“You’re not an old man,” she said, looking slightly horrified.
His mouth twisted. “I’m charging hard toward forty, and you know it. You can’t be more than nineteen. You’ve got every young buck in the county crazy about you. Choose one of them.”
She pouted prettily. “Sometimes a girl hankers for a man with experience,” she told him, her gaze still flirtatious. “Sometimes those guys just seem so young.”
He laughed. “Pick a young one, Sally. He’s liable to be more trainable. This old experienced male is a little too fargone for you.”
She shrugged, still hopeful, and bit her lip teasingly. “Maybe you just need something special to recharge your batteries.”
He laughed again, drawing back. “No, I’d have to have a complete overhaul to deal with a bright young thing like you. Face it, Sally. I’m just an old bachelor, too set in my ways to change.”
Sally sighed and shook her head, still smiling. “I’m just talking about one evening, Sheriff. I’m not asking you to marry me.”
Not yet, anyway. But he only thought that, didn’t say it aloud. It was his experience that women always came around to the marriage thing, no matter how much they protested along the way—almost as though it were something implanted in their blood, something they couldn’t help—any more than he could help his aversion to it.
“Sam says you’ve got a tragic love affair in your past,” she said, not ready to give up at all. “Is he right?”
He wasn’t prepared for that, and whenever anyone blindsided him with the subject, it always took a second or two to steady himself. For a fraction of time, a picture of Janie flashed into his mind. It was more than a picture, really. There was the scent of gunpowder, the sting as one of the bullets crashed deep into the muscle of his thigh, the sound of Janie’s soft cry, the red haze of blood that spattered as she fell. And then he closed it off again. He always did. He never thought about Janie in front of people. He saved that for when he was alone.
“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “Nothing that romantic.” Grinning, he gave her car a slap. “Get on home. A storm’s coming up.”
She gave him one last smile, full of regret, and took off toward her house. Rafe chuckled as he walked on over and got into his car. There was no way he would ever touch that girl, but he had to admit, her little crush on him was good for the old ego.
The tires crunched on the new-fallen snow, and he knew when he got up a little higher, the precipitation was really going to get thick. Good thing he still had on his snow tires. This late in the season, he hadn’t expected another storm before the full spring thaw. But even snow tires were not going to take him all the way to the Santos place if he didn’t hurry.
Turning up toward the mountain, he traveled quickly on a road that hadn’t seen many cars that day. Three years in this area and he still wasn’t used to it—the peace—the wonderful peace. It was the ultimate contrast to the rest of his life. Down in Los Angeles, he’d been a cop in a department under siege—the gang fights, the drive-by shootings, the hatred, the resentments.
There was no hatred up here in Clear Creek. Not that things were perfect. But here, people dealt with each other one-on-one, with some understanding, some willingness to compromise. No one was staking out territory. It was a brand-new world for him, a world he had grown to love. Sure, compared to L.A., it was boring. And that was the way he liked it.
His car climbed high on the winding mountain road and he checked out the Santos place, securing locks on the gates, then started back down, anticipating his bed. Just as he came to the crossroads, something caught his eye—a light, high up on the old forest road.
“Damn,” he breathed, watching it as it moved. Someone was up there, and that road was closed. It looked as if he weren’t going to make it home as quickly as he’d thought. In fact, he might just be looking at a very long night.
Turning his car back up, he headed toward the gatecrasher, and his mood was less than cheery.
She was lost. It had to be near midnight and the snow was getting worse. And she was lost.
This was crazy. She was crazy. Who expected snow this close to spring? But why had she taken that shortcut, anyway? Here she was in the mountains of New Mexico, looking for angles, just like always.
And getting in trouble because of it. That was just like always, too.
What on earth was she doing out here in the wilderness, anyway? She was a city girl, born and bred. She knew all there was to know about navigating the freeways and alleyways of Southern California. She knew very little about icy mountain roads.
She hadn’t seen another car for an hour. For all she knew, she’d driven right out of civilization and into the twilight zone. She let out a small shriek as the car skidded and came to rest turned broadside. Her pulse was beating like a drum as she straightened out her car. Was she going to have to pull over and wait for morning?
Her heart lurched as lights appeared in her rearview mirror. Another human being! Hallelujah.
But then a red light began to flash behind her. The cops. She groaned, half laughing. Every bit of good news had bad news tacked onto it tonight. If he was going to give her a ticket out here in the middle of nowhere…
She pulled over and turned off her engine, sighing, then watched in her mirror as he slowly got out of the police car behind her, holding on to his hat as a vicious gust of wind tried to take it. He looked big and grouchy. Just her luck.
“Hello, Officer,” she said brightly, rolling down her window as he approached the driver’s side of the car. She winced as snowflakes hit her nose with a sting. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see a friendly face. Where am I, anyway?”
Ignoring the question, his dark eyes made a quick inventory of the interior of her car. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, all business.
She hesitated. On this road? Absolutely nowhere. “To a baby shower in Denver,” she said aloud. “Am I going the wrong way?”
Something about the set of his chin told her she wasn’t going to get an answer to that question.
“May I see your license, please?” he intoned evenly.
She swallowed. Not a ticket, on top of everything else. “What was I doing?” she asked, putting off the inevitable.
His dark face didn’t respond in kind to her friendly smile, but he did tell her what he thought. “Driving like an idiot,” he noted calmly.
Her smile became a little more strained. “Have they got a special number in the vehicle code for that now?”
His bland look darkened into a frown. Obviously he wasn’t in the mood for light repartee. “Let me see your license, please,” he repeated, his voice just a shade more steely.
“Okay.” She sighed, resigned. “My license.” She reached onto the floor beside her seat where she always kept her purse. Her hand didn’t contact anything familiar. “Just a second.” She reached under the seat, then looked behind it. A tiny flare of panic began to lick at her throat. Where the heck was her purse?
“Wait a minute. I can’t find my purse,” she said.
“Interesting,” he murmured dryly.
She glanced at him, caught by something in his tone. “No, really, I have it. It’s here somewhere.”
But she still couldn’t find it. Oh, brother. Now what? She thought back quickly. She’d made a stop about three miles ago when the snow had begun to blind her. She’d taken out her map to see if she was on the right road, then had gone back to the trunk to see if there were any chains hiding there. At one point, she’d thought she sensed something falling out into the swirling snow, but when she’d looked