Snowbound

with her. Behind the wheel of her own car, the pavement

bare, it seemed no time before she left the placid Willamette Valley behind and began the climb into the forested foothills of the Cascade Mountains. As each

mile passed, her apprehension and anticipation ratcheted higher and tangled together.

She meant something to John, Fiona kept reassuring

herself. She wasn’t alone in feeling this powerful connection, or at least attraction. He had gone to a lot of effort to maintain the e-mail correspondence with her.

The e-mails held a whole lot more meaning when she

knew he’d had to drive a hundred miles round trip to

send each one. She might not have had the courage to

make this trip if he’d been able to casually reply whenever he had nothing better to do. The effort required, the fact that he’d driven down the mountain twice a week

when clearly he preferred to avoid town, that gave her

confidence.

On the other hand…she was going to spend as much

as ten days with a man she hardly knew. A man who had

gotten angry when she pressed him to find out what was

bothering him.

Going with the full intention of sharing his bed,

although they’d left that open.

I haven’t booked your room over the holidays,

he’d written.

She had been careful not to respond to that remark.

Knowing she could have a room to herself meant she

could chicken out. Or at least take her time. Get to

know him again before baring herself—literally—for

him.

Fiona stopped for lunch in Danson, not wanting to

arrive hungry in case John was busy with guests. The

choices were a homey-looking café and a burger joint.

She picked the burger joint, even though she was

tempted to opt for the café and hope she had a gossipy

waitress. It would be interesting to know what locals

thought of the new owner of Thunder Mountain Lodge.

But now that she was so close, Fiona couldn’t imagine

browsing a menu, waiting for food, then for a bill. The

need to get there was rising in her, to find out if John

Fallon still had that instant effect on her.

So she went in just to use the rest room and order her

burger and fries to go.

The forest closed in just outside of town. No more

than three or four inches of snow had lain frozen on the

ground in Danson, but with every hundred feet of elevation the road gained, the snowbanks grew higher.

There was still nowhere near the amount of snow as

there had been in November, but there was plenty for

cross-country skiers and snowmobilers. She passed

several turnouts with a couple of vehicles parked in

each and various tracks in the snow leading away.

She came around a curve in the road and suddenly,

there it was. Sooner than she’d expected. Thunder

Mountain Lodge, the familiar sign announced. Just

beyond it, the highway ended against a low wall of

snow. Fiona shivered in memory of her stupidity. She

and the kids had been the last people to make it over the

pass heading toward eastern Oregon, and would be the

last until sometime next spring. How long would it have

taken for them to be found if they’d gotten stuck up

there somewhere, with the snow that fell for two days

burying the van?

Thank God for Dieter, she thought, for at least the

hundredth time.

The narrower lane had been plowed, too, but patches

of snow clung to the hard-packed gravel. She drove carefully on the steep descent, her heart thudding as she waited for the lodge to come into sight. She had grown to love it,

Fiona realized; in comparison, her town house was bland.

No massive river rock fireplace, no deep, claw-foot

bathtub, no peeled log walls and broad plank floors.

One more curve, and the lodge appeared, looking just

as she remembered it the day they left, when she had

turned back just once, wanting to remember it accurately.

The steep, shake roof was punctuated by dormers

with small-paned windows for the bedrooms, a smaller

one behind which she knew lay the bathroom with that

amazing bathtub. The porch seemed larger without

snow cloaking stairs and footings. From this vantage

she could see the roofs of cabins amongst the trees, and

the shed that had been half-buried in snow and was

much larger than she’d realized, the size of perhaps a

triple garage.