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“Yeah, I’m fine.” He flashed a reassuring smile, squeezed her hand again before putting it into her lap. “Let me just see if the car’s okay. The last thing we need is to have somebody come around that curve and straight into us.” Jake turned the key, held his breath until the engine caught and purred. “Damn,” he said roughly, as he swung the car back into the lane and edged forward, “we almost bought it, that time.”
Emily nodded. “I know. I’m sorry, Jake. I—I guess I wasn’t thinking. It was stupid to yell like that.”
“No need to apologize.” He shot her a quick smile. “Nobody wants to kill Bambi.”
“Bambi?”
“Uh-huh.” Jake leaned forward, peered intently out the windshield. The wipers were working as hard as they could but the snow was too heavy for any real visibility. The turnoff that led to his driveway was just a little further up the road. He could only hope the guy he paid to keep it plowed had already been there. “You’d think the deer would have finally figured it out by now, wouldn’t you? That running across the road in front of a car isn’t a good idea?”
“Oh.” Emily bit her lip. “I didn’t see a deer.” Her voice was soft and small. “I just—I just...” She took a breath. “I thought about what we were doing. And I decided it was a mistake.”
Jake took his eyes off the road long enough to stare at her.
“Excuse me?”
“I said—”
“I heard what you said. I just don’t believe it. You’re telling me you almost got us killed because you suddenly decided you wanted to go home?”
“It wasn’t sudden. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. And how was I supposed to know you’d react by almost crashing the car into a tree?”
“Oh, forgive me.” His words were thick with sarcasm. “The next time I’m driving blind through a storm and the person seated next to me yells ‘Stop,’ I’ll just keep going and hope for the best.”
Emily lifted her chin. “I said I was sorry, didn’t I?”
“You’d be sorrier if we were lying dead back there.”
“Look, what I did was stupid. But I meant what I said, Jake. I want to go back to New York.”
Jake gave a short, sharp laugh. “Yeah? Well, trust me lady. So do I.”
Emily’s heart felt as if somebody were crushing it, which was even stupider than yelling “Stop.” She’d already known Jake had regrets. Why should it upset her, to hear him confirm it?
“Fine,” she said coolly. “That makes the decision unanimous.”
“It damned well does. Unfortunately, neither your vote nor mine counts. This blizzard owns the ballot box.”
“This isn’t a blizzard.” Her voice wobbled a little and she cleared her throat. “I’ll bet you never saw a blizzard in your life. Back home, in Rochester—”
“Trust me. We had blizzards in Pennsylvania, too.”
Pennsylvania? Not New York? Was that where he was from? It was impossible to picture Jake living anywhere but in the elegant canyons of the city. She wanted to ask him where he’d grown up, and how, and what he’d been like as a boy...
But she wouldn’t.
What was the matter with her tonight? You didn’t ask questions like that of a man who’d just told you he was sorry he’d asked you to sleep with him.
“The wind has to blow at least thirty-five miles an hour for a snowstorm to be a blizzard,” she said, blanking her mind to everything but the night and the storm. “And the visibility—”
Blah, blah, blah, Jake thought grimly. There she went, the Emily he knew, who could quote you chapter and verse on everything and anything—except how to be a woman.
He gritted his teeth, tuned her out, and concentrated on the road. There it was, just ahead. The turnoff. And yes, the guy had cleared it. He signaled for a right turn, not that there was anybody in back of him. Who’d be fool enough to be out on a night like this?
Only a man who’d been letting his gonads lead him around for the past week.
Well, no more.
He’d had lots of time to think, the past few hours, and what he’d thought was how dumb this whole escapade was.
He’d set out on a mission of mercy, been snared by his own hormones, and now he was taking a woman to the last place he’d ever thought he’d take a woman.
Not just a woman. Emily. Emily, for God’s sake, who probably thought sex was another word for romance and love and lace-trimmed Valentine’s Day cards. He’d backed himself into a corner he was going to have trouble getting out of, and for what? For a couple of hours in bed?
