Page 12 of Snow Bound

Annoyed that she hadn’t thought of that herself, Anna carried the phone over to the big bay window. “There’s a truck outside that wasn’t there before. It’s probably his.”

“All right. What’s his name?”

Anna frowned. “Grant. I told you this.”

The music cut off. “His last name,” Lola clarified.

“Snow,” Anna supplied, then paused. “Why do you need his last name?”

“Because I’m running a background check.”

Anna’s mouth dropped open. “You are not.”

“I absolutely am.”

There was a squeak, then the rapid click of fingers on a keyboard, and Anna knew Lola had moved into the spare room that served as her office. “Lola, this isn’t necessary.”

“Disagree. What’s his mother’s name?”

“I’m not telling you that.”

“Fine, I can work without it.” More clacking. “He lives in Chicago, right?”

“I don’t know. Is this legal.”

“I’m not hacking the NSA,” Lola drawled. “It’s just a routine search of publicly available databases. I do this kind of thing all the time.”

“No wonder people don’t trust lawyers,” Anna muttered. “What’s the point of this?”

“Think of it as due diligence,” Lola suggested. “Since you’re snow bound in a remote cabin with this guy, and will no doubt be fucking him again?—”

“It’s a house, not a ‘remote cabin’,” Anna interrupted. “And the roads are perfectly drivable.”

“Semantics.”

“And I’m not going to fuck him again.”

A disbelieving snort was Lola’s answer to that.

Anna rolled her eyes, then rolled off the bed. “Do I have to stay on the line while you play Nancy Drew, or can I go take a bath?”

“I’ll call you back when I have something.”

“Fine, weirdo.”

“Love you, too.” Lola clicked off, and Anna went to fill the enormous jetted tub.

She’d settled into the fragrant water and was trying to figure her odds of drowning if she went back to sleep in there when her phone rang. She reached over the side of the tub to pluck it off the floor and answered on speaker. “Hey, Nancy.”

“Grant Snow works for Hastings Security, Incorporated.”

Anna set the phone on the wide ledge of the tub. “He told me he worked for a security company.”

“And last summer, he spent three weeks in Istanbul providing personal security to some rich asshole who was trying to buy a hotel.”

Anna dragged her fingers through the water. “You got that from a publicly available database?”

“No, I got it from his boss.”

---