Still, he found himself jerking his head toward where he parked his truck. “Want to take a ride with me?”

“I’ll drive myself,” she said. “Which bar?”

“Cactus,” he said. “It’s right across the street from the Okay Motel. That’s where I’m staying.”

“Me too,” she said.

“How about we drive there, park across the street. Then nobody has to watch the drinking.”

“I don’t get drunk,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because. I like to have my wits about me.”

“Well. There is the difference between you and me. I prefer to make my wits a bit blurry.”

She looked at him, for a long moment, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that her green eyes could see more than just his face, his shirt, his jeans. He had the feeling that she could see something deeper in him than he even knew was there. And he didn’t like it.

And still, he wanted to go get that drink with her.

“Okay. Meet you there.”

After

She was standing completely still. Like she was the prey. Like she knew it. Like she knew that she had been scented.

Like she knew exactly what he felt.

Because hadn’t she always?

Until that last moment.

And hadn’t he always? Until then.

When they had both pretty spectacularly lied to each other’s faces and broken down the world.

He stood by it.

Because the fallout had proved that he was right. His own behavior after the fact, and hers.

He would never have said he was sensitive. Far from it. He was a man who didn’t do feelings in the slightest. But he felt like she had taken a layer of his skin and peeled it off with a paring knife, pulled it back and showed the world everything that was inside of him. And he didn’t even like to look at all the things that were inside of him.

Hearing the pain in the song was like being stabbed through the heart.

Because as much as it was about her own pain, it was about his. As much as it was about him breaking them up, it was about him breaking himself. As much as he was the villain to her...

He’d been that for himself too.

If he believed in fate, he’d have been certain it had come for him today.

He didn’t believe in fate.

It was just that life was a bitch.

So he had to be a bigger bastard.

He put his hand up to his head, and reflexively, without thought, touched the brim of his cowboy hat, and tipped it. “Howdy.”

“What are you doing here?” She looked around, shocked, and he realized that she had gone as white as the snow outside.

He slowly moved from behind the counter, and began to walk toward her. She was the only thing. The only thing. “I might ask you the same question. Because I looked at the books, and your name is not on them.”

“I don’t check into hotels under my real name,” she said.

“Oh right,” he said, “because you’re fancy now. Because everybody knows who you are. Everyone knows everything about you, don’t they, Tansey?”

“Yes. I know you’re trying to be mean, and trying to make it sound like maybe I’m above myself, but it’s true.”

“It seems there’s something else you don’t do. You don’t look to see who owns the hotel you’re staying at.”

Her mouth dropped open. “I’ve been here before. You’ve never been here.”

“I just bought it. It’s mine. And you’re the only guest.” He spread his arms wide. “Looks like it’s just the two of us.”

Chapter 2

Run.

That was all Tansey could think. She needed to run. Because she’d never, ever wanted to come face-to-face with Flint Carson ever again. Not in her whole life.

But there he was.

Maybe if she closed her eyes, she could be not in this moment. Maybe if she concentrated really hard, he would disappear.

Maybe this was a dream.

The whole drive up here had been a nightmare, and maybe it hadn’t even been real. Maybe that was the thing. Maybe the whole drive, with the intense, freezing snow, the white stuff piling up on the road and making it slick and almost impossible to keep her tires on the road, had been part of a nightmare. Maybe the branches falling across the road, the tree that had fallen down after her on the soft ground, and the lack of cell phone service, had all been an elaborate nightmare.

Ending with Flint. Standing right there in the lobby of the hotel.

Like it was The Shining. Except, it wasn’t a crazy groundskeeper; it was her way-too-hot-for-anyone’s-own-good ex-boyfriend, who had absolutely destroyed her and broken her into tiny pieces.

Ex-boyfriend. He was never your boyfriend. He was a guy who had sex with you. And you were an idiot.

Yes. She had been an idiot. And she’d had grace for that young idiot. That young idiot who had known better, whose mother had told her better, who had purposed to not act out her daddy issues in that way, but had done so because Flint was just so charming. Because she hadn’t actually had any experience.

Because she had told herself that she knew getting sexually involved with a man who wasn’t going to fall in love with her could hurt her, but she hadn’t really understood it. Because she had told herself she could handle a fling, and then she had let herself believe that she had been convinced on some level she could change his mind about it being a fling.