Page 4 of Big Package

“You remember me?”

“You left a voicemail.”

His voice was flat, but his eyes stayed on me a second longer than necessary, and I became far too aware of the fact that he was standing there in a thermal with the sleeves shoved to his elbows while I was zipped into three layers.

I pointed at the crate. “That’s mine.”

“I know.”

“I need to get it back to town.”

Cole looked past me toward the driveway. “Not today.”

I turned. Ice already glazed my windshield.

“I can scrape it.”

“Road’s worse.”

When I faced him again, he was closer than I expected, one hand braced against the doorframe above my shoulder.

A branch cracked somewhere beyond the porch. I should have been paying attention to that. Instead, I noticed his forearm. Annoying.

“I can wait it out.”

He opened the door wider. “Get inside, Emmy.”

CHAPTER 2

COLE

She stared at me like I’d asked for a kidney instead of trying to get her in out of the cold.

“I’m not staying.”

“Didn’t say you were.” I held the door while another burst of ice rattled the porch roof. “I just said you’re not waiting in your car.”

“I have all-wheel drive.”

“So do half the people I pull out of ditches.”

Every winter the wrecker made more money than my flatbeds, and most of it came off the hill between here and town.

Her chin lifted. I remembered that about her. Emmy Parker always looked sweet until somebody told her no. Then every stubborn bone in her body showed up at once.

“I know how to drive,” she said.

I stepped back from the doorway. “You can argue with me out there or in here where it’s warm.”

For a second I thought she’d stay on the porch to prove a point. Then a burst of cold wind blew across the porch, hard enough to push her hood away from her face.

“Fine.”

She brushed past me. Cold air came in with her, and something that smelled like cinnamon. Probably from the candles at her shop.

I shut the door and turned the lock.

She spun around. “You locked it?”