Snowbound

on him. “I will so take you down.”

Girls giggled. Like a litter of puppies driven by instincts they didn’t understand, the boys began shoving and wrestling.

Dark heads, laughter. A group of boys much like

this, clowning around. A mud-brick wall. Rusty dust

puffing under their feet, a couple of dirty soccer balls

lying forgotten.

With a physical wrench, John pulled himself from

the past. He tolerated guests at the lodge. Teenage boys,

he avoided. Their very presence brought back things he

couldn’t let himself remember. How was he going to

endure this group?

The teacher—Fiona?—evidently sensed his longing.

After telling the kids that the principal would call all

their parents, she said to John, “I hope you won’t be

stuck with us for long. Um… Do you have any idea

when this storm is supposed to end?”

“A couple of days, at least. And I’m at the bottom of

the highway department’s list for plowing. Could be a

week before they get here.”

The longest week of his life.

Just like that, he was propelled into another flashback.

He was driving a truck, the sun scorching through

the window and sweat dripping from his helmet, dust

from the convoy ahead turning his and everyone else’s

face to gray masks their mamas wouldn’t have recognized. Women walking along the side of the road in dark robes—how in hell did they stand the heat inside

them? Kids giving the convoy wary, sidelong looks.

Men staring with flat hostility. M-16 in his lap, John

scanned the people, the side of the road, the rooftops of

the sand-colored mud buildings for anything that looked

wrong.

As quickly, the vivid memory faded and he was

back in the lodge, only the teacher looking at him a

little strangely.

Not the longest week of his life, he apologized

silently, if anyone was listening. He’d lived a year of

longer ones. Survived them.

If living half in the past, hiding out in the present,

could be called survival.

CHAPTER TWO

“A WEEK!” the teacher exclaimed, and John had the

sense she was repeating herself.

Yeah, he’d definitely tuned out.

“But…if the highway department knows we’re

stranded here, surely they’ll plow this far sooner than that.

You can’t possibly have enough food to keep us that long.”

“This is a lodge. I take in paying guests. Since I just

stocked up, we won’t starve.”

“Oh.” She nibbled on a delectable bottom lip, full

enough to make his groin tighten.

Damn. Why her? The subject of women wasn’t

something he’d wasted any time thinking about since

he got out of the VA hospital.

“Do you have any guests right now?” she asked.

John shook his head. “Expected a couple today.

Don’t suppose they’ll make it.”

“So you have enough beds?”

This was a woman who knew how to stick to the

essentials.

“We’ll have to make some up.”

“We can do it. I don’t want to put you out any more

than we have to.”

You want to share mine?

Right. That was happening.

Nice, he thought somewhat grimly, to know that his

libido had survived.

“I’ll show you where the bedding is.”

She ordered them all to come. “You can make up

your own beds.”

“We get our own?” a blond pixie asked.

“Two to a bed,” Fiona MacPherson decreed. “We’ll

stick to our buddy system.”

Made it harder for a boy to sneak into a girl’s room,

John diagnosed with wry amusement. Chaperoning this

bunch for a week would be a chore. The school ought

to give her a nice fat bonus once she returned the kids

to their parents’ custody. Unless, of course, she was in

hot water for setting out in the first place on the foolhardy venture to cross the pass.

They trooped upstairs. He showed them the shared

bathrooms, each boasting a deep, claw-foot tub, double

sinks, piles of towels and open shelving for the guests’

toiletries.

“Oh, eew,” one of the girls exclaimed. “We don’t

have toothbrushes or anything!”

He almost kept his mouth shut. Bad breath might make

the chaperoning easier. But that was just plain mean. He