She turned on the high beams as the road wound through the mountains with the majestic peaks and thick groves of trees casting dark shadows all around her. While a drive around the lake could be beautiful and incredibly scenic, in the winter it felt dangerous and risky. The west shore highway ran high above the lake with some hairpin curves that, while familiar, still occasionally made her palms sweat. Thankfully, there was little traffic as most of the tourists were either at the ski runs or in town.
She took the turnoff for the part of the lake known as Wicker Bay, happy to see that it had been recently plowed. While the road crew was incredibly good at keeping the main highways clear, some of the side routes could be thick with snow.
The road to the cabin ran through more tall trees and down a fairly significant decline, eventually crossing over the Whisper River and ending at a picturesque cove where four family cabins had the bay completely to themselves. The cabin had been in her family for generations, having first been purchased by her grandfather, who had used the nearby dock to launch his fishing boat every summer morning. After her grandfather had passed, it had been used more as a vacation rental than a family getaway.
As the air grew colder, she turned up her heater, and then gasped as a loud bang gave her a jolt, and the car began to spin and slide down the road. She hung on to the wheel, trying to remember to turn in the direction of the skid, but the car kept slipping across the ice. Thankfully, she was able to bring it to a stop before she hit anything. She let out a breath, her heart beating way too fast.
When she got out of the car, she saw that her front tire was shredded. Damn! This was the last thing she needed right now. She could change the tire, because she'd long ago learned how to take care of herself, but she really didn't want to do it. It was freezing cold and about to snow. She reached back inside the car for her phone, but she couldn't find a signal. Reception had always been spotty between the road and the cabin. With no way to call for assistance, she was just postponing the inevitable. She would have to change the tire herself. Unless…
As headlights lit up the area around her, she whirled around. A black four-door Ford Ranger truck pulled over, and she instinctively stiffened. Whisper Lake was a pretty safe place, but they weren't immune to crime. Then she recognized the owner of the truck and she stiffened for another reason.
As Jake McKenna stepped out of the vehicle, a wave of anger ran through her. Jake had once been her best friend, then her first crush, followed by heartbreak and a teenage humiliation she should have gotten over by now but still couldn't quite seem to get past.
Everything between them had happened a long time ago, when they were both seventeen years old. In the twelve years since then, she'd left Whisper Lake for almost eight years to go to college and to nursing school, and Jake had also gone off on adventures that had taken him around the globe. But three years ago, she'd come back to Whisper Lake, and two years ago, Jake had made his return. She'd tried to avoid him ever since then, and most of the time she was successful. But not always.
Jake strode toward her, wearing jeans, boots, and a navy-blue parka. "What happened?" he asked.
Her stomach tightened, which made her jump to anger so she could deny the fact that she still found him to be one of the most attractive men she'd ever met. He had brown hair and eyes and a deliciously scruffy beard. He was muscled and lean from all the exercise he did. As the owner of Adventure Sports, he was often the one leading groups on the steepest climbs and the most daring ski runs. He also had a cocky smile that she'd once loved and now hated with the same amount of passion.
"What do you think happened?" she snapped. "I got a flat."
"What are you doing out here?"
"Our cabin has a hot water problem."
"Hannah to the rescue," he said with a slight smile. "Want some help with that tire?"
She really wanted help, but she hated taking anything from him. On the other hand, it was about to snow, and she wasn't stupid even if she was hanging on to a very old grudge. "Yes, I'd like help." She opened her trunk and the compartment where the spare tire should be, only to find herself staring at an empty spot. She suddenly remembered her mother telling her about the flat she'd gotten three months earlier when she'd borrowed her car. "Damn, my mom never put the spare back. I'll have to call for help."
"If you can get through. Do you have a signal?"
She checked her phone once more. "No."
"Why don't I give you a ride to the cabin? I'm headed that way anyway. I can drop you home after that and you can figure out how to get your tire fixed tomorrow."
"Why are you going to Wicker Bay?"
"One of my employees is staying in a cabin there, and I'm concerned about him. He's not answering his phone, and he's going through a bad breakup. Now, do you want a ride, or are you going to let your stubbornly persistent dislike of me make you say no?"
She hated that he could read her so well. "I'll take a ride." She grabbed her bag out of her car, locked the doors and then followed him over to his truck. She
