battered about by years of near failure designing his app, he would have been insulted by Babe’s comment. But he was neither so young nor so stupid. Instead, he saw Babe’s protectiveness as confirmation that he’d made the right choice asking Selina to come with him. Babe seemed like the type of person who didn’t give her love easily but who loved hard when she did. If Selina had earned that love, then Marc was going to be lucky to have her with him.
“I’ll have Selina text you my phone number and any other contact information for me that you’d like. If having my parents’ phone numbers will make you feel better, I’ll give those to you, too.”
“Ha! It would serve you right if I called them and told them what you were doing with a young woman you picked up in a diner.” Her face softened, as though Marc had made the first steps to earning her trust. “I want them. I won’t call them right away, but don’t you doubt that I will if I feel I need to.”
He chuckled, nodding his agreement. Babe wasn’t making an idle threat. “Then I’ll include my grandmother’s number, too. She always gives the sternest lectures.”
Babe smiled at him for the first time since he and Selina had walked into her living room and told her their plans. She patted him on the arm. “Show her a good time. She needs it,” she said, then walked off before he could say good-bye.
As Marc watched her leave, he could feel Selina’s gaze through the window behind him. Babe’s front door shut, and it was time to go. He walked around the front of the car, opened his door, and climbed in.
“Babe read you the riot act?” Selina asked.
“Yeah,” he said, turning the key in the starter. As he shifted into reverse and backed out of Babe’s driveway, he was suddenly conscious of Selina’s beauty and Babe’s certainty that more than driving would be happening on this trip. The possibility was as attractive as the woman sitting next to him, except it also seemed like a terrible idea.
The tires crunched over gravel, ice, and snow as Marc navigated his way to the main road, the sounds filling all the spaces in the Land Rover. He didn’t know what to say, and apparently, nor did Selina. Neither of them reached for the radio to drown out the silence, either.
Marc turned onto the highway leading south, their previously easy comradery left behind in Babe’s driveway.
Chapter Five
Selina woke to the car slowing down. She stretched her arms above her head, then looked around, expecting to see a gas station, or motel, or something other than snow and the side of the road as the SUV came to a stop.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Honestly? I don’t know.” Marc shook his head, a slow, deliberate motion that worried Selina more than the blinding white their headlights lit up in front of them.
He cocked his head toward her, his brows raised and worry making the wrinkles of his expression especially shadowed in the dark of the car. “You wouldn’t happen to be able to look around and tell, would you?”
She peered past the heavy falling snow into the blackness beyond. Mountains had to be within spitting distance of the road, but she couldn’t see them for all the snow in the night. She couldn’t see anything more than a couple of feet from the car, even out the windshield where the headlights should have helped.
She turned to him and cringed. “Idaho?”
“Yeah,” he said with a wry chuckle. “I hope so. The road has been so hard to follow for the past hour that I’m not even sure about that.”
As she looked back outside, cold started to seep into her bones. Marc hadn’t turned the car off yet, so it wasn’t the actual cold from the outside. It was fear. “Are we going to keep going?”
Did I misjudge you?
She couldn’t ask him that, though. And she didn’t feel that this was the moment when he’d change from the nice, funny, flirtatious guy in the diner to a scary man who would kill her and leave her body in the wilderness.
But that didn’t mean she didn’t think it. There had been enough news stories about missing young women that she knew it was possible, that her gut feelings could have failed her. And Gary was a perfect example of how men could be rotten in many different ways.
He shook his head. “I’m not comfortable driving with this little visibility. If you think you can do it, I’ll give you the keys. I don’t want to spend the night in the car, and I especially don’t want to have to dig us out in the morning.”
His words reassured her fears. It wasn’t even so much what he said but how he said it, calm and even, as though he didn’t have any reason not to trust her with his life. Because that’s what he was doing when offering to let her drive. He was trusting her with his life as much as she had trusted him with hers when she’d agreed to accompany him on this journey.
“No,” she said, trying to find the space between the flakes where the road might be. Or the skeletons of tall grasses. Or anything that might hint to her where the road was and where it was not. “I’ve driven in bad weather before, but this is beyond anything I’m comfortable with, too.”
“I passed a couple stopped cars down the road. I don’t think we’re the only ones caught in the storm.” The words came out of his mouth as more breath than sound, and she realized that he’d been frightened when driving, far more frightened than she had re
alized by just looking at him.
What else happened in his mind that his placid, friendly face covered up? A lot, she guessed. He looked on the geeky side, what with ears and nose and brows all too big for his face. But geeky looks and intelligence didn’t translate into creating and selling multimillion-dollar technology. That kind of work took tenacity, dedication, and force of will. A person didn’t stumble over that kind of success overnight.
If she wanted to understand him better, she’d have to watch him more carefully. And, she considered as she switched her gaze from his face to the weather outside and back to his face, she wanted to watch him more carefully.
“So what should we do now?” she asked. “Is there a town close enough that we can turn back?”
“I’m not sure.” Marc turned the car off. “I’m sorry. I put our lives at risk because I had a destination, and I was determined to push us until we got there rather than stop for the night when the storm kicked up. I would never have been able to forgive myself if something had happened to you.”
“Babe would hunt you down,” she said. Her mom would be sad, too. Selina wasn’t so disappointed in her mom that she didn’t know the woman cared for her.
Being farther away—even just a two- or three-hour drive—from her mom and Gary, the sadness that had had her crying at the diner had lessened like the sky brightening after a heavy rain. The clouds were still oppressive, but there was enough sun trying to bust through that she could see shadows.
Plus, she had Babe. And many trapped people didn’t even have a Babe.
“So I guess we’re spending the night in the car?” She’d known they would be in the car together for long periods of time, but overnight hadn’t occurred to her.
He frowned. “If neither of us are comfortable driving in this, I don’t have a better idea.”
The car’s engine was still hot so the snow was melting and sliding off the front of the car, but the side mirrors had gotten cold quickly and the white was starting to accumulate on the dark metal. Being closed in the car all night would be tight and cold, but being outside in a tent—which they didn’t have anyway—would be worse.
“How are we going to keep warm?” She was sure he had a plan—he seemed like the kind of guy who had plans—but hearing him say the words would be reassuring.
“I’ve got my ski clothes, which should be plenty warm, and a couple emergency blankets in the back. Um . . .”
She knew immediately by the side-glance he gave her what he was going to say, and that she wouldn’t like it.
“People, uh, also cuddle for warmth. Wait—” he waved a frantic pause “—huddle is the word I want. Huddle is better.”
She pursed her lips at him, amused and half pretending not to be. “Was that slip on purpose?”
“Scout’s honor,” he said, holding up a hand in a three-finger salute. Even the dark, snowy night wasn’t able to hide the twinkle in his eyes. “I promised, and I keep my promises.”
She believed him instantly. In the conflict rushing through his eyes like waves through a narrow channel, she saw the same conflict she was feeling. She disliked the idea of huddling with Marc in the backseat of the SUV much less than she had expected.
Instead of trying to figure out how they could be close and warm without risking hands accidently brushing hands and crotches, she wondered how his arms would feel wrapped around her and if he used any cologne that might be lingering on his skin.
“Huddle,” she confirmed, trying to push those thoughts out of her mind. “Yes. Okay. I have some warm clothes, too, and a pair of wool socks. Maybe we can stuff a bag for a pillow?”
“That’s a good idea.” He was speaking as slowly as she was, as if he was also trying to wrap his mind around the reality of the tight space and close bodies without seeming like he was actually interested in it.
“Should we get out and get the stuff?” she asked, gesturing toward the back of the car with her head.
“No. I don’t want to open the door and let the warmth out any more than we have to. Think you can crawl over the center console? We can reach the luggage from the backseat. The bench seat will be more comfortable for sleeping anyway.”
“Mmhmm.” She nodded. Their conversation felt more like a dance than a chat. And not a fun dance but like passing an ex you still have feelings for in a tight aisle in the grocery store. Heart rushing, throat a little tight, but taking careful steps—and even more careful words—so you don’t end up stepping as close to them as you want to or risk giving away your interest.
Tagging along with a stranger on his personal exploration journey could only work if they didn’t have sex. Sex would complicate her already-complicated free hotel rooms and subsidized food. There was a difference between running away in the company of a stranger and running away with a stranger. The latter was much messier.
Struggling not to have sex with the way she was starting to want him would be almost as problematic, though.
“You go first,” she said.
“All right.” He crawled and pushed and groaned as he fit his large body through the small space between the front seats.
His contortions meant she had an up close and personal view of a fine ass in old, worn jeans. She blinked. Her new knowledge of his body was inescapable, but she didn’t have to keep it at the front of her mind where she would see it every time she closed her eyes. She could push it to the back of her head.
She could.
Even when she was curled up next to him—huddled for warmth, she corrected herself—for the entire night.
“Your turn,” he said, a hand outstretched.
The tips of his fingers were cold as she slid her hand into his. Then his hand closed around hers and the heat of his body shot through her, making her weak in the knees and confusing everything she’d just promised herself about sex, and forgetting, and complications. She peered over the center console, but by the time she could see his face, he’d hidden his reaction to the touch. If he’d had one in the first place, that was. There was always the possibility that she was imagining the furtive glances and curious eyes.
God, Selina. You meet one nice guy and all you can think about is . . .
Well, what was she thinking about? Sex? A quick fling bound to end when they parted in a couple of weeks? More? And what was more?
She pushed off with her foot, whacking her head on the ceiling of the SUV in the process. She overcorrected her climb, shifted her weight, and fell right into Marc’s lap.
“Ouch,” she cried out, rubbing the top of her head.
“Are you okay?” His arms were wrapped around her, catching her and holding her against him.
“Yes.” When she shifted, his arms popped away from around her, as if they had been a rubber band stretched too tightly and suddenly cut. She scrambled away from him in the tight space until she was at the other end of the bench seat. They were as far from each other as possible in such small confines. Hers wasn’t the only breath coming in a little fast and heavy, she realized. And she wasn’t stupid enough to think her racing heart was the exertion of getting into the backseat. Not when she could trace where Marc’s arms had been around her.
“So,” she said with a clap of her hands. “Let’s figure out our bedding and get settled. It’s getting late.”
“Right.”
With some minor movements, he was able to get to his knees, and there was his nice butt again. It was dark, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t enough light to see—and to appreciate—what was there.
Zippers rasped, and Marc rustled through his luggage. Soft pieces of clothing hit Selina’s shoulder as he yanked them out. She pulled a couple of heavy coats, his emergency blanket, and ski pants to the middle seat. He collapsed back on his butt, his fist full of ski caps, scarves, and two pairs of gloves.
“There,” he said, triumphantly setting the rest of the warm clothing on the seat between them. He grabbed one of the ski coats and shoved his arms through it. “I hate to let any
warm air out, but I need to pee. At least you’ll get privacy to change. Take whatever of the clothing you want. I’ll use the rest.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
He nodded, then cold air rushed into the car and Marc stepped out. For the brief moment that the door was open, she heard nothing. The snow was already deep enough that it muffled even the sound of itself falling. There was no wind, no cars, no squawks of owls. Without Marc’s comforting presence to keep it at bay, the oppressive weight of desolation oozed down the sides of the car, inflating like a balloon into the empty space. Selina took a couple of deep breaths to remind herself that she was free, then focused on her task, sorting through the items Marc had pulled from the back.
She shucked her jeans in favor of a pair of too-big ski pants and put some ski socks over her own. His puffy down coat looked more comfortable to sleep in—and warmer—than her structured winter coat, so she put that on, completing the whole look with a University of Washington knit cap topped with a purple pom-pom and a pair of black mittens.
The door opened and Marc climbed back into the car, bringing another blast of cold air with him.
“My turn,” she said, reaching into her purse and grabbing a pack of tissues before she could think too much about how cold the air would be on her bare ass and how much she’d have to struggle with the layers to get her ass bare in the first place.
When she returned from outside, Marc had scrunched up some clothes into a softer duffel and set it on one end of the bench seat. She climbed in, and for a few seconds, they stared alternately at each other and at the narrow space of the seat. Then he shrugged and scooted around until he was lying on his side, his back against the back of the seats and arms open for her to spoon with him. Pushing down her competing hesitation and desire, she crawled next to him, fitting her butt against his crotch and her head so that his arm was under her neck. To seal the deal, she pulled the small blanket over them.