by Blue Saffire
Or I could find myself a rich husband so I could spend my days sipping cocktails and doing nothing. I snickered. I might have thrown Siren into my carry-on out of simple curiosity regarding Michelle’s quick-strike husband search. Or maybe I really harbored a desire to escape my life via sugar daddy.
My mind wandered to the zeroes I’d be adding to my bank account with my bonus. I could solve my problem myself with the perfect next job working for a Zen-minded philanthropist who took off Mondays and Fridays. How great—
The solid feel of the road wavered in my hands. Then, the vehicle drifted despite my pointing the wheel where it needed to go. Panic jumped on my chest like a trampoline. I gasped and re-steered back toward the center line, and when I felt the tires catch more soundly, eased off the gas to slow down.
Now was not the time to daydream. I was almost all the way down to the main road leading from Whitefish back toward Flathead Lake. I had a flight this afternoon and work tomorrow.
I glanced quickly at the service indicator on my phone. Zero bars just as it had been most of my time in Montana. If you weren’t right in Whitefish or at the resort, you were off the grid almost by design. Based on the GPS and my downloaded map, I had only about eight miles to go to reach the main highway and the fast track to the airport.
Five minutes later, the snowflakes picked up speed and size. The view in my windshield was getting grayer, then whiter. I slowed down again.
Red lights illuminated at some distance in front of me, and I lifted my foot off the gas even more. The lights still got closer. I braked as gently as I could. The car slowed, then glided to the right. I gripped the wheel, and fear gripped my throat. Red lights. Closer and closer.
Finally, my economy rental stopped, slid a little, then stopped again. I checked the rear mirror. Luckily, no one was behind me.
By the time I got down the mountain to the handful of square blocks that made up Whitefish’s downtown, the snow was swirling faster, but I did have one bar of service on my phone. Easing onto the main street through town, I found the grocery store where we’d bought some provisions earlier in the week and pulled into the parking lot.
My flight to Seattle wasn’t for four more hours, but I knew. There was no way I was making it to Kalispell in time, which meant missing my connection home to Dallas. And not making it to work in the morning. Shit.
The weather app on my phone told me what I’d known for a couple of days. A storm had dipped south of the Canadian border early. It wasn’t supposed to come in until tonight. I was still supposed to have time to make it to the airport. Well, not so much, and the forecast called for heavy snow the next two days.
I called the airline and was told that my flight from Glacier Park International would get out, but that flights for the next morning were all cancelled.
“We can rebook you for later in the afternoon or for the next day. The rebooking fee is $75.”
“To rebook because of weather?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but your flight is leaving on time this afternoon. Rebook for tomorrow, and if the flight is cancelled, then we’ll waive the fee.”
“Fine,” I bit out, trying not to get huffy since technically this was me and my poor planning. I should have checked the weather and driven in Kalispell earlier or even last night. “Book me on the same flight tomorrow.”
“Great. We can use your card on file, and then when we cancel the flights tomorrow, you can call us back.”
“When you cancel flights tomorrow?”
“The weather looks bad through to the end of the week.”
Great. I’d miss work, and I had no place to stay. I texted the woman who owned the condo I rented and vacated just forty-five minutes before.
“Sorry. I have some friends who are stranded. They’re already on their way to my place. You can try the resort. There are some rentals up there and the hotel. And there are a few hotels in town.”
Yes, but they were all booked as I found out in short order. I even drove to a small hotel in the center of town and begged. Nothing. Now, the snow was dumping all around me.
Shit.
Steve’s cousin’s house. Maybe I could go back there. I hated calling Michelle and Steve, but I didn’t know how else to reach someone at the house. I tapped Michelle’s name and hoped she wouldn’t be pissed that I was calling or too busy making out with her new husband to answer the phone. I should have crossed my fingers that I still phone service. Because there wasn’t. Zero bars now. Zero luck. And close to zero visibility.
I banged my forehead on the steering wheel, trying to think positive thoughts.
I had to get somewhere where I wouldn’t freeze to death while the blacktop in front of me was still somewhat visible. There was caretaker who didn’t live on property, but maybe he’d be there. Or someone else might be.
I swiveled around, trying to get my bearings. The house was on the side of the mountain back up the road I’d just descended—maybe a mile or so—and then off to the right. I opened my map program, hoping I still had the section of the map that I’d downloaded over Wi-Fi the other day. I could see a gold star where it was, but when I went to zoom in, nothing.
No. No. No. No. No!
I zoomed back out, then shifted back into drive, directing my blue dot toward the star with my fingers mentally crossed.
2
“Practice making a good first impression! How a man sees you the first time fixes an association in his brain. You want him to associate you with joy, pleasure, allure, and a bit of mystery. Be BOLD in your appeal but subtle in your approach. Make him come to you. Make him want you.”
* * *
“GPS is a miracle,” I shouted to no one as I spun and sputtered and then slid to a stop in the circular driveway of the Ian Hart’s massive home.
Yes, it had taken me nearly an hour to get five miles, but at least I was in one piece and not out of gas, which had become a concern about half way into my journey.
And there was a light on in the house.
God is good. I crossed myself despite my agnostic, fallen Catholic tendencies.
Flinging open the car door, my enthusiasm was quickly chilled by a bracing gust of wind that blasted me in the face with flying flakes. I should have at least buttoned my coat first, but I gripped it shut and stomped quickly through the ankle-deep snow. Freezing wetness pushed its way up my jeans and down into my sneakers, icy to the point of slicing pain.
I pounded my feet to shake out the snow and stomped to the door. Before I could even press the doorbell, a voice blasted around me.
“Who is it?” It didn’t sound like the caretaker who’d assisted with the wedding. That was an older guy. And, by the sound of it, a friendlier one.
Feeling like an idiot, I talked into the doorbell even though it didn’t seem to have a speaker.
“Umm. I’m Savannah. I’m Michelle’s sister. She and Steve got married here a few days ago. Ummm. I was still in town and can’t make my flight, and I’d already left where I was staying. Ummm. Is this Griffin?”
“No.”
I waited for more information or another question. A gust of wind caught the edge of my coat and pulled it open, sending a rush of freezing air up my back.
“I know I should have called. I didn’t have the number. I couldn’t reach Michelle.” I paused. “There’s no service. Ummm, so, ummm…”
The hum of my stammering echoed back at me before the door swung open. A tall, dark-haired man with a cell phone and a really sour puss face stood in the doorway.
The man had a beard, which I hated—especially in cases like this when clearly, underneath the chin pelt, the guy was handsome with high cheekbones and oddly soft brown eyes, considering the scowl and the assertive masculinity of face fur. My throat went a little dry. I swallowed.
Ian Hart.
He covered the phone receiver with his other hand and barked at me. “Would you mind getting in here? It’s cold.”
I jumped into his foyer so fast, he took
a scrambled step back.
“Sorry.” The warmth of the house hit me like a sauna, and my face felt clammy. I tugged off my gloves and scraped my bangs off my forehead and behind my ear.
He closed the door and told whomever was on the phone that he’d called them back.
“Did you say you were Michelle’s sister?”
He stared at me. I shuffled my feet—still chilled. “Yeah.”
“Savannah?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t look like her.”
No. I didn’t. Michelle was fair and blonde and supertall and fit from years of playing basketball and volleyball. I was not short, but nowhere close to her six feet. And I had the olive skin and ebony hair of a girl who was half Sicilian and half Puerto Rican. The build of a peasant with a J Lo ass. Remembering my dad’s characterization of me made me smile. He’d meant it as a compliment.
“We’re technically step-sisters. My father married her mother after my mom died.”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” he stammered, and his irritated energy downshifted a little, as if my mom had died last week instead of over twenty-five years ago. “Do you need to use the phone or…” He gestured behind him.
“Are you…I was looking for…I’d thought…You’re not Griffin.” Obviously. I surveyed one of America’s hottest bachelors from head to toe. He hadn’t had the facial scruff in the magazine.
All the siren tips I’d read over the past few days banged around uselessly in my head. Sweat beaded on at my hairline, and I glanced away from his eyes to the ceiling and back to a vague point in front of his face.
“I’m Ian. This is my house.” He ran a hand through his thick, dark hair and waved it toward the two-story ceiling of the entry.
“Oh. I thought maybe Griffin might be here. I didn’t expect…I mean Michelle and Steve said you were…somewhere…since you missed the wedding.”
I mentally slapped myself. Each contact with a man was supposed to be a confident dance of your eyes and your self-assured, but softly spoken, words. Even if you didn’t like the guy, it was always a chance to hone your siren skills. No wonder I was single. My skills needed Egyptian pyramid levels of work.
Ian would make good practice.
I punched that thought out of my head. I was no Russian model. And he didn’t look like practice. Nothing about him screamed training wheels.
Caught up in my head, I almost didn’t notice the full-force return of Ian’s scowl.
“Yeah. I couldn’t make it.”
“Oh.”
Didn’t he live in San Francisco? He could make it up here just days after the wedding but not for the wedding itself? I stopped staring at him and rifled idly through my purse. He was none of my business. I just needed a place to squat until the weather eased up, and I could get home.
“Anyway, I’m booked on a flight tomorrow. From Kalispell. And the drive is too much for me, I think, in this weather. I just kind of need a place to stay.”
His eyebrows crunched together. “Why didn’t you leave with everyone else?”
“I’d planned to stay a couple of extra days and had already paid for a return ticket.”
Ian shook his head. “They’ve been forecasting a storm for a week. That’s why I came home early.”
He lived here? In Montana? With the crazy Russian model fiancée? None of my business.
“I thought I had time. I checked the weather yesterday. They said that the heavy weather wouldn’t come through until tonight.”
“It won’t.”
“So what do you call this?” I pointed at the window, and he glanced over and back at me.
“Not heavy weather. This is Montana.” The deep grumble of his voice tightened my shoulders, but his brown eyes sparked with humor and turned my gut to jelly.
“Maybe I can still get out?” Coming here was a mistake. Maybe I couldn’t drive in this weather, but I could…What? Uber? I was in the middle of nowhere.
Ian cast me a grim, doubtful look. “You can’t drive in this weather. And it’s not letting up. Probably for a couple of days”
Fear of being stuck here outweighed any burgeoning excitement.
“If the really bad weather isn’t until tonight, maybe it’ll let up in a bit.” I clutched my keys with a tiny shred of hope and turned for the door.
Ian placed his hand on my bicep, then let it go like I was a hot stove.
“No. I said for Montana, this is not heavy snow yet. For—where do you live—Dallas?” He laughed. A genuine smile—mocking and annoying as it was—cracked the granite of his face. “The way you spun your tires into my driveway, you’re not going to make it to Kalispell.”
I wanted so badly to argue with him my tongue itched, but I was stuck. Maybe he could drive me. The thought popped up, and he shot it down as if I’d said it out loud.
“The weather will be too bad tonight for even me, and I have no intention of being stuck in Kalispell just because you overestimated your driving acumen. You’ll have to stay here.”
His seventeen-bedroom mansion seemed too small all of a sudden.
“I’ll leave first thing in the morning. I promise.”
Ian’s snark settled back to disdainful calm. “We may get up to three feet of snow by morning, and then it’s not stopping. You’ll be better off staying here until it stops snowing and they can clear the roads.”
My heart beat faster. “I can’t. I have to get back. I have work and the worst boss on planet Earth.”
“Even the worst boss has to understand acts of God. That’s one thing you learn up here. You aren’t always in charge.” Ian stood there with his dark, shaggy curls falling onto his forehead. He wore a chunky wool sweater over loose-hipped jeans tattered at the bottom around heavy rubber boots.
Another earthquake registered under my belly button. Anxiety or anticipation, who could tell. “You’re right. I’m stuck.”
“Appears so.”
“Well, then, speaking of my boss, I need to make a phone call.”
“Fine.” He looked around me, but not at me. “That can’t be the only bag you have.”
I shifted my purse strap higher onto my shoulder. “My bags are in the car.”
He moved toward the door. I caught a whiff of cedar as he brushed past me and opened the front door. “Is it unlocked?”
I fumbled in my bag for the key and hit the button. “If the lights flashed, then it is now. But I can get my own bags.”
He grunted something indecipherable and shut the door behind him.
“Oh, you’re going to get my bags for me? Thanks so much,” I said to no one and spun around.
A huge fireplace centered in the entry way opened toward the door on the front and into a great room on the other side. A sitting area sat to the left of the entry and a dining area with heavy, formal furniture to the right of it connected to the large open kitchen.
On the other side of the entry, a stairwell led upstairs to a landing overlooking the great room with bedrooms to the left and the right. A hallway underneath the stairs led to some others, including the master suite at the end. Behind the kitchen, another passage led to a separate wing of the house with more bedrooms, a game room, and a theater.
I crossed under the stairs into the great room in search of the bathroom I knew was in the far-right corner.
At least I had a warm, dry place to stay that—if not welcoming—was comfortable. All of Ian’s furniture was chunky and overstuffed like a posh ski lodge.
Exiting the bathroom, I realized Ian must have been cooking when I got here. Assorted vegetables scattered the island in the center of the kitchen. Onions, red and yellow peppers. Unopened cans of beans. My stomach grumbled, so I moved closer. A large pot steamed on the stove.
“Making yourself at home?”
I jumped, literally, and knocked my knee on the side of a bar chair as I jerked around toward Ian’s deep voice.
He set my suitcase and carry-on bag next to him by the central fireplace between the entry
and the large den. “I was making chili.”
“Oh. I have some snacks in my bag.”
His brow wrinkled, and he didn’t say anything.
I crossed my arms in front of my stomach. “You don’t have to feed me.”
“I know.” He grinned. “Nonetheless. I have food. If you want it. I’ll set these in the main guest room. First set of double doors at the top of the stairs.”
That had been Michelle’s room before the wedding. Huge with a four-poster bed and a balcony patio overlooking the backyard fire pit. It had a connected bath with a Jacuzzi tub big enough for two people. I’d thought it was the master bedroom when I first saw it.
“Thanks.” I paused and stepped toward him, ignoring the brief pain on the side of my knee. “Seriously. Thanks for letting me stay here. If it weren’t for you, I might have had to sleep in the car. All the hotels are booked up.”
“I’m sure you would have figured something out,” he said. “You look…resourceful.”
I wasn’t sure that was a compliment but decided to take it as one anyway. “Sometimes.”
“Well, it’s worked for you, then.” His hair flopped onto his forehead as he leaned over to pick up my bags. “Top of the stairs on the right.”
“I’ll come with you. I’d like to freshen up a little.”
Another grunt was the only acknowledgement I got. He started up the stairs, and I followed on shaky legs.
3
Ian
So much for solitude.
I prayed the predicted three feet of snow overnight wouldn’t show. Then, I could send the woman on her way in good conscience. Part of me wondered if I shouldn’t have let her foolishly think she could make it to the airport today.
She’d have been out of my hair.
A twist of guilt made me grind my teeth.
She could take care of herself—probably. A woman like her probably would have had every man in Montana lined up to make sure she was okay. Big, brown eyes set in heart-shaped face and a smile like a peek of sunlight cracking through the clouds on a winter day. Here, then gone. She was a squirrely thing. Jumpy. You wanted to do things for her just to calm her down.