Snowbound Cinderella

Three

Ciara stared around with a look of wonder as they made their way down the hill. “I can’t believe this much snow fell in just one day.”

“Yeah. These spring storms can be deadly. They’re almost worse than in the wintertime. At least then you know what to expect.” He shot her a knowing grin. “This time of year you could get caught in your bikini. That was a bikini you were wearing last night, wasn’t it?”

“A thong. And you’re not going to let me forget it, are you?”

“Why should I? It’s not something I’m liable to forget.”

He was rewarded by a glimpse of Ciara blushing. Not something he’d ever expected to see, especially since she had been so defiant last night. But then, she’d been fighting nerves. Maybe she’d merely tried to cover them with an act of bravado.

“Watch out for these drifts.” Jace picked his way through the mounds of snow, breaking a trail for Ciara to follow. In places the snow was so deep that it reached nearly to their waists. Hidden beneath were rocks and stumps and fallen trees just waiting to trip them.

Jace turned to offer his hand, and saw Ciara standing perfectly still, her head lifted, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun.

He followed the direction of her gaze and caught sight of a hawk lazily riding air currents overhead. “Majestic, isn’t he?”

She nodded. “He’s a beauty. I’ve always been fascinated by hawks. Occasionally when I’m driving, I’ll spot one perched on a light post high above the freeway. I always find myself wondering why it doesn’t fly off to the wilderness.”

“Maybe there’s a girlfriend on a nearby light post. After all, there has to be something keeping him in town.”

“Maybe so. But why don’t they both fly away? It just seems so much more natural to see one here in the mountains than to see one trying to adapt to life in a crowded, bustling city.”

“They’re like all creatures.” His tone deepened. “Adapt or die.”

Ciara nodded. “I guess that’s true. We all have to adapt. But look how much we sacrifice for our urban sprawl. Noise and traffic and people in our faces. It just seems a pity that we pay such a high price for civilization.”

“Don’t be so quick to knock it. I’ve seen the other side. Primitive life isn’t all that pure and noble.” Jace’s voice hardened. “There’s just as much violence in nature, and in small, developing nations, as there is in any big, cold, impersonal city.”

Ciara was surprised by the passion in his voice. He was such a contrast in moods. For the most part funny and irreverent. But maybe he used that offbeat humor to mask much deeper feelings. She found herself wondering once more just what he’d seen, and where he’d seen it. Whatever it was, wherever it was, she felt certain it had been filled with violence and tragedy.

Before she could form a question, a frightened rabbit suddenly dashed across the snow. In a blur of motion the hawk went into a dive and sank its talons deep. The rabbit shrieked in pain, then went eerily silent as the hawk lifted into the air. Within minutes it had flown out of sight with its prey, leaving nothing but drops of blood in the snow to mark its passing.

Caught up in the drama, Ciara could do nothing more than stare into the distance. In the blink of an eye, everything had changed. The pastoral scene had turned into one of frightening violence.

Finally finding her voice, she turned. “How could you possibly know that would happen?”

“I didn’t. At least I didn’t expect to see it happen right here in front of us. But it was a pretty good bet that our hawk was searching for lunch.” Seeing that she was shaken by the incident, he took her hand. It was cold as ice. And the mere touch of her hand in his packed a punch that had him sucking in a breath.

“Come on. We need to get inside where it’s warm.” He led her over a series of buried boulders.

As they neared the cabin she turned to him. “This morning you mentioned Bosnia. You’ve been there?”

He nodded. “Bosnia, Kosovo, and half a dozen other towns all over eastern Europe.”

“Then you’ve seen firsthand all the things that the rest of us only saw on the nightly news.”

“I’ve seen enough.” He opened the cabin door and stood aside to let her lead the way inside. “More than enough.”

As she stomped snow from her boots she glanced over, and noticed that the bleak look had returned to his eyes. And the frown line was there between his brows.

In an effort to lift his spirits she said, “If you’ll bring the milk from the shed, I’ll make hot chocolate.”

“It’s a deal.” He turned away, eager to escape.

Jace took his time trudging through the snow to the shed. The violent scene with the hawk had triggered an explosion of memories. Of burned-out buildings, and towns under siege. Of the sound of distant gunfire that went on night and day. Of old men and women scavenging food and water and firewood. Of entire families forced to flee with nothing but the clothes on their backs, leaving their homes, their histories behind in search of peace.

Of Ireina. The bomb.

He had thought a visit to this mountain cabin would be a return to normalcy. That he could simply put the past behind him and get on with his life. What he hadn’t counted on was the fact that he carried so much baggage. The past was still with him, here in his mind. Haunting him. Taunting him. And the least little spark could set off a firestorm of memories. Some pleasant. A few poignant. All painful.

He paused outside the shed and studied the snowdrifts that reached almost to the roof. Suddenly in his mind he was transported back to that small village outside Bosnia…

In an unexpected downpour, he and his crew had taken refuge in a deserted shed. They huddled around a small fire they’d started on the dirt floor. They had looked up in alarm at the high-pitched whine that signaled an approaching missile. Before they could react, a side of the building was blown away. And with it, their driver. As the rest of the shed slowly collapsed around them, they scrambled free and piled into their truck, keeping one step ahead of the advancing army of terrorists.

The driver—a man from a nearby village—had been young. No more than eighteen. He had taken the dangerous job of driving the news crew in order to help feed his family. He’d had a pretty little dark-eyed girlfriend who had collapsed in grief when she’d heard the news of his death. Jace had learned later that she was carrying the driver’s baby; they’d planned to marry. But the war and chaos in their country had prevented them from seeing it through.

That night, as Jace fed the news to the networks, he had been completely poised—his face, his voice, devoid of the emotions churning inside him. He was, as always, the complete professional. Looking back on it he realized he’d never permitted himself to give voice to his grief, choosing instead to push himself to work even harder, to block the feelings.

It was only one of the hundreds of instances in which he’d suppressed his emotions on the job. It was the only way he knew how to survive. But he was only now beginning to realize what a terrible price he’d paid for his stoicism. Though he still couldn’t bring himself to speak of them, the scenes of all that carnage haunted him. And something as simple as an attack by a hungry hawk could bring the memories flooding back, casting a pall on the day.

He ran a hand through his hair and realized he was sweating. He hadn’t really left any of it behind. He’d brought it all home with him. And he feared it might remain with him for a lifetime.

By the time Jace returned to the cabin, Ciara had added a fresh log to the fire and had set her boots nearby to dry.

As he placed the carton of milk on the counter, she noticed that he had carefully composed his features. But, though he was no longer frowning, there was no warmth in his eyes. Whatever memories he carried, they hadn’t been resolved, she thought. They’d merely been tucked away.

Like her, he’d come here to be alone—to think, to bleed, to resolve. And then, hopefully, to move on. But like her, he was forced to snatch what little time he could find alone, to do just that. She wished, for both their sakes, that the snow would melt quickly, so that each of them could find the solitude they sought.

Jace stepped outside and retrieved the rusty generator that he’d hauled from the shed.

“You have a choice to go with the hot chocolate—” she poured milk into a pan and set it over the fire “—plain toast or cinnamon toast.”

“That’s it? No sandwiches? No soup?” He closed the cabin door and slipped out of his parka and boots.

Ciara grinned. “You can have whatever you’d like. As for me, I wouldn’t want to spoil my appetite for that fabulous dinner you’re going to make.”

“You’re not going to let me forget about that, are you?” He spread newspapers over the floor, then knelt and began disassembling the motor.

“Not a chance.” She set bread over the coals, turning it often until it was evenly browned on both sides. “After all, it isn’t every day I have a reporter willing to feed me.”

He glanced over, enjoying the way her hair had escaped from the ponytail to dip provocatively over one eye. “Oh, I bet there are plenty of reporters willing to take you to dinner.”

“Sure. And they’re all after something. A scoop about a fling with my leading man. A feud with my director. A catfight with some other actress.”

He couldn’t resist saying, “Not to mention those reporters who would just like to get you into bed.”

Instead of disagreeing, she surprised him by nodding. “That too. So they can brag about it the next day. You wouldn’t believe how many sharks there are out there who feed on celebrities.”

At the tone of her voice he looked up. “Sounds like you’ve been bitten a time or two.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ve been bitten. But I’ll never give them the satisfaction of seeing me bleed.”

“So you came up here to bleed in private.”

“Yeah.” She thought about it a minute. “I guess I did.” She looked over. “How about you? Any blood left in those veins?”

“Very little. I practically bled to death before I made it here.”

She was surprised, and more than a little touched, by his admission. It had to be difficult for a very private man like Jace Lockhart, who wasn’t accustomed to sharing much of his life with others.

“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”

He nodded. “The walking wounded.”

She crossed the room and knelt beside him, placing the toast and hot chocolate on a tray between them. She nodded toward the generator. “Do you really think you can fix that thing?”

He shrugged. “I’ve never thought of myself as a mechanic. But in a jam, I’ve been forced to repair a motorcycle engine, a truck’s driveshaft, and the broken wires on my sound equipment. Not to mention the time I had to defuse a bomb.”

“A…bomb?” Her hand went to her throat. “Where?”

“Myelinore. A town so small it isn’t even on a map. I was following the trail of a group of terrorists who had blown up a U.N. truck and had taken a survivor as hostage.”

“Why?”

“Because they wanted to get world attention.”

“No. I meant, why did you follow them? Why didn’t you just report the incident and let somebody else do the tracking?”

“Oh.” He gave that quick grin that always did strange things to her heart. “I was the only one around. If I hadn’t followed them, they’d have gotten clean away. And the man they’d taken hostage was a friend of mine who had a wonderful wife in Paris, along with two small children. I figured I’d never be able to face Monique and her kids if I didn’t do all I could to save Henri.”

“And did you? Save him?”

“Yeah. After nearly getting us both killed. When the terrorists left him bound and gagged in a deserted house, I broke in, thinking I’d just untie him and we’d slip away. But the terrorists had very cleverly booby-trapped the place before they left. There wasn’t enough time to escape, so I had to figure out which wire to cut or we’d both have ended up like that rabbit with the hawk.”

Ciara shivered. It occurred to her that the danger she’d sensed about Jace Lockhart was very real.

“Weren’t you scared to death?”

“There wasn’t time to think about being scared. I did what I had to.”

I did what I had to. Those words triggered a memory of her childhood. She’d once asked her mother how she had kept going, when she’d found herself alone with six children depending on her. And her mother had said, I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself, honey. I just did what I had to.

Ciara shook aside the eerie feeling, to concentrate on Jace. “After you’d freed Henri, and had escaped the booby-trapped house, what did you do?”

“We ran as far and as fast as we could, and hid in the forest until we could make our way back to safety.”

“Did you ever go back to that town? Myelinore?”

“There was nothing to go back to. When the terrorists were done, they’d blown it clean away. The few buildings that remained were empty. All the residents had fled.”

Ciara’s voice lowered. “And Henri?”

Jace smiled then, and she could see in his eyes a sense of satisfaction. “He went back home. To Monique and his kids. The last I heard, he was serving as an advisor to the U.N. team in Paris. And living quietly in a cozy cottage in the country.” He bit into the toast and shot her a look. “Hey, this is good.”

“Of course it is.” She sipped her chocolate, still reeling from all the things he’d told her. His life was so different from anyone else’s she’d ever known. And so far removed from her life in Hollywood that she couldn’t even begin to imagine it. “Why does it surprise you that I can cook?”

“I didn’t expect you to be handy in the kitchen.”

“I’m not really. But I do know how to make a few things. Breakfast, mostly. I make a really mean omelette.”

“Good. You can show off your skill tomorrow morning.”

“What makes you think I intend to cook tomorrow?”

“Because, if I’m making dinner tonight, it’s the least you can do to show your appreciation.”

“I think I’ll wait until I’ve tasted your cooking. I may not be so grateful.”

“Coward. You’re going to eat those words.”

“Thanks. But I’d rather eat steak. I’d like mine medium, with a few mushrooms and onions on the side.”

“What you’d like and what you’ll get may be two different things.” He stopped tinkering with the generator long enough to devour the rest of his toast. Then he downed his hot chocolate in several long gulps. “Thanks. I guess this will hold me until dinnertime.”

“I should hope so.” Ciara picked up the tray and headed for the sink. “Because that’s all you’re getting, unless you make it yourself.”

Minutes later, Jace looked up to see her heading toward the bedroom. When the door closed he turned his attention to the generator. He really needed to get this thing in good working order as quickly as possible. He was desperate to restore enough power to use his laptop computer. He’d promised to check in with his wire service as soon as he arrived in the United States. By now they’d be wondering where he was, and why he wasn’t bothering to contact them. He didn’t want his crew thinking he’d completely deserted them.

But the truth was, he suddenly couldn’t work up much enthusiasm for world news. It never seemed to change. When peace came to one area of the world, war inevitably broke out in another. He supposed the world would always be divided between men of goodwill, and men of ill will with a lust for power and domination.

He sat back to study the rusted wires in his hands. But his thoughts kept drifting to the woman in the other room. He’d told her more about himself than he’d intended. Maybe it was because she was so easy to talk to. She had a way of listening. Really listening—not just faking it. And she had a way of asking questions without being intrusive.

He grinned as he started scraping away rust before splicing several frayed wires. Next he’d be trying to convince himself that Ciara Wilde was just like any girl next door. Still, despite the movie star face and fabulous body, there was a freshness about her that was disarming.

Usually he could tell, after just a few minutes with someone, whether or not he wanted to know them better. In Ciara’s case, he sensed there was a whole lot more inside than the woman she showed to her public. Maybe, just maybe, he’d reserve judgment. It could be that his first impression had been colored by fatigue.

Or it might turn out that she was “Hollywood,” after all. In which case, he’d be only too happy to send her packing as soon as the weather allowed.

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