Page 4 of Snowed In With You

Okaaay, maybe amicable is worse than the silence.I gave a vague nod and tried to focus back on my novel and not the man radiating heat beside me. I’d hoped a brief stop might clear the proverbial air but things seemed heavier than ever, maybe they needed an ice-breaker?

‘Do you mind if I…?’ I gestured to the aux and he looked at me in surprise, like he’d forgotten I was there and had just had an unpleasant reminder.

‘Sure,’ he said in a clipped tone. ‘Wouldn’t want to subject youto anything too terrible,’ Fletcher muttered and I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or feel indignant. We were only in this mess because of Sir Scrawls-a-lot.

I flicked through his songs, searching for the perfect tension-breaker, and had to fight back a snicker at the amount of Adele and Taylor Swift on his playlists. I finally found the right song and leaned back into my seat, trying to keep any hint of smugness from my face as the first beats ofIt Wasn’t Medrifted out.

Fletcher turned to me incredulously and I burst out laughing, eventually he laughed too and the damned sound warmed me, sending tingles right down to the tips of my toes. Why couldn’t I like one of the good ones?

‘Nice choice,’ he said, a grin pulling at his lips and capturing my attention before I remembered to look away.

‘Yeah, well, it seemed appropriate,’ any tension that had fallen away flooded back and Fletcher looked pained at my words, brows pulled together in concern.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I didn’t mean for what happened between us to happen and–’

I tuned him out, staring at him incredulously as he continued to speak. He thought he needed to apologise for the sex, but not the note? I rolled my eyes and his words cut abruptly off.

‘Look, we made a decision, you didn’t just accidentally fall and have sex with me. We just need to acknowledge it, and move on.’ I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth, they sounded so logical, so adult, soabsolutely the oppositeof all the things I wanted from this man.

‘So,’ Fletcher said, running one hand over his brow before dropping it back to the wheel, ‘Rob said you’d had some sort of bad break up? Were you guys… a thing? At the wedding?’

My eyes flew wide and I spluttered at him inelegantly. Where did Rob get off shouting about my private business to everyfriend he had? Plus, as usual he’d come into a situation with little knowledge and thought he knew it all. I couldn’t have cared less about the fling with Zach, if he thought I was upset then, well, the man sitting next to me was the culprit. But where didFletcherget off asking me if I was a cheater?

‘Wow. Okay, Rob doesn’t know what he’s talking about and I’m not that kind of person,’ I said sharply and Fletcher inhaled a quick breath, as if only just realising what an ass he’d sounded like.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean – Oh shit,’ his gaze flew to some sort of indicator on his dashboard that I couldn’t see and then to the time illuminated on his stereo.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I made a mistake.’

My heart galloped in response to his words, a mistake with me? ‘What do you mean?’

‘I think I put the wrong gas in the truck.’

For a second I could only stare at him, we were half hour away from the lodge at least and in the middle of nowhere. If we broke down, we’d be screwed until Rob and Tanya drove past. ‘You did what?’

Fletcher let out a groan that had heat rising to my cheeks, ‘I wasn’t paying attention and I just grabbed the one I normally reach for without looking but a light just came on and now I’m suddenly wondering if I used the right stuff.’

As if on queue the engine gave a small rattle and I pressed my hands together in alarm.

‘Surely not, we would have noticed it miles back if you’d used the wrong stuff.’

He shook his head and looked a little embarrassed, ‘I only topped up a little so it would have had to burn through the good stuff before getting to this crap.’

‘Oh God,’ I breathed, so he hadn’t needed gas – no, wait,focus on what’s important, Sara.‘How did you even manage to–’

‘I was distracted, okay?’ The words sent a stupid thrill through me and I wiped my suddenly sweaty palms on my jeans. ‘I’ll continue on as far as we can without breaking my car, but then it’ll be up to us.’

Great, pushing an SUV through the snow was exactly my idea of a relaxing break away.

Chapter Four

Sara

Within twenty minutes, the whine of the engine had become a deep groan and my eyes were bouncing worriedly between the deepening scowl on Fletcher’s face and the snow pouring down outside. The GPS said we weren’t far away now but any distance was a little too far when you’ve got to push a car through several feet of snow.

‘Fletcher?’ He gave a grunt which I took as permission to continue. ‘You don’t really think we need to push your car right? I mean, it’s basically turning into freaking Antarctica out there. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not exactly dressed for the weather.’ In hindsight, I should have checked the forecast and prepared appropriately, it wasn’t like me to be caught unawares. However, Robhadcome along and blown a Fletcher-sized hole in all of my carefully laid plans and generally left my head spinning, so it wasn’t entirely my fault that my jeans and long sleeved green cotton top were not snow appropriate. Hell, they weren’t entirely Anchorage appropriate, I’d had to immediately roll the sleeves down after spending a little while outside and the cold had started sinking in. Luckily, I did have a winter coat… in the trunk of the car.

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