• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“I grabbed you.”

Before she could continue, he surprised her by flipping on his turn signal and heading for an exit. Fortunately, the plows had done a good job of clearing the main roads and exits…but the side one they ended up on was still dusted with white.

“We’ll be okay, it’s a four-wheel drive.”

It was as if he’d read her mind.

“Are we going to stop now?”

“Yes. We’ll need some food. We’re going to be roughing it.”

Roughing it. In a velvet bridesmaid gown and skimpy lingerie. Wonderful.

Then Bridget thought about it and realized she wouldn’t have to. Because he was stopping in a public place, where she could get help from someone else. Someone who wasn’t Dean, who didn’t arouse her even as he infuriated her.

She owed him for getting her out of danger this evening. That didn’t mean he was the one who had to keep her out of danger from now on. She had friends, she had family. Heck, her cousin Mia knew the law inside and out. She was as tough as any criminal and had prosecuted dozens of them.

Bridget made her decision quickly. She was going to ditch Dean at the first opportunity.

He headed for the only well-lit area near the exit, a small gas station with a convenience store. Parking out front, he said, “Wait a second. It’s too snowy.”

She didn’t have any idea what he meant to do about that until he opened the back door, reached in and picked her up off the seat. “You’d break your neck on this ice, even if you weren’t wearing those ridiculous things on your feet.”

Those ridiculous things had cost her half a week’s paycheck. But she couldn’t even open her mouth to argue it because all the air had been sucked from her lungs when he’d swung her into his arms. He held her close, tight against his warm, powerful body, picking his way across the ice and snow.

The contact was electrifying. His arms cradled her, his breath falling on her cheek and her hair. Bridget lost all sense of time and place, not even noticing the cold until he carefully set her down on the cleared sidewalk.

Finally, with the gift of distance, she could breathe again, think again. Calling herself a fool, she yanked the door open and strode inside.

He was right behind her. “Where are you going?”

“Where does it look like I’m going?” She nodded toward the ladies’ room door in the back corner of the dusty old store, empty but for a dozing man behind the counter.

He frowned, offering a brief nod. “Be quick.”

Oh, she’d be quick all right. Quick to make a phone call to Mia—anybody—to get her out of this mess. Because while she appreciated Dean getting her to safety, there was no way she was spending the next day and a half alone with him.

A tiny voice of doubt told her she’d be smart to go along. Smart and safe. But she knew that little voice meant safety in the physical sense. Emotionally, she would not be safe being closed up with Dean for thirty-six seconds, let alone hours.

As soon as she’d shut the ladies’ room door behind her, she grabbed her cell phone out of her purse and dialed Mia’s number. Mia was not only a lawyer, she was a serious, no-nonsense woman. She wouldn’t go nuts like Gloria might and she wouldn’t worry herself into a heart attack like Bridget’s parents would.

But after three rings, Mia’s cell phone was answered by a voice that was much deeper than her beautiful cousin’s. “Hello?”

“I’m sorry…I think I might have dialed the wrong number,” Bridget admitted, knowing her cousin hadn’t been seeing anyone since she’d moved back to Chicago just before Christmas. “I was trying to reach my cousin, Mia Natale?”

“You’ve got the right number,” the smooth, deep voice said.

Whoa. Mia had picked up a man for the night. A sexy man, judging by the deep, slow voice. “Can I speak with her, please?”

“Sorry,” he replied, “Mia’s in the…middle of something.”

Oh, great. She was having sex with a stranger when Bridget needed her to come bail her out of her predicament. Though she hated to do it, she was going to have to play the it’s-an-emergency card. But before she could do it, before she could say another word, in fact, the