Snow Jam by Rachel Hanna

imagining.
    I got acquainted with my office and waited for someone to tell me how to find Rick, and who he was. When no one came I left my office feeling like I should leave breadcrumbs to guide me back, but the municipal building wasn't huge. Hanlin wasn't huge.
    There was nobody out in the halls, and the administrative assistant wasn't at her desk in the front where she doubled as receptionist. Fine. I could do this myself. I went up and down halls that branched off the central reception area. Most people had names on their office doors, though I doubted the accuracy of these nameplates, as the person in the office marked Bert Tomlinson had long blond hair and was wearing a pink skirt and high heels.
    I didn't find a listing for a Rick; I found an office suite marked communications. Made sense, getting the word out about the municipality is critical in economic development. I'd be working a lot with the communications department and –
    Rick Barnes. He'd just walked back into the main office with a phone in one hand and a file in the other. His hair was a little longer, curling on his collar, his eyes bright, and everything I remembered – cheekbones, jaw, forearms, pecs – all still beautiful. I made a noise and he stopped short, starting at me like he'd seen a ghost.
    "Hi," I said with stunning stupidity.
    He didn't even manage that. "What are you doing here?"
    That annoyed me. I've left Las Vegas and come to stalk you. "What the hell do you think? I told you I was applying for an economic development job in Hanlin. How many did you think there were?"
    "No," he said clearly, as if it might work some kind of magic. "They hired a Michelle Powers."
    I waved. "That's me."
    "No," he said again, clearly stuck. "Your name is Mya."
    I gave him a curious tight smile that felt wrong. "Also me," I said. "Mya's a nickname."
    "Mya's a nickname? Why didn't you tell me that?" He looked almost angry, just like I was starting to feel. Two can play at feeling stalked.
    "You didn't tell me you were applying for this job?" I demanded. "You barely told me anything about your job, just that you worked in advertising. "
    "I did. I still do. That's what the communications position is . It came open two months ago. I applied and I got in about thirty days ago. Why didn't you tell me Mya is a nickname?"
    I sighed. "When should I have done that? While you were being rude or while we were having dinner? Over Scrabble? Or while running around in the snow while trees fell? Maybe afterward in the shower when – "
    "OK, OK," he said hastily. "Listen, I'll be right back." He took off down the hall at something just short of a run and while I'd been contemplating making for a ladies' room in case my stomach came undone, I sank instead into one of the guest chairs by his desk.
    My stomach fluttered like mad. Talk about having butterflies! I had a migrating swarm. My head ached and I felt dizzy. Joy and fury and sadness kept vying for precedence.
    "This sucks," I said aloud.
    Because now that I thought about it, I'd been craving him for four months. Ever since that wild, snow-filled night. Over those months I'd been angry, amused, apathetic, appalled. I'd been mad one minute and longing for him the next and I never admitted the longing, not to me, not to Sunny, not to Jenna, not to my mother, not to anyone. Nothing was going to stand in my way. I'd gotten the job and if I had to wait four months, fine, as long as it was mine. If it meant I'd be working only ninety minutes from Rick's cabin and not that much farther away from where he lived and worked, so be it.
    No one had said anything about throwing me off the deep end right into the damn pool with him. What if there were rules about employees having relationships? Or having had a relationship, however improbably short? I'd gotten hired first but he'd been here longer. Would they let one of us go? Reprimand us for something that happened before I'd even been hired?
    Had he really not known it was me?