Christmas With A Stranger. Catherine Spencer

road.

      Headlights dazzled in her rear-view mirror. A horn blared, repeatedly, furiously. Panic choked her throat. Was the other driver mad? Trying to run her off the road?

      All at once, the open mouth of an avalanche shed yawned blackly a few yards in front, offering a brief haven of safety where she could let whoever was in such a hurry behind get past her.

      Clutching the steering wheel in a death grip, Jessica pressed down on the accelerator and shot into the shelter with the other vehicle practically nosing her bumper from behind.

      And then the air was filled with thunder and the earth seemed to rock beneath her. And the road, which was supposed to run all the way to Whistling Valley ski resort where Selena lay in a hospital bed, came to a sudden end at the far end of the avalanche shed.

      At first Jessica didn’t believe it and, pulling as far over to one side as possible to allow the other driver to get by, kept her car idling forward. Until she saw that there was no way out of the shed, that its exit truly was blocked by a wall of snow, and that, far from trying to pass her, her pursuer had drawn to a stop also, and was climbing out of his vehicle and coming toward her.

      Incongruously large and implicitly threatening in the light cast by his car’s headlamps, his shadow leaped ahead of him on the concrete wall of the shed. Reaching for the control panel on the console, Jessica snapped the doors locked and wished she could as easily subdue the tremor of apprehension racing through her.

      Approaching her window, he stooped and stared in at her. She had the impression of a man perhaps in his early forties; of dark displeasure, well-defined brows drawn together in a scowl, and a mouth paralleling the same vexation. Of wide shoulders made all the more imposing by the bulky jacket he wore, and of masculine power composed not just of sinew but of command, as though he was not inclined to tolerate having his authority thwarted by anyone.

      The way he rapped on her window and ordered, “Open it,” bore out the idea, especially when she found herself automatically obeying the directive and lowering the glass an inch.

      “Do you have a death wish?” The question blasted toward her on a cloud of frosty air.

      Unvarnished disapproval laced the husky baritone of his voice, leaving her in no doubt that she was alone with a stranger who looked and sounded very much as if he’d like to take her neck between his powerful hands and wring it.

      But she wasn’t earning accolades as the youngest headmistress ever appointed to Springhill Island’s Private School for Girls by cowering in the face of incipient trouble. “Certainly not,” she said, as calmly as her thudding heart would allow. “But I imagine you must, if the way you were driving is any indication. You practically ran me off the road.”

      For a moment she thought she’d managed to silence him. His jaw almost dropped and he appeared to be at a loss for words. He shook his head, as though unsure that he’d heard her correctly, then recovered enough to say, “Lady, do you have the foggiest idea what’s just happened?”

      “Of course.” She gripped the steering wheel more firmly. It was easier to keep her hands from shaking that way. “There has been a bit of a snow slide.”

      “There has been a bloody avalanche,” he informed her with a rudeness she would not for a moment have tolerated in her students. “And if you’d had your way we’d both be buried under a load of snow—always assuming, of course, that we hadn’t been swept clear down the mountain.”

      Embarrassingly, her teeth started to chatter with shock then, and short of stuffing both gloved hands in her mouth, there was little she could do to disguise the fact except blurt out, “That must be why it’s so cold in here.”

      At that, he straightened up and thumped a fist on the roof of her car, sending a clump of snow slithering down her windshield. “I don’t believe what I’m hearing,” he informed the shed at large, his words echoing eerily. “Is this her way of trying to be funny?”

      “Hardly,” she retorted, addressing the zippered front of his down jacket, which was all she could see of him. “I plan to spend tonight in Wintercreek and have quite a few miles still to cover before I get there. I’d just as soon not waste time keeping you entertained with witticisms.”

      He bent down to confront her again, squatting so that his face was on a level with hers. “Let me get this straight. You expect to reach Wintercreek tonight?”

      “Didn’t I just say as much?” She wished she could see his face more clearly. But everything about him was a little bit distorted in the flare of his car’s headlamps, with one side of his features thrown into dark relief and the other silhouetted in light. Like opposite sides of a coin—or good and evil all wrapped up in one package.

      She suppressed a shudder. This was not the time for such fanciful notions. It was a time for positive thought and action. “I have a hotel reservation—”

      “I heard you the first time and I hope your deposit’s refundable,” he interrupted curtly. “Because, as they say in the vernacular of these parts, ‘honey, you ain’t goin’ nowhere any time soon’.”

      “Are you telling me I’m stuck in here until someone comes to rescue me?”

      “That’s what I’m telling you.”

      Her confidence nosedived a little further. “And...um...how long do you think that will take?”

      He shrugged. “Hard to say. First light tomorrow, if we’re lucky.”

      “But that’s almost twelve hours away!”

      “I know.” He braced his hands against his knees and shoved himself upright again. “Better turn off the engine before you asphyxiate us, and resign yourself to sleeping in your back seat. Open the trunk and I’ll hand in your emergency supplies.”

      She hadn’t thought it possible for anything to make her heart sink any lower but, to her dismay, he managed it with his last remark. “Emergency supplies?”

      “Sleeping bag, candle, GORP.”

      “GORP?” she echoed faintly.

      “Good old raisins and peanuts. Trail mix, cereal bars, stuff to keep your stomach from folding in on itself—call it what you like; I don’t care. Let’s just get you settled before we both die of exposure.”

      “I don’t... I have only a suitcase. With clothes in it,” she added, as if that might mitigate things a little.

      It didn’t. Thumping a fist on the roof of her car yet again, he let out a long, irritable exhalation. “I might have known!”

      “Well, I didn’t,” Jessica said tartly. “They never mentioned an avalanche on the weather report. If they had, I’d have stayed off the road. And please stop bludgeoning my car like that. Things are quite bad enough without your making them any worse.”

      She thought he swore then. Certainly he muttered something unfit to be repeated in mixed company. Eventually, he composed himself enough to order, “Get out of the car.”

      “And go where? You already said no one’s likely to rescue us tonight.”

      “Get out of the car. Unless you were lying a moment ago and you really do harbor a death wish.”

      “I’d just as soon—”

      “Get out of the goddamned car!”

      It was Jessica’s strongly held belief that a teacher who wished to retain control of her classes should make clear her expectations at the outset. Insubordination ranked high on her list of priorities. Unless it was stamped out at the start, it flourished quickly and completely undermined a teacher’s authority. Related to that were the social graces which, in her opinion, were as important a part of the curriculum as any other subject. She felt it was incumbent on her and her staff to teach by example wherever possible.

      Which was why, when she replied to her companion’s incivility, she resisted the temptation