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He frowned. “Did you really not check a weather forecast before you set out? The snow won’t end until morning. The temperature is supposed to drop tonight. We’ll be lucky if the power stays on.”
Her mouth drooped. “Well, that’s just peachy.”
He realized that his masculine pride was a bit piqued. He knew at least a handful of women who wouldn’t consider being snowed in with him such a bad thing. Clearly Maddy was not of the same mind.
He ground his teeth together. “Spill it, Maddy. What was so important that you risked your life? You do know you nearly died.”
She glared at him. “Of course I know that. Despite evidence to the contrary, I’m not stupid. I’ll admit I made a few bad choices.”
He snorted. “That’s the understatement of the century.”
She nibbled a piece of bread, her eyes shooting sparks at him. “Why do men have to be so damned judgmental?”
He handed her another piece of bread as she finished off the first. Then he stood and paced. “Why do women have to be so suicidally impulsive?” He wasn’t shouting, but it was close.
They each stopped dead, staring sheepishly at one another. Her lips twitched. “Nothing like a little hidden baggage to spice up a meal.”
He sat down again, groaning and dropping his head in his hands. “Hell, I’m sorry. Can we start over?”
She sighed. “You’re right. You do deserve an explanation. But I don’t know where to start.”
“Anywhere will do. I promise not to be judgmental.”
She grinned. “Don’t be so rash. You haven’t heard my story yet.”
Grant felt a funny little jerk in the vicinity of his heart. Rested, and with a bit of food in her stomach, Maddy Tierney was regaining her spunk. The lively intelligence in her eyes and the gamine charm of her quick, expressive gestures delighted him. She was feminine and soft and yet clearly not a pushover. Her face, unadorned by makeup, radiated health and youth. He guessed her to be in her midtwenties.
He poured her some more hot chocolate, adding a handful of miniature marshmallows, and opened a second beer. “I’m all ears.”
She wrinkled her nose. “It started out innocently enough. My friend Mimi is a schoolteacher. Most of her family is out in California, and this year she couldn’t afford to make the trip home for the holidays. Another friend, Daphne, just got divorced, and her family is the ‘I told you so’ kind, so she didn’t want to go home for the holidays. The three of us agreed to spend Christmas together, and we decided it would be fun to walk part of the Appalachian Trail. We thought we might stay in one or two shelters, but when it was practical, we would walk off the trail and stay in a town. The first night out the shelter had mice. At the second night’s shelter a group of rowdy Boy Scouts kept us awake.”
“No offense, Maddy, but you don’t strike me as the hiker/outdoors type. You weren’t even wearing boots.”
“There’s a reason for that. I was wearing boots to begin with. But they got pretty muddy the first day and I didn’t want to get my sleeping bag dirty. I set them just outside the shelter that night, and some animal dragged them off.”
“Ah.”
“It’s the truth. I didn’t know that would happen. I had tennis shoes in my pack as a backup. I hadn’t intended on wearing them.”
“So where are your friends?”
She scooped out a gooey marshmallow with her fingertip and sucked it. Grant’s breathing quickened. Hell, he’d had too much alone time, apparently. He cleared his throat and forced himself to look at something other than Maddy Tierney’s little pink tongue.
She was still speaking. “The novelty wore off pretty quickly. My friends decided they wanted to go home. Mimi came down with a cold and was feeling crappy, and Daphne’s mom called on her cell phone and gave her the big guilt trip. They both left this morning to head down the mountain and rent a car.”
He frowned. “They sound like fair-weather friends to me. A woman hiking alone is an easy target. They shouldn’t have abandoned you.”
She bristled. “They’re the best friends in the world. We spoke with a family group who was hiking at the same pace we were, and made sure they would be at the next shelter so I wouldn’t be alone tonight.”
“But you never actually made it to the shelter.”
She shrugged. “The weather was a wildcard.”
“Why didn’t you leave with your friends?”
Her face closed up, shutting him out. Her chin jutted. “I wasn’t ready to go back.”
He tapped his fingers on the table. Something didn’t add up. But he could wait. The snowstorm had brought him an unexpected Christmas gift, and he was prepared to unwrap it a bit at a time.
