Page 22 of Whiteout

Nothing.

Except for the path the sheriff made plowing his way in, the surrounding snowscape appeared undisturbed.

With her thumb to her temple, Breanna rubbed at the tender bump on her forehead. Could she have dreamt it all? She squeezed her eyes closed. Maybe her scrambled brain had conjured up the bold stranger from Hank’s to see her through her ordeal, to keep her safe in the storm.

The sheriff drove across a small bridge, a stream cascaded over icy rocks below.

“So I don’t lose you, princess. Just don’t fall into the stream, okay? Think you can manage that?”

I think I must be going crazy, Sinjin.

Because there’s no way she could have imagined all that. Every minute detail. His woodsy masculine smell. Eyes the color of whiskey. The warmth of his skin. The feeling of that thick, curved cock filling her.

Peeling her gaze from the window, Breanna turned to the portly fellow. “What day is it?”

“Tuesday.”

Yeah, a chance encounter with a stranger hadn’t put the past three days in her head, and no one could convince her otherwise. Sinjin was real, and he was out there somewhere. She’d better keep those thoughts to herself, though, or else Grandmama might have her committed.

“How much further to Dalton House?”

“Not too far.” He patted her knee. “Just a few miles. That cabin you were in is one of a dozen scattered on the property. Folks reserve ‘em for hunting and fishing.”

“Hold up.” Her brows cinching together, Breanna asked, “This is Dalton land?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He chuckled. “Darn near the whole mountain belongs to the Daltons.”

“It does?”

Dalton Pass Road. Course, it does.

“Has for generations. Back to the pioneer days,” he said with a bob of his head. “See, crossing the Sierra Nevada in covered wagons was tricky business, and the timing of it meant life or death. When George Dalton and his traveling party reached the pass, it was already October, so he had a tough choice to make. Build a shelter and stay here, or take the risk of getting caught in the snow and perishing.”

“He had another month before winter. That wasn’t enough time?”

“A wagon train could only travel about fifteen miles on a good day, dearie. It’s a hundred miles across this range. Peaks twelve thousand feet high. Not to mention these mountains get more snow than most others. Massive snowdrifts from September onward.”

“So, no, not enough time then,” she absently said, her gaze following their winding path through the trees. “He stayed, I take it.”

“He sure did.” Turning toward her, the man clicked his tongue. “Built the original house down there at the start of the pass. You might’ve seen it.”

“I think so.” Pursing her lips, she shrugged a shoulder. “Did everyone else stay too?”

“Some wagons did. The rest of ‘em pushed ahead on their journey.”

Breanna thought of the Donner Party tragedy then. Pioneers migrating to California from the Midwest in 1846, became snowbound here in the Sierra Nevada. When their food supply ran out, with no other alternative, they resorted to cannibalism—surviving off the bodies of those who had succumbed to starvation, sickness, or the elements. Only forty-eight of the eighty-seven people who were trapped in that early snowfall survived.

She shuddered. “What happened to them? Did they make it?”

“Don’t rightly know.”

Her father’s family had quite a history, of which Breanna knew nothing, but then she didn’t even know what her dad looked like. She’d never seen a photo of him. Her mother choked up every time she asked about him, so she quit asking a long time ago.

“How did George end up with an entire mountain?”

“No one else wanted it, I reckon,” the sheriff said, shrugging his shoulder. “Living up here ain’t for the weak, you know. That storm you were stuck in was just the first of many. Won’t see the grass again until May. June, maybe.”

“Why live here then?” Breanna wondered out loud.

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