“Actually,” Shelby said, her voice going up even higher than usual as she looked down at her hands clasped together in her lap. “I think it might be best if I head back to Harbor City.”
Ian flinched. “Why?”
She didn’t look over at him, instead keeping her attention on her hands. “I can prep for work and maybe go in Monday and get a head start before the new job officially starts on Tuesday.”
He stopped himself, just barely, from pointing out that it was only Saturday because he already felt like he’d been cross-checked into the boards. There was no reason to beg for her attention. They’d both gotten what they wanted, had fun, and now it was over. Just like they’d agreed. Great. Perfect. Fucking amazing. He couldn’t be happier.
Yeah, that’s totally believable if you don’t have two brain cells to rub together.
“I think this is for the best,” she said, her words coming out in a rush. “I’ll shovel my rental out and head back to the city. You stay. Enjoy the cabin just like you’d planned.”
Suddenly, a few days alone to drown himself in a bottle of scotch and feel sorry for himself seemed like the most miserable self-indulgent activity ever. It was fucking whiny. He might as well be a soccer player going into dramatics because he’d gotten bumped into on the field.
“I’ll head back, too,” he said. “I’ve lost interest in a weekend in the mountains.”
“You have a rental?” Alan asked, snagging a doughnut for himself.
“Yeah,” she said. “I don’t need a car in the city.”
“Is it a four-wheel drive?”
She shook her head. “I never thought there’d be a snowstorm this late in the year.”
He made a tsk-tsk sound. “Then I recommend you call someone to come get you down here. It might be a week before we can get the mountain roads plowed well enough for regular cars to travel safely.” He got up from the table and walked over to the coffee maker, pouring himself a cup. “Is there someone you can call to come pick you up? The local rental folks can get the rental once the snow melts. They do it all the time. Trust me, you are not the first tourists to find yourselves on the bad side of Mother Nature around here.”
Shelby looked down at her phone that was, for all intents and purposes, a very expensive door stopper at the moment. “I don’t know anyone’s number anymore.”
Ian reached for his phone and powered it on. “I can bring up someone with the team’s front office who can help. It would serve Lucy right if she had to come up here and get us.”
After fifteen eternity-lasting seconds, it came on. However, staring down at the Ice Knights logo on his home screen was like viewing it through a kaleidoscope. And when he hit the touchscreen, nothing happened.
“Don’t suppose the car rental place is open now?” Ian asked.
Alan shook his head. “Buck’s on vacation in Florida, the lucky son of a bitch. It’s closed until next week.”
Ian bit back a groan. There were two numbers Ian knew by heart. His parents’ landline and his former best friend’s cell. He hadn’t dialed either of them for weeks, didn’t want to call either of them for the foreseeable future, if ever. But he and Shelby were stuck. He didn’t have a choice. He had to pick the lesser of two assholes. Hating it, he picked up the phone and dialed Christensen.
Chapter Eight
Shelby was standing in the sheriff’s office lobby in front of the glass doors already bundled up in her coat and more than ready to get the hell out of there when a black SUV with Ice Knights vanity plates pulled into the partially plowed parking lot. Relief seeped into her shoulders and she relaxed them about halfway down from touching her earlobes. Why only halfway? Because OMG, the tension flowing off Ian even though he was on the other side of the lobby was strong enough to be a battering ram.
So much for their tentative truce. He’d gone totally grumpsterville on her again. Was he regretting last night? God knew the smart part of her was, even if she knew it could never work out between them. He was a hockey star; she worked for the team. How in the hell was she supposed to cover the team if she was fucking one of the players? Not to mention, he was all about the snarl and believing everything was at its worst. She had to believe that there was always a silver lining; if she didn’t have that inside her, she wasn’t sure she would have made it through rehab. It was the right call to limit sex to the cabin. They’d gotten it out of their system.
Still…it sure would have been nice to have another few nights on that rug.
Of course, that didn’t mean he couldn’t just take the surly down a couple of notches. They weren’t enemies, just former onetime lovers.
Thanks to the power of reflections, she was able to watch the SUV park in one of the empty spots and see the lines in Ian’s forehead deepen as he squared his jaw. She took half a step back toward him before she caught herself.
Clean breaks were the best kind. If she didn’t, she’d get tangled up in feelings that were one-sided, and that way lay trouble. There were things she could control and things she couldn’t. The best option for her was to stick with what she could control.
Forcing her gaze away from Ian, because the man was the word “uncontrollable” in human form, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath to center herself. Okay, this drive home
