Page 9 of Rocky Mountain Desire
He grinned. It was bloody cold out, they were buried to their knees in snow, some of which had already melted into his boots and soaked his socks. The wind whistled past hard enough to snap branches in two, and he was the happiest he’d been in the past six months.
A pissed-off Hope was a pleasure to see.
They both struggled their way up the embankment, slipping and falling as they snagged dead grasses under the frozen layers. Hope got stuck making it over the final lip. Matt braced a hand on her ass and shoved, and she slid onto the road. He scrambled next to her and hauled her to her feet.
“This is right where we don’t want to be if another vehicle comes along.”
She nodded and they raced for the truck. He kept hold of her—the passenger door was too far to the side and surrounded by more deep snow. He opened his own door and pressed her in ahead of him.
The howl of the wind cut off as he slammed the door shut, leaving a ringing in his ears. He cranked up the heat.
Hope let out a groan of satisfaction. “That’s what a heater is supposed to work like.” She pulled off her mismatched gloves and held her hands to the air vents.
Matt shivered involuntarily. It was damn cold, and every inch of him felt as if it had been soaked in ice water. He buckled himself in. “Come here. Sit beside me.”
Hope snapped her head up. “I’m okay over here.”
“Don’t be stupid. You remember my do-what-I-tell-you lecture? That seatbelt doesn’t work. Get your ass over here, I want to get you home as quick as possible.”
Hope lowered her gaze and slid into the center of the bench seat. She settled against him and buckled up before holding her red hands toward the heater again. “Wait—take your glove back. You’ll need it on the steering wheel.”
He accepted it gratefully before putting the truck in drive and heading to Rocky.
Neither of them said a word for a minute. She was probably worried about her shop shit getting wet and frozen, half-buried in the ditch, not to mention her car door left ajar. “Sorry for yelling at you.”
“No, you were right, it’s just things. I hope…” She sighed. “No. It’s just things.”
Music filled the cab. The wind now carried loose snow, reducing visibility, and Matt had to concentrate on the highway. Only his focus got increasingly scattered as the scent of her perfume mingled with the hot air attempting to force its way past the icy fingers clinging to everything around them.
“I think we hit that cold snap they warned about.” Hope wiggled closer, and a small batch of the wetness at his hip was no longer freezing but warm.
“I’m not looking forward to checking the animals, I can tell you that.”
“You need to go out tonight?”
He shook his head before he realized she couldn’t see the motion in the dark. “Nah. Dad and Travis are on, and we had the main herd back where there’re enough shelters and trees the animals will be fine. But Blake and I are on tomorrow working the far fields. In these conditions we’ll use the snowmobiles, and the cold is gonna suck.”
She shivered. He felt it to his bones. “Not my idea of a good time.”
The memory of his ex-girlfriend using that exact phrase cut into his belly like a knife. Helen had wanted him to give it all up. Wanted him to move into the city with her and become something other than a rancher. The pain made his response come out sharper than he’d intended. “It’s part of the job, and you take the good with the bad. That’s life.”
Hope fell silent again. He drove as fast as he safely could. That’s all they needed, for him to hit the ditch as well.
By the time they’d reached the outskirts of Rocky Mountain House, it was borderline warm in the cab, which meant he was borderline freezing his balls off in his wet things. Hope had to be just as cold, but she hadn’t uttered a word of complaint.
“You still live above the quilt shop?”
No answer.
He stopped for a red light and looked down. Her eyes were closed, and she swayed slightly from side to side.
Shit. Hopefully she was just plain tired, and not going into shock. He dropped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Wake up. I need to know where to take you.”
She shook her head, looking up with glazed eyes. “What?”
“You still live above the shop?”
“Yeah.”
