Chapter 11
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Joey sat with her back pressed into the puffy pink headboard of the bed where she’d be sleeping that night. Yes, she’d cried when the alert had gone out about fifteen minutes ago, because it meant she would not be able to get back to Grams and Gramps until tomorrow.
Trick-or-treaters had dried right on up, and it wasn’t even six p.m. yet. She sniffled, determined not to let her mother or grandmother know that staying here had caused her to cry.
Her phone rang, startling her, and Joey dropped it to her lap and then picked it right back up, for she had seen Adam’s name on the screen. She swallowed back her emotions as she swiped on the call.
“Hey,” she said as brightly and as bravely as she could. “What’s up?”
“Are you at your mom’s?” he asked in his no-nonsense managerial voice.
“Yes,” she said. “They closed all the roads, as I’m sure you’ve heard. They send out an alert to everyone within a fifty-mile radius.”
“I got the alert,” he said.
Her nose ran, and Joey had to sniff to pull it back.
“I’m actually really glad you’re there,” he said. “Because—”
Joey sat up straighter, her heart pounding a little bit harder. “Because why?”
“I came up to Dog Valley to look at houses this afternoon,” he said. “And now I’m stuck here, sitting outside a locked house that has no furniture inside, even if I could get in. There are no hotels in Dog Valley. Did you know that?”
Joey smiled because for someone like Adam, the fact that no hotels existed in a place boggled his mind. “Yes,” she said. “I did know that.”
“Maybe your mom has an extra bed I can sleep in tonight,” he said.
All of the air left Joey’s lungs in one horrible rasping sound. “You want to come stay here?”
“Yes,” Adam said. “It’s pretty much my only option, which is shrinking by the minute, by the way, as I’m pretty sure my car is almost buried in snow, and I’ll be lucky to make it off this curb as it is. So I’m gonna need an answer pretty much right now.”
Joey jumped off her bed, her pulse pounding through her whole body. “Let me go talk to my mom.” She muted the call and hurried down the hall.
“Mom,” she called. “I have a friend who’s stuck up here in Dog Valley. Can he stay here?”
“Of course,” her mom said. “I mean, we don’t have another bedroom, but he can sleep on the couch.”
The thought of Adam with his long legs and dignified personality sleeping on her mom’s ratty, lumpy couch somehow made Joey’s soul sing.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll tell him.” She tapped to unmute the call and turned her back on her mother and grandmother.
“She says you can stay here, but there’s no bed, Adam. It’s a couch.”
“A couch is better than my car that doesn’t have heat,” he clipped out. “Can you text me the address, like, right now?”
“Yes,” she said, her fingers flying to do that. “I’m doing it right now,” she yelled into the phone. “How far away do you think you are?”
“I don’t know,” he growled. “I don’t know where your mom’s house is.”
She sent the text with the address and watched as the circle moved around and around and around. It finally went through, and she shouted, “It sent.”
She tapped back over to the call and lifted the phone back to her ear. “I just sent it,” she said.
“I see it,” he said. “It looks like—” He trailed off, and Joey didn’t like the urgency in his voice. It sounded a lot like panic, and Adam didn’t live his life from that place. Joey didn’t know him very well, but she knew that much.
“I’m eight minutes away,” he said. “On a dry road. On these roads—I gotta be real honest, baby doll, I’ve never driven in the snow before.”
Joey’s breath left her lungs for the second time, but for an entirely different reason now. “You’ve never driven in the snow?” she asked. “Do you even have snow tires?”
“Are snow tires a real thing?” he asked.
“Yes,” Joey said. “They are a real thing.”
Adam chuckled and asked, “Will you just stay on the line with me until I get there?”
“Which way are you?” she asked. “Seven minutes up, or seven minutes straight across, or seven minutes down?”
“I’m flipping a U-turn,” he said. “It looks like I stay on this same road for a little bit, and then I’m going to turn left.”
“That’s up,” she said. “You’re probably going to have to come up a couple of streets.”
“Yes,” he said. “Looks like it.”
“That’s uphill. Adam, can your car go uphill?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m moving down the street right now. If I have to, I’ll walk.”
“You cannot go out in this weather,” she said. “Do you have a coat with you? A blanket?”
Adam didn’t answer, which Joey took as a no to both. She’d have to tell him what winter living was like in Wyoming, and that included a tote with food, water, hand warmers, body warmers, emergency supplies, a blanket, and a coat in his car at all times.
Knowing Adam, once he knew what he needed to put into a kit, he’d have it all, and he’d rotate it every week. But since he didn’t know, his car was probably spotless. He was totally the type who would dust his car and spray protectant onto his plastic so it wouldn’t crack in the sun.
She smiled at the thought, though nothing about this phone call and situation should be funny.
“I’m making the turn,” he said. “It looks like it’s actually three blocks up, and then I have to turn right again.”
“If you can make it up those three blocks,” she said. “When you turn right, it will be flat again, and then it’s just straight down the street.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m making the turn. It’s really creepy out here.”
Joey moved to the front window and looked outside. “Everyone will be on their way home, or they’re already there,” she said. “We watch the weather pretty religiously in Wyoming.”
“We checked it too,” Adam said. “It said the storm wasn’t going to be here until nine o’clock tonight. I didn’t think it would be a problem.”
“Me either,” Joey murmured. She’d seen the weather report, and she had planned to be gone by seven so that she could be home by 7:45. “Sometimes Mother Nature can be so cruel,” she told him.
“Bright side,” Adam said, his voice pitching up. “You won’t have to stay at your mother’s alone. I’ll be there in three minutes.”
Joey scoffed. “You think that’s a bright side?”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “You won’t have to be there by yourself.”
“And who am I supposed to say you are?” she whispered. “My boyfriend? This guy I know? Someone I’m going out with on Saturday?”
“What did you tell her when you asked if I could stay there?” he asked.
Joey’s memory fired at her. “I told her you were a friend,” she muttered.
“I mean, I don’t really like that label,” he said. “But I’ll take it for now, because you’re right. We haven’t really been out on our first date yet.”
“This is no time for teasing,” she said.
“This is the perfect time for teasing,” he shot back. “Otherwise, I’m gonna start panicking, and that’s the last thing I need to do.”
Joey drew in a deep breath and held it for a moment before releasing it. “I think I’ll just tell her that you’re my dad’s band manager.”
“Sure,” Adam said. “That works too.”
He didn’t sound super happy about it, but Joey didn’t know what this in-between place was, or how to categorize it. They weren’t dating. Adam was not her boyfriend. They’d flirted with each other a little bit, and he’d taken her for coffee. Kind of.
“Where are you?” she asked, her heart suddenly warming at the idea of not having to be alone at her mother’s that night.
“One more block,” he said. “I’m almost there, baby doll.”
She liked how he called her baby doll, and she wanted to keep him distracted so he wouldn’t panic while he drove. “Did you find a house you like?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “This one here in Dog Valley, actually. My realtor is going to put an offer on it, and I’m hoping to move in only a couple of weeks.”
“Wow,” she said. “A couple of weeks?”
“I’m paying all cash,” he said, and Joey felt certain he would not have disclosed that had they been hunkered down in a warm, homey booth about to order dinner.
“We’re going in under asking,” he added.
“It’s a really great place. I mean, way too big for me, but I mean, I think it’d be great for a family. ”
He finally stopped talking, and Joey could not stop grinning. She’d found one of Adam’s weaknesses—he said too much when he was nervous.
“I’m making the turn,” he said next. “Oh, boy, my wheels are spinning.” She heard the engine of his luxury SUV grunt and groan and growl, and then he yelled, “Oh my heck, I’m going. Oh boy, now I’m going too fast.”
Joey certainly wasn’t a driving instructor, nor that great in the snow herself. So she simply said, “You’ve got this, baby. Turn into the slide.” She knew that much, because her father had told her that.
“Okay, I’m okay,” he said, and he panted a little bit. “I’m all right. It looks like it’s just down here.”
A few moments later, headlights cut across the front lawn as Adam turned into the driveway and parked behind her pathetic tan sedan.
“I think I’m here,” he said. “Two cars in the driveway?”
“Yes, I see you. I’m hanging up now. I’ll have the door open.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll be right in.”
Joey ended the call so that he could handle whatever he needed to with his car. “He’s here,” she called, and then moved to unlock the door and open it. She pushed open the screen door as well, letting in the iciness of the Wyoming storm.
Adam hustled down the sidewalk and up the stairs, hunkered down in only a thin jacket. He kept his head ducked low against the wind pushing the snow sideways, and he hurried straight into the house and past her.
“Holy horses and cows,” he said, as she closed the door and locked it behind him. He turned to face her and brushed his hands through his hair to dislodge the snow.
And just like that, Joey had never seen a sexier man in her whole life.
As Adam stood there in his black slacks, the wet jacket, wearing such an intense look in his blue eyes, and his hair all messed up and wet….
“That was touch and go,” he said, no smile in sight.
Joey was so happy to see him, and the tension inside her demanded to be released. She stepped over to him and brushed her hands across his shoulders, sending water droplets flying. “I’m so glad you made it,” she said.
He hooked one arm around her waist and pulled her close. “Me too.”
She tipped her head back, and Adam looked down at her. “I left my cowboy hat in the car,” he murmured.
Nothing else seemed to exist except for the two of them.
“That’s okay,” Joey said. “Because now you won’t have to take it off when you….” She trailed off, but Adam tilted his head.
“When I what?”
Joey couldn’t get herself to say the words, but she let her eyes drift closed, and Adam seemed to get the hint, because the next thing she knew, his lips had touched hers.
Her whole body caught fire, the hottest part where his mouth touched hers.
He pulled away a moment later, growled, and then kissed her again, this movement stronger and deeper and absolutely filled with tension.
It released with every stroke of his mouth against hers, and Joey forgot completely that she stood in a living room where her mother and her grandmother could come around the corner at any moment.
She was kissing Adam, and that was all that mattered right now.