The Snow Man

by Diana Palmer

  Chapter Four

  They finished the nice meal and Jeff escorted her out to the car and helped her inside. It was snowing heavily. He had no trouble driving in it, but Meadow noticed that he was almost silent the whole way back to her house.

  “Did I say something wrong?” she asked when he pulled up at her door.

  “What? Oh. No. No! Of course not,” he replied.

  Too many denials meant he was thinking just the opposite. She did remember that much from her years in law enforcement.

  She remembered what Dal had told her. She thought about the coughing and the air-conditioning. Jeff was coughing again, in fact.

  “You don’t really like heavy perfume, do you?” she asked.

  He made a face and pulled out an inhaler. He took a breath of it and stuck it back in his pocket. “Well, honestly, no,” he confessed sheepishly. “I have allergies.”

  Meadow caught her breath. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

  “Not your fault. You didn’t know.”

  “And you aren’t a liberal, either, are you?”

  He grimaced. “Well, no. I’m a conservative.”

  “Oh! That man! That hateful man! And I thought he was being nice, and helping me, and all the time . . .”

  Jeff’s eyebrows arched. “What man?”

  “Dal Blake,” she almost spat the name out. Her face was flushed with bad temper. “He brought Snow back home just before you came. She practically lives at his house. I told him we were going out. He said you loved heavy perfume and you were a card-carrying liberal.”

  Jeff saw the light. He started laughing. “Helpful, wasn’t he?”

  “That man!” she repeated furiously.

  “Well, forewarned is forearmed,” he quoted. “Don’t pay him any attention.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I suppose it’s best to be honest, even when it feels wrong,” he said under his breath. “You see, Meadow, your land borders on his on the east and mine on the west,” he said. “This ranch,” he looked around, “has the best water in the county, and plenty of it. He’s hoping you won’t get involved with me because he wants the land. He tried to buy the ranch from your father, but he wouldn’t sell. He said it was a family legacy and he was leaving it to you.”

  “I begin to see the light.” She was looking at him askance now.

  “It was just dinner,” he lied, laughing. “I have no ulterior motives. But apparently, my friend Dal does.”

  “I was just thinking that,” she said through her teeth.

  “You remember that,” he said, wagging a finger at her. “Water is the most important resource we have in this part of Colorado.”

  “At least I know where his mind is. I won’t listen to any more of his helpful advice about you,” she promised, laughing softly. “And I’m truly sorry about the perfume. And the long speech about liberals.” She paused. “Actually, I voted for the conservative candidate myself. Most of us in law enforcement aren’t with the liberal agenda. We’re mostly patriotic and on the side of constitutional law.”

  “Me too.”

  He got out and opened her door, taking her arm as he helped her over a mound of snow and up onto her porch.

  “I had fun,” he said.

  “So did I. The food was great.”

  “We’ll do this again. Okay?”

  She smiled. “Okay.”

  He bent and brushed his mouth gently over hers. “Sleep well.”

  He was gone before she could decide whether or not she liked kissing him. There hadn’t been a spark, he didn’t make her heart race. But it was early days. Now that she understood why Dal Blake had tried to sabotage the relationship before it began, she’d be on her guard. She and her boss could really get to know each other. She was looking forward to it.

  She undressed and pulled on the long yellow granny gown she liked to sleep in, brushing out her hair after she removed her makeup. Jeff was so nice. She really liked him.

  Her cell phone rang with the Sherlock theme. She loved the series on PBS. She pressed the answer button. “Hello?”

  “How’d the date go?” Dal drawled.

  “Very badly, thanks to you!” she shot back. “How could you?”

  “Jeff’s a good sport, even if you aren’t,” he mused.

  “He has allergies! How could you tell me that he liked heavy perfume?”

  “He’s got allergy medicine,” he said easily.

  “It was mean!”

  “So I’m mean,” he replied. “At least you know now how badly he wants that ranch, don’t you? He didn’t say a thing about the heavy perfume and the liberal pep talk, did he?”

  His tone was hard, firm. She hated him because he was right. Jeff hadn’t been honest until she forced him to be. She knew that Dal, in his place, would have complained immediately about the perfume, and he’d have gone after her hammer and tongs about her improvised liberal opinions. Whatever else he was, he was honest.

  “I don’t care . . .” She paused. There was a loud meow from behind her.

  She turned, phone in hand, as Jarvis walked into the bedroom as if he owned it and started purring and rubbing up against her legs through the gown. “Your cat’s here!” she muttered.

  “Nail the dog door shut,” he suggested sarcastically.

  “I can’t! Snow wouldn’t be able to get out when she needed to use the bathroom!”

  “Speaking of Snow, guess where she is?”

  She drew in a breath. “Well, that’s just great! I’ll put on a coat and bring your cat to you!”

  “No need. I’ll drive Snow down and meet you at the front door.”

  She bit her tongue trying not to make a snide remark. She didn’t want to have to go out in the knee-deep snow in her gown and a coat. “All right. Thanks,” she added grudgingly.

  “No sweat.”

  He hung up.

  She led Jarvis to the front door and hunted up a coat. She wasn’t giving Dal the opportunity to make any nasty remarks about her being dressed for bed and trying to lure him in like a spider with a web.

  She thought of herself as a giant spider in a yellow nightgown and started laughing uproariously.

  * * *

  He was there in less than five minutes, driving a ranch truck. He opened the door and let Snow out and walked her to the front door where Meadow was waiting.

  He stared at her in the enveloping Berber coat. It was black, and it highlighted the long, honey blond hair curling around her shoulders. She looked worn and sleepy. Her green eyes were lackluster.

  “You’ve just been out on a hot date. Shouldn’t you look bright-eyed and joyful?” he chided.

  She glared at him. “It was a nice Chinese dinner.”

  He shrugged. “I flew the florist down to San Antonio last week for fajitas and salsa.”

  “Lucky her.”

  He pursed his lips. “That wouldn’t be jealousy . . . ?”

  “As if I could be jealous of a man who once referred to me as a spider!” she burst out.

  He raised a dark, thick eyebrow. “I believe the term I used was ‘prostitute in training.’ And you deserved it. Seventeen and trying to seduce a man my age,” he scoffed. “Your father was livid.”

  She flushed and averted her eyes. “Teenagers get crushes on all sorts of unsuitable people,” she muttered.

  “So they do.”

  It was freezing cold. She let the door open so that Snow could run in. Jarvis came when she called him. He ran past her and jumped into Dal’s arms.

  “Thanks for bringing Snow back home,” she said.

  He was still watching her, in that odd intent way. “You should see a doctor.”

  “What?!”

  “I mean it,” he repeated, his dark eyes going narrow. “Jeff said you fell today at work.”

  “I tripped over a trash can,” she began.

  “You had two falls at Christmas, two years running,” he recalled. “You told Jeff you had a fall when pursuing a criminal
in St. Louis, and you hit your father’s tractor with a shot when you fell here. Hasn’t it occurred to you that a balance issue like that has a cause?”

  No, it hadn’t. She’d never really thought about how many falls she’d had. “I don’t have a medical condition,” she said belligerently. “I’m just clumsy.”

  “I don’t think so,” he replied. “Humor me. Old Dr. Colson is still practicing, and we’re not that far from Denver. You’ll have insurance that will pay for tests, won’t you?”

  She had private insurance that she assumed when she left the Bureau. “Yes,” she said grudgingly.

  “Tests never killed anyone,” he added.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  He cocked his head and looked at her intently. “It might be nothing at all. But it’s something you need checked. What if you were chasing a perpetrator on a high place and you fell?”

  She’d thought about that once or twice herself. But she denied the balance issues because of what they might reveal if she had tests. She knew that tumors of the brain could cause them. She had headaches . . .

  She lifted her chin. “Was that all?”

  His eyes were on her soft mouth. “No good-night kiss?” he mused.

  “I am not kissing you!”

  His eyebrows arched. “Heaven forbid!” he exclaimed. “I was referring to the fact that Jeff obviously didn’t kiss you. Your mouth isn’t swollen.” He smiled tauntingly. “The perfume put him off?”

  “You . . . you . . . !” She was searching for just the right word when he put Jarvis gently down on the porch and reached for her.

  Before she could get a word out, his head bent and he was kissing her. Really kissing her. So hard and hungrily that she couldn’t fight him. She wanted to. She should . . .

  Her mouth opened softly and he groaned and kissed her more insistently. She felt the shock of it all the way up and down her body, and she moaned, too.

  His hands went under the open coat, to her waist, and then around her, bringing her against the length of his long, hard body. He enfolded her against him, devouring her soft, warm mouth in the cold while snowflakes drifted around and over them.

  After a minute, he pulled back with some reluctance, one big hand going to her flushed cheek, his fingers tracing down to her swollen mouth as he studied the confusion and pleasure she couldn’t hide from him.

  “Now you look kissed, Meadow,” he said huskily, and he didn’t smile.

  She still couldn’t find words.

  He pursed his lips. Like hers, they were faintly swollen. “At least now, when Jeff kisses you properly, you’ll have somebody to compare him with, won’t you?” he drawled as he moved back.

  She got her voice back. “And you’ll have somebody to compare your florist with!”

  He laughed softly. “She doesn’t have any competition,” he said outrageously. “She knows how to kiss.” He lifted an eyebrow. “You need practice.”

  She glared at him, her expression furious. “Not with you!”

  “Oh, of course not. I don’t need practice,” he drawled, chuckling.

  She wasn’t touching that line with a pole. She jerked her coat closer around her, turned, walked past Jarvis, called Snow inside, and closed the door firmly, before he could follow her in. A minute later, she heard the truck start and drive away.

  She looked at herself in the hall mirror and caught her breath. She was almost pretty. Her green eyes were glistening with excitement, her expression was one of absolute joy. That man! That horrible man!

  He’d said that this was how she was supposed to look after her date with Jeff. He was right, although she’d never admit it to him.

  It was maddening, that he’d sabotaged her date and then come down here to mock her. But why had he kissed her? It made no sense. He’d said often enough that he was in a relationship with his local florist, and he’d never made a secret of the fact that Meadow didn’t appeal to him. So why had he kissed her, and so hungrily that her mouth was still swollen?

  She thought that she’d never understand him. He’d said that she needed practice. Of course she wasn’t experienced. She’d never been intimate with a man. He’d certainly ascertained that quickly enough, and then taunted her with it. He flaunted his own experience. Certainly, he knew what to do with a woman’s mouth. He was an expert. She flushed, remembering how hungry he’d made her, with a kiss that never even got really out of hand.

  She’d wanted it to get out of hand. That was humiliating, to want a man that badly and have him know it and ridicule her for it.

  Had he been pointing out Jeff’s obvious lack of experience with women? Well, it wasn’t a drawback to Meadow. She didn’t want a man who’d been used like a towel on a dirty dog.

  That set her off and she started laughing. Dal was a bath towel. She shook her head, patted Snow on the head, and led her toward the bedroom. As an afterthought, she closed the bedroom door, discouraging the dog from going out.

  “You’ll have to wake me up if you need to go potty,” she told the laughing husky. “I’m not letting you land me with Dal Blake twice in one night.”

  She crawled into bed, set her clock, and turned out the lights. But she didn’t sleep until it was almost dawn. And when she finally did, Dal figured prominently in her confused dreams.

  She wondered why Dal had been insistent about her going to a doctor about her clumsiness. It wasn’t as if she meant anything to him. He’d made her painfully aware of that over the years. She had considered a physical reason for her falls, but she had no real symptoms, and it looked like a waste of time to her. She was due for a physical the following month, anyway. It wouldn’t hurt to mention it to the doctor, she supposed. But it wasn’t going to be a priority.

  * * *

  The snow started coming down in buckets full the following Saturday. Meadow was off work, which was a good thing, because her cowboys were going nuts trying to feed and find cattle in the whiteout.

  Meadow, concerned, actually dressed in jeans and boots and a shepherd’s coat, went to get a horse.

  “Ma’am,” the horse wrangler stammered, “you aren’t really going to go out and hunt cattle . . . ?”

  “It’s my ranch,” she said haughtily. “Of course I’m going to!”

  She had him saddle the horse and then she stood next to it, grinding her teeth, while she wondered how she was going to get into the saddle. It had been years since she’d ridden.

  “Uh, ma’am, there’s a mounting block,” the younger of two cowboys pointed to it, just at the edge of the barn.

  “Thanks,” she said tautly.

  She led the horse over to the block, stepped up on it, and sprang into the saddle. “Well,” she said to herself. “That wasn’t too bad . . .”

  Just as she said it, her hands jerked on the bridle and the horse reared up and ran away with her.

  She heard a shout behind her and then the sound of horse’s hooves thundering in the snow. At least they were going to try to save her. She caught the horse’s mane and tightened her legs around his sides, holding on for dear life. Her father had said something about runaway horses, but all she could remember was to hang on and don’t get thrown.

  She tried to guide the horse with her legs, but he was unsettled and unresponsive. She hoped he wasn’t going to run her under a low limb and get her killed. She kept her head down and prayed for him to stop.

  Horses’ hooves sounded closer. A minute later, the horse was being forcibly slowed, and a firm deep voice called to him, calming him as he came to a stop, finally, and stood panting for breath.

  “Are you all right?” Dal Blake asked, riding his horse up to hers, but in the opposite direction. “Meadow?”

  Funny, he actually sounded concerned. She was trying to get her own breath. “Yes. Thanks,” she panted.

  “What happened?”

  She grimaced as she forced her eyes up to his. “I jerked the reins when I mounted him.”

  “Her,” he corrected with forced
patience. “She’s a mare.”

  She glared at him.

  He reached down and got the reins, handing them back to her. “Follow me back to the ranch. I’m not leaving you here. And she’ll need to be put up.”

  She wanted to argue, but she felt sorry for the horse. “All right.”

  His eyebrows arched. “My God, are you actually agreeing with me?”

  “It won’t set a precedent,” she muttered.

  “No doubt there. Come on. Catch up.”

  She followed him back to the ranch, where two cowboys stood waiting for her. She coaxed the poor horse to the mounting block, where she painstakingly dismounted. Her legs felt sore and bruised just from the short ride. She began to see that she wasn’t going to be able to just go out and get in the saddle and ride all day without some preliminary rides to adjust to the horse.

  She grimaced as she got to the ground, leaving one of the cowboys to lead the animal back into the barn and take care of it.

  * * *

  Dal glanced at the older cowboy who’d helped her get the horse saddled. “Ted, you’d better get the men out to check on the cattle. You can’t afford to start losing calves.”

  “I was going to bring the pregnant mamas closer to the barn,” Ted told him. “We’re short a couple of hands today. That damned flu laid them up.”

  “I’ll send a couple of my men over to help.” He noted Meadow’s open mouth. “It’s what we do out here in the wild,” he said before she could speak. “We help each other. Neighbors do that.”

  She closed her mouth and bit back a short reply. “Okay. Thanks,” she added as an afterthought.

  He tipped his hat. “You’re welcome.” He stared at her. “Jeff said he’s taking you to dinner again tonight.”

  She flushed. “Yes. To the new steak place.”

  “They have good food. I take the florist there sometimes.”

  She ignored him. She was jealous of the florist. It would never do to let him know it. “Thanks again.”

  She started limping back toward the ranch house.

  “You have to start out riding every day to build up those muscles in your legs,” he called after her. “Sitting in the living room knitting doesn’t teach squat.”