Page 5 of Can She Get Home for Christmas?

“You said you thought I’d be in trouble?” she murmured.

“Let me concentrate on nursing the car along,” he answered, hating himself for the rough sound of his voice. He’d been focused on Samantha Donovan for so long that being with her was throwing him seriously off balance. It put their relationship on an odd footing, since he knew a lot about her, and she didn’t know squat about him. More than that, he didn’t want her to think he was a nut case—when he didn’t usually care what a client thought of him. He just went ahead and did his job. This particular assignment had turned personal as soon as he’d started to tune in on her.

She interrupted his thoughts. “Deal with it; I know you’ve got an official looking ID, but I think you’d better give me a better idea what you meant when you said you know things. And why you knew I had food in the car.”

Now what? He should have figured out a good answer for a question like that when he’d first started working for Decorah Security.

Instead he took the chicken way out and did a variation of what he’d said before. “I’m logical. Any woman going home for a big holiday would bring food, just like you brought presents.”

“Uh huh.”

Maybe that satisfied her. At least she wasn’t looking for a place to jump out of the vehicle as he floundered through the storm.

He had been glancing at the temperature gauge. Now he saw it climbing into the red zone. “Damn.”

“What?”

“Like I was afraid of—the car’s overheating.”

He had a couple of water bottles in the back. He’d like to pour some water into the radiator, but he knew that taking off the cap under these circumstances could be dangerous. Instead he pulled to the side and waited for a few minutes as the gauge went down.

“How far can we get?” she asked in a worried voice as he started up again.

“I guess we’ll find out.” He had a goal in mind, and his fingers were crossed that they could make it.

Stopping to cool off bought him a few more miles, but finally he decided that he couldn’t safely drive the car, not with the busted radiator and the snow and the ruined windshield making it almost impossible to see where he was going. When he spotted a little break in the trees, he checked to make sure he was in the right spot, then made a right turn into a narrow one-lane track. He’d hidden out here many times while surveilling this stretch of rural highway. The rutted side road led into the woods, where it made a turn that hid the SUV from view. When he had pulled around the bend where the vehicle wouldn’t be seen from the highway, he cut the engine.

The woman beside him looked uncertainly at the trees that hemmed in the narrow track. “This is where we’re going?”

“No. Sorry. This is the best I can do as far as driving goes. Hopefully, he won’t see the car if he comes back.”

“Why would he come back?”

“Because he suspects we’re disabled. And he also knows that cell phone service around here is iffy—and worse in the snow.”

She sucked in a sharp breath.

He could have added, “And he thinks I’m not armed.”

Putting the best possible face on their situation, he said, “I don’t think he’ll risk it. But in case he’s looking for us, I’m going to wipe out our tire tracks as best I can.”

He opened the driver’s door, and when she started to get out the other side, he said, “Wait here.”

“Why?”

“You’ll be out in the cold soon enough.”

She gestured toward the pattern of holes in the windshield. “I already am.”

“You’re sheltered here.”

To cut off further discussion, he exited the vehicle and closed the door. This wasn’t what he’d planned when he’d gotten on the road, sure that Sam was in trouble—even though he didn’t yet know her name. He’d pictured getting her out of the area. Now he was going to have to take her to the cabin where he’d been staying—and he winced as he pictured her there.

He stood for a moment surveying the woods and the driving snow. After pulling his hood over his head, he walked to a pine tree with low-hanging boughs. Pulling one off, he carried it down to the narrow entrance where he’d turned in and began wiping away their tracks, walking backwards so that his footprints wouldn’t show in the snow. He could see that the snow was already blowing over the pathway. Hopefully, the blizzard would do the rest of the work of hiding the SUV.

He wished he could take her to someplace safe. But there simply wasn’t anywhere. The best he could do was his cabin, and he wished to hell he had a better choice.

When he returned, he thought of stepping to the passenger window. Then he decided that a large man looming over her window might be unnerving.

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