Catch Me If You Can by Donna Kauffman Page B

welcome to join me. I don’t think you should risk getting in your truck.” He lifted his hands. “And you won’t have to worry about me making any untoward advances. I have no feeling left in my extremities at this point.”
    She regarded him for a moment, then said, “Yes, that would slow things down a bit, wouldn’t it?”
    There it was again, that sly amusement. He knew she realized she was in a potentially dangerous situation for a young woman, but she was handling it with an almost insouciant disregard. He rather liked that. Made him wish he’d met her under other circumstances. And that he hadn’t promised her he’d be on his best behavior. Despite being numb, she made him think about doing things that weren’t entirely civilized.
    “Why don’t you wait in the car while I dig out a tunnel? You can have the backseat and I’ll take the front, if it would make you feel more comfortable.”
    “Quite the gentl eman Yank, aren’t you?” she said. “But I’m numb enough myself to take you up on your offer. Besides, it’s either trust you or freeze to death, isn’t it?”
    “ Yes, well, it’s gratifying to know I can get a woman to choose me over certain death.”
    She tucked her hands in her pockets and started toward his car. “Oh, I’m sure women choose you even when death isn’t certain.”
    “ Thanks,” he said, falling into step behind her. “I think.”
    Her laugh trailed behind her through the wind and falling snow. It made him curl his hands against the desire to reach for her, tug that cap off and see for himself what lay beneath. A long fall of hair? Or something short and spiky? For a tall woman, she had something of the nymph about her. Probably her playful smile, amused tone. From her stride, long-legged and sure, he’d bet she wasn’t slight of frame, no matter the bulk of the parka. Which likely played into her air of natural confidence, though it did next to nothing to decrease his i nterest in her. If anything…
    She paused at the rear side door to his rental. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to help? Or would I just be in your way?”
    He stopped beside her, closer than he’d been as yet. Close enough to see the sprinkle of freckles across her nose and cheeks, the wide fullness of her mouth, the delightful tilt to the corner of her eyes when she smiled, though the color of them was still a mystery. One he was finding himself quite compelled to solve.
    “I can handle it,” he told her, hoping like hell she attributed the lower p itch in his voice to the weather and not his reaction to being so close to her. Yet so impossibly far from being able to do anything about this sudden and quite intense feeling of attraction.
    Her smile curved even more deeply. “You know what, Gentleman Yank?” she said, a bit more softly this time, though every bit as amused. “I believe you can.”
    He might have spent the better part of the past several years deep in the Yucatan jungle, but even he recognized a come-on when he heard it.
    At least he was pretty damn sure it was a come-on. Maybe it was just wishful thinking that had taken on hallucinogenic proportions due to the cryogenic loss of brain cells. Which was entirely possible.
    Her hand was on the door handle, only she didn’t open it. He was holding the broom in a frozen death grip, only he made no move toward the wall of snow encasing the rear end of the car.
    “ You should get out of the cold,” he said, after the silence had spun out far too long.
    “So should you.”
    “If I don’t clear the tailpipe, we won’t have any heat.”
    Her smile curved in a way that could only be described as wicked. His body was more than responsive. In fact, he didn’t so much mind the numb parts any longer. As long as that one part had life i n it, that was all that apparentl y mattered.
    “Something tells me we’d manage,” she said, then opened the door.
    For all that Tag rarely, if ever, felt dull-witted or slow, he felt very