"I'm too busy-"

"Eat." Not taking no for an answer, he tugged her down next to him and put her tray back in front of her.

On the pretense of stroking back a strand of hair, he outlined her ear with his finger. She'd run a Sno-Cat today, operated a huge snowblower and shoveled as much snow as he had. "You're pushing yourself pretty hard."

A shoulder jerked. "Not really."

"Lily."

Her eyes closed a moment, and then she looked at him, really looked at him, and he saw what he'd been looking for. A devastating flash of emotion that would have brought him to his knees if he'd been standing. "Ah, Lily-"

"Don't," she whispered furiously. "Damn it, don't say a word or I'll lose it. I mean it." She shoved another bite in and looked straight ahead as she chewed, chasing the food down with his water. Then she shoved the tray back and stood. "Let's go, ace. We have more snow removal to do."

He figured that was the only invitation he was going to get to stick close. Together they took one of the Sno-Cats and worked on clearing the closed section of the entrance road, inside the cat, they were high above the ground, in two bucket seats, surrounded by controls that he knew nothing about but that Lily worked as if she'd been born to it. The air was warm and close, the heater blasting, the windows half-fogged. They stripped out of their jackets and gloves, then Lily went back to working the controls with the same quiet, fierce intensity with which she'd made love to him only hours before.

"You know, much as you keep clearing, it's going to keep falling," he said lightly, hoping for a smile.

She just shot him a long glance before going back to clearing as if her life depended on it. They'd already rescued no less than six stranded cars and were working on clearing the parking lot to unstrand a whole bunch more when the radio chirped with word that the 80 had just opened and wasn't expected to stay that way for long.

"This is your chance to get out," she said to the window.

Outside, the snow had stopped falling, for now, but everything around them-the roads, the trees, the signs-was a solid, frozen white wonderland, clear and ice-cold. Lily pulled to a hut in the parking lot, and though she hit the brake, she did not turn off the cat. "Better hurry." There was a hint of impatience in her voice.

He looked at her, astonished. "You want me to hurry and leave?"

"You have a flight, damn it. You need to go. Now. I cleared a path for your rental car."

"So this whole damn thing, the whole last six hours of mind-numbing work and effort, was so that you could get me out?"

"Yes."

He was stunned.

"Well, what's so strange about that? You have to go."

"Yeah, I do. You know, 1 figure there's two possible reasons for this. You're either tired of me…" She didn't move, didn't even blink, "…or you're more terrified of what we've shared than I thought."

She stared at him for another beat, then turned straight ahead again, giving away nothing except the fact she was chewing on her lower lip. "This is a bad time to discuss this."

"Scared," he decided, lifting a brow when she whipped her head to him, piercing him with a look.

"I'm not." She said this through her teeth. "I've told you, nothing scares me."

Uh-huh. Except, he was guessing, anything that even remotely resembled matters of the heart. Well, welcome to the club, sweetheart. He hadn't been lonely before he'd met her, and hadn't felt particularly unfulfilled.

But even after just a week with this woman, he knew he'd been changed forever. "Something this good isn't worth doing only halfway, Lily." The words and the intent behind them no longer surprised him. Having feelings for someone didn't have to be a burden.

Not with someone like Lily.

"Tell me you haven't forgotten this was just for fun," she said.

"Why? So you can walk away from this, no regrets? Just chalk it up to another fun time had by all?"

"Logan…what choice do we have?"

"There are always choices. Always," he said softly, looking right at her, through her, to the scared woman inside. "All you have to do is want it bad enough. Deep down you know that, you've lived like that. Lily." Squeezing her fingers with his, he reached up and touched her face with his free hand. "I don't want to let this go."

She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them. "It's only been a week."

"Exactly. I want more. Let's go with this thing, see where it takes us."

"You're going back to Ohio. A very long way away."

"That's not a good enough reason to walk away."

"It is for me." And she hopped out of the cat.


***

Lily took two steps out of the cat, sank deep into the snow up to her thighs, swore lavishly, then got back into the machine and met Logan's gaze. He didn't want to let this go, she thought in panic. Oh, my God, he really didn't. "This is crazy. Stupid."

She marveled at that for a moment as she warmed back up. She'd let him see the real her this week. She'd let him because she hadn't seen the danger in it. And now he'd seen her, faults and all, and he still wanted her. The unbelievable draw of that began to lure her in, and her breath hitched. "This isn't a nice joke."

"It's not a joke at all. I know what's eating you."

"Do you? Do you really?"

"You think you have to keep everything fun and light. You think you have to fight all emotional ties because they bind, they restrict. But 1 don't want to hold you back or tell you what you should and shouldn't do. You're a grown woman, a beautiful, smart, incredible woman, and I want you just the way you are."

"Why?"

He blinked. "Why?"

"You've told me yourself you don't do deep relationships. After raising your siblings and then doing the sort of work you do, having someone want you on a daily basis is too much like a burden."

"I didn't say that," he said. "I never called love a burden."

"It was implied."

"Okay, I'll agree, it can be, if it's done one-sided. I've seen too much of that, Lily. Too many of my close friends burned because of unrealistic expectations. But that's not what I'm interested in here. I want a strong, independent woman who has her own goals and dreams, ones that don't depend on mine but can mesh with them."

"My life wouldn't mesh with anyone's."

"It would if you wanted it to."

And wasn't that just the crux. Her heart was beating hard and unnaturally heavy. "I've never wanted it to."

"Me, either. Before you."

Oh, God. The oddest feeling came over her, as if someone was dangling this big, fat, beautiful carrot in front of her, close enough to reach.

But what if it was poisonous? What if it grew teeth and bit her?

Then he capped her panic. "I think I'm falling in love with you, Lily."

Her mouth fell open. But it was the oddest thing, she still couldn't breathe.

"I wasn't looking for you, but it doesn't seem to matter. I found you."

Her throat burned and she shook her head, trying one last time to reason with him. "Easy words."

"You think so?" His eyes glittered with temper now. "You think they're just flying out of my mouth? "

"Okay, maybe easy was the wrong word. Dangerous."

"No, my job is dangerous. Your job is dangerous. That's just a fact. What I'm feeling for you has nothing to do with any of that. You can't die from it."

Then why did her heart ache so badly she felt as though she was going to?

"Look, Lily, I came here feeling restless. Like maybe I was floundering a bit, but I didn't know why. I know now."

He was killing her slowly. Torturously. Doing exactly what he'd said he wouldn't. She covered her face with her hands. He was hurting her. "It's only been six nights. Seven days." And a thousand memories.

"Long enough. Something was missing in me before. The most important part. The heart. You, Lily. You were missing."

"I don't want this responsibility." She had too much already.

"My feelings aren't your responsibility, and you know it. Stop finding excuses."

She dropped her hands from her face. "What happened? Why couldn't we keep it light and easy and fun like we wanted?"


He lifted a shoulder. A guy's response.

"This is asinine."

"Not exactly the reaction I was going for."

"I know that," she said to his grim face. "I'm sorry. Give me a minute, my heart is in my throat."

But before she got her minute, her radio squawked.

Sara's voice filled the compartment. "Lily. Oh, my God, Lily. Matt's missing."

"What?"

There were panicked tears in Sara's voice. "He and Debbie went out on snowmobiles. Debbie came back for lunch, thinking Matt was right behind her, but he didn't show up. No one's seen him, and he's not answering his radio."

"We'll be right there." Lily shoved the cat into gear for the short journey to the lodge entrance, not realizing until she put her foot on the accelerator that she'd automatically united her and Logan as a unit by saying "we."


Chapter 15

Lily could hardly drive the Sno-Cat, and it had nothing to do with the fact that more snow had fallen in a single twelve-hour period then she'd ever seen, or that it was still snowing.

It had everything to do with a few little, harmless words that when strung together equaled terror. Logan thought he was falling in love with her. Love. The weight of that felt too heavy, far too heavy a load for her to carry.