Between Strangers. Linda Conrad

stepped aside and guided her by hand movements to a point he figured would be the best for moving the branch. After he’d made sure the rope was securely tied to both tree and SUV, he waved her ahead. She cracked the driver’s-side window to hear him over the wind.

      She tried to inch ahead but the wheels were spinning against the icy patches and the building snow crystals. She couldn’t manage to get any traction.

      “Let me try it,” he hollered.

      Instead of scooting over the center console, Marcy hopped out of the driver’s door and started around the hood to the passenger side. She raised her hands to cover her mouth against the biting cold, and he got his first good look at her gloves.

      Or her utter lack of adequate gloves would be a truer description of what he’d seen as she dashed past. He had originally thought she’d been wearing woolen mittens. Now he was shocked to see holes where her fingers poked through the thin material. She would have frostbite for sure.

      Marcy climbed inside through the other door, and he slid into the driver’s seat. It didn’t take him but five more minutes to rock the SUV ahead, dragging the branch out of one lane. Two more minutes and the rope was untied and crammed back in the compartment with the spare. Then he successfully managed to turn the SUV once again so they could be on their way.

      He eased the SUV down the road past the bulk of the tree. Once they were clear, he slowed and put it in Park.

      Turning to face her, he tried to remain calm as he said, “Marcy, give me your hands.”

      “What?” She swiveled and blinked at his odd demand.

      Holding his own hands out, palms up, he cocked his head and waited.

      She tentatively started to lay her hands in his, but looked wary and confused. It was all he could do not to break down and beg her to quickly do as he’d asked. He didn’t want to scare her, but this was too important.

      Two

      Marcy hadn’t realized how difficult it might be to give up control and let Lance take her hands. She should’ve known. After all, it had been more than eighteen months since she’d let a man so much as touch her.

      When she glanced up to check the sincerity in his midnight-black eyes, her breath caught in her throat. Was that an erotic spark she saw in those eyes? Marcy had to fight within herself to ignore it and the powerful electric current she’d felt.

      Eventually she surrendered her hands to him and stared blankly at where they were joined. The contrast between the golden skin of the back of his hands and the stark whiteness of her fingers drew her entire focus.

      Lance studied their hands, too, his face contorted in a scowl. “We need to get these wet things off you in a hurry.”

      “Huh?” That shocking sizzle of sensual awareness she’d just felt had obviously turned her into an idiot.

      He didn’t wait for her to come to her senses. Tearing off her gloves, he dropped them in front of the heater. But he still didn’t let go of her hands.

      Wonderful. Now the jolts of electricity were shooting clear up her arms and down her spine, making her overly warm and hypersensitive to every tiny touch. And here she’d thought her fingers were numbed by the cold.

      She managed to keep herself from pulling away. Not that she really wanted to. Never in her life had a man’s touch affected her so strongly. Her mind froze at the same time her body heated.

      But Lance’s next move stirred the blood clear to her toes and drove her totally past common sense. He tenderly lifted her hands to his mouth and lightly blew a warm breath across her fingers and palms.

      Fire raced from her hands up through her veins, landing with a roar in her belly. Suddenly panicked by the intimate movements and by a fever that was driving her to madness, Marcy shuddered and tugged hard against his grip.

      Either her frantic jerking or her audible gasps must’ve broken through Lance’s intense concentration. “Don’t pull away. Let me warm you up.”

      The tone of his voice sounded more erotic to her than his words. She was already burning up simply from his touch.

      “I’m concerned about frostbite,” he advised sternly.

      Marcy couldn’t keep looking into his eyes. The intimacy was too much for her to take.

      “I’m okay,” she told him as she began rubbing her hands together to get the circulation back.

      “Don’t rub your hands that way.” He reached for her hands again. “Rubbing is one of the worst things you can do for frostbite.”

      When their fingers touched once more, he stopped talking and she heard his sudden intake of breath. She wondered if the lightning bolt of sensation she’d felt had seared him as deeply as it had her.

      She found herself looking down and away from their joined hands. Anywhere but back into his eyes.

      After a too-long second of uncomfortable silence, he finally placed her hands next to the heater’s fan and then let her go. “Keep your fingers in front of the blower. They may start to ache but they’ll thaw more slowly that way.”

      Lance sat back in his seat and put the SUV into gear. “I think we should make it to a truck stop in about an hour.” His voice was rough and dry. “That is, if we don’t have any more emergency roadblocks to get around.”

      Neither of them said anything more as quiet filled the SUV, and all that could be heard was the blower on the heater’s fan and the rumble of the engine as the SUV strained against the icy winds and slick roads.

      Marcy couldn’t find enough of her voice to say anything at all. She sat stunned in silence for long minutes, trying to figure out what had just happened between them.

      Her brain slowly came back around to focusing on her surroundings at the exact moment she heard Angie begin to stir in the back seat. Relieved and grateful, she figured that her baby would be a good distraction to take her mind off the odd reaction she’d had to Lance’s touch. Marcy unbuckled the seat belt and twisted around on her knees to check the little girl.

      “What’s the matter with your baby?” he asked. “Is she all right?”

      “She’s just waking up, but I’m betting she’ll soon be loudly voicing her complaints.”

      “Complaints?”

      Angie opened her eyes, and Marcy decided to slide past the center console to go between the two front seats in order to reach her. The familiar sounds of the baby’s “I’m wet and hungry” cries told her that it was indeed time for a change.

      “Whoa,” Lance bellowed over the din created by Angie’s screams and the fierce sounds of the blowing winds. “Should I stop?”

      “We’re barely moving as it is,” Marcy told him. “I trust you. Just keep going. I can reach her diaper bag in the back,” she continued. “Just let me change Angie and try giving her the water bottle. I’ll wait to feed her until we can get inside someplace warm.” At least, she hoped Angie could wait a little longer.

      Lance concentrated on his driving. Still shaken from his crazy reaction to the touch of her skin and the spark of something he’d seen in her eyes, he now had one more thing about Marcy Griffin that deviled him.

      She trusted him to keep them safe. He was frantically searching his memory for any other time when someone had actually trusted him that much. The only thing he could come up with was when Buck pulled him off the rodeo circuit and hired him to be in charge of his ranch’s rodeo stock program. He must’ve trusted him a lot to do that. Right?

      Lance had never been able to figure out what made women tick, though. And this one was turning out to be more confusing than any of the others.

      Take Buck’s daughter, Lorna, for instance. She was a good friend. Someone who would gladly ride across