One Snowy Night Read online

  whump. “Shit,” he muttered and jerked the truck back into the lane.

  Smooth, real smooth, he thought with self-­disgust.

  At the motion of his truck swerving, Rory nearly slid into his lap.

  “Sorry,” she gasped, bracing one hand on his shoulder, the other high up on his thigh, using them to shove clear of him.

  He could still feel the heat of her hands on him as she flopped back in her seat, hair in her face. She shoved it clear and then bent over and started rifling through the huge purse at her feet.

  The movement slid her sweater north and her jeans south, revealing a two-­inch strip of the creamy white skin of her lower back.

  And two matching dimples that made his mouth water again.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he managed to ask.

  “Nothing.” She straightened, coming up with a dog biscuit, which she tossed back to Carl. The dog snapped it out of thin air, practically swallowing it whole, and then licked his chops.

  “You carry bones with you?” he asked in surprise.

  “Of course,” she said, like didn’t everyone?

  His phone buzzed an incoming call. He answered it via speaker but before he could say a word, his elder, know-­it-­all sister Cass spoke.

  “I know you’re on your way,” she said, her voice blaring out from his truck’s speakers. “So I’ll be quick. Two things. One, the weather is atrocious and the roads up here are an epic disaster already so please be careful, and two, don’t forget that we’ve got a promise between us.”

  “Cass—­”

  “No excuses,” she said. “The next girl you feel something for, anything at all, you have to go for it, no exceptions. That’s my Christmas present and I just wanted to remind you of that. And since I’m assuming you’re going to say you’ve felt nothing, you should know I’ve got you covered.”

  Max didn’t bother to groan. Nor did he look at Rory, who he could sense straightening in her seat with interest. “What have you done, Cass?”

  “Me?” she asked innocently. “Nothing.”

  Yeah, and he was Santa Claus. “Cass.”

  Her sigh echoed in the truck interior. “Okay, fine, I might have invited a friend—­”

  “No,” he said.

  “Come on. Kendall’s cute, smart, gainfully employed, and she has a crush on your dog.”

  “How the hell does she know Carl?”

  “Honestly, Max? Are you seriously not reading my Facebook messages?”

  No. He wasn’t.

  “I started a Facebook page for Carl weeks ago,” Cass said. “He’s already got a thousand likes.”

  If he hadn’t been driving into a downpour with hurricane-­force winds, he might’ve taken his hands off the wheel to rub his temples where a headache was forming. “I’m disconnecting you now,” he warned, ignoring Rory’s snort.

  “So that’s a yes on Kendall, right?”

  “It’s a firm hell no,” he said.

  Cass was silent a beat, thinking. Never a good thing for Max. “So . . . there is someone you’re feeling something for,” she said.

  He nearly laughed. Yes. Yes, he was feeling something for the woman sitting next to him but it sure as hell wasn’t what Cass was hoping for.

  “Even a little spark of attraction counts,” Cass warned. “You promised, Max. And you never break promises.”

  True story. He never broke promises.

  “Max? Is there someone, then?”

  Max slid a gaze across the console and found Rory staring at him, her dark brown eyes swirling with emotions that he couldn’t possible put a finger on without a full set of directions. She was beautiful in the girl-­next-­door way, meaning she had absolutely zero idea of her own power. In fact, Rory had always seemed completely oblivious of her looks. In high school, she’d been thin but had worn clothes that had tended toward shapeless, which had allowed her to be invisible as she’d clearly liked to be. She was still thin but had acquired curves in all the right places now, shown off by clothes that actually fit her. Her long hair was wavy and had its own mind. She hadn’t tried to tame it, letting it flow in dark brown waves to her breasts. If she was wearing makeup, he couldn’t see any.

  What he had no problem seeing was her interest in his response to his sister.

  Okay, yes, so he felt a physical attraction to her. And he’d felt that response more than once. A lot more, if he was being honest with himself, but he’d hidden it. Or so he hoped, telling himself it was nothing more than a natural male response to a female form. That was it. Because he wasn’t attracted to Rory—­unless you count the attraction of strangling her.

  He shifted, knowing he was lying to himself.

  “Max?” Cass asked.

  “Bad reception,” he said and disconnected the call, understanding damn well he’d pay for that later.

  Rory snorted, amused.

  He ignored that and her, and concentrated on the roads. Which were indeed shit.

  “You could’ve told her about Santa’s Helper, your girlfriend from the convenience store,” Rory said casually.

  He slid her a quick look. “Tabby’s not my girlfriend,” he said.

  “So you kiss all the store clerks then?”

  He rolled his eyes. He and Tabby weren’t complicated. They were friends, with the very occasional added “benefits,” but neither of them were interested in more. “Tabby’s not in the picture.”

  “Does she know that?”

  “Here’s an idea,” he said. “How about you make it my Christmas present to stop with the twenty questions?”

  She turned to the window, shoulders squared.

  Ah, hell. Now he felt like an asshole, but he had to admit, he did appreciate the silence.

  About an hour up the highway, the rain turned to slush. He knew it wouldn’t be much longer before they hit snow, which didn’t bother him any. He’d grown up driving off-­road vehicles and boats, and his dad often proudly said Max could drive a semi into an asscrack. And it was true, he could drive anything anywhere under any conditions. Where the danger and unknown came in was from the other idiots on the road.

  Luckily tonight there was a shortage of them. They had the roads to themselves, probably because only the hearty would even dare try to be out in this insanity.

  At the halfway mark, he stopped for fuel. Before he pumped gas, he tried to take Carl out, wanting him to do his business now so they wouldn’t have to make another stop. “Let’s go.”

  Carl curled up tight on his seat, eyes closed, playing possum. Carl didn’t like snow very much. Max looked at Rory.

  Rory shrugged.

  “Come on,” he said to Carl. “This’ll be your last chance for a few hours.”

  Nothing from Carl.

  “Now,” Max said.

  Carl, still not opening his eyes, only growled low in his throat.

  From the passenger seat, Rory chuckled. “Is it like looking in a mirror?” she asked.

  “Funny.” Except not. He lowered his face to the dog’s. “If you get up right this minute, I’ve got a doggie cookie—­”

  Before he’d even finished the sentence, Carl jumped up and out of the truck without a backward glance. “How about you?” he asked Rory. “You need a pit stop?”

  She looked out the window into the snowy mess. “I’m good.”

  “Not even for a doggie cookie?”

  She smiled but shook her head.

  Whatever. Not his problem.

  She did, however, try to give him cash for gas when he came back with Carl, which Max flatly refused. He knew she was strapped, that she barely made ends meet. He also knew he was lucky as hell to have a great job with great pay, and yeah, that great pay was because his job could be dangerous, but he was good at what he did. And even if he hadn’t landed a great job that he loved, he had his family. The entire nosy bunch would do anything for him and he knew it.

  Rory didn’t have that kind of support. She’d had it rough growing up. Her dad ha