Page 12 of Cold and Bitter Snow

You shouldn’t bring this woman into the shit you call life.

Not if you care about her.

But the words were out already, and he’d made her smile so he didn’t regret them in the least.

“You don’t have to work tonight?” she asked.

“I changed shifts with another driver tonight and tomorrow. Jonatan thought I needed to rest.” He didn’t add that his shoulder was still bothering him, though he’d spent all afternoon on the couch with an ice pack.

The server brought them glasses of sparkling cider. “Compliments of the house,” she said. “For surviving your first avalanche.”

Siena gave a small forced smile but seemed grateful when another table made eye contact with Laurie and she turned away.

Conor raised the glass to his lips. He’d never had sparkling apple cider before.

I guess this is a day of firsts.

He almost choked at the sweet excess but managed to keep a neutral expression.

“Not your drink of choice?” she said, smiling. “I’m happy to drink it if you don’t like it.”

He nodded gratefully. “Please start with mine, in that case. I’ll order a beer when the glass is empty.”

She seemed to take that as a challenge and took a long swig from his glass. He watched the pale column of her throat, wanting nothing more than to kiss her there.

To distract himself, he looked up—and straight into the crotch of a man who’d walked right up to their table.

“Siena Blake? It’s you, isn’t it?” The young man—he had to be in his early twenties at most—turned around to shout at somebody else behind him. Both were dressed in snowboarder outfits. “It’s her, Ricky, it’s Siena Blake!”

The snowboarder reached into his pocket. Conor got up abruptly to intercept him.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said softly. He took hold of the snowboarder’s wrist, pressing until the young man cried out in pain.

“Hey, man, relax! It’s a pen, just a pen! I just want to get her autograph on this napkin.”

Conor let go of the man’s wrist and stared in surprise at Siena. A vivid blush had spread over her face and neck. She stared at the ground as if hoping it would swallow her whole.

Then she visibly shook herself and nodded, plastering a tight smile on her face. She brought out a pen from her large leather handbag. “Sure. What’s your name?”

“Make it out to Dan, please,” the young man answered still looking worriedly in Conor’s direction. Siena handed over the scribbled napkin.

“Wow, thanks so much.” The snowboarder looked behind him at his buddy. “Thank goodness Ricky’s here as well, or my buddies back home would never believe I saw you.”

“Hey, Dan, I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell your buddies where you saw me.”

An understanding look filled his face. “Ah, you’re keeping a low profile. That’s cool. That’s cool.” A faint blush spread across the young man’s cheeks. “By the way, I think he’s an asshole.”

“You and me both,” Siena muttered, low enough that only Conor heard her.

“Thanks, Siena!”

Clutching his napkin, Dan moved away from their table, giving Conor wide berth as he passed.

Conor shook his head and sat down again.

“Can you explain what that was about?”

She sighed. “I guess you were going to figure out sooner or later. I might as well tell you about it now, you can always Google my name if you want more details, it’s all out there.”