HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE
Celebrates its 20th Anniversary

Two decades of bringing you the very best in romance reading.

To recognize this important milestone, we’ve invited six very special authors—whose names you’re sure to recognize—to tell us how they feel about Superromance. Each title this month has a foreword by one of these authors.

New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Blake says that Superromance novels “present a broad spectrum of romance stories from the heart-pounding to the heartwarming.” She talks about the books’ “innovative plot lines and fresh new voices”—qualities that definitely appear in the work of Brenda Novak.

Snow Baby is Brenda’s second book for Superromance. She’s achieving a reputation for realistic and moving stories with a strong focus on family relationships.

Publishers Weekly has described her writing as “energetic” and her characters as “appealing.”

Her peers also acknowledge her talent. The well-known writer Merline Lovelace calls Brenda’s books “must-reads.” Vicki Hinze (author of Acts of Honor) says this about Brenda’s stories: “Real people. Real problems. Complex and genuine. Brenda Novak shoots straight for the heart—and captures it!”

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Dear Reader,

As an author, the question I get asked most often is “Where do you get the ideas for your stories?” Sometimes it’s a specific location that inspires me, or an unusual event. Sometimes it’s something as remote as a friend’s retelling of an experience that happened to another friend’s sister’s aunt’s neighbor! Well, this story strikes a little closer to home for me. It was inspired by my own sister. She and Chantel, the heroine, have many things in common. They are both tall—almost six feet—consider themselves “ugly ducklings” (although the rest of the world sees a swan) and battle the unique insecurities that come with towering over most other women and turning heads everywhere they go.

Take that kind of character and put her in a story where she and her sister are in love with the same man, and you have the backdrop for Snow Baby. To keep from destroying relationships that mean a great deal to them, Chantel and Stacy Miller and Dillon Broderick all wrestle with their individual needs and desires. But only when each is ready to sacrifice his or her happiness for the other two do they establish the kind of bond that transcends the selfish and the ordinary and becomes something truly special.

And it’s all because of an unexpected snow baby…

I hope you enjoy my latest Superromance. I’d certainly love to hear from you. You can write to me at P.O. Box 3781, Citrus Heights, CA 95611. Or simply log on to my Web site at www.brendanovak.com to leave me an e-mail, check out my book signings or learn about my upcoming releases.

Best wishes!

Brenda Novak

Snow Baby
Foreword by Jennifer Blake
Brenda Novak

For my sister, Debra Cundick, a beautiful

child, a beautiful adult, the inspiration behind this book.

Sometimes in life we meet people who encourage us, who

teach us that we are worthy of our dreams, who set an

example for us of courage and determination in the face of

formidable challenges. I married one of those people—

and that is something for which I will always be grateful.

FOREWORD BY JENNIFER BLAKE

Romance novels serve different purposes for different people. Depending on the category or type, they provide fantasy adventure for those in need of escape from everyday tensions, trust in a future filled with love and joy for readers who have not yet found these things, a sense of home and family for women who have either lost theirs or never had any, remembrance of intimacy for those whose memories may have dimmed, and more—so much more. These so-called simple stories reaffirm the magic of living and loving. They illustrate that women can survive and prosper and find their hearts’ desires. They provide a promise that women and men can share a close relationship and the implicit pledge of a wonderful future. They give people a life goal that, even when it seems least attainable, still causes the senses to quicken and the world to seem good and bright.

Some would say that romance novels create unrealistic expectations, that a real personal relationship can never live up to the fantasies presented. What a shortsighted view! Those who hold it fail to see that in striving for the Holy Grail of a perfect love, men and women may overcome incredible odds to discover tolerance and acceptance of each other’s foibles and find rich moments of laughter, passion and devotion. They can become better lovers solely from the attempt. All great endeavors begin with a fantasy. If you never dream of climbing the highest mountain, then you’ll never reach the heights. If you never dream of a fine romance, then you will surely never feel the magic.

In my own experience, however, romance authors seldom write their stories with the idea of creating romantic expectations. They write for the pleasure of the words flowing through their brains, for the joy of creating their own special worlds and inviting readers into them. They write to show others with a romantic frame of mind the charming, funny or exciting stories that they create to entertain themselves and to share the romantic joy they feel inside. If they can entertain readers while doing these things, then that’s more than enough.

Superromance novels like the one you hold in your hands explore the promise of love in all its many varieties. They present a broad spectrum of romance stories from the heartwarming to the heart-pounding. They are as close to mainstream as it’s possible to come in category romance, and have been the proving ground for many authors who have gone on to have bestsellers in the broader fiction market. With innovative plot lines and fresh new voices, they provide more fully developed reading experiences. I hope you enjoy this story—Snow Baby by Brenda Novak—and that you find it in whatever joy and romance your heart may be seeking.

Jennifer Blake

Jennifer Blake is a four-time New York Times bestselling author, whose first book was published in 1970. She has published well-known historical romances like Love’s Wild Desire, as well as contemporary mainstream novels, the most recent of which is Roan (MIRA Books, July 2000). Jennifer has received many awards and accolades; among these are the fact that she was appointed Writer-in-Residence at Northeast Louisiana University in 1982, and in 1997, was chosen as the recipient of Colorado’s Frank Waters Award for Achievement in Fiction. Jennifer Blake understands, respects and values romance fiction—and romance readers—as her success has repeatedly proven.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

I’M NEVER GOINGto make it.

Chantel Miller hunched forward, trying to see beyond the snow and mud being kicked up onto her windshield by the semi next to her. She could barely make out the taillights of the Toyota Landcruiser she’d been following for miles, and she longed to pull over and give her jangled nerves a rest. But the narrow two-lane highway climbing Donner’s Summit was cut into the side of a cliff, and she didn’t dare stop. Not in a storm like this.

In the back of her mind she heard her father, who’d been dead for nearly five years now, telling her to slow down, keep calm. He’d taught her to drive and had offered all the usual parental advice—never let your gas tank get below half, keep your doors and windows locked, never pull over in the middle of a storm.

God, she missed him. How could so much have happened in the past ten years? At twenty-nine, she already felt battle-weary, ancient.

She shrugged off the memories to avoid the regret they inspired, and focused on her driving. Her sister, Stacy, was waiting for her in Tahoe, only an hour away. She’d be able to make it that far as long as she could get past the big rig that was churning up the mountain beside her, nearly burying her car with sludge.

She gave her red Jaguar—her only concession to the life she’d left behind—some gas and shot around the semi, then eased down on the brake. The road was covered with black ice. Her stomach clenched as the Jaguar fishtailed, but then its tires grabbed the asphalt and the taillights that had been her beacon appeared in front of her again.

“Hello, Mr. Landcruiser,” she breathed in relief, and crept closer, determined to stay in the vehicle’s wake. The plows were long overdue. Snow was beginning to blanket the shiny road.

Stretching her neck, Chantel tried to release some of the tension in her shoulders, then cranked up the defrost. A pop station played on the radio, but she barely heard the familiar lyrics as she listened to the wind howl outside. Ice crystals shimmered in the beam of her headlights, then flew at her face, clicking against the windshield.

She shouldn’t have left Walnut Creek so late. If it hadn’t been her first week at her new job, she would have insisted on heading home when everyone else had, at five o’clock. But she not only had a new job, she had a new profession, back in her home state of California, clear across the country from where she’d lived before.

Changing careers was probably the most difficult thing she’d ever done, but Chantel was determined to overcome her insecurities and be successful at a job that required a brain—if for no other reason than to prove she had one.

Overhead a yellow sign blinked Chains required over summit. To the right, several cars waited, engines running, as their owners struggled in the cold and wet to get chains on their tires. A couple of men wearing orange safety vests worked as installers for those willing to pay for help.

Chantel was studying the shoulder, looking for a place to pull over, when brake lights flashed in front of her. She screamed and slammed on her brakes, but the car didn’t stop. It slid out of control. With a bone-jarring crunch, her Jag collided with the Landcruiser ahead of her.

Pain exploded in Chantel’s head as her face hit the steering wheel. She sat, breathing hard, staring at the black snowy night and the back end of the white Landcruiser, which was now smashed. Then someone knocked on her window.

Dazed, she rolled her head to the side and saw a tall dark-haired man looming above her. “Are you all right? Unlock the doors!” he shouted.

Immediately her father’s warnings echoed back: Always keep your doors and windows locked….

When she didn’t respond, he scowled at her through the glass and tapped again. “Did you hear me? Open the door!”

She let her eye-lids close and put her hand to her aching head as her senses began to return. She’d just been in a car accident. This was probably the other driver. She had to give him her driver’s license and insurance information, right? Of course.

With trembling fingers, she sought the automatic door lock and heard it thunk just before the man flung her door open and leaned inside.

A freezing wind whipped around him and flooded her car, carrying the smell of his aftershave with it—a clean masculine scent, far different from the trendy fragrances used by the male models she’d worked with not so long ago. Then a firm hand gripped her chin and tilted her face up. “Your lip’s bleeding, but not badly. Any other injuries?”

She struggled to rearrange her jumbled thoughts. Stacy, accident, aftershave, blood…“Just a lump on my head, I think.”

“Good.” He stood and jammed his hands into the pockets of his red ski parka, frowning at the crushed metal in front of them, and it suddenly dawned on Chantel that he was angry. Really angry. The signs were all there—the terse voice, the taut muscles, the furrowed brow. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

He looked at her as if she had two heads. “You mean other than what you just did to my SUV?”

She winced. “I’m sorry. I’m worried about my car, too. I haven’t owned it more than a year. But you stopped right in front of me. There was nothing I could—”

“What?” He whirled on her, the furrow in his brow deepening. Ice crystals lodged in the dark stubble of his jaw gave his face a rugged appearance, but the long thick lashes fringing his eyes looked almost feminine. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not.” Chantel’s tongue sought the cut in her lip. She reached across the console to the glove box and retrieved a napkin to wipe the blood from her mouth. “How could you expect anyone to stop so fast in this kind of storm?”

He stiffened. “I managed to miss the car ahead of me. And you want to know why? Because I wasn’t tailgating him for the past thirty miles!”

“I wasn’t tailgating you,” she said, but a memory of her struggle to keep up with his taillights raced through her mind and made her wonder if she’d been following too closely, after all. She’d hardly been able to see anything—except his lights.

“Regardless,” he said abruptly, “we have to move off to the side. We’re stopping traffic. Are you okay to drive?”

She nodded, shivering despite her navy wool coat. “I think so.”

“Just pull over there.” He indicated a couple of spots other cars had just vacated. It seemed to Chantel that his initial anger had softened to mere irritation.

Feeling jittery, she slowly eased the Jaguar over so the traffic behind them could get through. A couple of motorists paused to see what had happened and a chain installer jogged over and hollered something at the guy she’d hit, but the weather was too bad for anyone to linger. No ambulance, no fire trucks. The accident wasn’t nearly as interesting as it could have been.

Thank God!

Chantel watched the man from the Landcruiser stride toward her and wished she was safe in her new condominium in Walnut Creek, curled up in front of the television. She was exhausted and cold and rattled. But she had to make it to Tahoe. After all the years she and her sister hadn’t spoken, Stacy was finally ready to give her another chance.

I won’t blow it, Stace. I’ve changed, grown up. You’ll see.

She lowered her window as the Landcruiser’s owner gave her car a skeptical frown. “You look like you belong on the streets of Beverly Hills,” he said. “I bet you’ve never driven in snow.”

“Listen, I come from New York. You’ve never seen snow until you’ve spent a winter back East.” She didn’t add that she hadn’t owned a car for most of the ten years she’d lived in the Big Apple. Taxis, public transit or, more often, limousines had always carried her where she’d wanted to go, but she wasn’t about to volunteer that information. He didn’t need to know how precisely his accusation had hit its target.

“Excuse me,” she said to get him to step back. “I want to see the damage.” She buttoned up her coat and scrambled out of the car, wincing as her white tennis shoes sank deep in the cold slush. Her vision swam for a moment, but she kept one hand on the door for support and soon the world righted itself.

Like most people, the Landcruiser’s owner did a double take when he saw her at her full height. His gaze started at where the snow buried her feet, then climbed her thin frame until it met the withering glare she reserved for gawkers.

She raised a hand before he could make any comment. “I know, I hear it all the time. I’m almost six feet, so you don’t have to ask.” She gave him a glacial smile to cover the way her body shook with reaction to the blizzard and the accident. “That doesn’t make me a freak, but it does intimidate some men.”

He grunted. “Short men, maybe.”

Chantel had to admit he didn’t look like a man who could be easily intimidated. Similar to her in age, he had shoulders twice the width of her own and was taller by at least four inches. But she’d always hated her height, even when she stood next to bigger people. She’d grown up to taunts of “Daddy Long Legs” and “Miller High Life” and couldn’t see herself as anything but gangly and awkward, despite a successful modeling career.

She shut her door and leaned into the wind, fighting the weakness of her legs as she trudged over to check out the damage. “Ouch,” she said, sheltering her face from the snow so she could view the Jag’s crumpled front bumper and broken headlight. The Landcruiser sported a smashed right rear panel. “Well, my car certainly got the worst of it, don’t you think?”

He cocked an eyebrow at her, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to; she could guess what he was thinking.

“It was your fault, too,” she said, irritated by his smug attitude, which reminded her too much of Wade, even though this stranger looked nothing like her ex-boyfriend. “You slammed on your brakes for no apparent reason.”

He gave an incredulous laugh. “The car in front of me stopped. What did you want me to do? Drive off the cliff?”

Is it too late to consider that option? Chantel bit her tongue, knowing her hostility was spurred by the memory of Wade and not this stranger. Not really.

Glancing at her car’s smashed front end a final time, she hurried back into the driver’s seat. The accident had caused some expensive damage, but it was still pretty much a fender bender. She wanted to swap information and be on her way, or Stacy would think she wasn’t coming.

She hoped this guy wouldn’t insist on waiting for the Highway Patrol.

“Why don’t you grab your driver’s license and insurance card and come get in my truck?” he called after her. “It’ll be drier and warmer than trying to do it out here.”

Never get in a car with a stranger, her father’s voice admonished.

Especially such a powerful-looking stranger, Chantel added on her own.

“I’ll just write it all down and bring it to you. You’re not planning to wait for the police to arrive, are you? There’s really no need. In a collision like this, the rear ender’s always on the hook.”

He smiled, transforming his expression from a Terminator-style intensity to the guilelessness of an All-American boy. “There’s a good reason for that, you know.”

“Okay, so I might have been following a little closely, but in a storm like this, calling the cops could hold us up for hours. Can’t you just file a report in the morning or something?”

“No problem. I want to get out of here, too.”

“Great.” She gave him a relieved smile—a semblance of the smile that had made her a living for the past ten years—and hurried back to her car. After scribbling down her policy number, insurance agent’s name and phone number, license-plate number and driver’s license number, she walked toward his truck.

He rolled down his window and glanced at the slip of paper she handed to him. “What about your name and telephone number?”

“My agent will handle everything.”

“No way. You’re not leaving here until I have your name, your number and your address. Just in case.”

Chantel fought the wind that kept blowing her long blond hair across her face. “In case of what?”

“In case I need to contact you.”

“I don’t think my husband would like me giving out that information,” she hedged, blinking the snow out of her eyelashes.

He scowled. “I’m sorry, but you just rear-ended my truck. I want to know I can get hold of you. And I don’t care whether your husband likes it or not.”

This could be a dangerous world, and she was completely alone in it. But what were the chances she’d just rear-ended another Ted Bundy? With a sigh, Chantel gave him the information he’d requested, hoping he’d fallen for the imaginary-husband routine.

He passed her a card. “I wrote my cell phone number on the back. You can reach me on it anytime.”

“Fine.” She glanced down and read, “Dillon Broderick, Architect,” before shoving the card into the back pocket of her jeans to keep it from getting wet.

“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”

She was still a little rattled but determined to fulfill her promise to Stacy, despite the storm, despite the accident, despite everything.

“Yeah. You?”

“I’ll have a stiff neck tomorrow, but I’ll live. Take it easy,” he said, and pulled away before Chantel made it back to her car.

DILLON BRODERICK put his Landcruiser into four-wheel drive and merged into the traffic heading up the hill, cursing under his breath.

As if his week hadn’t gone badly enough. Now he had the bother of getting his truck fixed—the estimates from body shops, the insurance claims, the rental car—and beyond all that, the maddening knowledge that his new Landcruiser would never be the same.

“‘I wasn’t tailgating you,’” he mimicked. She’d dogged him since Auburn, when it had started to snow. He’d flashed his brake lights several times, trying to get her to back off. But she’d come right up again and again, nearly riding on his bumper. If a man had done that, he’d probably have broken his nose for risking both their lives, but what could he do with a tall, beautiful woman?

Grin and bear it, just the way he did with his ex-wife.

He glanced at the paper where Chantel Miller had written her name and address. She lived in Walnut Creek, not far from his own house in Lafayette. At least they were both local. That should make things easier.

He shook his head at the thought of the damage the accident had done to her Jaguar XJ-6. What a sweet car! Her husband wouldn’t be pleased when she got home.

If she got home.

The thought of Chantel Miller heading up the mountain with only one headlight caused Dillon a moment of guilt. It was difficult enough to see the road with two working lights. He probably should have waited to make sure she had chains and could get them on. But he was already late. His friends had been expecting him for hours.

He flipped open his time-planner and turned to the page where he’d jotted down the information about their rental cabin. He punched in the number, and a cheerful voice greeted him on the other end. “Hello?”

“This is Dillon. Is—”

“Hey, guy! It’s Veronica. We were afraid you’d gotten into an accident or something.”

“Actually I did, but no one was hurt.”

“Omigosh! What happened?”

“I’ll tell you when I get there. I just wanted to let everyone know I’m still a half hour away. Traffic’s been moving pretty slow in this mess.”

“Don’t worry, the drive’ll be worth it. The ski resorts are getting something like sixteen inches of snow.”

He smiled. He needed a rigorous physical vacation to steal his thoughts away from his ex-wife and all the dirty custody tricks Amanda was playing on him with their two little girls. “That sounds great.”

“We’ll see you when you get here.”

He was just about to hit the “end” button when his call waiting beeped. He looked at the digital readout on his caller ID, wondering who’d be phoning him this late, but didn’t recognize the number. He switched over. “Hello?”

“Mr. Broderick?”

“Yes?”

“This is Chantel Miller. You know, the woman who just…well, we were in an accident a little while ago.”

How could he forget? He pictured her almond-shaped eyes gazing up at him, the high cheekbones, the small cut on one pouty lip, and refused to acknowledge how incredibly beautiful she was. Only, she sounded different now, almost…frightened. “Is everything okay?”

“Well, um, I really hate to bother you. I mean, you don’t even know me and I can’t have made the best impression—” she gave a weak laugh “—but, well, it looks like I’m lost and—”

“Lost! How could you be lost? I left you not more than fifteen minutes ago. Aren’t you on Highway 80?”

What was this woman? Some kind of trouble magnet?

“No. Actually I turned off about ten minutes ago. I’ve got directions to a cabin where my sister is staying, but it’s so difficult to see through the snow. I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.”

“Can’t you call your sister and find out?”

“The cabin’s just a rental. I don’t have the number. I was in such a hurry to get going tonight and the directions seemed so clear. I never dreamed the weather would be this bad. It’s been nothing but sunny at home.”

It was March. Who would have expected a storm like this when it was nearly spring? He hadn’t checked the weather himself, but then, he had a four-wheel drive and probably wouldn’t have checked it even in the dead of winter. “Do you have your chains on?”

‘Yeah, I paid one of the installers to put them on just after you left, but they’re not doing any good.”

“What do you mean?”

“My car’s stuck.”

“It’s what?”

“Stuck. There hasn’t been a plow through here for a long time, and the drifts are pretty deep—”

“And you drove into that?”

Silence. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you,” she said softly, and with a click she was gone.

“Dammit!” Dillon tossed his phone across the seat. How stupid could this woman be? Anyone who drove a wrecked sports car onto an unfamiliar side street in the middle of a storm like this had to be a few cards short of a deck.

“Let her call the Highway Patrol,” he grumbled, and tried to forget her, but another mile down the road, he saw the dim shadow of an exit sign. He’d left Chantel Miller not more than fifteen miles back. She couldn’t be far. It might cost him another hour, but he could probably find her more easily than anyone else. More quickly, too.

Veering to the right, he headed down the off-ramp. All roads, except the freeway, were virtually deserted and lay buried beneath several inches of snow.

He stopped and flipped on his dome light to study the sheet of paper with Chantel’s personal information.

She hadn’t included a cell-phone number. He tried her home, hoping he could at least get hold of her husband. Someone should know she was in trouble, just in case she didn’t have sense enough to call the Highway Patrol or tried to walk back to the freeway or something. A person could easily freeze to death in this weather.

After five rings, a recorder picked up, and Dillon recognized Chantel’s voice telling him to leave his name and number. He hung on, waiting to leave a message for her husband, and was surprised to hear her continue, “Or, if you’d rather try me on my car phone, just call—”

Bingo! He scrounged for a piece of paper and a pencil and jotted down the number, then dialed it.

Chantel answered, a measure of relief in her voice. “Hello?”

“It’s me, Dillon Broderick. I’m coming back for you. Tell me where you are.”

She paused. “It’s all right, Mr. Broderick—”

“Dillon.”

“Dillon. Maybe I need a tow truck. I’m thinking about calling the police.”

He thought of her sitting in her wrecked Jag, the cold seeping into the car, the storm howling around her, and for some reason, remembered her smile. This woman had just smashed the back end of his truck, but for a moment that didn’t matter. She was alone and probably frightened. “Well, maybe you should do that, but I’m coming back, anyway, just to see that you’re okay.”

“Are you sure? I feel really bad. I mean, for all I know, your wife and kids are waiting for you, worried…”

“No wife and kids, at least not worried ones.” Just the rest and relaxation he’d been craving. He thought of his friends sitting around the fireplace, drinking wine, laughing and talking, listening to Janis Joplin or Patsy Cline, and turned around, anyway.

“Now,” he said, “how did you get where you are?”

CHAPTER TWO

“FORTY-FIVE BOTTLES of beer on the wall, forty-five bottles of beer, take one down, pass it around, forty-four bottles of beer on the wall.”

Chantel gave up trying to distract herself with the repetitive chant and glanced impatiently at her watch—again.

She’d talked to Dillon Broderick more than a half hour ago. Where was he? Her hands and feet were frozen, but she dared not run the car’s engine any longer for fear she’d use all her gas. Fueling up was one of those things she hadn’t had time for when she’d dashed out of the house four hours earlier. Now she could only stare, disheartened, at the gas gauge, which read less than a quarter of a tank.

Closing her eyes, Chantel rubbed her temples and willed back the tears that threatened. She’d been so stressed with the move and her new job, and so focused on reaching Stacy at a decent hour, that she hadn’t done anything right. Now her new car was wrecked, and she was stranded on some nameless street in the middle of a snowstorm.

She let her head fall forward to rest on the steering wheel, hearing Wade’s voice, despite her best efforts to banish it from her mind. That’s what you get when you don’t use your head. You never think, Chantel. Never. What would you do without me?

Well, she was finding that out, wasn’t she? She’d left him six months ago, and despite all his calls and letters, she wouldn’t take him back. She was fighting for the person she used to be, before Wade and modeling had nearly destroyed her—the girl her father had raised.

But it all seemed so hopeless sometimes. Or at least it did right now.

She glared miserably at her car phone. She didn’t even have anyone to call. The only friends she’d had when she and Wade were living together in New York were his friends. The only hobbies, his hobbies. He’d made sure her whole world revolved around him, and she’d been as stupid as he always told her she was, because, to save their relationship, she’d let him. You’re just another pretty face, Chantel. Good thing God gave you that.

The phone chirped and Chantel grabbed it.

“Hello?”

“I can’t find you. Are you sure you turned right and not left at the second stop sign?’

It was Dillon Broderick. He was still coming.

She said a silent prayer of thanks and tried to retrace in her mind the route she’d taken. When she hadn’t been able to find the street her sister had written down, she’d taken several turns, always expecting the cabin to appear around the next corner. Now it was hard to remember exactly what she’d done.

“I turned right,” she insisted with a sigh of defeat. She was tired, so tired she could barely force herself to stay awake. After six months she still wasn’t completely recovered, she realized. “I don’t know why you can’t find me.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, and Chantel pictured his face, with its strong jaw, chiseled cheekbones and light eyes, which had been filled with anger about the accident. Would he get frustrated and decide not to continue searching? Her stomach clenched at the thought.

“Did you call the police?” he asked.

“Yes, they said they’d send a car.”

“And you gave them the same directions you gave me?”

Chantel felt another pang of despair. “You’re saying the police won’t be able to find me either, right?”

He cleared his throat. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions. They certainly know the area better than I do and might have some idea where to look. I’ll go back the way I came and try another route from the freeway.”

Chantel knew that courtesy demanded she tell him to return to his original route and not to trouble himself further. The police were coming—eventually. But the snow piling ever higher on the hood of her car would soon block out everything else. And she already felt so alone.

“Dillon?”

“Yeah?”

She wanted to ask him to keep talking to her, not to hang up, but her more practical side admonished her against running up his car-phone bill, to say nothing of her own. She wasn’t in any real trouble, not with the police on their way. She didn’t need anyone to hold her hand. “Nothing. Thanks for trying.”

“That sounds like you think I’m giving up. I can’t let anything happen to you. How do I know your insurance will take care of my truck?”

He was teasing her. Chantel heard it in his voice and smiled. Fleetingly, she wondered about his wife and kids—the ones he’d said weren’t worried about him.

“Where were you headed before you came back for me?” she asked.

“Tahoe. I’m going skiing for a week. What about you?”

“Same here. Just for the weekend, though.”

“So you know how to ski?”

She got the impression he was just being nice to her, trying to calm her down, but she didn’t care, not as long as his voice hummed in her ear. “Yeah. My dad used to take us when we were kids.”

“You ever been to Squaw Valley?”

“Not yet. I grew up in Utah and used to go to Snowbird or Alta.”

“That’s some great snow there. My buddies and I took a trip to Utah when we were in college.”

“I’ll bet college was fun.” Chantel fought the chattering of her teeth, not wanting to let him know how terribly cold she was.

“You didn’t go to university?”

“No.”

“Hey, you got your headlights on?”

“You mean headlight, don’t you?”

He laughed. “Yeah. Otherwise, with this snow piling up, I won’t be able to tell you from any other car sitting by the side of the road.”

“It’s on.”

“Good. What about the heater? It’s pretty cold outside.”

“No heater. Not enough gas.” This time, the chill that ran through her echoed in her voice. “And it is cold.”

“How much gas have you got?”

“Just enough to make it to Tahoe once you pull me out of here.”

“Listen, this is what I want you to do. Dig through your luggage and put on all the layers of clothing you can. I don’t want to find an ice cube when I get there, understand?”

“I’ve already done that.”

“What about gloves and boots?”

Chantel curled her toes and frowned when she could no longer feel them move in her wet tennis shoes. “No such luck. I was going to buy all that once I reached Tahoe.”

“Damn. This just keeps getting better, doesn’t it?”

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Chantel swallowed back a sigh. “I guess I wasn’t very prepared.”

“I can’t believe you had chains.”

“I did only because I bought them shortly after I got the car and stuffed them in the trunk.”

He chuckled. “Too bad. Otherwise you’d have been forced to turn back.”

“I couldn’t turn back,” she said, thinking of her promise to Stacy.

“Why not?”

“There’s something I have to do in Tahoe.”

“What’s that?”

Penance.

DILLON SQUINTED as he tried to see beyond the pale arc of his headlights. White. Everything was white—and stationary. He called Chantel again and told her to honk her horn, then rolled down his window, hoping he’d hear something, but the wind carried no sound other than its own vehemence.

What now? Dropping his head into his hands, he rubbed his eyes. He’d been searching for two hours. He would have given up long ago, except that the police hadn’t found Chantel, either, and he could tell from the sound of her voice that her initial uneasiness was turning to panic.

He called her cell phone again. “I’m going to return to the freeway and start over.”

“No!” She sounded resolute. “You’re crazy to keep looking for me, Dillon. I never should have called you. I thought it would take you a few minutes to come and pull me out, nothing more. I never expected anything like this.”

“I know, but you can’t be far away. If I could just spot you, we could both be on our way to our respective vacations—”

“Or you could get stuck, too. The police called to say they can’t look for me anymore, not until morning. The storm’s too bad.”

“What? Why not?” She could freeze to death before morning!

“They don’t want to risk anyone’s life, and I don’t want you to risk yours.”

What about her life? Dillon wondered.

She took an audible breath. “You’re going to have to head back, before the roads get any worse.”

Dillon maneuvered around a parked car that looked like a small snow hill. His tires spun, then finally propelled him a little farther down a road that was quickly becoming impassable. The slick ice and heavy snow were making him nervous, but he’d canvassed the area so completely, he could only believe he’d find her in the next few minutes.

“You can’t be far,” he muttered.

“It doesn’t matter. The police know what they’re doing. Anyway, they told me not to use my car phone. I’ll need the battery when they resume the search.”

Conserving her battery made sense, but cutting off a frightened woman did little to help her. “I’d better let you go, then.”

Two hours ago Dillon had cared only about making it to the cabin in time to enjoy the party. Now he could think of nothing but Chantel Miller, a beautiful young woman stranded alone in the middle of a snowstorm. He sighed. “It’s hard for me to give up after all this.”

“Just think about what I did to your truck. That should make it easier.” She attempted to laugh, and Dillon had to admire her for the effort.

“You’ll probably be on the news in the morning, talking about how some brave fireman saved you,” he said.

“Yeah. I’ll be the tall one.”

“The tall one with the knockout smile and the sexy voice,” he added, “but I probably shouldn’t say that to a married woman.”

“Dillon?”

“Uh-huh?”

“There’s no husband. I just…you know, a woman can’t be too careful.”

“Are you telling me I look like an ax murderer?”

“Actually I think you look like Tom Selleck.”

He laughed. “It’s the dimples. I hated them when I was a kid, thought they made me look like a sissy. When I was five or so, my mom dressed me up as a girl for Halloween, and I never lived it down—or at least I didn’t until I passed six feet and could grow a full beard.”

“I’ll bet no one teases you anymore.”

He could hear the smile in her voice, and it made him feel slightly better. “No, they don’t.” He paused, wondering what to do next. “Damn, Chantel. I’m sorry about this mess. You must be—”

“Anxious for morning. That’s all.”

“Sure.” He continued to steer his truck through the fresh powder and felt his tires give more than they grabbed. He knew that if he stayed out any longer, he’d get stuck, too. “Well, I won’t use up any more of your battery.”

“Okay.”

The edge that crept into her voice reminded him of the way his little girl sounded whenever she didn’t want him to leave her, and that made it hard as hell to hang up. He and Chantel Miller might have been complete strangers three hours ago, but now they seemed like the only two people in the world.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Right.”

“Goodbye, Chantel.”

“Hurry back to the freeway, Dillon…and thank you. I’m sorry about your truck. I’ve got your card. I’ll send you a thank-you note.”

Yeah, you can say, “Thanks for nothing.”

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS, Chantel, when you try to do something without me, Wade sneered.

Chantel covered her ears with her hands, even though she knew the sound came from inside her own head. “Shut up,” she whispered. “You’re gone and I’m glad.”

His laugh echoed through her mind, and she almost turned on the radio to block it out. She hadn’t seen Wade in six months, but they’d spent ten years together before that—ten years that weren’t easy to erase.

She blew on her hands, then hugged herself again. She’d taken off her wet shoes and pulled up her knees so she could warm her toes with her piled-on sweaters, not that it made any difference. She was freezing. If it got any colder….

She pictured Stacy at the cabin and wished she could reach her sister. Her car phone lay in her lap, cradled against the cold and darkness, but the number for the cabin was at home, on the easy-wipe board next to the refrigerator. Why hadn’t she transferred it to the sheet of directions Stacy had given her? Why hadn’t she gone back when she realized she’d left it?

She’d been in too much of a hurry, that was why—but it was useless to berate herself now. Except that it kept her from succumbing to the exhaustion that tugged at her body. The police had warned her not to go to sleep. If she did, she might never wake up.

She thought about Wade and the choices he’d encouraged her to make and all she had suffered because of them—the low self-esteem, the anorexia, the past six months of constant effort to become healthy again. If she was going to die, why couldn’t she have done it in the hospital, before the long haul back?

Because that would have been too easy. She needed those experiences. The past six months had made her a stronger person than she’d ever been before.

That truth blew into her mind with all the force of the raging storm, then settled like a softly falling snowflake. Yes, she was stronger. When the nurses told her she’d probably die from her disease, she’d decided it wouldn’t beat her. She’d given up modeling. She’d left Wade. She smiled, knowing, in the end, that she’d surprised them all.

But the past had left its scars. Her illness had cost her the one thing she wanted more than anything….

She winced and shied away from the longing. She wasn’t ready to deal with it yet. A new career, a new life. That was enough for now. Then, perhaps someday—

Suddenly Chantel sat bolt upright and tried to see through the snow on her windshield. Her headlight had gone out, hadn’t it? The police had told her to turn it off, to conserve the car battery, as well as the telephone battery, but she couldn’t bring herself to relinquish the one thing that might actually get someone’s attention. Without it, the Jaguar would look just like every other car, every empty car.

Gripping the steering wheel with numb hands, she shifted to her knees to see above the mounded snow, then squinted down at her instrument panel. The lights were dimming. She could barely make out the fuel gauge. The white needle pointing to “E” wasn’t the most comforting sight, but without it, she’d be sitting in complete darkness, alone, as the storm continued to bury her alive.

She should start the car and recharge the battery. She needed the heat, anyway. What good was saving gas now? Either she made it until morning when the police would come for her. Or she didn’t.

Turning the key in the ignition, she heard the Jag’s starter give a weak whine, then fall silent. She was too late. The battery was already dead.

Should she get out? Look for help on foot? She fingered the phone, wishing Dillon would call—he was the only one who might—but she knew he’d never risk using up the rest of her battery. By now he was probably sleeping beneath heavy quilts in a cabin that smelled of pine and wood smoke.

She imagined him bare-chested, the blankets coming to just above his hips, a well-muscled arm flung out. Would there be a woman beside him? A woman who’d been waiting for “Dillon Broderick, Architect” in Tahoe?

Chantel shook her head. It didn’t matter. Only sleep mattered. Her body begged her to close her eyes and simply drift away.

Soon her lids grew so heavy she could barely lift them. She couldn’t feel her nose anymore, could no longer see her breath fogging the air. She tried to sing the Titanic theme song, but even that was too much effort. Instead, she heard the melody in her head and told herself her heart would go on. And her father would be there to greet her. Her father…

Why hadn’t she left Wade sooner?

I’m free, Daddy. And I’m finally coming home…to you.

With a strange sense of eagerness, she closed her eyes, but a persistent thump on the outside of the car pulled her out of sleep’s greedy clutches.

“CHANTEL! IT’S ME, Dillon!”

Dillon wiped all the snow off the window and flashed his light inside. It had to be her car. How many smashed Jags could there be with one dim headlight still reflecting off the white flakes falling from the sky?

“Dillon?” He heard her voice through the glass and breathed a sigh of relief. He’d found her! He couldn’t believe it. He’d turned around and tried to drive back to the freeway, but he hadn’t been able to leave her behind. And now he was elated to think he’d beaten the odds.

She fumbled with the lock and opened the door, and he pulled her out and into his arms.

Pressing her cold face against the warmth of his neck, she held him tightly.

“You all right?” he asked.

She didn’t answer, just clung to him, and he realized she was crying.

“Hey, what kind of a welcome is this?”

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, drawing back to swipe at her eyes. “I just, I just…” She began to shake from the cold, and he knew he had to get her warm and dry—as quickly as possible.

“Let’s go. You got anything else in there we can use to keep you warm?”

She shook her head. “I’m wearing everything I’ve g-got.”

He chuckled at her mismatched and odd-fitting layers. “Good girl. We’re out of here, then.”

He took off his ski hat and settled it on her blond head, carefully covering her ears. Then he shoved her hands in the leather gloves he’d been using.

“My hands b-b-burn,” she complained.

“That’s good. At least you can feel them.” Then he saw her feet. “Where the hell are your shoes?”

She blinked down at her toes. “They were w-wet. I had to t-take them off.”

“You have to put them back on, at least until we make it to my Landcruiser.” He reached inside the car for her tennis shoes.

When he finished tying her shoelaces, she glanced around and frowned. “Where’s your truck?”

He raised his brows, wondering how to tell her the truth of the situation. “You’re not still worried that I’m an ax murderer, are you?”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that my Landcruiser’s stuck. We’re not going to get out of here tonight.” He grabbed her cell phone from the car, took her hand, and started to pull her over to where he’d left his vehicle. “But the good news is, you’re no longer alone.”

“That’s not such g-good news for you,” she said.

He grinned and looked back at her, admiring the unique shape of her amber-colored eyes. “It’s not as bad as you might think.”

CHANTEL LET DILLON lead her up the side of a sharp incline through waist-deep snow. Pine trees stood all around them, tops bending and limbs swaying as they fought the same wind that flung ice crystals into her face. Her clothes and shoes were soaked through, and even with gloves on her hands, she didn’t have enough body heat to warm her fingers. Never had she been so cold, not in ten years of New York winters.

She slipped and fell, and Dillon hauled her back to her feet. “Come on, we’ve got to hurry. I don’t want you to get frostbite,” he said, pulling her more forcefully behind him.

Chantel angled her face up to see through the trees in front of them. Other than the small circle from Dillon’s flashlight, everything was completely dark. The falling snow obliterated even the moon’s light, but the night wasn’t silent. The wind alternately whined and howled, and tree limbs scratched and clawed at each other.

“Are you sure you know wh-where we’re going?” she called. It felt as though they were scaling a mountain, heading deeper into the forest, instead of toward civilization.

“I’m taking a more direct route, but we’ll get there.”

“I d-don’t think I can walk any farther.” The air smelled like cold steel, not the pine she’d been anticipating, and suddenly Chantel wondered why she’d ever wanted to go to Tahoe in the first place. She had enough to take care of in the valley. She wasn’t ready to deal with the issues between her and Stacy yet.

“We gotta keep moving. It’s not much farther.” Dillon sheltered her with his large body and tugged persistently at her arm.

“I’m freezing!”

“So am I. Come on, Chantel, we need to keep walking. Talk to me. That’ll keep our minds off the cold.”

She looked at the man who’d risked his life to save her. Hadn’t she wrecked his car earlier? Yet here he was, trudging through the snow, pulling her along, telling her to talk to him. Without him…

Chantel didn’t want to think about what might have happened without him. “You’re c-crazy, Dillon. Why didn’t you leave me?”

“Freud would probably say I’m trying to prove my masculinity.”

She thought he was smiling but couldn’t see his face in the darkness. “There are easier ways to do that.”

He laughed. “I’ve always had to do things the hard way. My poor mother used to shake her head in exasperation and tell me how wonderful my sisters were to raise.”

“F-F-Freud would probably have something to say about that, t-t-too.”

“No doubt. Only I don’t think being a troublemaker has anything to do with my sexuality.”

“I think it’s the t-testosterone. My c-cousin once kicked a hole in the wall when I put him down for a nap.”

Dillon paused. “How old was he?”

“Three. It was my f-fault, really. I forgot to take off his cowboy boots.”

Dillon put his arms around her waist and half carried her over a fallen log. “Your cousin’s my kind of kid. But girls can be hellions, too. My littlest is a spitfire.”

“How many—” Chantel could barely form the words “—children do you have?”

“Two girls, nine and seven.”

She pictured him with a couple of dark-haired, blue-eyed daughters. If they looked anything like their father, they would be beautiful. “So you’re m-married?”

“Divorced.”

“I’m s-sorry.”

“So am I.”

Chantel fell silent again. She had no strength left.

“Tell me about you,” Dillon suggested. “Is there a man in your life?”

“No.” Wade was too long a story, and she was far too weary to expand on her answer. “I can’t g-go any f-farther,” she said, sinking to her knees in the snow. Somehow she wasn’t cold anymore. She just didn’t care. There wasn’t anything left inside her with which to fight. “You g-go on…”

“I’m not leaving you.” A strong arm swept her to her feet, but she pulled away again, shaking her head. I can’t, rang through her thoughts, but she could no longer speak. Her mind seemed clouded, her senses dulled. Her body simply slowed and stopped moving, like a cheap windup toy.

“Chantel!” The command cut through her hazy thoughts, but she refused it. Let this be over.

The second time Chantel heard her name, she knew Dillon would not be denied. Weakly she tried to move toward to his voice, then felt the world tip and sway as he lifted her in his arms.

“So you’re going to make me carry you, huh?” he breathed, his chest heaving as he bore her weight through the wind and snow.

Silence fell for what seemed a long time. Then, from somewhere far above her, Chantel heard Dillon again. “Stay with me, baby,” he whispered urgently. “Don’t go to sleep! Fight the darkness, Chantel.”

Chantel wasn’t sure she wanted to stay, let alone fight, but something about his voice enticed her toward his strength. Don’t let me go…I won’t let go.

“I see it now.”

His words made no sense, caused no reaction in Chantel. She only knew that he’d left her. But he was close. She could hear him talking to himself, moving a few feet away. A car door slammed, twice, then she felt herself being jostled about as he pulled and tugged at her arms, her legs, her…

What was it? What did he want from her?

Then it all came clear. He was stripping off her clothes.

CHAPTER THREE

CHANTEL’S BODY burned as it warmed by degrees, slowly turning from what felt like dead wood to living flesh again. She didn’t know how much time had passed, only that she was in some sort of sleeping bag, crushed against something strong and hard—an expansive chest? Two sinewy arms circled her as large hands chafed her back. A rough stubbled chin grazed her cheek as thickly muscled legs became entwined with her own, moving constantly, trying to warm her lower extremities.

She was being held by a naked man. And he was warming a great deal more than her extremities.

She stiffened.

“Chantel? Are you back with me?”

The voice identified Dillon immediately, but still she raised her head to make out his face in the darkness. “Wh-What happened?”

Closing his eyes, he shamelessly hugged her to him, belly to belly. It was then that Chantel realized how fast his heart was beating.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, still disoriented.

“Are you kidding? I thought I was going to lose you. It was nip and tuck there for a while.”

Slowly the memory of being stranded in her car came back to her. She remembered how Dillon had rescued her, remembered trudging behind him through the snow. Then there was nothing but blackness until the burning and tingling started and grew painful in its severity.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Like I’m on fire.”

“That’s good.”

“Where are my clothes?”

“I don’t know. Outside somewhere. I wasn’t concerned with what happened to them. I just knew I had to get them off you—fast.”

“Because…”

“Because you were soaking wet and freezing to death. And that’s what you’re supposed to do with someone in that situation.” His voice sounded slightly defensive, as though she’d accused him of being some kind of pervert.

Realizing he’d just saved her life, Chantel tried to act nonchalant. She wasn’t sure he’d needed to remove every stitch of their clothing, but he’d obviously acted in what he thought was her best interests. “I’ve seen it before on television,” she admitted.

“How’s the burning in your arms and legs? Getting any better?”

“A little.”

Chantel shifted to remove her lower body from contact with Dillon’s, which was nearly impossible in the snug bag. While modeling, she’d seen a score of naked men, changing from one outfit to another, and lots of men had seen her doing the same thing. But somehow she couldn’t treat being with Dillon as indifferently as she’d handled working around those fellow models, photographers, costumers and artistic directors. Especially since his body felt good enough to melt her bones.

“Relax.”

Though nervous and vulnerable, she tried to do as he suggested, but ended up simply keeping as still as she could. It had been almost a year since she’d been with a man. She’d gotten so skinny in her final months with Wade that he hadn’t wanted her, at least sexually. And the memory of it made her even more self-conscious than she would normally have felt in this particular dilemma.

“I’m sorry I got you into this mess,” she said to break the awkward silence.

His chuckle rumbled in her ear. “Don’t be. From my perspective, there are worse things than having a beautiful woman in my arms.”

Chantel smiled. So he was generous, as well as kind. “What do we do when we’re warm?”

“Wait for morning.”

The thought of spending the entire night in Dillon’s arms sent a shiver up Chantel’s spine. He hugged her closer and began to rub her back again, as though he assumed her reaction had something to do with the cold. But Chantel knew it had much more to do with the man holding her, stroking her.

“That feels good,” she whispered.

Dillon’s shallow breathing—and more obvious proof lower down—told her he agreed. “I guess this might get a little awkward,” he said, knowing, of course, that she couldn’t possibly miss his arousal. “But don’t worry. I won’t, you know, try anything.”

She smiled at his attempt to reassure her. “We just have to relax, like you said.”

“Unfortunately, even that won’t change some things.”

“I know,” she whispered. “It’s okay.”

Chantel had felt exhausted only moments earlier, but now her blood zipped through her veins and wouldn’t let her lie still. “We’re not going to be able to rest,” she said, “if we feel we can’t move.”

“We can move.”

“I know, but I’m hesitant to put my arm here or my leg there…”

“Do whatever makes you comfortable.”

Sighing, she snuggled closer, laying her head on his chest and slipping one cold foot between his. The burning in her arms and legs had eased, but her fingers and toes still felt like ice. “Thanks,” she said. “I guess we should probably get some sleep. I’m a lot warmer now, aren’t you?”

“I’m plenty warm,” he told her, but to Chantel his body didn’t feel as though he was ready for sleep. His muscles were taut, his chest rising and falling too fast.

Dillon’s breath stirred her hair, but he said no more. Chantel listened to the storm outside until sleep began to woo her. Then, when she was finally warm, she drifted slowly toward it. As her brain lost its override on her body, she relaxed even more and pressed closer to the muscled chest beneath her hands, the powerful limbs entwined with her own. The steady beat of Dillon’s heart lulled her that final step, and she fell into peaceful oblivion.

DILLON STARED into the darkness, willing his body to forget the soft flesh pressed against his, to block out the smell of woman that filled his nostrils. He and Chantel Miller were merely two strangers surviving the storm together. Morning would come and everything would be the way it was before.

Still, he had to admit that the person he held in his arms was no everyday woman. She was slender and elegant, but it was her smile and her eyes that appealed to him most. Unique, exquisite, haunting.

Beautiful. She was simply beautiful. And, of course, her body did nothing to change that overall impression. Long legs, smooth and shapely, slid against his own; her small perfect breasts were crushed against his chest. He’d longed to touch them from the moment he’d taken off her shirt, to feel them in his palms…

She smashed my truck. She smashed my truck. She smashed my truck. And she made me miss the party at the cabin.

He repeated Chantel’s shortcomings over and over to himself, but nothing quelled the hot desire that smoked through his veins. To make matters worse, he’d begun to feel a little proprietary toward her. He had found her. He had saved her. It was that old finders keepers, losers weepers thing, and he knew it. But no matter how many times he told himself no, his groin tightened, insisting on a different answer.

If it hadn’t been so long, he wouldn’t be like this, he told himself. He and Amanda had divorced two years ago, and he hadn’t slept with a woman since. He’d come close a few times, but the commitment that went with sex had always pulled him up short—because he didn’t want to give his daughters any competition. He owed Brittney and Sydney his wholehearted loyalty. Divorce was hard enough. He knew firsthand how difficult it could be to get along with a stepparent. Why would he do the same thing to his kids that his parents had done to him?

Chantel stirred. One of her hands climbed across his ribs, and he had to stop himself from cupping the roundness of her derriere and pressing her more firmly against him. It was simply the most natural of responses. But she was sleeping peacefully and had no idea she was driving him mad.

And he’d promised he’d be good.

A sweet mewling sound came from Chantel, but her eyes remained closed. She was probably dreaming. He gazed through the darkness, finding the curve of her cheek, the silky spray of hair that fanned out over his arm, and caught sight of her lips. They were slightly parted…and wet.

He clenched his jaw. It was going to be a long night.

THE CELL PHONE broke the silence, waking Chantel with a start. Next to her, Dillon stirred and they both fumbled around until Chantel came up with the phone, which turned out to be her own, and answered it.

“Hello?”

“Miss Miller?” a man’s voice said.

“Yes?”

“This is the police dispatcher just checking to make sure you’re okay. The storm hasn’t lifted yet, but I want you to know we’ll get there as soon as we can.”

“Okay.”

“You sound tired, Miss Miller, but I can’t stress how important it is that you not fall asleep. With the windchill factor, it’s well below zero outside.”

“I understand, but I’m not alone anymore.”

“What?”

“I, um…A friend of mine came to find me. Only he’s stuck now, too.”

“The two of you are together?”

Dillon shoved himself up onto one elbow. “Give me the phone so I can tell them where we are.”

“We’re sheltering in a Toyota Landcruiser,” she said into the receiver. “Here, he wants to talk to you.”

Chantel listened as Dillon identified himself and gave the dispatcher directions. When he ended the call, she looked at him expectantly. “What did he say?”

“To sit tight. Someone’ll be here as soon as the storm lifts.” He flicked on a flashlight and looked at his watch.

“What time is it?”

“Three o’clock.”

Chantel groaned. “No wonder I’m still tired. Did you get any sleep?”

“I dropped off about five minutes before the phone rang.”

Now that she and Dillon were both awake, Chantel felt her earlier self-consciousness return but fought it back. They might as well get used to each other. According to the dispatcher, the police were going to be a while yet. “What kept you up?”

She thought he arched a brow at her, but couldn’t see clearly enough in the darkness.

“You don’t want to know,” he said.

“What—was I snoring?”

He laughed. “You didn’t have to.”

Catching his meaning, Chantel felt her face flush and tried to sidle away, but he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her down beside him. “Come on. It’s too cold for that.”

She put a hand on his chest, keeping a slight distance between them. “Tell me about yourself, Dillon.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Well…tell me about your daughters.”

He opened up easily to that question. His voice warmed as he talked about his girls and their accomplishments. His fourth-grader had just competed against a sixth-grader for student-body treasurer and won. She played the clarinet in band and sang in the school choir. His second-grader was in gymnastics and could already do a back flip.

Chantel felt something tug at her heart and knew she should have steered the conversation away from kids. It was always this way when…

Dillon fell silent right in the middle of describing a family trip they’d taken to Disneyland just before the divorce.

“And then what?” she prompted.

He didn’t answer, and Chantel berated herself for not listening more closely. What was it he’d said? Something about promising his girls they’d go back every year. Wasn’t that it? “Dillon?”

“What?”

“You didn’t finish.”

“I know. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“What’s wrong?” She propped herself up to look in his face, but in the darkness, she couldn’t decide whether his expression was as stony as his voice suggested.

He shook his head. “I’m just angry. It has nothing to do with you.”

“It’s that damn Mickey Mouse, right? You hate him.”

He gave her a grudging smile. “No.”

“Then what?” Chantel studied him again and guessed that what she saw was pain. “Forget it. You don’t have to talk about it,” she said. “Divorce is a hard thing—for everyone.”

“I never thought I’d be divorced,” he admitted. “I never wanted to be.”

“I don’t think anyone ever plans on it.”

“It’s funny how someone you love can turn into someone you don’t even know, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I see. You’re not over your ex-wife yet.” For some reason she wanted to pull away, but there was no room to do so.

He laughed harshly. “Wrong. I’m completely over her. I got over her shortly after her second affair, which, ironically enough, was with the mailman.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. Well, technically speaking, he wasn’t our mailman, but he worked for the post office.”

“How did she meet him?”

“At the gym.”

“Ouch.”

He laughed, but his voice was edged with bitterness. “I used to think that sort of thing could never happen to me.”

“Does it hurt to talk about it?”

“Not anymore. At first I thought I’d never recover. I blamed myself. We got married too young. I was gone too much, working, trying to put myself through school. I think she was lonely and bored and found the wrong kind of friend. She and the woman next door, who was already divorced, started going out together in the afternoons, visiting bars. I could see what was happening, but I thought I could stop it. I thought if I was meeting her emotional needs, she wouldn’t turn to other men. She admitted she didn’t love them.”

“Did you ever find out why she did it?”

“She said she liked the thrill of it. I think she was on boyfriend number three then, and she was leaving the girls with baby-sitters to spend the day at the gym or tanning. I cut back on my hours at work, but she resented the hit our budget suffered because of it, and her behavior only got worse. I finally realized she had affairs because it fed her ego that other men found her attractive. And she liked my jealous reaction.”

“I take it the two of you aren’t friends now.”

“Actually I’m just trying not to dislike her too much. Not for the old stuff, her betrayal of me—that’s history. It’s the problems we’re having now that make me mad. It kills me that I’m missing so much of my girls’ lives. Their mother changes boyfriends like she changes underwear and insists Brittney and Sydney welcome each new guy with open arms. Sometimes she even makes them call whoever it is ‘daddy.’”

Instinctively Chantel reached up to caress his cheek. “You sound like a wonderful father. Can’t you gain custody somehow?”

“I’ve spent thousands of dollars trying to do just that. California is touted as being liberal, but the judge still won’t award me custody. I’d have to completely discredit Amanda to get them, and I just can’t bring myself to destroy my daughters’ mother.”

“What about visitation rights?”

“I pick up the girls whenever I legally can, but a lot of the time Amanda takes off so that they’re not home when I arrive. Or she leaves them at her mother’s, who thinks I’ve let her daughter down and won’t even open the door to me.”

“Fighting all of that must get old.”

He paused. “I’d rather fight it than not see them. Now Amanda is trying to get permission from the court to move to Iowa.”

“Iowa!”

“Yeah.” He scrubbed his face with his free hand. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

“Because it’s the middle of the night, and we’re naked and huddled together in your sleeping bag.”

“I’m fully aware of the naked part, but how come I’m the only one baring my soul?”

So I don’t have to tell you about the skeletons in my closet.

“Do you like being an architect?” she countered.

“I love my work, but we’re going to talk about you now. What do you do?”

“I work in the district office of my state senator.”

“Were you involved in politics in New York?”

“No.”

“‘No’? That’s it? What, were you a stripper or something?”

“I was a model.”

“Really? Who’d you model for?”

Chantel bit her lip, reluctant to discuss her modeling experience because she was afraid of where the conversation would lead. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“Why? You didn’t like modeling?”

“I loved it.”

“Then tell me about it.”

Cocooned against the weather, Chantel breathed in the smell of the aftershave she’d first noticed when Dillon had leaned into her car, and smiled. She could trust him. He’d come for her despite the storm, even after the police had given up.

“I did runway modeling, and some work for high-end catalogs. I was in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue a couple of years, used to model for Calvin Klein a lot. Oh, and I was on the cover of Vogue once.”

“Wow, sounds like you were pretty successful. What happened?”

Chantel thought of Wade and his demands, demands that increased with her success. “I had a boyfriend…well, more like a husband, really. We lived together for the ten years I was in New York. He modeled, too, and when he didn’t get the breaks I did, he became fanatically jealous. He insisted I cancel contracts I never should have canceled, had me refuse jobs I should have taken. I did it to preserve the relationship, to prove he came first. We’d talked about having a family, and I wanted to get married, but he kept putting me off. He said he didn’t see the point of making it official since all that mattered was what we felt, not some piece of paper. The harder I tried to please him, the more difficult he became. And then I got sick and had to quit altogether.”

“What kind of sick?”

Chantel sighed. She hated telling people what had happened to her and usually didn’t. They didn’t understand anorexia, were generally frightened of the self-hate that spurs it on. “It wasn’t anything communicable.”

“I wasn’t thinking that.” He smoothed the hair off her forehead, and Chantel closed her eyes, wishing he’d go on caressing her until the devils from her past were forgotten. “Tell me what happened,” he whispered.

“I had anorexia.”

“How bad?”

“I had to be hospitalized. The doctors didn’t think I’d make it. Neither did Wade.”

“Wade’s the man you were living with?”

She nodded. “Wade Bennett. I believe, deep down, he was hoping against me. Maybe that’s what made me decide to prove them all wrong.”

Dillon was silent for a long while. “Where’s Wade now?”

“In New York, still trying to make it, I guess. I won’t open his letters.”

Dillon’s arms tightened around her. “And you’re well now, aren’t you? You look…I mean, I’ve never seen a more beautiful woman.”

She’d heard those words before, over the years, from numerous men who’d tried to pick her up. But Dillon sounded sincere. “Anorexia is like alcoholism. You’re never really cured. It’s a constant battle.”

“It’s a battle you’ll win.”

Unable to stop herself from giving him a simple gesture of affection, Chantel played with the hair on his arm, then slid her hand up to his shoulder. “I think your wife must’ve been crazy.”

He laughed and rolled her onto her back. In the process his hand brushed her nipple, which immediately drew up hard and tight.

“Chantel?’

“Mmm?”

“Are you seeing anyone now?”

The huskiness of his voice told her he wanted her, and Chantel felt an answering warmth in the pit of her stomach. “I’m not dating anyone. I only recently moved back to California.”

“Good.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to kiss you.”

His head descended and his lips found and molded to hers, tasting her, teasing her, gently prodding. The practical side of Chantel screamed that she’d known this man for mere hours. But her heart felt as though she’d known him for years.

She opened her mouth to welcome his tongue, surprised that the small cut she’d received in the accident didn’t bother her, and he deepened the kiss until the warmth blooming in her belly began to spread out to her limbs. He tasted the way his breath smelled, like spearmint gum, she thought lazily, and began exploring his mouth. Circling his neck with her arms, she let her hands delve into the thickness of his dark hair, threading the short silky locks through her fingers, tugging him closer.

When she groaned, he made an identical sound in his throat, and quickened the pace of their kiss until Chantel was so hungry for more she was shaking. She shifted, pressing her body more fully against him, then gasped when his large rough palm clutched her breast.

Two fingers flicked across her nipple as he trailed kisses down her throat, whispering how wonderful she felt and tasted and looked. Chantel arched toward him, wanting him to kiss her breasts.

He read her need quickly and easily, and responded with an eagerness that made her desire spiral even higher. His mouth clamped on to her nipple, and as his tongue darted and teased and suckled, hot jolts of pleasure went through her. “That’s good,” she murmured.

He moved to the other breast, and she kneaded his powerful shoulders, reveling in the way his body fit perfectly against hers. Dillon’s size made her feel small for the first time in her adult life. And what he was doing to her—it was so fulfilling. Dillon had already touched something deep inside her, something Wade had never reached.

“Chantel?” Dillon’s raspy breath tickled her ear as he nuzzled her neck. “Do you want me to stop, Chantel? I know I said I wouldn’t touch you, but I never dreamed it would be so…”

She wrapped her legs around his so he couldn’t put any space between them. “No, don’t stop,” she whispered.

“What about birth control?”

“We don’t have to worry about it.” Chantel swallowed hard, willing back sudden tears. “I can’t have children.”

He paused above her, as though trying to see her face in the darkness. “The anorexia?”

“They told me in the hospital that my reproductive system has shut down and will never work properly again. I haven’t had a real period for over a year.” She drew a shaky breath, and then realized she was crying.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, kissing her forehead and her cheeks. “That’s a tough break, especially if you want kids.”

“There’s nothing like a baby, right?” She tried to sound flippant, but couldn’t stifle the sob that gave her true feelings away.

The sympathetic tone of Dillon’s voice caressed her as effectively as the fingers that found and wiped away her tears. “There are other good things in life,” he whispered.

Her arms tightened around his neck. “Show me one, Dillon. Show me this one,” she said, and pulled him down for another mind-numbing kiss.

CHAPTER FOUR

IT WAS THE SILENCE that woke him.

Dillon blinked and raised his head to listen. The wind had died. What time was it? Difficult to tell. The snow piled on top of the truck kept the inside dark, but he’d bet it was morning.

He shifted slightly, trying not to wake Chantel as he let some of the blood flow back into the arm she was sleeping on. It had been quite a night! He grinned, remembering Chantel’s first warm willing response and the times he’d made love to her since. Sometimes she was a little shy and reserved, sometimes she played the temptress. But the crazy thing was that he couldn’t get enough of her. Even now, just looking at her face, sweet and passive in sleep, he wanted to wake her and lose himself in her arms again.

“Is the storm over yet?” she asked, her eyelids fluttering open, despite Dillon’s decision to let her sleep.

“I think so.”

“Darn.”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “What does that mean?”

“They’ll be coming for us.”

“Isn’t that what we want?”

Her large eyes gazed up at him, and he caught his breath. Was it possible to fall in love in only one night?

“I don’t want reality to intrude,” she complained. Then she sighed. “I have to go see my sister. You have your friends waiting for you.” Her silky limbs wrapped around him again, and she kissed his neck. “Mmm, I guess we got a little sweaty last night. You taste salty.”

He laughed. “We got a lot sweaty, among other things.”

“It was incredible, wasn’t it?”

“Good enough that you won’t forget me before we get home?”

“How could I forget the man who saved my life?”

“Hey, that’s right! Doesn’t that make you my slave or something?”

“No!” She tried to wriggle away, but he restrained her.

“Come on, slave, I’m getting hungry for more of you…”

She groaned. “You’re insatiable! Not again! I’m tired.” Running her fingers up and down his spine, she massaged the stiff muscles in his back, then pulled him down for a long searching kiss.

Dillon savored the taste of her, wishing they were at his place so they could get up and take a hot shower together and eat something. “If we were home, I’d make you breakfast in bed,” he told her.

“Where’s home?”

“Lafayette.”

“We live that close to each other?”

He ran a hand through his sleep-tousled hair. “Yep. And then, after breakfast, I’d get you in the tub and lather your hair and massage your scalp and lick water off the tips of your breasts…”

“Hmm…maybe I’m not as tired as I thought,” she said, but before Dillon could take her up on the invitation, they heard some kind of heavy machinery moving toward them.

Chantel groaned. “A snowplow. They’re here, aren’t they?”

Dillon listened to the noise get louder and louder as the plow made its way through the heavy snow. “That’s my guess.”

She sighed and studied him, looking somber for the first time that morning. “I haven’t thanked you for coming back for me, Dillon. Who knows how long I would’ve had to wait before the police found me? I couldn’t even give them good directions. What you did was so brave.”

He wiggled his brows to make her laugh again. “And I’ve been handsomely rewarded.”

“Roll over and let me hold you,” she said. “Just until they get here.”

He obeyed, and she curved her body, spoon-fashion, along the back of his.

“What are we going to do about clothes?” she asked, the noise of the plow nearly drowning out her voice. “I don’t like the idea of being caught in such a vulnerable position.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll get out and take care of everything. You can stay modestly covered back here.”

“Thanks, Dillon.”

“Chantel?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Can I call you when we get home?” he asked, half-afraid she’d refuse him for some reason only she knew.

But a yes sounded in his ear, and he smiled and pulled her arms more tightly around him.

CHANTEL DREW a deep breath and stared up at the A-frame log cabin that corresponded to the address on the directions Stacy had given her—and wished she was still with Dillon. After all the highs and lows of the past night, she felt physically and emotionally spent. The last thing she wanted to do right now was face her sister.

If only she hadn’t given her word and could simply head back home—

“Omigosh, Chantel, what happened to you?” Stacy appeared in the doorway and frowned at the damaged Jaguar. “Now your car doesn’t look any better than my Honda.”

Chantel gave her a tired grin, feeling awkward and unsure of how to greet her sister. Should she rush over and hug Stacy as though they hadn’t been estranged for ten years? Just smile and wave “hello”?

Remembering her sister’s cold response the first time Chantel had contacted her—when she’d just returned from New York and had blubbered her way through a painful apology—she opted for the smile and jammed her hands in her pockets. “Would you believe I got stuck in the storm last night and had to wait for the police to bring a tow and get me out?”

“Are you kidding? Why didn’t you call me?”

I’ve been worried. For a split second, Chantel hoped to hear those words, but Stacy didn’t add them. “I drove off without the phone number.” She chuckled, feeling her palms start to sweat and wishing, more than ever, that she could climb back in her car and drive away.

“Are you okay?”

I’ve been worried.

Again the words didn’t come. Chantel clenched her fists in the pockets of her baggy jeans. Her sister would never say anything that indicated that she still cared. Why hope?

“I think I’ll be better after I shower and have something to eat. Tell me this place has hot water.”

“It does. Everyone else left to go skiing, so the bathrooms are free.”

“Oh! I’m sorry if waiting for me made you miss the fun.”

Stacy paused halfway between the door and the Jaguar. “No, actually I’m expecting someone else. He’ll be here anytime.”

Chantel felt a blush heat her cheeks. What had she been thinking? She forced a smile. “So you’ve met a guy, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“You never mentioned him on the phone.”

“There wasn’t any reason to go into it. I told you I was inviting a few friends, and I did.”

“Well, tell me about him,” Chantel said, trying to act like any normal sister would. Besides Stacy’s father, who lived a hermit’s life somewhere in New Mexico, they had no family left. Whether either of them wanted to admit it or not, they needed each other.

Stacy shrugged. “What do you want to know?”

“Where did you meet?”

“At the hospital. We’ve known each other for a couple of years.”

“He’s a doctor?”

“No, he was there for a meeting with one of the doctors. He was handling the majority of the tenant improvements for the medical building next door.”

“And you really like him?”

For a moment Stacy’s hard shell cracked and she gave Chantel a genuine smile. “Like him! You should see him! I’ve never been so head over heels in love. I’m going to marry this one or die trying.”

Chantel laughed. “Wow. He must be something. I can’t wait to meet him.”

The shadow of old pain fell across Stacy’s face, making Chantel regret the simple offhand remark. “Stacy—”

“I know. You’d better have that shower,” she said briskly. “Let’s take your stuff inside.”

Trying to remember the warmth and approval she’d felt with Dillon, Chantel focused on his parting kiss and his promise to call her as soon as she arrived home.

She could do this. She was only staying in Tahoe till Sunday, and thinking of Dillon would get her through the weekend.

Thinking of Dillon could get her through anything.

HAD STACY’S BOYFRIEND arrived? Chantel stepped out of the shower and listened for voices in the living room as she pulled on the jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt she’d had her sister toss in the dryer, but heard nothing beyond the distant drone of the television.

“Stace?” she called out.

A light step sounded in the hall, and her sister poked her head into the bedroom just as Chantel began to work the snarls out of her long hair. “You done?”

“Yeah. It felt great. Is your friend here?”

“Not yet. He called to say he stopped off for a late breakfast. He’ll be here any minute.”

Chantel smiled at her sister’s barely concealed excitement. “You still want to get married, Stace?”

“If I want kids, I don’t have a lot of time to waste. I’m already thirty-two.” She fingered Chantel’s expensive leather luggage.

“That’s only three years older than me.” Only, I don’t have to worry about getting married…or having kids. Instinctively Chantel pressed a hand to her stomach. The ultimate price. She wondered if Stacy would more easily forgive her if she knew, then rejected the idea. She wouldn’t play on her sister’s sympathy. That was cowardly. She’d gotten what she deserved. Wasn’t that what Wade had said the last time she’d seen him?

For once in his life he’d been right.

“After age thirty, three years counts for a lot,” Stacy said, plopping down on the bed while Chantel applied lotion to her face.

“While the rest of us were dreaming of having careers, you always wanted to marry and settle down,” Chantel murmured.

“Ever since I graduated from high school, but all too often I made the mistake of bringing them home. Then they’d see you.”

And what had stopped her from finding a husband during the past ten years, while Chantel was in New York?

Chantel stifled the defensive retort. She didn’t want to start a fight. She was here to rebuild her relationship with Stacy, not destroy it. “I’m sorry, Stace. I can’t understand why anyone would rather be with me than you.”

Her sister sighed. “Look in the mirror, Chantel. That explains everything.”

Chantel gazed into the mirror that contrasted her tall lean form with her sister’s short slightly stocky build, her light eyes with her sister’s chocolate-colored irises.

“We’re as opposite as night and day, aren’t we?” Stacy said.

“My father was tall and blond, yours short and dark. Mother loved them both. We didn’t get to place an order. I certainly never asked to be six feet tall.”

“And I never asked for saddlebags. Them’s the breaks, I guess.”

Chantel glanced at her sister’s curvy figure. “You don’t have saddlebags. I’ve always wanted to be petite, like you.”

A knock from the front of the cabin interrupted them, and Stacy jumped to her feet. “He’s here!”

Waving her out of the room, Chantel said, “You go enjoy him. I’m pretty tired after last night. I think I’ll lie down for a while. Which bunk is mine?”

There were two unmade beds and two that hadn’t been touched. “Take your pick of those,” Stacy said, already on her way out. At the door she turned back. “On second thought, why don’t you meet him before your nap? We may as well get it over with.”

Chantel cringed at the tone of Stacy’s voice. She sounded as if she’d rather have root-canal work than introduce her sister to her boyfriend, but Chantel threw her shoulders back and took a deep breath.

Stacy was in love. It was time to meet her sister’s Mr. Right—and to let him know he’d better not so much as throw a friendly smile in her direction.

Following her sister, she headed into the small cluttered living room, filled with a half-dozen pieces of mismatched furniture surrounding a black fireplace insert. Through the front window overlooking the drive, she caught a glimpse of a white sports utility vehicle. But the sight struck no chord in her until Stacy opened the door, and she saw Dillon Broderick standing on the front porch.

CHAPTER FIVE

“CHANTEL! WHAT ARE YOU doing here?” Dillon looked from Stacy to Chantel and back again. There were hundreds of cabins in the Tahoe area, and thousands of people came up on any given weekend to ski. What were the chances of running into her again? Not that he was unhappy about it. He’d been thinking about the new woman in his life ever since they’d parted, missing her, already looking forward to calling her. It just wasn’t a pleasant surprise to find Chantel in company with the woman he’d been dating for the past few weeks.

Stacy’s brows knitted together. “You two know each other?”

Dillon smiled uncomfortably. “Actually we—”

“Got in a car accident coming up here,” Chantel cut in, her voice brisk. “We don’t really know each other, just met briefly out in the storm to exchange insurance information.” She shrugged. “I’m sorry about our little fender bender, by the way.”

Just met briefly out in the storm? After what happened last night? Dillon wasn’t sure how to react. The time he’d spent with Chantel meant something to him. She meant something to him. At the same time, he’d been dating Stacy for the past few weeks, and while they hadn’t become serious or exclusive or anything, he wasn’t sure exactly what she expected of him.

“I’m sure the insurance will take care of the Landcruiser,” he said shortly. “How do you two know each other?”

“Chantel’s my sister,” Stacy replied.

Dillon wished he could step back into his truck until his head stopped reeling and he could catch his breath. Stacy’s sister? He’d just slept with Stacy’s sister? His gaze flew from Chantel’s elegant fine-boned face, now devoid of color, to Stacy’s pixie cuteness, and he wondered where the family resemblance was. He and Stacy had been friends for two years, but he couldn’t remember her ever having mentioned a sister.

“It’s cold outside. Come on in and tell me about last night,” Stacy said with a quick welcoming hug.

Dillon glanced helplessly over Stacy’s head to Chantel, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Jamming her hands in the pockets of her jeans, she stared at the carpet.

Stacy hooked an arm through his and pulled him inside. “When Veronica said you’d called and weren’t going to make it, I thought you’d turned back. What’s this accident all about?”

Normally Dillon didn’t mind Stacy’s demonstrative nature, but today it grated on his nerves. Her touch seemed more familiar, more possessive than he’d noticed before. “It wasn’t a bad one,” he said simply, setting down his large duffel bag. “Is everyone else already on the slopes?”

“It took them a while to dig out from under the snow, but they’re at Squaw Valley now. I told them we’d meet them after lunch.”

“Great.” His eyes darted to Chantel again. Her hands were still in her pockets, and she was sidling toward the hallway.

“I’m going to go blow-dry my hair,” she said before ducking out of the room.

Dillon tried to keep his gaze from following her, but it was virtually impossible. He was too taken with her after last night. He was too concerned about the revelations of the morning.

“I gather the accident was my sister’s fault,” Stacy said, studying him.

Dillon rubbed his neck. “Not really. It was the storm more than anything. Where should I put my stuff?”

“You can room with Bill and Tony, if that’s okay. There’re four bunks in the back.”

“Fine.” Dillon let Stacy lead him down the hall. The high-pitched whir of a blow-dryer came from behind one of the doors they passed, tempting him to barge in and try to explain his relationship with Stacy to Chantel. But he told himself there’d be a better time and kept moving until they came to a small square room with two sets of bunk beds pushed against the walls. Cheap comic-strip curtains hung over one window, and a few well-worn rugs covered the wooden floor—standard furnishings for a rental cabin.

“How come you never mentioned having a sister?” he asked Stacy as he dropped his duffel on a wrinkle-free bed.

“Because, for a long time, I didn’t,” she replied.

WAS SHE IMAGINING IT or had Dillon’s eyes really lit up the moment he saw Chantel? Stacy stood in the hall outside Dillon’s room, chewing her upper lip. He was just surprised, she told herself. Not every man she met was going to throw her over for her sister. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling of foreboding that had shot through her veins when she’d introduced the two of them a few minutes ago.

Maybe she shouldn’t have invited Chantel to join her this weekend. She simply wasn’t up to living in her sister’s shadow again.

Closing her eyes, Stacy took a deep breath, remembering Chantel’s apology when she’d returned to California. The way she’d offered it, humbly and without hope, had melted Stacy’s heart, reminding her how much Chantel had meant to her while they were growing up. Life was okay back then, better than okay, until one incredible year—when the tall gangly Chantel had suddenly become a stunningly beautiful woman.

Then things began to change. Stacy and her sister couldn’t go to the mall anymore without boys falling all over themselves in their eagerness to get close to Chantel. They couldn’t go dancing together without Stacy playing the wallflower while Chantel was swept onto the floor by one boy after another.

And now Chantel was back, and Stacy feared she’d find herself right where she used to be, playing second fiddle to the golden girl of the family. Life was almost easier when she and Chantel weren’t speaking. If not for seeing Chantel’s face plastered on the front of countless magazines, Stacy could almost convince herself that she didn’t have a sister. And after what Chantel had done, she felt perfectly justified in doing so.

And yet…sometimes Stacy longed for the old days. The Christmas Eves they’d whispered together in one big bed, too excited to sleep. The Halloweens they’d poured all their candy into one common pot. The summers they’d spent together—the trees they’d climbed, the lemonade stands they’d run, the games they’d played.

They’d lost so much since then. Where had it gone?

Pushing away from the wall, Stacy crossed to her sister’s door. The blow-dryer was quiet now, but she could hear Chantel moving around the room. She knocked softly. “It’s me.”

At her sister’s invitation, Stacy slipped inside and sank onto the bed. “So what do you think?” she asked.

Chantel stood in front of the dresser, brushing her hair. “About Dillon?”

“No, about the price of eggs in China. Of course about Dillon.”

Her sister smiled at her in the mirror. “He seems pretty special. I think you’ve chosen a great guy this time.”

Stacy waited, sensing something more in her sister’s voice, but Chantel didn’t elaborate. “Are you going to tell me what happened last night? About the accident?”

“Oh, that.” Chantel set the brush down and turned to face her. “Unfortunately I rear-ended him. It was so snowy and slick, I just couldn’t stop in time.”

“And then?”

Chantel cleared her throat. “And then I gave him my insurance information.”

“But you said you got stuck.”

“That was after the accident.”

“What happened to Dillon?”

“I don’t know.”

Chantel had spoken so quietly, Stacy could barely hear her. “What?”

“I said I don’t know. Maybe the Highway Patrol closed the freeway. I’ve heard they do that sometimes.

“Yeah, they do.” Stacy toyed with the fringe on one of the throw pillows that decorated the bed. “So, do you want to go skiing with us today?”

“Actually I think I’ll stay here and read, or just take it easy. Last night was pretty traumatic.”

“Okay.” Stacy tossed the pillow aside and stood to go, feeling instantly relieved—and hating herself for it.

CHANTEL COULDN’T STOP shaking. Long after Dillon and Stacy had left, she sat in the living room, staring out the window at the crumpled fender of her car and wondering how much more could go wrong before something finally went right. She’d almost died last night. If not for Dillon, she would have fallen asleep and never awoken. But he’d come for her, risked his own life to save hers, and his sacrifice and all they’d shared afterward had forged a bond so quick and sure Chantel wasn’t sure how to sever it. She only knew that she had to. For Stacy.

How ironic that it would come to this, she thought. Or maybe it was simply justice.

The telephone rang, and Chantel glanced at the Formica counter where it sat on top of a narrow phone book. She had no desire to talk to anyone. She had even less energy. But the ringing wouldn’t stop.

After several minutes she climbed to her feet and walked slowly across the room to answer it. “Hello?”

“Chantel?”

It was Dillon. Chantel’s breath caught at the sound of his voice, and the memories of last night crowded closer. Memories of a rough jaw against her temple, words of passion in her ear. “I thought you were skiing.”

“I’m in the lodge. I wanted to talk to you.”

“Where’s Stacy?”

“She took the lift up with the others.”

There was an awkward pause.

“Listen, Chantel, I just want to say that I was sincere last night, that it was real. I didn’t mention Stacy because she and I have only dated a few times. And nothing’s ever happened. I mean, we haven’t had sex or anything, in case you’re worried about that.”

Part of Chantel was relieved to think he hadn’t slept with Stacy. A bigger part of her cringed to imagine what her sister would do if she found out about the two of them. “She cares about you, Dillon.”

“I care about her, too. We’ve been friends for almost two years.”

“So you wouldn’t want to hurt her.”

“Of course not.”

Chantel took a deep breath. “Then you understand why this—whatever it is that sprang up between us—can’t go on.”

Silence. Then, “I’m not sure I understand at all.”

“Stacy’s my sister, Dillon.”

“A fact I’m not likely to forget and one I wasn’t very happy to discover. But I’m not sure I’m willing to give up a relationship that could work for one that wasn’t going anywhere to begin with.”

Chantel blinked against the tears welling in her eyes. She thought they’d shared something special; it was gratifying that Dillon felt the same way. But it made no difference in the end. Because nothing mattered except regaining Stacy’s trust and proving herself a true friend and sister at last. She needed to do that for herself as much as her sister. “I just…can’t.”

“Why? I’m not saying we have to do anything right now. We can give it some time, let things cool off—”

“No. I don’t want to be responsible for you backing away from Stacy. Last night was a mistake. I’m sorry, Dillon.”

Chantel hung up while she still had the mental fortitude to do so. She didn’t want him aware of the turmoil inside her. If he sensed her doubt, he’d push, and she couldn’t afford that. Couldn’t afford to be tempted into forgetting all her new goals and desires. Especially her desire to be the type of sister she should have been in the first place.

The phone rang again, but Chantel refused to answer it. She wouldn’t open the door between her and Dillon, not even a crack. She was going to be bigger than she’d been before. Stronger and better. Safer.

“It’s too complicated, Dillon,” she whispered, even though she knew he couldn’t hear her.

The phone kept ringing, on and on. Finally she covered her ears and wept.

HOW SHE MADE IT through the weekend, Chantel didn’t know. They were some of the hardest days she’d ever spent, and she’d had her share of hard days in the past year. But she’d managed to keep Dillon at arm’s length. He’d tried to talk to her several times and had watched her closely, his confusion and desire showing clearly in his eyes.

She’d turned a cold shoulder to him, refusing to entertain memories of their time together or to consider any contact in the future. He was Stacy’s. Off-limits. Period. There was no margin for error in that.

Kicking off her shoes in the middle of her own living room on Monday evening, Chantel turned on the television before going into the kitchen to root through the refrigerator. At least work was getting easier. Today she’d forwarded several letters to Congressman Brown from constituents who needed help on federal issues. There wasn’t much a state senator could do to assist someone with the IRS, except to pass on the request. She’d responded to myriad letters on child-support reform, somehow managing to figure out how to do a mail merge on her computer. And she’d learned how to handle the scheduling for the congressman so she could fill in if Nan, in the capitol office, was ever away.

She was beginning to think there was life after modeling. But she still regretted that she had no education. Stacy was a nurse, with a good job in the maternity ward at the hospital. Chantel envied her the pay but knew she could never work so closely with newborns. Always seeing someone else go home with what she wanted most would cause her constant pain.

A knock at the door interrupted her consideration of a frozen burrito. “Who is it?”

No answer.

Frowning, Chantel shut the freezer door and went to peek through the peephole. Whoever it was was standing too far to the right. She could make out nothing more than part of one denim-clad leg. Another solicitor for some worthy cause? They always seemed to come at dinnertime.

Chantel opened the door as far as the chain would allow. “Who is it?”

Wade shifted so she could see him. “It’s me. Can I come in?”

Chantel’s stomach dropped. Oh, no. Not now. It had only been six months since she’d left him in New York, but already he looked different. His hair was bleached blond, an earring dangled from his left ear, and he’d obviously been hitting the weights again. “No. How’d you find me?”

He gave her the grin that had won her heart when she was only nineteen. “We’re both from this town. Where else would you be?”

“So what do you want?” she asked warily.

“Just to see you. We didn’t part on the best of terms, and…” He ran a hand through his short thickly gelled hair. “I owe you an apology for not being there for you when you were in the hospital.”

“I didn’t want you with me in the hospital. I told you that.”

“I know. You said it was something you had to do for yourself, but that’s crazy. For all intents and purposes, you’re still my wife, Chantel.”

“I was never your wife, Wade.”

He jammed one hand into the pocket of his Tommy Hilfiger jeans. “My folks would like to see you.”

“I’ll try and stop by,” she replied, but she said it only to placate him. Visiting the people she’d once considered her in-laws would prove too awkward. She liked them, but they’d never spent much time together, and she needed her break with Wade to be as clean as possible.

“Steve wants to know if you’re coming back. He says he could put you to work right away.”

Steve Morgan had been her agent, was still Wade’s, evidently, and one of the few people Chantel actually missed. “Tell him I appreciate the thought, but I don’t want to model anymore. You both know that.”

“Well, I’ve gotten a few covers. Have you seen them?”

Chantel shook her head. She purposely stayed well away from the magazine racks at the grocery store. The allure of New York was strong enough without reminding herself of the life she’d led there. The easy money. The glamour and the parties. The attention. In those respects, the Big Apple had more than its share of appeal, but that kind of life was lethal to her. She couldn’t keep herself well when everything depended on her looks. And when she was there, she couldn’t stay away from Wade. He was an addiction as dangerous as any drug, because he thrived on her destruction.

“Are you going to keep me standing outside all day?” he asked. “Can’t we at least be civil about this?”

A voice in Chantel’s head urged her to refuse him. She supposed that was the voice of wisdom. Instead, she listened to her heart, which told her they’d been together for ten years and should be able to speak kindly to each other now. Closing the door just long enough to slide back the chain, she opened it again, and Wade stepped in.

“I thought you liked contemporary decor,” he said, studying her living room, which could have been featured in the magazine Country Living.

“You like contemporary,” she said simply, which pretty much summed up their problems. Wade had to have everything his way. No one else mattered.

“Well, what you’ve done here is nice. You look great, by the way.”

Chantel had no intention of returning the compliment, even though he did look good. He’d always looked good. And he smelled even better. The Givenchy that was his favorite cologne invaded her senses, bringing back memories she would rather forget.

“Where are you working now?” he asked.

She perched on the edge of a plaid wing-back chair, wishing he’d say whatever he’d come to say and then just go. “I work for a state senator.”

“Wow. How’d you get that?”

He thought she wasn’t smart enough to do a real job. That hurt her, as always, but she kept her shoulders straight and her head high. “I applied.”

“Good for you.”

“Are you going to tell me why you’re here?”

“You don’t know?”

“If it’s to talk me into coming back, you can save your breath.” Chantel knew she sounded much tougher than she felt and hoped he couldn’t see through her.

“How come you never answered any of my letters?”

“Because I never even opened them.” She didn’t add that she’d saved them, though. They were all lurking in a drawer in her bedroom.

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“You think this whole thing is my fault, don’t you?” He propped his hands on his narrow hips. “What did I ever do but love you and take care of you?”

And criticize and punish me. “I don’t want to go into it anymore.”

A fleeting look of fear crossed his face, but he quickly masked it. He’d probably thought she’d come crawling back to him eventually, unable to function without him. Well, she was functioning, perhaps not well but adequately, and she was going to continue to stand on her own two feet if it killed her. Even though, after what had happened with Dillon, she felt weaker now than ever. More alone…

“It’s Stacy, isn’t it?”

“It’s you. It’s me. It’s us. We just don’t work. I wish I’d seen it years ago.”

A knock at the door interrupted them. Grateful for the reprieve, Chantel ducked around Wade to answer it.

“Hi.” Dillon stood on her front stoop, wearing a pair of faded jeans and a chambray shirt, the wind ruffling his hair. The sight of him made Chantel’s heart skip a beat and then go into triple time, even though her head warned her he was as dangerous to her peace of mind as Wade.

“Dillon.”

He slanted her a crooked smile. “Can we talk?”

Chantel threw a glance over her shoulder, wondering what to do. Wade, always the jealous type, might say something to embarrass her, even though private punishment was more his style. When they were a couple, he’d withhold his affection and pout if he thought she’d paid too much attention to another man. Or, more times than not, he’d just get back at her by being obvious about the petite dark-haired groupies he sometimes slept with.

But none of that mattered anymore, she reminded herself. Opening the door, she let Dillon in.

“Dillon, this is…an old friend, Wade Bennett. He just got here from New York and stopped by to say hello.”

Dillon’s face grew shuttered, speculative, telling her he recognized Wade’s name, but he nodded.

“Wade, this is Dillon Broderick.”

Wade didn’t bother to smile. Instead, he eyed Dillon from the top of his dark head down to his leather Top-Siders. Just over six feet, Wade wasn’t exactly a small man, but Dillon had a few inches on him, broader shoulders and a more powerful build. He also looked far less groomed. While Wade had no doubt checked the mirror only moments before to make sure every hair was in place, Dillon had probably come after a long day at work without bothering to fuss about his appearance. His hair was unruly, as though he’d been running his fingers through it, and a five-o’clock shadow covered his jaw. His “take me as I am” air made him all the more appealing, in Chantel’s opinion.

“What’s he doing here?” Wade demanded.

“Wade, don’t,” Chantel said, placing a hand on the doorknob. “You were on your way out. Don’t let Dillon stop you.”

“I just want to know what’s going on. Is this guy trying to move in on my turf?”

“You have no turf, at least not here,” she responded.

“So what? You think he just wants to be friends?” Wade chuckled. “Then you don’t know guys. He’s just trying to get in your pants.” Wade spoke to Chantel, but his stare was a challenge, directed at Dillon. And Dillon seemed more than ready to answer it. His jaw tightened and his right hand curled into a fist.

Chantel stepped between them. The crudeness of Wade’s words brought a heated blush to her cheeks, but she wasn’t about to let the two of them start fighting. “That kind of talk’s not going to help anything,” she said. “And you have no right. Now, please go.”

Wade looked from her to Dillon and back again.

Dillon put one hand on the door, opening it wider. “You heard her, buddy. Out.”

“Who the hell do you think you—”

Without even waiting for him to finish, Dillon grabbed Wade by the shoulders and tossed him outside. Chantel gasped, expecting her ex-boyfriend to come up swinging, but Wade merely scrambled to his feet, called them both a few choice names once he was out of range, and took off.

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