She swallowed a laugh. Dammit.
“Look, I admit, this morning was a total clusterfuck, but I’m sure we can get past the way we met and come to an agreement.” When she didn’t respond, his expression shifted from guarded hope to an almost painful mix of embarrassment and annoyance. “I’m really sorry, and I just…really need you to come back.”
That irritating little nurturer inside her tugged on a heartstring. The bully in her yanked it loose and made a grab for her keys.
Noah pulled them out of reach, brow furrowed in disbelief. “You’re just going to pass up all that easy money?”
“There would be nothing easy about working with you.”
“You’re wrong—nothing could be easier, because you don’t have to work with me at all. I can take care of myself, but I have to please my sponsor. And as long as they think you’re working with me, they’ll be happy. You get a long paid vacation in my guesthouse on Lake Tahoe; I get to rehab on my own. We’ll just stay out of each other’s way. Good plan, right?”
She wasn’t sure if she should be insulted or amused. “One—that’s not called a good plan, that’s called fraud. And two—thinking you can rehab yourself is recklessly ignorant.”
“I’ve rehabbed myself dozens of times in the past—all successfully. I know my body, and I know how to heal it.”
“Right.” Her lips curled in a sardonic smile, and her gaze lowered purposely to his open boot. “Definitely looks that way to me.” She met his gaze again. “Have you ever broken an ankle before?”
“No, but—”
“But nothing. This injury is complex and difficult to rehab. And you’re not just rehabbing the bone. You’ve got half a dozen ligaments holding your ankle together. Then there’s cartilage and tendons and muscle… Whatever you’ve been doing has done more harm than good. But no one can help you because your ego is so inflated, there’s no room for anyone to squeeze in.”
“I don’t need help.” He spit out the last two words like poison, then softened his tone and gave her a sullen “And this isn’t about ego.”
“Oh, ego’s definitely driving you right now, whether you want to admit it or not. But there’s also fear and anger and denial mixed in, mucking everything up. I’ve seen this scenario often enough to know exactly what’s going on inside you. But here’s the thing, Superstar, I’m not interested in unpuzzling you. So, tell yourself whatever the hell you want.” She snatched her keys from his hand. “But I won’t stand by and watch you willingly throw away the talent that I know resulted from decades of hard work.”
She turned just as the bakery door opened again. Another big man stepped in, bringing a wild burst of icy air and wet flakes. Julia turned her head away from the stinging cold.
“Sorry about that,” the man said, shaking a layer of snow off a shiny black jacket, clearing a deputy’s patch on the shoulder. “Storm’s in two hours early. Thought I’d grab some coffee before I head out to help with road closures.”
“Got a thermos waiting on you right here, Dan,” Jill called from the coffeepots.
“Sir?” Julia asked, alarm tugging at her stomach. “Which roads are closed?”
“All of ’em,” he said, slipping his jacket off and hanging it on a peg next to the door. He turned and met Julia’s gaze. He looked about fortyish and tired. “Fifty, eighty, eighty-nine.” With a glance behind Julia, he added, “I recognize that gleam in your eye, Noah. Don’t you dare go out in this storm, boy, ’cause I won’t be pulling your stupid ass out of the powder if you get stuck.”
Noah grinned and saluted. “Yes, sir.”
The deputy looked at Julia again. “If you had plans to leave town, I suggest you find somewhere dry and warm and settle in. Everyone around here’s gonna be homebound for a day or two.”
Shock burned through her body, and she opened her mouth to challenge the reality. But the deputy reached around her and shook Noah’s hand. “How’s the leg, kid?”
“Oh, you know. Little better every day.”
When Noah started small talk with the cop about his son’s high school snowboarding team, Julia slipped out of the bakery. She wasn’t prepared for the blizzard that had closed in while she’d been inside. Her boots sank into six inches of fresh powder, so much pouring from the sky, she could barely see the road just fifty feet away. A little sizzle of panic snaked along her shoulders. She hadn’t been lying about how badly she sucked at driving in the snow. Yeah, her Audi was all-wheel drive, but she was not an all-weather driver. The thought of heading back down the mountain in what looked like a blizzard scared the crap out of her.
The bell on the bakery’s door tinkled, and Julia pulled her jacket tighter around her, wishing she’d thought to pull her gloves, scarf, and hat from her car when she’d grabbed a jacket. She drudged her way through the snow toward her car where Noah had parked it in a spot near the street. Snowflakes batted her face, stuck to her eyelashes, and melted on her lips.
What in hell had she been thinking? She’d never be able to live up here in the winter. She was a swimmer, a fair-weather athlete, not a mountain woman. She didn’t like to ski or snowboard. Hell, she didn’t even like walking from clubhouse to poolside in the cold. And she hated that first dive into the pool in any season other than summer.
By the time she reached her car, she was panting. This was worse than running on the beach in dry sand. How could those fluffy flakes feel like slogging through cement?
“Julia, wait.” Noah’s voice right behind her made her jump. She hadn’t heard him coming—damn snow acted like a sound insulator. “You can’t drive in this.”
“I’m not staying.” She was fed the hell up—with him, with Drake, with Sunrise Manor, with the crooked roads leading her away from her dream. She pushed a pile of snow off her door handle and jerked at it, but the door didn’t open. Swearing, she clicked the key fob again, saw the lights flash, and tried the door. “Dammit, it’s stuck.”
“It’s frozen.” He stepped up beside her. “Let me—”
He stopped suddenly and looked over his shoulder. Julia followed his gaze to the roar of a huge yellow snowplow coming toward them. Orange lights flashed on the cab, and the curved blade scraped the road. Snow curled up and over the blade, then sprayed off to the side in a six-foot wave of ice, forming a street-side berm. And that thing was moving fast.