The Baby Blizzard

Not since he’d given away his son.

The familiar anguish splintered through him. Ruthlessly, he forced it away, reminding himself that it was over and done. It was then that the Cadillac began its inexorable slide across the road.

Jack watched in disbelief as the vehicle drifted sideways through the heavily blowing snow, spun slowly around in a heart-stopping three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn, then disappeared from sight as if sucked into a black hole.

Instantly he eased up on the accelerator. There was no question of driving on. Jared had always claimed he was a Boy Scout at heart and, as Jack had been bitterly reminded in Casper again today, old habits died hard.

But he wasn’t going to think about that now. It was over, done; past. He was alone, irrevocably on his own. Or would be, as soon as he made sure the Cadillac’s driver was okay.

The thought brought him up short. Dismay splintered through him. Hell. He was actually going to have to meet this woman. Leave it to you, Sheridan. You can’t even enjoy a little red-blooded, from-a-safe-distance fantasy without reality screwing it up.

In the very next second, he clamped down on his wayward emotions. This wasn’t about him, he reminded himself harshly. This was about someone in trouble, someone in need of help. At the very best, she was going to be bruised and shaken, distraught about what had happened. And at the very worst—

Jack shoved the idea away. It was bad enough he had to get involved at all. No matter what condition this woman was in, he wasn’t going to let himself care on a personal level. He’d do what he could to help, one stranger helping another, but that was it.

That was how it had to be.

Keeping an eye on the dim outline of the fence that marched along the road to his left, he let the truck roll to a stop and took a long look around.

Nothing. He could see nothing but swirling sheets of snow reflected in the beams of his headlights. He let loose a single scathing curse. Shifting the transmission into park, he pulled on the emergency brake and doused the lights. He squeezed his eyes shut, allowed them a moment’s rest from the eerie onslaught of white, then slowly opened them and surveyed the area.

There. Ahead, and down a long, shallow slope to his right, was a gleam of red. He released a breath as he identified it as a taillight. Now that he knew where to look, he could see the rest of the Cadillac, too. It was barely visible, resting at an angle, with the wheels on the passenger side sunk into the shallow creekbed that paralleled the road. Snow, driven by the howling wind, was already starting to pile against the hood and windshield. The car’s pale blue paint blended perfectly with the monochromatic landscape.

His heart gave a twist. In another few minutes, with twilight graying swiftly to night, he never would have seen it.

He switched the headlights back on, then reached around and grabbed the coil of nylon rope and the heavy-duty flashlight he kept behind the seat. He shrugged into his sheepskin-lined coat, flipped up the collar and jammed his Stetson more securely on his head.

After a moment’s consideration, he elected to leave the truck running as a hedge against the cold. That decided, he hefted the flashlight, shoved open the door and plunged into the heart of the storm.

She was not going to panic, Tess Danielson told herself firmly.

Okay, so she’d had a little accident. On a remote, not-so-well-traveled road. In the middle of nowhere. During what was distinctly starting to look like a blizzard.

While she was willing to concede that the situation didn’t look good, she was not going to give in to the dread skating along her spine.

Although... a nice loud scream might make her feel better.

A smile curled through her. Slowly, she let loose the breath she hadn’t known she was holding and forced herself to breathe deeply and evenly. Things couldn’t be too bad if she still had a sense of humor. Well, they could; as a Wyoming native, she’d grown up on tales of hapless motorists who got caught in this kind of weather and weren’t found until the first spring thaw.

But that wasn’t going to happen to her.

She refused to let it. She hadn’t spent twenty-nine years bending the world to her will to give up now when it really mattered. Not when she’d only recently come to understand what was really important. Not when there were still so many things she wanted to experience. And not when she had someone else—she glanced protectively down at the ripe curve of her belly—depending on her.

She tugged on her seat belt, frowning when the buckle refused to budge. Stymied, she sat there and reconsidered that scream, but only for a second. The first thing she’d done once the car came to rest was turn off the engine. Already the air around her was starting to turn frosty. While that was better than risking carbon monoxide poisoning from a blocked or bent exhaust pipe, it was still far too cold for useless gestures.

She reached over, snagged her oversize down parka from the passenger seat and draped it around her.

And told herself—again—not to panic.

After all, she wasn’t going to freeze to death in the next few minutes. If worse came to worst, she’d simply find her handbag, grab her nail scissors and hack her way through the belt.

If the scissors were there to grab.

Tess resolutely raised her chin and told herself she was not going to worry about that, either. She had an ace in the hole, she reminded herself, recalling the big, fierce-looking cowboy with whom she’d been playing car tag for the past several hours. He hadn’t been that far behind her. He must have seen what had happened. More than likely, he was on his way to help her at this very moment.

Unless his heart turned out to be as black as his expression and he simply drove on.

Tess gave herself a shake. Knock it off. This is Wyoming, remember? Not LA. or New York. Around here, people look out for each other. He’ll stop. So he looks a tad forbidding. He’ll probably turn out to be reserved or shy, a real cupcake of a guy—

“Ma’am?” came a forceful baritone shout.

A light flashed through the window. Momentarily blinded, Tess brought up her hand as the car door was unceremoniously wrenched open.

“Are you okay?” Her rescuer had to holler to be heard over a sudden roar of wind. Even so, his voice was distinct—dark and demanding. A perfect match for his face, Tess decided, as she stared at him in the faint illumination of the dome light.

Forget shy. Forget reserved. Forget cupcake.

Think intense. Think guarded. Think formidable. From what she could see beneath his hat—shadowed eyes, a straight blade of a nose, a slash of cheekbones, an imperious mouth—he was even more forbidding up close than he’d been from a distance.

“Are you hurt? Answer me.”

Intimidating or not, she’d never been so glad to see anyone in her life. Relief slammed into her, making moisture sting her eyes and her voice catch in her throat. She swallowed hard, suspecting as she looked up at that uncompromising face that he’d hate it if she burst into tears. She knew for a fact she would. She swallowed again and tried gamely for a lightness she didn’t feel. “It’s about time you got here.”

He froze in the act of hunkering down. His eyes, pale green in the murky light, narrowed. “What?”

Forget a sense of humor, too. Tess raised her voice. “I’m fine.”

He continued to stare, as if he didn’t believe her. “Are you sure?”

She considered the dull ache in her lower back, concluded the pain scored no more than a two on a scale of one to ten, and opted to ignore it. “Yes.”

“All right, then.” Relief lightened his face, but did nothing to soften its angular planes. “Give me your hand and let’s get you out of there. This storm’s getting worse by the minute.”

She shook her head. “The seat belt is jammed. I can’t get it unfastened.”

His eyes flickered over her jacket-covered body. Inexplicably, his jaw bunched for an instant before his expression smoothed out. He hooked the flashlight to his belt, twisted sideways so that he faced her, leaned close and reached around her. His forearm, hard and warm even through the padding of his heavy coat, brushed against the mound of her belly. “What the—?” He went very still. “What is that?”

Tess stiffened. “What’s what?”

“That... lump.”

She stared at him in disbelief, oddly aware of the weight of his arm against her. “That’s not a lump,” she informed him. “That’s me. I’m pregnant.”

He gave her a long, blank look, then snatched away his hand and rocked back on his heels. “Well, hell,” he muttered, looking away. “It figures.”

The words, clearly not meant for her ears, carried with crystal clarity during a momentary lull in the wind. She raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

For one long second, he remained silent, the hard line of his mouth even harder now. Then he shook his head and gave the slightest shrug. “Forget it,” he murmured. He leaned forward and once more reached around her, and an instant later the belt gave way. He ducked back as if he couldn’t get away fast enough. “Come on.” His voice gruff, he stood.