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      As a devastating summer storm hits Grand Springs, Colorado, the next thirty-six hours will change the town and its residents forever…

      When school guidance counselor Cassandra Mercer spots cocky single dad Sean Frame stranded on the road in the middle of the worst storm Grand Springs has ever seen, it feels like poetic justice. He’s questioned her methods with his troubled son every chance he gets. Having him at her mercy would be so satisfying. And he’s pretty damn hot—especially soaking wet.

      Sean would rather be trapped in a bank vault than accept help from the infuriating Cassandra. But when a mudslide traps the couple inside her car, the intense chemistry that has fueled their battles sparks an entanglement of a different kind.

      When the skies clear, they have a chance at rescue. But where do they go from there?

      Book 2 of the 36 Hours series. Don’t miss Book 3: The storm brings new life and a chance for new beginnings in Ooh Baby, Baby by Diana K. Whitney.

      Strange Bedfellows

      Kasey Michaels

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Contents

       Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Chapter Thirteen

       Chapter Fourteen

       About the Author

      Chapter One

      As she rounded a curve in the highway, Cassandra Mercer recognized the tall form she saw about one hundred yards in the distance.

      And then she smiled, quietly deciding that there was a God—and She was on her side.

      Because, after a grueling three-hour school board meeting during which her nemesis, her thorn in the side, her most blockheaded, stubborn, unreasonable parent, had once more made her life miserable by questioning her methods in the area of student counseling, she was now watching this same nemesis walk along the side of the road in a driving rainstorm.

      Some might even call it a bit of well-deserved poetic justice.

      “Ah,” she said mockingly, her smile turning to a cheek-splitting grin even as she lifted her foot from the gas pedal. “Was that your brand-new Mercedes I saw abandoned about a half mile back, Mr. Sean Oughta-be-fitted-for-a-Frame and then hanged? I thought so, but I guess I just didn’t believe life could be this good. Lovely weather for a long, cold, wet walk, don’t you think?”

      And she laughed.

      The June weather in Grand Springs had been rather pleasant when she had driven up this same twisting road on her way to Burke Senior High School that same morning. But, as she’d learned during her years living in Colorado, the weather was always subject to quick change, and June had been a more than usually damp month this year.

      Wet, soggy.

      But the sun had come out for a while that morning, so Cassandra had optimistically left her raincoat at home. Now, as yet another rainstorm battered against the windshield, she was beginning to rethink her joke to her cat, Festus, just this morning about building her own ark.

      She slowed her Jeep to a crawl after making sure nobody was behind her, wishing Sean Frame had also optimistically left his raincoat at home. But not him. Not Mr. Perfect. He looked ready to do a speech on Being Prepared for any Emergency. Raincoat on—designer, of course. Waterproof hat jammed down on his head—at a jaunty angle, damn him. Flashlight in his hand—and the batteries worked.

      Cassandra squinted through the rain and deepening dusk. “Son of a gun—he’s even wearing boots. Boots! What else? Could he possibly also have dental floss in his pocket? Hey, you never know when you’ll be lost in the woods and need to live on nuts and berries. Can’t neglect dental hygiene just because you’re stranded, for crying out loud. Jeez! Is it any wonder I hate this guy?”

      Which she didn’t, not really. Hate him, that was. She wished she could, but she didn’t. He was stubborn but intriguing. Thickheaded, yet genuinely intelligent. Stern and straight-arrow, and with the most damnable way of taking her words and twisting them into something silly and shallow, but…but…

      But now he was wet. And stranded. And being forced to walk all the way down the hill in the rain. She really should be feeling sorry for him, not vetting his appearance, trying to rationalize her mixed feelings for him. Yes. That was it. She should be feeling sorry for the handsome, infuriating rat. Okay. She’d give him some sympathy.

      Poor baby…snicker, snicker.

      Well, that didn’t work. She still pretty much loathed the mud he was slipping and sliding in. But maybe it was the thought that counted. And, boy, was she thinking! She was thinking: Oh, joy. Oh, happiness. Oh, how much fun it would be to speed past the miserable man, spraying cold rainwater in her wake, maybe even tooting her horn and waving as she flashed past.

      And it would serve the man right!

      If only Cassandra, the sole child born to already middle-aged parents, hadn’t been raised always to be nothing less than a “thoughtful, polite, proper young lady.” A very conventional young lady. A young lady who would never, ever, even be tempted to stick out her tongue at Sean Frame and call out “nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah” as she went whizzing by in her dependable four-wheel-drive Jeep, splashing him with muddy water.

      It wasn’t easy being proper, but it was all she had, all she had been told to be, raised to be. The Cassandra Mercer who lived in the real world—as opposed to the Cassandra Mercer who sang and played inside her head, or the one who had rebelled, once, so long ago, for that short, terrible time—was entirely too responsible and lacking in gumption to ever do any of the things she was thinking.

      She simply couldn’t. Really.

      Bummer.

      Banishing her irreverent thoughts, and knowing she’d hate herself in the morning either way, Cassandra edged the Jeep forward until she was beside Sean Frame, lowered the passenger-side window and tooted her horn to get his attention.

      “Need a lift?” she asked. Drown, sucker! her inner imp wanted to say. Clearly she was still having trouble with this Good Samaritan stuff.

      And