Snow Baby Read online

  She hoped this guy wouldn’t insist on waiting for the Highway Patrol.

  “Why don’t you grab your driver’s license and insurance card and come get in my truck?” he called after her. “It’ll be drier and warmer than trying to do it out here.”

  Never get in a car with a stranger, her father’s voice admonished.

  Especially such a powerful-looking stranger, Chantel added on her own.

  “I’ll just write it all down and bring it to you. You’re not planning to wait for the police to arrive, are you? There’s really no need. In a collision like this, the rear ender’s always on the hook.”

  He smiled, transforming his expression from a Terminator-style intensity to the guilelessness of an All-American boy. “There’s a good reason for that, you know.”

  “Okay, so I might have been following a little closely, but in a storm like this, calling the cops could hold us up for hours. Can’t you just file a report in the morning or something?”

  “No problem. I want to get out of here, too.”

  “Great.” She gave him a relieved smile—a semblance of the smile that had made her a living for the past ten years—and hurried back to her car. After scribbling down her policy number, insurance agent’s name and phone number, license-plate number and driver’s license number, she walked toward his truck.

  He rolled down his window and glanced at the slip of paper she handed to him. “What about your name and telephone number?”

  “My agent will handle everything.”

  “No way. You’re not leaving here until I have your name, your number and your address. Just in case.”

  Chantel fought the wind that kept blowing her long blond hair across her face. “In case of what?”

  “In case I need to contact you.”

  “I don’t think my husband would like me giving out that information,” she hedged, blinking the snow out of her eyelashes.

  He scowled. “I’m sorry, but you just rear-ended my truck. I want to know I can get hold of you. And I don’t care whether your husband likes it or not.”

  This could be a dangerous world, and she was completely alone in it. But what were the chances she’d just rear-ended another Ted Bundy? With a sigh, Chantel gave him the information he’d requested, hoping he’d fallen for the imaginary-husband routine.

  He passed her a card. “I wrote my cell phone number on the back. You can reach me on it anytime.”

  “Fine.” She glanced down and read, “Dillon Broderick, Architect,” before shoving the card into the back pocket of her jeans to keep it from getting wet.

  “Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”

  She was still a little rattled but determined to fulfill her promise to Stacy, despite the storm, despite the accident, despite everything.

  “Yeah. You?”

  “I’ll have a stiff neck tomorrow, but I’ll live. Take it easy,” he said, and pulled away before Chantel made it back to her car.

  DILLON BRODERICK put his Landcruiser into four-wheel drive and merged into the traffic heading up the hill, cursing under his breath.

  As if his week hadn’t gone badly enough. Now he had the bother of getting his truck fixed—the estimates from body shops, the insurance claims, the rental car—and beyond all that, the maddening knowledge that his new Landcruiser would never be the same.

  “‘I wasn’t tailgating you,’” he mimicked. She’d dogged him since Auburn, when it had started to snow. He’d flashed his brake lights several times, trying to get her to back off. But she’d come right up again and again, nearly riding on his bumper. If a man had done that, he’d probably have broken his nose for risking both their lives, but what could he do with a tall, beautiful woman?

  Grin and bear it, just the way he did with his ex-wife.

  He glanced at the paper where Chantel Miller had written her name and address. She lived in Walnut Creek, not far from his own house in Lafayette. At least they were both local. That should make things easier.

  He shook his head at the thought of the damage the accident had done to her Jaguar XJ-6. What a sweet car! Her husband wouldn’t be pleased when she got home.

  If she got home.

  The thought of Chantel Miller heading up the mountain with only one headlight caused Dillon a moment of guilt. It was difficult enough to see the road with two working lights. He probably should have waited to make sure she had chains and could get them on. But he was already late. His friends had been expecting him for hours.

  He flipped open his time-planner and turned to the page where he’d jotted down the information about their rental cabin. He punched in the number, and a cheerful voice greeted him on the other end. “Hello?”

  “This is Dillon. Is—”

  “Hey, guy! It’s Veronica. We were afraid you’d gotten into an accident or something.”

  “Actually I did, but no one was hurt.”

  “Omigosh! What happened?”

  “I’ll tell you when I get there. I just wanted to let everyone know I’m still a half hour away. Traffic’s been moving pretty slow in this mess.”

  “Don’t worry, the drive’ll be worth it. The ski resorts are getting something like sixteen inches of snow.”

  He smiled. He needed a rigorous physical vacation to steal his thoughts away from his ex-wife and all the dirty custody tricks Amanda was playing on him with their two little girls. “That sounds great.”

  “We’ll see you when you get here.”

  He was just about to hit the “end” button when his call waiting beeped. He looked at the digital readout on his caller ID, wondering who’d be phoning him this late, but didn’t recognize the number. He switched over. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Broderick?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Chantel Miller. You know, the woman who just…well, we were in an accident a little while ago.”

  How could he forget? He pictured her almond-shaped eyes gazing up at him, the high cheekbones, the small cut on one pouty lip, and refused to acknowledge how incredibly beautiful she was. Only, she sounded different now, almost…frightened. “Is everything okay?”

  “Well, um, I really hate to bother you. I mean, you don’t even know me and I can’t have made the best impression—” she gave a weak laugh “—but, well, it looks like I’m lost and—”

  “Lost! How could you be lost? I left you not more than fifteen minutes ago. Aren’t you on Highway 80?”

  What was this woman? Some kind of trouble magnet?

  “No. Actually I turned off about ten minutes ago. I’ve got directions to a cabin where my sister is staying, but it’s so difficult to see through the snow. I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.”

  “Can’t you call your sister and find out?”

  “The cabin’s just a rental. I don’t have the number. I was in such a hurry to get going tonight and the directions seemed so clear. I never dreamed the weather would be this bad. It’s been nothing but sunny at home.”

  It was March. Who would have expected a storm like this when it was nearly spring? He hadn’t checked the weather himself, but then, he had a four-wheel drive and probably wouldn’t have checked it even in the dead of winter. “Do you have your chains on?”

  ‘Yeah, I paid one of the installers to put them on just after you left, but they’re not doing any good.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My car’s stuck.”

  “It’s what?”

  “Stuck. There hasn’t been a plow through here for a long time, and the drifts are pretty deep—”

  “And you drove into that?”

  Silence. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you,” she said softly, and with a click she was gone.

  “Dammit!” Dillon tossed his phone across the seat. How stupid could this woman be? Anyone who drove a wrecked sports car onto an unfamiliar side street in the middle of a storm like this had to be a few cards short of a deck.

  “Let her call the Highway Patrol,” he grumbl
ed, and tried to forget her, but another mile down the road, he saw the dim shadow of an exit sign. He’d left Chantel Miller not more than fifteen miles back. She couldn’t be far. It might cost him another hour, but he could probably find her more easily than anyone else. More quickly, too.

  Veering to the right, he headed down the off-ramp. All roads, except the freeway, were virtually deserted and lay buried beneath several inches of snow.

  He stopped and flipped on his dome light to study the sheet of paper with Chantel’s personal information.

  She hadn’t included a cell-phone number. He tried her home, hoping he could at least get hold of her husband. Someone should know she was in trouble, just in case she didn’t have sense enough to call the Highway Patrol or tried to walk back to the freeway or something. A person could easily freeze to death in this weather.

  After five rings, a recorder picked up, and Dillon recognized Chantel’s voice telling him to leave his name and number. He hung on, waiting to leave a message for her husband, and was surprised to hear her continue, “Or, if you’d rather try me on my car phone, just call—”

  Bingo! He scrounged for a piece of paper and a pencil and jotted down the number, then dialed it.

  Chantel answered, a measure of relief in her voice. “Hello?”

  “It’s me, Dillon Broderick. I’m coming back for you. Tell me where you are.”

  She paused. “It’s all right, Mr. Broderick—”

  “Dillon.”

  “Dillon. Maybe I need a tow truck. I’m thinking about calling the police.”

  He thought of her sitting in her wrecked Jag, the cold seeping into the car, the storm howling around her, and for some reason, remembered her smile. This woman had just smashed the back end of his truck, but for a moment that didn’t matter. She was alone and probably frightened. “Well, maybe you should do that, but I’m coming back, anyway, just to see that you’re okay.”

  “Are you sure? I feel really bad. I mean, for all I know, your wife and kids are waiting for you, worried…”

  “No wife and kids, at least not worried ones.” Just the rest and relaxation he’d been craving. He thought of his friends sitting around the fireplace, drinking wine, laughing and talking, listening to Janis Joplin or Patsy Cline, and turned around, anyway.

  “Now,” he said, “how did you get where you are?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “FORTY-FIVE BOTTLES of beer on the wall, forty-five bottles of beer, take one down, pass it around, forty-four bottles of beer on the wall.”

  Chantel gave up trying to distract herself with the repetitive chant and glanced impatiently at her watch—again.

  She’d talked to Dillon Broderick more than a half hour ago. Where was he? Her hands and feet were frozen, but she dared not run the car’s engine any longer for fear she’d use all her gas. Fueling up was one of those things she hadn’t had time for when she’d dashed out of the house four hours earlier. Now she could only stare, disheartened, at the gas gauge, which read less than a quarter of a tank.

  Closing her eyes, Chantel rubbed her temples and willed back the tears that threatened. She’d been so stressed with the move and her new job, and so focused on reaching Stacy at a decent hour, that she hadn’t done anything right. Now her new car was wrecked, and she was stranded on some nameless street in the middle of a snowstorm.

  She let her head fall forward to rest on the steering wheel, hearing Wade’s voice, despite her best efforts to banish it from her mind. That’s what you get when you don’t use your head. You never think, Chantel. Never. What would you do without me?

  Well, she was finding that out, wasn’t she? She’d left him six months ago, and despite all his calls and letters, she wouldn’t take him back. She was fighting for the person she used to be, before Wade and modeling had nearly destroyed her—the girl her father had raised.

  But it all seemed so hopeless sometimes. Or at least it did right now.

  She glared miserably at her car phone. She didn’t even have anyone to call. The only friends she’d had when she and Wade were living together in New York were his friends. The only hobbies, his hobbies. He’d made sure her whole world revolved around him, and she’d been as stupid as he always told her she was, because, to save their relationship, she’d let him. You’re just another pretty face, Chantel. Good thing God gave you that.

  The phone chirped and Chantel grabbed it.

  “Hello?”

  “I can’t find you. Are you sure you turned right and not left at the second stop sign?’

  It was Dillon Broderick. He was still coming.

  She said a silent prayer of thanks and tried to retrace in her mind the route she’d taken. When she hadn’t been able to find the street her sister had written down, she’d taken several turns, always expecting the cabin to appear around the next corner. Now it was hard to remember exactly what she’d done.

  “I turned right,” she insisted with a sigh of defeat. She was tired, so tired she could barely force herself to stay awake. After six months she still wasn’t completely recovered, she realized. “I don’t know why you can’t find me.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, and Chantel pictured his face, with its strong jaw, chiseled cheekbones and light eyes, which had been filled with anger about the accident. Would he get frustrated and decide not to continue searching? Her stomach clenched at the thought.

  “Did you call the police?” he asked.

  “Yes, they said they’d send a car.”

  “And you gave them the same directions you gave me?”

  Chantel felt another pang of despair. “You’re saying the police won’t be able to find me either, right?”

  He cleared his throat. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions. They certainly know the area better than I do and might have some idea where to look. I’ll go back the way I came and try another route from the freeway.”

  Chantel knew that courtesy demanded she tell him to return to his original route and not to trouble himself further. The police were coming—eventually. But the snow piling ever higher on the hood of her car would soon block out everything else. And she already felt so alone.

  “Dillon?”

  “Yeah?”

  She wanted to ask him to keep talking to her, not to hang up, but her more practical side admonished her against running up his car-phone bill, to say nothing of her own. She wasn’t in any real trouble, not with the police on their way. She didn’t need anyone to hold her hand. “Nothing. Thanks for trying.”

  “That sounds like you think I’m giving up. I can’t let anything happen to you. How do I know your insurance will take care of my truck?”

  He was teasing her. Chantel heard it in his voice and smiled. Fleetingly, she wondered about his wife and kids—the ones he’d said weren’t worried about him.

  “Where were you headed before you came back for me?” she asked.

  “Tahoe. I’m going skiing for a week. What about you?”

  “Same here. Just for the weekend, though.”

  “So you know how to ski?”

  She got the impression he was just being nice to her, trying to calm her down, but she didn’t care, not as long as his voice hummed in her ear. “Yeah. My dad used to take us when we were kids.”

  “You ever been to Squaw Valley?”

  “Not yet. I grew up in Utah and used to go to Snowbird or Alta.”

  “That’s some great snow there. My buddies and I took a trip to Utah when we were in college.”

  “I’ll bet college was fun.” Chantel fought the chattering of her teeth, not wanting to let him know how terribly cold she was.

  “You didn’t go to university?”

  “No.”

  “Hey, you got your headlights on?”

  “You mean headlight, don’t you?”

  He laughed. “Yeah. Otherwise, with this snow piling up, I won’t be able to tell you from any other car sitting by the side of the road.”

  “It’s on.”


  “Good. What about the heater? It’s pretty cold outside.”

  “No heater. Not enough gas.” This time, the chill that ran through her echoed in her voice. “And it is cold.”

  “How much gas have you got?”

  “Just enough to make it to Tahoe once you pull me out of here.”

  “Listen, this is what I want you to do. Dig through your luggage and put on all the layers of clothing you can. I don’t want to find an ice cube when I get there, understand?”

  “I’ve already done that.”

  “What about gloves and boots?”

  Chantel curled her toes and frowned when she could no longer feel them move in her wet tennis shoes. “No such luck. I was going to buy all that once I reached Tahoe.”

  “Damn. This just keeps getting better, doesn’t it?”

  Pinching the bridge of her nose, Chantel swallowed back a sigh. “I guess I wasn’t very prepared.”

  “I can’t believe you had chains.”

  “I did only because I bought them shortly after I got the car and stuffed them in the trunk.”

  He chuckled. “Too bad. Otherwise you’d have been forced to turn back.”

  “I couldn’t turn back,” she said, thinking of her promise to Stacy.

  “Why not?”

  “There’s something I have to do in Tahoe.”

  “What’s that?”

  Penance.

  DILLON SQUINTED as he tried to see beyond the pale arc of his headlights. White. Everything was white—and stationary. He called Chantel again and told her to honk her horn, then rolled down his window, hoping he’d hear something, but the wind carried no sound other than its own vehemence.

  What now? Dropping his head into his hands, he rubbed his eyes. He’d been searching for two hours. He would have given up long ago, except that the police hadn’t found Chantel, either, and he could tell from the sound of her voice that her initial uneasiness was turning to panic.

  He called her cell phone again. “I’m going to return to the freeway and start over.”