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“Good,” he said. He did not look as if it was good. “I’ll be in the lobby when you’re ready.”

Then, after scowling a bit more and her saying nothing while staring, he turned around and went back down the stairs.

And Ruthie realized as he went that he didn’t make any sound. He was a large man. A large and clearly very powerful man. But he also looked… dangerous. Not to her personally—she was sure of that, somehow—but in general. Like his body was some kind of weapon.

He certainly moved like one.

And she had to close the door and splash water on her face, because she certainly shouldn’t have been reacting to any of those things the way she was.

Like her body was having its own, personal, five-alarm fire.

He drove her down the driveway she’d bumped up last night. It wasn’t shoveled against snow, but his truck had no issue crunching its way down over what had fallen in the night. On either side there were much higher snowdrifts, and everything else was evergreens reaching high toward the sky, and other trees that were bare for winter. She could see that the house she’d passed that looked purely magical in the night looked even more so by day, a lovely Victorian sitting halfway down the hill.

And at the bottom, he pulled out onto the main road through Cowboy Point that she’d seen from her window, and Ruthie couldn’t help but sigh happily.

When she saw him looking over at her, she shrugged. “It’s just so pretty,” she said, and meant it, though she couldn’t really explain why it felt so right inside her that she was here. “It’s like a storybook village.”

Dallas looked something like poleaxed. He blinked and looked away, and she had the strangest notion that she’d… hurt him, or something, though she couldn’t see how. Cowboy Point was objectively lovely, and why would a person open an inn here if they didn’t think so?

She blew out a breath and forced herself to smile at him.

“Listen,” she said, and realized that she…was worried about hurting this surly man’s feelings. “I think I’m going to walk around. This place is adorable. I want to experience it.”

“I don’t think you’ll be warm enough.” His voice was flat.

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll be—” she began, airily.

“This is Montana.” He bit that out with a sort of patience that wasn’t very patient at all. “It’s not a little bit cold. It’s extremely cold. It’s very easy to get too cold, too fast.”

Dallas raked that gaze of his over her, and she felt herself blush, though if he noticed that, he didn’t say anything. He reached into the center console in his truck and pulled out a hat that was all black except for where it said US Army in yellow letters. For some reason, that made her stomach turn over all funny.

Maybe his too, because he looked a little pinched as he handed it to her.

He produced a pair of woolen mittens and even a scarf, too, and handed them all to her without a word.

“Surely, I don’t need—” she began.

“Please bundle up,” he growled at her, and even though he said please, she was capable of hearing the fact that it was an order. “Or I can call the deputy sheriff and ask him to check in on you in fifteen minutes when the hypothermia sets in.”

Ruthie bundled up. She wound the scarf around her neck and tucked it into her parka. She pulled the hat down over her head and immediately disliked the scent—his scent—that danced around her from both things.

In the sense that her whole body seemed to shimmer into it, and she could feel things that were completely inappropriate to feel for a complete stranger in the broad light of day in a public place. Good God.

She pulled on the mittens, which were way too big for her, but she shoved them up under her parka sleeves and made them work. Then Ruthie smiled at him once more before she threw herself out into the cold.

And was grateful to find that it really was cold. So cold she hoped it knocked a little sense into her.

Because she had to figure out what the hell was happening to her.

Before she did something unpardonably foolish.

Chapter Three

Dallas pulled his truck into a parking space in the back of the lot beside the General Store the way he always did. But today he didn’t get out. He sat there for a minute, conscious of the way his hands gripped the steering wheel in front of him while he stared straight ahead, tried to breathe, and stared at absolutely nothing.

Like there was nothing but white noise. Like he was nothing but white noise.

But that could only go on for so long. He rubbed at his face, then swung out of the truck, ducking around the back of the building so he didn’t have to go anywhere near the folks who were pulling into the lot to get some of Helena’s coffee.