That Snowy Night

1. Delilah

Chapter One

Delilah

“I’ve got this,” I said to absolutely no one.

Unless I was counting my rental car and my hastily packed bag sitting in the back seat behind me. Snow was falling steadily outside, and it was already dark. The early darkness was a minor detail I hadn’t considered when I scheduled my flight.

December in Alaska meant the sun made its bow pretty freaking early. It was a bit different from North Carolina in that regard.

“I can totally do this,” I said, trying to inject a hint of confidence into my voice.

A few minutes later, all my internal cheering felt useless when my compact SUV rental hit a patch of ice and skidded down a small embankment off the side of the road.

“f**k! There’s probably a bear here.”

Maybe I was talking to myself a bit much, but it was a habit. Despite my stated worry about a bear, I was strangely not too shaken. Not just yet.

I eyed the clock on the dashboard. It wasn’t even five in the evening, and it was almost fully dark. Scarcity didn’t capture the state of traffic here. I hadn’t seen more than ten cars since I’d driven beyond the outskirts of Anchorage, a full hour and a half behind me, and my destination, Diamond Creek, was another few hours ahead. My normal can-do attitude wasn’t too helpful this far from home, and a wave of anxiety crested inside me.

Fighting against it—because I was not that kind of girl—I took several deep breaths. I was tough. I could totally handle this. Hell, I threw out drunk men over six feet tall on a weekly basis at the bar where I worked, so surely, I could call for help and potentially even get myself out of this little ditch.

Climbing out, I surveyed the situation with nothing more than the headlights to help me out. Okay, ditch didn’t exactly capture where my rental had landed. The side of the highway dropped off steeply beyond the edge of the road. There wasn’t much of a shoulder at all.

Fortunately, I was only a few feet off the road, but the incline was steep enough I certainly wouldn’t be shoving this car back onto the road by myself.

“f**k!”

The wind blew my curse away, not even leaving an echo behind. The snow was blowing around, swirling in the darkness. For a woman who liked to think she was usually prepared and smart, I felt woefully unprepared and astonishingly stupid.

Winter in Alaska was a far cry from the winters in the Blue Ridge Mountains where I came from. Oh, we got snow there, and we had plenty of winding, twisty mountain roads that got icy in the blink of an eye on a cold winter night. But it certainly didn’t get dark this early, and even the more rural areas had more traffic than this.

A gust of wind buffeted me, and the cold snow stung my cheeks. With a sigh, I trudged around to the driver’s side of the SUV and climbed in. When the door shut, muting the sound of the wind and blowing snow, my relief was overwhelming.

Except for one small problem. I was alone on the side of a dark highway in Alaska, and it was freezing cold outside.

Christmas was a mere week away. I just hoped I survived the night to see it. I didn’t even want to contemplate the potential headlines if I froze to death in my little SUV. Idiotic tourist who thought she could handle winter driving would be a good start.

I burrowed into my down jacket and adjusted the angle in my seat so I could see any headlights approaching on the highway. After a solid twenty minutes without a single passing car, a humming sense of panic started to churn in my stomach. I couldn’t exactly climb out and hike because I had nowhere to go here. As far as I knew, miles of highway stretched between towns in this area, and it was well below zero with the wind howling louder by the second.

On the heels of a gust of wind, which rattled the SUV, I saw two distinct beams of light illuminating the highway. Thank you, Jesus. I really should’ve prayed more than I did. I’d been raised better, but I’d slipped.

Just as I was debating whether I should climb out or hope they saw my headlights in the darkness, I saw those two friendly beams shine straight into the back of my vehicle as what appeared to be a truck came to a stop.

“Yes, yes, yes!” I chanted to myself.

Scrambling out, I looked up to see a tall man stepping down the incline off the side of the highway.

God, I hope he’s not an ax murderer.

The gruff chuckle I heard through the wind cued me to the fact that my inside thought wasn’t so inside. My thoughts just strolled out of my mouth sometimes.

“Sorry about that. Perils of being a woman and all,” I explained as I stopped in front of the man and looked up.

My mouth nearly fell open when I got a good look. I knew this man.

“Alex Blake?”

“Delilah?”

“Oh, my God.”

My heart leaped into a tumbling routine that would’ve done a gymnast proud. Holy s**t.

“What are you doing here? Come on, let’s get in my truck,” Alex said without giving me time to answer.

While my mind was skidding sideways at this strange turn of events, a boy who I’d once had a wild crush on and was now very clearly all man reached for me as I got closer, curling his hand around my elbow.

“This is crazy,” I murmured over the howl of the wind.

Alex’s chuckle sent a shiver chasing down my spine. “Crazy is one way to put it,” he replied, his voice barely audible as a bracing gust of wind hit us.

“Hang on, let me get my bag,” I called over the wind.

Alex angled us toward the driver’s side door of my rental SUV. I grabbed my purse from the front while he tugged my bag out of the back where I directed him to when he asked.

I simply followed along as Alex kept a firm grip on me with one hand and my bag with the other. I barely noticed the snow striking in stinging spikes against my cheeks as my mind stumbled at the shock of encountering this man.

My pulse had taken off like a rocket, and I was acutely aware of his easy strength as he basically towed me through the knee-deep snow. In short order, we were beside his truck, and he was opening the door.

I managed to almost fall just trying to climb in. With the road icy under my feet and being completely flustered, coordination wasn’t my friend.

Alex, being the gentleman he was, or, rather the gentleman I recalled, helped me in and waited until I was fully seated before he closed the passenger door. I watched as he ducked his head to lean into the snow and rounded the front of his truck.

Another blast of wind followed him into the truck. Blessedly, the thud of the door closing muffled the sound and cut off the biting cold outside.

I held my hands in front of the heater vents and glanced over at Alex. The shock of seeing him provoked a visceral reaction from my body. My heart felt as if it had been jumpstarted, and my belly plummeted, falling and spinning as I stared into his rich brown gaze.

The last time I saw Alex Blake—a man I had never forgotten—had been at a summer camp in the mountains in Colorado. My presence there was almost as wildly unlikely as me encountering him here in Alaska. Alex had been oh, so handsome with dark amber hair and espresso eyes; a strong, square jaw; and a lean, rangy body.

I liked Alex so, so much back then. Crushes at summer camp were as close to a mirage as anything could be. He should’ve been nothing but a footnote in my life, yet I had never forgotten him. Looking at his mouth, strong and bold, I still recalled the feel of his lips moving over mine and the slow, sensual tease of his tongue.

“What the hell are you doing on the side of the road in Alaska a week before Christmas, Delilah?”