Shelter from the Storm. RaeAnne Thayne

into the snowy night.

      She stood at her living room window watching Daniel’s big SUV cruise slowly down the street.

      How very like him to follow her home simply to ensure she made it in safely. It wasn’t necessary. The distance between the clinic and her house wasn’t far. Even if her ancient car sputtered and gave out on the way, she could easily walk home—in good weather, she walked to and from work all the time.

      Yet Daniel had been concerned enough to take time out of his busy schedule to follow her home. A slow, steady warmth spread out from her core as she watched his taillights disappear in the snow.

      She shouldn’t feel so warm and comforted by his simple gesture, as if those big, strong arms were wrapped around her. It was foolish to be so touched, but she couldn’t remember the last time someone had fussed over her with such concern.

      Just his nature, she reminded herself. Daniel was a caretaker. He always had been. She could remember watching him on the bus with his three younger siblings, how he had always stood between them and anybody who might want to bully them. He wouldn’t let anybody push them around, and nobody dared. Not if they had to run the risk of incurring the wrath of big Danny Galvez.

      Oh, she had envied them. His sister had been in her grade and Lauren used to be so jealous that Anna had an older brother to watch out for her. Two of them, since Ren was just a year younger than Daniel.

      She had longed for a noisy, happy family like the Galvezes. For siblings to fight and bicker and share with.

      Siblings. Her mouth tightened and she let the curtain fall, hating the word. She shouldn’t feel this anger at her father all over again but she couldn’t seem to help herself.

      She had siblings as well. Three younger brothers from her father’s second family, the one she and her mother had known nothing about until after R.J.’s suicide and all her father’s dark secrets came to light.

      A few years ago she had met them and their mother—a woman who had been as much in the dark about her husband’s other life and Lauren and her mother as they had been about her. They had all seemed perfectly nice. Children who had adored R.J. as much as she had and a widow who had still seemed shell-shocked.

      They hadn’t wanted any further relationship. Just as well, because Lauren didn’t know if she quite had the stomach to continue being polite to the innocent children who had been the cause of R.J.’s relentless need for cash. Maintaining two households couldn’t have been cheap and her father’s way of augmenting his income was dipping into the public till.

      She sighed and pushed thoughts of her half siblings away, focusing instead on Daniel Galvez and his caretaking of the world.

      She shouldn’t feel singled out simply because he followed her home to make sure she arrived safely. This wasn’t any kind of special treatment, just Daniel’s way with everyone.

      Imagining it meant anything other than politeness would be a dangerous mistake.

      She turned away from the window and the dark night. Returning to her empty house late at night always depressed her, highlighting the lonely corners of her life. She needed a dog, a big friendly mutt to lick her chin and rub against her legs and curl up at her feet on the rare evenings she was home.

      With her insane hours, she knew that wouldn’t be fair to any living creature, though perhaps she should get a fish or something, just for the company.

      She turned on the television for noise and headed for the bathroom. A good, long soak in hot water would chase away the tension of the day and perhaps lift her spirits.

      She had no reason to be depressed. She was doing the job she loved, the one she had dreamed of since she was a young girl in junior high biology class. If she had no one to share it all with, that was her own fault.

      She was lonely. That was the long and short of it. She longed for someone to talk to at the end of the day, for a warm body to hold on a winter’s night.

      Too bad her options were so limited here—eligible single males weren’t exactly thick on the ground in a small town like Moose Springs—but she was determined to stay here, come hell or high water.

      What other choice did she have? She owed the town a debt she could never fully repay, though she tried her best. She couldn’t in good conscience move away somewhere more lucrative and leave behind the mess her father had created.

      The best cure for loneliness was hard work and she had never shied away from that. And perhaps she ought to stay away from Daniel, since spending any time at all with him only seemed to accentuate all the things missing in her life.

      Her gray mood had blown away with the storm as she drove through the predawn darkness the next day through town. Her clinic hours started at nine but she figured if she left early enough, she could make it to see Rosa at the hospital in Salt Lake City and be back before the first patient walked through the door.

      She felt energized for the day ahead as she listened to Morning Edition on NPR. The morning was cold and still, the snow of the night before muffling every sound. She waved at a few early-morning snow-shovelers trying to clear their driveways before heading to work.

      Most of them waved back as she passed, but a few quite noticeably turned their backs on her. She sighed but decided not to let it ruin her good mood.

      This area was settled by pioneer farmers and ranchers and for years they had made up the bedrock of the rural economy. But for the last decade or so Moose Springs had become more of a bedroom community to workers in Park City and Salt Lake City who were looking for a quiet, mostly safe place to raise their families.

      She was glad to see newcomers in town and figured an infusion of fresh blood couldn’t hurt. Still, she hoped this area was able to hang on to all the small-town things she had always loved about it.

      The interstate through the canyon was busy with morning commuters heading into the city, but the snow had been cleared in the night so the drive was pleasant.

      As she had promised, she stopped at her favorite bakery not far from the hospital to pick up a dozen doughnuts and several cups of coffee for Kendall and the floor nurses.

      Juggling the bag, the cup holder and her laptop, she hurried inside the hospital and went straight for the E.R., hoping she could catch the nurses who had helped with Rosa before their shift changed in a half hour. She had learned early in her career that nurses were the heart and soul of a hospital and she always tried to go out of her way to let them know how much she appreciated their hard work.

      She found several nurses gathered at the station. They greeted her with friendly smiles.

      “No sexy sheriff with you this morning?” Janie Carpenter, one of the nurses she had worked with before, asked her.

      If only. She shook her head. “Sorry. I’m on my own. But I brought goodies, if that helps.”

      “I don’t know.” A round, middle-aged nurse grinned. “Between doughnuts or a hottie like that, I’d choose the sheriff every time. I was thinking I just might have to drive to Moose Springs and rob a bank or something. I certainly wouldn’t mind that man putting me under arrest.”

      “Or under anything else,” Janie purred. “Think he might use handcuffs?”

      Lauren could feel herself blush. She wanted to tell them Daniel was far more than just chiseled features and strong, athletic shoulders. But maybe he enjoyed being drooled over. She pulled one of the doughnuts out and grabbed the last cup of coffee in the drink holder.

      “I owe this to Dr. Fox. Is he around?”

      Janie rolled her eyes. “Haven’t seen him for a while. He’s probably flirting with the nurses on the surgical floor. I’ll be happy to set it aside for him, though.”

      She handed over the stash, not believing her for a second. Oh, well, she tried. It was Kendall’s own fault for being such a player.

      She waved goodbye to the nurses and headed up to