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As a devastating summer storm hits Grand Springs, Colorado, the next thirty-six hours will change the town and its residents forever…
When school guidance counselor Cassandra Mercer spots cocky single dad Sean Frame stranded on the road in the middle of the worst storm Grand Springs has ever seen, it feels like poetic justice. He’s questioned her methods with his troubled son every chance he gets. Having him at her mercy would be so satisfying. And he’s pretty damn hot—especially soaking wet.
Sean would rather be trapped in a bank vault than accept help from the infuriating Cassandra. But when a mudslide traps the couple inside her car, the intense chemistry that has fueled their battles sparks an entanglement of a different kind.
When the skies clear, they have a chance at rescue. But where do they go from there?
Book 2 of the 36 Hours series. Don’t miss Book 3: The storm brings new life and a chance for new beginnings in Ooh Baby, Baby by Diana K. Whitney.
www.millsandboon.co.uk
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
About the Author
Chapter One
As she rounded a curve in the highway, Cassandra Mercer recognized the tall form she saw about one hundred yards in the distance.
And then she smiled, quietly deciding that there was a God—and She was on her side.
Because, after a grueling three-hour school board meeting during which her nemesis, her thorn in the side, her most blockheaded, stubborn, unreasonable parent, had once more made her life miserable by questioning her methods in the area of student counseling, she was now watching this same nemesis walk along the side of the road in a driving rainstorm.
Some might even call it a bit of well-deserved poetic justice.
“Ah,” she said mockingly, her smile turning to a cheek-splitting grin even as she lifted her foot from the gas pedal. “Was that your brand-new Mercedes I saw abandoned about a half mile back, Mr. Sean Oughta-be-fitted-for-a-Frame and then hanged? I thought so, but I guess I just didn’t believe life could be this good. Lovely weather for a long, cold, wet walk, don’t you think?”
And she laughed.
The June weather in Grand Springs had been rather pleasant when she had driven up this same twisting road on her way to Burke Senior High School that same morning. But, as she’d learned during her years living in Colorado, the weather was always subject to quick change, and June had been a more than usually damp month this year.
Wet, soggy.
But the sun had come out for a while that morning, so Cassandra had optimistically left her raincoat at home. Now, as yet another rainstorm battered against the windshield, she was beginning to rethink her joke to her cat, Festus, just this morning about building her own ark.
She slowed her Jeep to a crawl after making sure nobody was behind her, wishing Sean Frame had also optimistically left his raincoat at home. But not him. Not Mr. Perfect. He looked ready to do a speech on Being Prepared for any Emergency. Raincoat on—designer, of course. Waterproof hat jammed down on his head—at a jaunty angle, damn him. Flashlight in his hand—and the batteries worked.
Cassandra squinted through the rain and deepening dusk. “Son of a gun—he’s even wearing boots. Boots! What else? Could he possibly also have dental floss in his pocket? Hey, you never know when you’ll be lost in the woods and need to live on nuts and berries. Can’t neglect dental hygiene just because you’re stranded, for crying out loud. Jeez! Is it any wonder I hate this guy?”
Which she didn’t, not really. Hate him, that was. She wished she could, but she didn’t. He was stubborn but intriguing. Thickheaded, yet genuinely intelligent. Stern and straight-arrow, and with the most damnable way of taking her words and twisting them into something silly and shallow, but…but…
But now he was wet. And stranded. And being forced to walk all the way down the hill in the rain. She really should be feeling sorry for him, not vetting his appearance, trying to rationalize her mixed feelings for him. Yes. That was it. She should be feeling sorry for the handsome, infuriating rat. Okay. She’d give him some sympathy.
Poor baby…snicker, snicker.
Well, that didn’t work. She still pretty much loathed the mud he was slipping and sliding in. But maybe it was the thought that counted. And, boy, was she thinking! She was thinking: Oh, joy. Oh, happiness. Oh, how much fun it would be to speed past the miserable man, spraying cold rainwater in her wake, maybe even tooting her horn and waving as she flashed past.
And it would serve the man right!
If only Cassandra, the sole child born to already middle-aged parents, hadn’t been raised always to be nothing less than a “thoughtful, polite, proper young lady.” A very conventional young lady. A young lady who would never, ever, even be tempted to stick out her tongue at Sean Frame and call out “nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah” as she went whizzing by in her dependable four-wheel-drive Jeep, splashing him with muddy water.
It wasn’t easy being proper, but it was all she had, all she had been told to be, raised to be. The Cassandra Mercer who lived in the real world—as opposed to the Cassandra Mercer who sang and played inside her head, or the one who had rebelled, once, so long ago, for that short, terrible time—was entirely too responsible and lacking in gumption to ever do any of the things she was thinking.
She simply couldn’t. Really.
Bummer.
Banishing her irreverent thoughts, and knowing she’d hate herself in the morning either way, Cassandra edged the Jeep forward until she was beside Sean Frame, lowered the passenger-side window and tooted her horn to get his attention.
“Need a lift?” she asked. Drown, sucker! her inner imp wanted to say. Clearly she was still having trouble with this Good Samaritan stuff.
And then Sean Frame, father of a wonderful if troubled young teen, and probably the main reason poor Jason was acting out in school to the point of having been put on three-day suspensions twice this term, pushed his designer-cut but now sopping wet golden brown hair out of his eyes and wiped a long-fingered hand over his handsome, wet face.
That done, he glared at Cassandra through the gorgeous, long-lashed hazel eyes the “inner” Cassandra had seen in entirely too many of her embarrassingly romantic dreams, and said, “It took you long enough, Ms. Mercer. What were you thinking as you hovered back there? Were you wondering if you could give me a small bump, pushing me off the mountain? Were you judging your chances of getting away with murdering your least favorite school board member? Or were you going to just gun the motor a time or two and then shoot past me, hoping to splash me with mud from head to foot?”
Because he was uncomfortably close to being right, Cassandra took refuge behind her twenty-seven years of experience in saying what she should say instead of what she wanted to say. In other words, she took a deep breath, reluctantly beat down the inner voice that wanted to shout back, “Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah?” and proceeded to lie through her teeth.
“I haven’t the slightest idea as to what you’re implying, Mr. Frame,” she said tightly, “and can only wonder what sort of mind would think up such nonsense. I am not in the habit of picking up lone male strangers, no matter how dire their circumstances. Only after assuring myself that you were indeed who I thought you were, did I offer to assist you.”
There you go, Sean baby—now, stuff that in your nifty rainproof hat and smoke it!
“How very, um, prudent of you, Ms. Mercer, I’m sure. My apologies. However, I believe I can manage on my own,” Sean said, somehow managing to look intimidating, determined, successful and too damn gorgeous for Cassandra’s good—and at the same time beginning to look like he’d gone through a car wash while forgetting to bring his car.
Cassandra was tempted to take the proud, stubborn man at his word and leave him to walk the three miles to the bottom of the hill and the first service station that might still be open. Sorely tempted.
“Are you quite sure?” she asked before he could step away from the open window.
Don’t be an idiot, she meant.
“There was just a flash flood and mud slide warning on the radio,” she added, to drive home her point.
If they find you dead tomorrow, I’ll feel bad, she wanted to say. Not terribly bad, but bad. After all, I think Jason might miss you. Though I’d be hard-pressed not to do a dance of joy around my kitchen table with a rose stuck between my teeth. At least then maybe I’d stop dreaming about you!
“I’m wet and my boots are full of mud,” Sean said, spreading his arms as if inviting her to inspect his long, lean frame.
She didn’t think that was such a good idea. No, thanks. I’ll leave that image in my dreams, where it belongs.
“Besides, Ms. Mercer,” he added as she told her inner self to be helpful and just shut up, “I’ll ruin your upholstery.”
Cassandra pushed at her glasses, shoving them back up on her nose. Handsome or not, in her dreams or in her nightmares, this guy was really starting to get on her nerves.
“You can take off the boots and pay to have the upholstery cleaned,” she suggested reasonably, wondering if he noticed that she was now speaking through clenched teeth. “Or are you simply afraid to be in a car with a woman who, if I remember your words correctly, ‘mollycoddles students with her harebrained theories and lamentable lack of discipline’?”
Sean opened his mouth, probably to say something particularly cold and cutting. A brilliant flash of lightning was followed almost immediately by a crack of thunder that shook the Jeep. The instant increase in rain would have made a lesser man think Mother Nature had just yelled, “Hey, bozo, buy a clue, why don’t you—you can’t win against me!”
Cassandra hid a fairly triumphant smile as Sean closed his mouth, reached for the door handle and climbed inside the Jeep. With the door still open, he efficiently slid out of his boots and put them on the rubber mat behind the front seat, then shrugged out of his wet raincoat, revealing his expensive three-piece suit—which was still dry except for the pant legs, damn him.
She could smell his aftershave, and the tangy scent quickly traveled through her bloodstream and dissolved her kneecaps. Damn him, damn him, damn him!
“Are we going to sit here all night, Ms. Mercer, or had you planned to drive on anytime soon? And where were those mud slides you heard about on the radio?” he asked as Cassandra, who was now seriously considering having her head examined next chance she got, eased her foot back onto the gas and leaned toward the windshield, trying to see through the deluge outside.
“I don’t know,” she told him nervously as another streak of lightning split the sky. She realized she was grateful to have company for the ride down the mountain. Any company. Even Sean Frame’s most disturbing, infuriating company. “The radio cut out in the middle of the warning at the beginning of the seven o’clock newscast. I think the station went off the air. And I haven’t seen any lights on when I can get a glimpse of town through the trees, even though it’s getting dark, so I have a feeling the power is out all through the area. There’s a towel in the back seat you might want to use.”
“My cell phone wasn’t working, either,” Sean replied. “But it never does on this section of the highway. Building Burke up here farther from town where land is cheaper might have been good economically, but at times like these it’s a real headache the school board should have considered. Once we’re out of the hills and I get reception I’ll phone ahead and see what’s going on. Jason might be worried.”
Jason is probably hoping you’ll be marooned at the high school for the weekend. And is there anything the school board did before you were on it that meets with your approval? Like, how they signed me to an ironclad contract, which has really got to twist your tail? Cassandra thought those questions, but she only said, “That sounds like a good idea. I suppose.”
And then she said nothing at all, because simply driving the Jeep took all her attention—and she could only spare a small part of her brain to take in Sean’s closeness, the way his towel-dried hair made him look so boyish, so human.
Human? Oh, Cassandra, her inner self tweaked at her. Get a grip. Don’t let’s get carried away here….
And then it happened. Swiftly. Quietly. Without warning. The seemingly solid wall of rock and dirt to Cassandra’s left, the rock and dirt that made up the mountain drive, collapsed. Just fell.
Chapter Two
Boom, and the solid wall of mountain was gone. Like a sand castle undermined by an incoming tide.
One moment there had been a mountain wall safely straight and solid on the other side of the two-lane highway, and the next moment the Jeep was sliding sideways onto the wide gravel shoulder of the road, surrounded by a river of living mud and boulders, being swept along down the hillside as if the vehicle weighed no more than a feather.
The only thing that stopped the Jeep from moving as one with the mud and rock tumbling down the steep embankment was the strong guardrail at the side of the road, which caught and held the vehicle.
Many things happened in the first few seconds after the Jeep finally slid and bumped to a halt. For one, Cassandra realized that she was screaming, and she immediately stopped, slapping both hands over her mouth just to be certain a small, involuntary squeak couldn’t still escape.
Which was a pity, because she could have used one of those hands to prudently cover her wide-open eyes, so that she couldn’t look out the window and watch the whole mountain rushing past the Jeep’s headlights.
Then Sean took over, exchanging places at the wheel with a numb and clumsy but still pathetically willing-to-move Cassandra, and trying to use her four-wheel drive to extricate them from their precarious position before more of the mountainside gave way and they could be swept farther into disaster.
It didn’t take more than a few tense, gear-grinding, wheel-spinning minutes for Cassandra to be pretty certain that they were well and truly stuck. Hearing Sean Frame’s fairly eloquent if low-pitched string of profanity as he shoved the gear stick into park and turned off the ignition nailed it down for her. Still, when she could pry her hands from her mouth, it was to hear herself ask, “We’re stuck, aren’t we?”
“Yes, Ms. Mercer, we’re stuck,” Sean answered, running a hand through his hair, then exhaling his breath in an angry whoosh. “If it weren’t for the guardrail—but never mind that. Someone else from the meeting will be along soon enough, I’m sure.”
“I—I was the last one to leave the school,” Cassandra told him. “Smitty let me lock up.”
He sliced her a quick, angry look. “The janitor allowed you to lock the school? That’s not in your job description, is it, Ms. Mercer?”
Cassandra rolled her eyes, wondering if the man ever listened to himself speak. “No, Mr. Frame, it’s not. But there was no reason for Smitty to be late for his dinner because I wanted to get a few files from my office, now, was there?”
He lowered his head, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. “No. No, I suppose not. I apologize. Sometimes I come on too strong, don’t I?”
Cassandra wanted to stick her little finger in her ear and give it a shake, just to clear the passageway. She couldn’t have heard the guy right. “You’re a businessman, Mr. Frame,” she said in reply, wondering how her parents had managed to instill such good manners in their only child, when that same only child was obviously harboring a second personality, one that wanted to say, “Strong, Sean baby? Do the words like a Mack truck mean anything to you?”
A clap of thunder equal to the decibel output of five Rolling Stones concerts playing at the same time shook the mountain.
Cassandra couldn’t help herself. She whimpered. “Oh, God,” she groaned, then pulled her feet onto the seat, wrapped her arms around her lower legs and buried her head against her knees. “Watch for the next lightning bolt, would you? Please,” she mumbled. “And then count one-one thousand, two-one thousand, until we hear the next boom, okay? I want to know how far away that lightning is.”
“How very scientific, Ms. Mercer,” Sean commented, then added, “or we could simply pretend that God is bowling, and the sound we hear is the pins going down? That’s the fairy tale they told us at the home.”
Cassandra turned her head slightly toward him and looked at him through the deepening dusk, forgetting about the storm raging outside. “The home? Are you an orphan, Mr. Frame?”
That would explain a lot. He was urbane and sophisticated, yes, but she hadn’t been able to help noticing that he had this edge to him. It was a slightly rough edge, as if he had one foot firmly anchored in the tough but civilized corporate world, and the other somewhere to the left of success, standing in a more human, fallible, even vulnerable place.
His smile revealed straight white teeth, with one top tooth just the slightest bit crooked, showing that he’d never had braces. “And here you were, Ms. Mercer, all this time believing I’d been hatched from an egg like the other reptiles. But, no, I wasn’t an orphan. Not in the ordinary sense.”
She frowned. “There’s an un-ordinary sense?”
“Actually, there is, and it’s becoming more frequent all the time. You see, my father abandoned us before I was born, and my mother had this habit of forgetting where she’d put me from time to time. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t give up custody so I could be adopted when I was still young and reasonably adorable.”
Cassandra didn’t hear the next clap of thunder, much less react to it. “That’s horrible!”
“It was all right, once I got used to it. I’d spend time with her, then in the home, and occasionally, in someone’s house as a foster child. It was an interesting childhood, and one I strove to overcome from the time I was old enough to know what I wanted. What I needed to do to get what I wanted. It was also a childhood I made certain Jason avoided. Three miles, Ms. Mercer.”
“Three—oh! The lightning is only three miles away? It might as well be on top of us!” Cassandra buried her head against her knees once more, then flinched as a tumbling boulder crashed into the side of the Jeep, mashing it more firmly against the guardrail.
To keep her mind occupied—to keep from screaming—she concentrated on the other things Sean Frame had said. She looked at him again, wishing it were darker so she couldn’t see his intelligent hazel eyes, his incongruously long, lush black lashes.
“Your own childhood must have made it doubly important for you to have Jason raised in a firm family situation,” she commented at last. “And yet, after allowing him to live with his mother since he was born, you’ve now taken total custody and moved him here to Grand Springs. How does that equate with this image of permanency you’re talking about?”
He looked at her for a long moment, during which Cassandra realized that he was talking, telling her about his personal life, only to keep her mind off their current predicament, off the fact that they might, at any moment, become a part of the mountain. That was rather sweet of him—which didn’t mean that she liked him. She couldn’t possibly like him!
“Sally remarried about two years ago,” he explained. “When Jason was fifteen. He didn’t take it well, didn’t care much for Bob, her new husband. And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t much like the fact that there’s now a new baby in the household.”
He shook his head. “Sally doesn’t know the first thing about dealing with teenage boys, I’m afraid, not that she was much better when Sean was younger. I tried to be there for him, but I was building my company and working ninety-hour weeks. And a child should be with his mother, or so the books say. When he ran away from home for the third time in a month, she called me in hysterics and said it was my turn. I agreed, wholeheartedly, and Jason moved in with me. Now, instead of fighting Sally’s ridiculous coddling of my son, I’m fighting your off-the-wall methods, which are equally softhearted and maddening. And Jason is still—what do you call it?”
“Acting out,” Cassandra told him, bristling. “And now I understand why! How could you not have told me about the new stepfather? The new baby? Don’t you know that these things have a profound impact on a boy Jason’s age? He loves his mother, and now his mother has a new man in her life, a new child. Of course he’s feeling displaced, unloved, passed over.”
“Oh, really. You should have seen his bedroom, Ms. Mercer. From the time he was born, that kid had everything he ever wanted.”
“Material things are no substitute for love. I’m telling you, he was feeling displaced, shunted aside. And then his mother goes and proves it to him by all but throwing him out of the house, straight at a man who pulled himself up from nothing and probably thinks a child like Jason is spoiled rotten and in need of a good smack upside the head to settle him down.”
“There you go—more mumbo jumbo, more textbook pap meant to—”
But Cassandra cut him off. “God!” she exclaimed, laying her head back against the seat as she slumped down on her spine. “That poor kid! I’m surprised all he’s done is break a couple of windows and almost fail a couple of classes.”
“Let’s just hope you haven’t told Jason that almost failing a couple of classes and breaking a couple of windows is permissible behavior because he now lives with his father instead of his mother,” Sean shot back, reaching up a hand to jerk loose his designer tie and then roughly unbutton the collar of his designer shirt. “Or is this the new ‘in’ thing with guidance counselors—explaining away unacceptable behavior and placing all the blame on the parents and not the kid?”
“Mr. Frame,” Cassandra began, pulling herself upright on the seat. “You have no idea how difficult it is to deal with the teenage child. I see what he does in school, yes, but unless I am informed as to his home background, his relationship with his parents, his general physical health—circumstances that are not apparent when I sit across the desk from a mulish young boy who thinks he hates everything and everyone in his life when, in reality, he is simply a painfully unhappy lump of insecurity and fear—well, it just makes my job all that more difficult, that’s all.”
“So you forgive him, play cheerleader, tell him to go away and sin no more, and you think you’ve done enough? This is your main problem, Ms. Mercer, as I’ve said time and again—your psychobabble methods. Where’s the discipline, the punishment? When does he learn that all actions have their consequences? Surely not in Ms. Cassandra Mercer’s office.”
Cassandra felt her mouth open, heard words coming from it, and still couldn’t believe what she said. And, to her everlasting embarrassment, the words she had said, the words that hung in the stuffy air inside the Jeep for long moments, were “You, sir, are a horse’s ass!”
“That does it!” Sean shouted over the roar of the storm as he started the Jeep, slamming the vehicle back into gear and easing his foot onto the gas pedal. “Either we get out of here or I’m going to murder you,” he said as he began rocking the Jeep, throwing it into reverse, pushing it into low gear—and getting them nowhere.