“Texas?” the high-schooler asked as he handed back her card.
Lori frowned. “Texas?”
“Your accent.” The boy grinned. “My mom loves to watch those Dallas reruns.”
“Oh. No. I’m from South Carolina.” But she was never going back there. She couldn’t.
“South Carolina.” His forehead scrunched in thought, he leaned back in his chair. “Capital city, Columbia, population approximately 4 million, major economic features are textile manufacturing, tourism and agriculture.”
At Lori’s clear surprise, he grinned again. “County geography champ last year.”
This time Lori had to grin back, because his big, open smile was that cute. When she was in high school she would certainly have fallen in love with a boy like this one. Then her smile faded. Those years were long gone, though, and when she had fallen in love it was with a man who had kept his true nature hidden. She shoved her card back in her pocket and turned toward the women’s locker room.
The boy wasn’t through with her, though. “Winter in Montana’s going to be a shock,” he advised.
She sent him a half-smile over her shoulder, but kept on walking. She’d been shocked before. She had come to Montana in winter to get away from all that. To make a new start.
The locker room was deserted. Probably most women were completing their last-minute Christmas shopping or putting the finishing touches on a big family meal. Lori stifled a sharp pang of loneliness and focused instead on shedding her heavy outer clothing and exchanging her winter boots for her running shoes. The sooner she started running, the sooner she could forget her troubles.
The weight room was nearly empty too, but on its other side there was a basketball game in progress on one of the courts surrounding the indoor running track. She paused, out of long habit cautiously surveying the men at play.
Though they were the right age, somewhere in their thirties, none of them had the lean, almost slight build of the man she was constantly on watch for. Thank God.
Relaxing, she continued watching for a minute. Goodness, the males grew big in Montana. The players on the court were all over six feet tall—one of them probably six and a half feet!—with heavy shoulders and broad chests to match.
In various examples of ragged workout wear, they sweated and grunted and thundered up and down the court, trading good-natured insults. Lori finally moved her gaze from them and walked onto the gray-surfaced track. Eager to begin, she had to force herself to stretch before running. Shoulders, hamstrings, calves: she methodically warmed them up.
A harsh shout from the basketball court caused her to flinch—raised voices still did that to her—but she made herself complete her final stretches. Then, only then, did she allow herself to start running.
Aaaah. It was almost a physical sigh that rippled through her mind as she began. A year ago, when she’d taken up running, it had merely been a part of an overall conditioning routine that she’d used to get control over her life. Self-defense classes, some weight training, the running, they were ways to gain confidence.
But the running had gained her something else, too. A runner’s high. The zone, as she described it to herself. It was a place where the past couldn’t find her and where she could calmly escape her present worries as well.
Even now, the murals painted on the walls of the gym began to blur. They were beautiful scenes of Montana, wildflowers, snow on the Crazy Mountains, elk on rugged plains, but as her pace increased their colors blurred. The mingled sounds of “Jingle Bells” and the thud of the basketball against wood receded too, and Lori’s mood lifted.
She was safe here. Safe in the zone. Safe in Montana. It was right to come back to her mother’s hometown. The day after Christmas she’d start her temporary job. And some days after that, she’d begin on the real task that had brought her here to Whitehorn.
Her speed picked up another notch, and she felt her long hair fluttering against the back of her neck. In South Carolina, she’d run outdoors, and even in the zone she’d run with one eye looking over her shoulder at all times. In Montana it was going to be different.
The hair at her temples dampened, though the breeze her own movement created dried the sweat on her face. She reveled in the pumping motion of her arms and legs, in her escalating mood, in—
A body bumped into Lori from behind. Impressions flashed through her mind.
Huge. Heavy breath. Grasping hands.
Panic speared her. Her feet skittered forward. Strong fingers bit into her arms. She was jerked upright, back.
Then survival instincts woke. A burst of adrenaline surged through her muscles. With desperate strength, she tried pulling free of her assailant. Both off-balance, their feet tangled. They pitched forward. Lori landed belly-down on the running surface, the man half on top of her.
Even with the breath knocked out of her, two years of self-defense classes exploded into action. No! Not this time! Lori’s mind screamed.
With a frantic twist, she heaved off his weight. Leverage on her side now, she threw herself over him, her forearm across his throat. Gulping one desperate breath, she tossed her hair out of her face and looked down into his eyes. Into the eyes of…
A stranger. A dark-eyed, dark-haired stranger.
Aghast, yet still half-afraid, Lori jumped up, then backed away from the massive form lying on the ground like a felled tree. Male laughter rang out, and she glanced around, bewildered. The basketball game had halted and the players were looking at her.
No, at him.
He was looking at her.
His face, all angles made up of strong cheekbones and a chiseled jaw, appeared rough-hewn, handsome, even when slightly dazed. His eyes were bittersweet-chocolate brown with long black lashes she’d have had to use two coats of mascara to achieve. He blinked, as if trying to clear his head.
Lori swallowed, a new kind of alarm zinging through her. “I’m so sorry. Are you…are you all right?”
He didn’t move. “Depends on if you’re asking me or my ego.”
She swallowed again. “What?”
He seemed to consider a moment. “Okay. The answer is, I’m fine, but the ego might need a good soak in the whirlpool.” His mouth lifted in the slowest, sweetest smile Lori had ever seen in her life. “Join me?” he asked.
She took a giant step back. “No.”
“But it’s Christmas.” His crestfallen expression made her feel as if she’d stolen the ribbon from around a teddy bear’s neck.
Then he rose to his feet, and she just felt afraid. The basketball player she’d attacked was the huge one she’d noticed earlier. He towered over her five feet eight inches and, as he came toward her, Lori found herself retreating farther.
Her heart slammed against her chest as he just kept coming. She scuttled back some more.
“Watch—” he started, reaching out.
Too late. Her feet tripped over a basketball. With resigned dismay, she realized she was falling again. His huge hand came nearer, as if to catch her, and by some miracle—fear over physics—she managed to regain her balance before he could touch her. She felt her face flush.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Lori couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so clumsy. “It depends on if you’re asking me or my ego.”
At her little joke, he smiled again, slow and big. “I’m Josh,” he said, bending to retrieve the ball.
“Lori,” she answered, moving back another step.
Catcalls