With her mind racing, she wondered if Riley had found a plane to charter. That would be amazing. She would totally forgive him for being such a jerk and forget her plans for payback and spa treatments.
Maybe not the spa treatments, but she’d be totally willing to let the rest slide if he got her home on a private jet.
She was good like that.
Weaving her way through the masses, Darcy spotted the baggage claim office and picked up her pace. The sooner she could get to the chartered plane, the better. She was totally going to kiss Riley when she got to LA and proclaim him her favorite brother. It was goofy, but for some reason, each of her brothers loved when she did that for them. Who was she to buck tradition?
There was a line coming out of the office, and she hated how there wasn’t a way to cut to the front. They only allowed a certain number of people through the door, though there was a security guard standing beside it, so maybe…
“Excuse me,” she said sweetly, flashing him a brilliant smile. “I was paged and told to come here, but I’m not sure who I’m supposed to see.”
He looked at her blankly.
“Is there, like, a customer service desk or a supervisor I can talk to?”
“You’ll need to wait in line,” he finally said. “If they told you to come here, this is the only office there is.”
There were easily a dozen people ahead of her, and all she wanted to do was scream how it didn’t matter if their luggage was lost, no one was getting home anyway! She walked to the back of the line. Arms folded, foot tapping, she waited. She huffed, she sighed, and she shifted.
Why? Why did everything have to be so damn difficult? She let her head fall back. “Come on, come on, come on. Seriously, I just want to go home!”
“I can’t get you home, but I can get you out of the airport,” a deep male voice said from behind her.
Darcy was ready to turn and slug the perv, but when she turned around, all she could do was gasp.
It was Ben.
* * *
It had been tempting to watch her for a little bit longer. Everything about Darcy was so expressive that even though Ben hadn’t heard one word of her exchange with the security guard, he had been able to imagine the entire conversation based on the look on her face.
It was highly entertaining.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her expression one of total confusion.
“Savannah called me and told me you weren’t able to get on a flight. So here I am,” he said, offering her a small smile.
She frowned.
Seriously? Even when he came to save her, she was still pissed at him?
“What if I had gotten on a flight between the time Savannah called you and the time you got to the airport?”
He shrugged. “Then I would have made a very perilous trip for nothing. I would have gotten here sooner, but people don’t know how to drive in the snow. I passed a bunch of accidents.”
“You could have been one of them.”
Another shrug. “I have a truck that happens to be exceptional in the snow, and I’m used to driving in it. It wasn’t a big deal. You need to drive slowly, and you’ll be all right.”
Darcy looked around and made a noncommittal sound. “So you just got here, huh?”
“No, I’ve been here for a while. I couldn’t get past security, and it took some time to page you. I tried calling you several times, but I kept getting a message that all circuits were busy. I guess with the storm moving in and all.” He paused and gave her a lopsided grin. “Anyway, I saw you when you were on the escalator, but you didn’t see me.”
“There’s, like, a million people here,” she said with a hint of sarcasm. “And I wasn’t looking for, well, you.”
He frowned at her tone. “What did you think you were coming here for?”
“Honestly? I thought my brother had been able to charter a plane for me.”
He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Sorry to disappoint you. But the only charter you have is me—in the form of a truck and a trip back to the lake.”
“Oh. So I guess I’ll get a room at the hotel,” she said, and he noticed she wouldn’t look directly at him.
“I just planned on bringing you to the cabin until the storm is over and flights are back to normal. It won’t be more than a couple of days. No need for you to have to go to a hotel or anything.”
Now she did look at him. “No, really, it’s okay. I’d prefer to go to the hotel.”
She was looking at him with a hint of defiance, and he figured he’d let her have her way for now. The sooner they got on the road, the better. There was already a very real possibility they weren’t going to get home until after dark. It would be pointless to drag this out.
“That’s fine. No problem.” He motioned toward her suitcase. “I’ll take that for you. Let’s get going.”
“Oh.”
Ben could hear the relief in her voice and smiled to himself. For right now, he was happy to have a truce with her. They had a long drive ahead of them, and he’d rather it be peaceful than tense and awkward.
He waited while she pulled her coat on and got herself together, and then they made their way out to the parking garage. The traffic was insane, and he prayed it wasn’t going to be as bad as he was fearing.
It was.
And it was tense and awkward.
By the time they hit the highway, it was almost whiteout conditions. They were driving at a near crawl, and he figured Darcy could tell he wasn’t into doing the chitchat thing, because she stayed blessedly quiet beside him, tapping away on her phone. It was well over an hour later when he finally felt like he needed to break the silence.
“Did you text Savannah and let her know you’re with me?”
She nodded. “Uh-huh.”
His lips flattened in a grim line as he fought not to snap at her and demand to know what her problem was. If anyone else had ever been this rude and unreceptive to him, Ben would have simply blown them off and moved on. But he was stuck with her for now, and out of respect for his friendship with Savannah, he was determined to not be a jerk.
No matter how much she provoked him.
Rather than make any other attempt at conversation, Ben turned on the radio. At the first words from Eric Church’s “Record Year,” he immediately felt some of the tension leaving his body. Country music was the only music he listened to. And as they made their way slowly down the interstate, he felt the first glimmer of hope that he was going to get through this trip without giving in to his naturally irritable nature.
Beside him, he heard Darcy make some noise. Like a snort of disgust or something.
“Is there a problem?”
Maybe they weren’t going to make it through.
“Country music? Seriously?” she asked, turning to face him.
“What’s wrong with country music?” he asked.
She gave him a look of disbelief. “Where do I even begin?”
“You do realize country music is just as popular as the mainstream stuff your brother plays, right?”
Now she rolled her eyes. “First of all, I don’t base all music on my brother’s, so don’t go there. All I’m saying is I’m not a fan.”
“Have you ever really listened to it? Especially the newer artists? This isn’t the country music that was around when we were kids.”
“Um, no. Doesn’t matter. It’s not my thing.”
He sighed, because she was seriously trying his patience. “What do you listen to?” He had a feeling she was going to say something like Taylor Swift or Beyoncé.
“I have eclectic taste in music,” she began. “Don’t get me wrong, I listen to all of Riley’s stuff and love it, but I don’t think he’s the be-all-end-all in music.”
“So what music fits under this eclectic category?”
Biting her lip, she thought about it for a minute. “I listen to a lot of Coldplay, Foo Fighters, Twenty-One Pilots…um…and Mumford and Sons.”
“Sounds like the same old same old. Not very eclectic at all.”
“I love some classic rock too—Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, and Cheap Trick. But then I listen to a lot of Elton John—his early stuff—and Billy Joel.” She gave him a smug smile. “See? Eclectic.”
He shrugged. “If you say so. All seems the same to me.”
“And you think country music is so unique? Isn’t it all sad crap that happened to someone—like his girlfriend left him and took his dog? That kind of stuff?”
Ben couldn’t help it. He laughed out loud. “Damn. Where did you get that from?”
And for the first time since the night they’d met, he saw Darcy smile. She chuckled, and her eyes lit up a bit and…damn. His gut tightened, and he wanted to tell her never to stop smiling, but he knew he couldn’t. If anything, saying that would probably make her defensive and snippy again, and he was hell-bent on enjoying the moment.
“I don’t know,” she said, still laughing softly. “Any country music I’ve ever heard just seemed to have corny lyrics like that.”
“Well, it’s not all like that. I mean, some of it is, but don’t judge the masses by one or two songs.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s just not my thing. I like my music with a little more…I don’t know…I like it a little heavier. Does that make sense?”
“Sure. But you do realize there are a lot of rock stars who are also playing country music now, right? I mean, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters did a song with the Zac Brown Band. Darius Rucker used to play with Hootie and the Blowfish, and now he’s country. Bon Jovi did some crossover stuff too, and so has Steven Tyler. I don’t think you’ve given it a chance.”
“Oh my God. What are you, the country music police?” she said with a hint of exasperation. “Clearly, we’re here in your truck, and I have no choice but to listen to your music, so can we just drop it?”
“Savannah mentioned that Riley plays a lot of country music when he’s at home. What would you think of it if your brother put out a country album?”
Darcy sighed loudly and stared at him. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“We’ve got some time to kill.”
“How far away are we? I feel like we’ve been in this truck for hours.”
He knew the feeling. He’d pretty much give anything he had to be home and off the roads. “If it wasn’t snowing, we’d have another thirty minutes. But with these conditions…”
“So at least another hour,” she said and sighed again. “Great.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it’s rough for you sitting there and relaxing,” he murmured.
“Excuse me?” That got her attention. Sitting up a little bit straighter, she looked like she had a whole lot of things to say to him but was trying to find just the right one.
“It’s much easier being the passenger than the one driving in this mess,” he said, not waiting for her to get her thoughts together. “I drove all the way to the damn airport to get you—”
“I didn’t ask you to!”
“No, but Savannah did,” he snapped and then instantly regretted it. Clearing his throat, he was about to apologize, but Darcy had suddenly found her voice.
“Oh, and God forbid you upset Savannah, right?” Her voice was thick with sarcasm.
“What the… Of course I don’t want to upset Savannah. She’s my friend. A good friend.”
“Right. And you did it all out of the goodness of your heart.” She snorted with disbelief.
If he could, he would have pulled the damn truck over and hashed this out, because clearly, there was something going on here that no one had clued him in on. “Believe what you want,” he finally said. “But remember this. If it weren’t for me doing a favor for Savannah, your ass would be hanging out in the airport for the next two to three days.”
He let that sink in for a minute.
“The correct response to something like that is thank you,” he added sarcastically.
The words she murmured certainly weren’t ones of gratitude, but they were fairly colorful. He wasn’t used to a woman being quite so open with her displeasure. He had said it before, and he’d say it again—Darcy Shaughnessy was nothing if not entertaining.
“No need to get snippy about it,” he commented mildly and then reached over and turned up the music.
And sang along with it the rest of the way home.
Chapter 3
That damn twang was going to be stuck in her head all night.
Normally, Darcy considered herself to be pretty open about music, but this was ridiculous. She knew she’d closed her eyes and dozed off, but she had a feeling just having the damn music playing in the background was going to be enough for it to stay with her for a while.
And dammit if some of it wasn’t just a little bit catchy.
With a stretch, she sat up and looked around. They had to be close to town—to the hotel—by now, right?
“Oh, good,” Ben said from beside her. “You’re awake. We’re home.”
Home? It was dark out, and as he pulled the truck to a stop, she saw they were indeed parking next to his house.
“What the hell, Ben!” she cried. “I thought we decided I was going to a hotel.”
“No, you decided. I never agreed,” he said nicely as he turned off the truck and stretched. “Damn, I didn’t think we were ever going to get here. C’mon. I’m sure you’re hungry. I know I am.”
“But…but…”
“I’ll grab your suitcase,” he said sweetly and then climbed out of the truck.
Damn the man!
When she finally got her hands on Savannah, Darcy was going to strangle her. She had done a decent thing—a good thing!—and this was her reward? Forced to stay in the snowy mountains of nowhere with a man who was…was…ugh. There wasn’t even a word for him.
But she’d think of one.
Of that, she was certain.
Grabbing her satchel, she carefully stepped from the truck and out into the snow. There was easily several inches—close to four—on the ground, and it didn’t seem to show any signs of stopping.
“Great,” she murmured. “Just great.”
Gingerly, she made her way through the snow—not an easy task in her cute little leather ankle boots that were never going to recover from this. The front entrance to Ben’s cabin had a dozen steps to climb to get to it, but as she looked around, she didn’t see any footprints in the snow in that direction. Where the hell had he gone?
It was dark, and she had no idea where she was supposed to go and… A light on the side of the house came on, and as she looked a little bit closer, Darcy saw Ben’s trail and immediately followed it. Actually, she used his footprints to help her protect her boots a little. As she rounded the house, she found Ben waiting for her at a ground-level door.
“I was wondering if you were going to follow or not.” He paused and chuckled. “Thought you might be stubborn enough to sit and freeze in the truck rather than come inside.”
“Well, since you were so gracious about coming to get me, I thought it was only right for me to come inside.” She gave him her most syrupy sweet voice and smile, but she knew he wasn’t fooled.
Once they were both inside, Ben closed the door behind them and locked it. “You can leave your boots and coat here,” he said, a no-nonsense tone to his voice now. “I’ll go and get a fire started upstairs.”
Darcy watched him go up the stairs with her suitcase and sighed. As much as she wanted to be angry—or at the very least annoyed—she knew she had no right to be. She might not like Ben or his obvious feelings for Savannah, but he had seriously come to her rescue today. She wasn’t that much of a bitch that she could
n’t remember that.
He’d traveled over a hundred miles in the snow—each way—to help her out. Right now, she’d be huddled on the dirty airport floor with hundreds of other people and hating every minute of it if it wasn’t for him.
“Great. Now I’ll have to apologize to him,” she said and sighed. She tugged off her coat and hung it up on the wooden rack he had on the wall. Then she sat on the bench just beneath it and pulled off her boots. They were soaked, and she could only hope they would dry out and not be completely ruined. Just as she was about to go up the stairs, her phone vibrated in her pocket. When she saw it was a text from Savannah, she momentarily thought about ignoring it.
But she couldn’t.
Again, as much as she hated the situation, she was thankful.
You okay?
It was a shame there wasn’t a sarcasm font she could switch to.
I’m fine. We just got to Ben’s.
Savannah’s response was a smiley face emoji. And as much as she wanted to go on a little rant, Darcy was hungry and figured she owed it to Ben to help with dinner.
We’re looking for dinner stuff. Talk to you later?
Without waiting for a response, Darcy slipped the phone into her pocket and made her way up the stairs. There was already a fire roaring in the massive fireplace, and Ben was in the kitchen.
“How long was I down there?” she asked, hoping she sounded casual and not bitchy.
Ben looked over his shoulder and smiled at her, and Darcy wanted to sigh. He was handsome—sandy-brown hair that was shaggy enough to look sexy, and the kind of dark eyes a girl could get lost in. Add a strong jaw that was a little rough with stubble right now, and Darcy almost had to smack herself to keep from reaching out and touching him.
Not a good sign.
“You weren’t down there long at all. I’m just efficient.”
I’ll bet you are.
Ugh. Could there be a worse time to start having sexy thoughts?
“I have to admit, I have a fully stocked freezer, pantry, and refrigerator, but I didn’t take anything out to make for dinner before I left for the airport,” he explained as he stepped up to the kitchen sink to wash his hands. “There’s more than enough options for dinner, but it certainly won’t be anything gourmet.”
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