Kate grasped the handle and scooped up a big shovelful of snow from the sidewalk. A little grunt escaped her lungs as she tossed the snow into the shrubs. She'd never experienced an Idaho winter and didn't know snow was so heavy. She recalled one year in Las Vegas when it had snowed almost half an inch. Of course it had melted within an hour. No wonder over a thousand people a year had heart attacks.
She placed the shovel's edge on the walk and pushed. The sound of metal scraping along concrete filled the morning air and competed with the occasional sound of traffic. A white curl of snow filled the shovel, and instead of lifting it again, she pushed the pile into the shrubs next to the building. A much better method, she thought as she slid the blade down the walk. A lot better than straining her back and flirting with the kind of heart failure that an aspirin a day wouldn't help.
The chilly breeze lifted the ends of Kate's scarf, and she paused to pull her hat over the tops of her ears. Her head was filled with worthless factoids. She knew that an adult brain weighed three pounds and the human heart pumped two thousand gallons of blood a day. She'd spent a lot of time on surveillance reading magazines and general reference books because they weren't all that engrossing and she could easily put them down to tail a suspect. Some of it had stuck. Some hadn't. She'd tried to learn Spanish once, but all she could remember was Acabo de recibir un envio, which would come in handy if she ever had to tell someone that she'd just received a shipment.
One side benefit of having a head cluttered with trivia was that she could use it to break the ice, change the subject, or slow things down.
At the end of the walk, she turned and started her way toward the front of the M&S once more. This time she pushed the snow off the curb and into the parking lot. Her toes inside her leather ankle boots were starting to freeze. It was March, for God's sake. It wasn't supposed to be so cold in March.
Just as she approached Rob's HUMMER, he stepped out of the M&S and moved toward her, wearing the same dark blue coat he'd had on two weeks ago when she'd seen him. His hiking boots left waffle tracks, and his heels kicked up the snow. She expected him to step off the curb and jump in his HUMMER.
He didn't.
"How's it going?" he asked as he came to stand in front of her.
She straightened, and her grasp on the handle tightened. His coat was zipped to the middle of his chest, and she fixed her gaze on the black label sewn on the tab. "Okay."
He didn't say anything, and she forced her gaze past his tiny white scar, soul patch, and Fu Manchu. His green eyes stared back at her as he pulled a black knit hat from his coat pocket. For the first time she noticed his lashes. They were longer than hers. Lashes like that were a total waste on a man, especially a man like him.
He pulled the hat on his head and continued to study her as if he were trying to figure something out.
"Warn me if you're going to write your name in the snow," she said to break the silence.
"Actually, I'm standing here wondering if I'm going to have to wrestle that snow shovel out of your hands." His warm breath hung in the air between them as he added, "I'm hoping you'll be nice and hand it over."
Her grasp on the handle tightened a bit more. "Why would I hand it over?"
"Because your grandfather is in there getting all worked up over you doing what he thinks is a man's job."
"Well, that's just stupid. I'm certainly capable of shoveling snow."
He shrugged and slid his hands into the hip pockets of his cargo pants. "I guess that's not the point. He thinks it's a man's job, and you've embarrassed him in front of his friends."
"What?"
"He's in there right now trying to convince everyone that you're…" Rob paused a moment and tilted his head to one side. "I believe his exact words were that you're 'usually a nice, sweet-tempered girl.' And then he said something about you being cranky because you don't ever get out with people your own age."
Great. Kate suspected her grandfather's nonsense had been directed at Rob and not the other men. Worse, she was sure he suspected it also. The last thing she needed was for her grandfather to interfere in her nonexistent love life. Especially with Rob Sutter. "I'm not cranky."
He didn't comment, but the lift of his brow said it all.
"I'm not," she insisted. "My grandfather is just old-fashioned."
"He's a good guy."
"He's stubborn."
"If I had to guess, I'd say you're a lot alike in the stubborn department."
"Fine." She thrust the shovel toward him.
A smile touched the corners of his mouth as he withdrew his hand from the front pocket of his pants and took the shovel from her. He clamped his bare hand over hers. She tugged, but his grasp tightened.
She wasn't about to get into a tug-of-war with a man built like the Rock. "Can I have my hand back?" He relaxed his grip finger by finger, and she pulled free.
"Damn," he said, "I was kind of hoping I'd have to wrestle you for it."
She knew that wasn't true. Drunk or sober, he had no interest in "wrestling" Kate. It wasn't personal. She told herself he had some sort of dysfunction that prevented him from "wrestling" with any woman. There wasn't anything wrong with her. It was him. She should feel sorry for him.
"I was kinda hoping to get a look at your tattoo while I was at it."
It took several heartbeats for his meaning to penetrate Kate's brain. When it did, she forgot all about trying to feel sorry for Rob Sutter. Not that it was working, anyway. She sucked in a breath. "You do remember!"
"What? Your offer to show me your bare ass?" He rocked back on the heels of his boots and chuckled. "How could I forget that?"
"But…" Her sucked-in breath got caught in her chest, and she had to let it out. "But you said you'd never met me." She was starting to see spots and took another deep breath. "That first day you didn't…oh my God!"
"Did you want me to tell Stanley that we'd already met?" he asked as he bent to shovel snow. "He'd want to know the details."
Good Lord. She put her gloved hand to the side of her face as thoughts rushed and collided in the middle of her brain. Of all the bad luck, he wasn't an alcoholic. He remembered. How many people had he told about that night? In this town, all it would take was one person, then the news would spread like the West Nile virus. Although she would prefer that the town not know of her humiliation, she really only cared about her grandfather. He went to church every Sunday. He didn't believe in sex outside of marriage, let alone in women propositioning men in bars.
"I don't want to be the one who shatters his illusion of you." He scooped up the patch of snow between them and tossed it off the curb. "The truth would probably give him that heart attack you seem so worried about."
She lifted her gaze to his knit ski cap. His hair curled up like little fishhooks along the back. "You don't know me, and you don't know anything about my relationship with my grandfather."
"I know you're right about Stanley being an old-fashioned guy. He probably thinks you're saving it for your wedding night, and we both know you're not."
If Kate hadn't given him her shovel, she would have beaned him with it.
"I also know you don't want to hear some advice from me, but I'm going to give it to you anyway," he said as he rested the blade of the shovel on the concrete and hung his wrist over the top of the handle. "Picking up men in bars isn't smart. You could find yourself in a lot of trouble if you keep it up."
She didn't care what he thought and didn't feel as if she needed to defend herself. "I know you're not my father, so what are you? A cop?"
"No."
"Priest?" He didn't look like a priest, but it would explain a lot.
"No."
" Mormon missionary?"