Chapter One
Cursing Jack, Morgan tossed the phone onto the seat as she tightened her grip on the steering wheel with both hands. Why the hell wasn’t he answering? Didn’t he know she needed him?
The blinding snow rendered visibility impossible, but she had no choice but to keep pushing on. She had never been to Jack’s lodge in the Colorado Mountains, so she’d stopped for directions when she’d reached Denver.
Once again, she’d let her rashness get her into trouble, but this time she couldn’t get hold of Jack to bail her out. Not heeding the gas station attendant’s warning about a snowstorm heading their way hadn’t done her any good. She had been sure she could get to Jack’s lodge before the weather turned impassable. Shit, was she ever wrong.
Flipping the defroster on high, she slowed to a crawl as she struggled to keep her small BMW on the narrow two-lane road. With no sign of another vehicle since turning off the main highway onto this winding road, an eerie sense of isolation had unease slithering up her spine. Ice-covered trees veiled the rest of the mountain, obscuring her from the world.
According to her instructions, she should only be a few miles from the secluded Bear Creek Lodge. Why the hell he had to live so far off the main thoroughfare was beyond her, and Jack, who told her everything, had refused to divulge anything about his business.
As usual, she hadn’t stopped to think things through. After discovering Joel, her now ex-fiancé, in bed with another woman, and after having a bitter argument with her mother, she had thrown a few things in a bag and left. Her only thought had been to turn to the one person who had ever given a shit about her, and so she’d steered her car toward Colorado and Jack.
Morgan had been just seven years old when she’d first met Jack and he’d spent the summer working the grounds on her parents’ estate. At fifteen, he’d been big, hardworking, and gruff, but he was more tolerant of her wayward antics than her parents, who had continued to ignore her no matter what she did to get their attention. By the end of that summer, Morgan had idolized Jack and vowed to marry him some day. That promise had lasted through the next nine months after she returned to boarding school and it had been reinforced every summer over the next several years when she returned home and spent every available minute by his side.
When Jack turned eighteen, he’d joined the Army and had broken her fragile ten-year-old heart. For four years she hadn’t seen or heard a word from him. Devastated over his desertion, she’d coped with it much the same way as she had her parents’ indifference, by acting out.
With Jack gone, she wasted no time trying to gain her parents’ attention and failing with dismal regularity. By the time she turned fourteen and Jack returned from the Army and a tour in the Middle East, Morgan had been expelled from school five times for everything from smoking and drinking to vandalism, and her grades had gone from straight As to Ds.
When Jack returned, he immediately took up residence in their small guest house to work full time on her parents’ ten-acre estate as everything from head groundskeeper, plumber, and electrician to all-around handyman. Upon hearing of his return from their cook, Agatha, Morgan flew from the house down to the guest house, calling his name.
She’d never forget her first sight of him standing in the open doorway, a small grin on his face, his arms outstretched as he waited for her. Taking a flying leap, she threw herself into his arms as he enfolded her in a bear hug.
“Hello, princess,” he greeted her in his rough voice.
Morgan struggled to swallow past the tight lump lodged in her throat and squeezed her eyes to keep from crying at hearing his nickname for her. “I’ve missed you, you big jerk!”
“And I’ve missed you, brat.” Grasping her arms, he pulled her away from him and looked down at her. “Look at you, all grown up. What happened to the gangly kid with pigtails and skinned knees who I left?”
Morgan was secretly glad he’d noticed the changes in her. Much to her mother’s chagrin, she did not take after her. By the time she reached puberty, she already had a full figure and topped her mother’s petite five foot two by four inches. Not knowing how to respond, she pointed out the changes in Jack. “You’ve changed too, Jack. You’re even bigger! What did you do in the military?”
“Nothing suitable for young, impressionable girls to hear. But I am sorely disappointed in you, princess, if what I hear about you is true.”