Page 3 of Deathmarch

But then—yes!—more scraping, coming from somewhere ahead of her.

An endless, breathless minute passed before a snowplow charged out of the blizzard as if from an otherworldly dream.

The plow wasn’t exactly the majestic beast of Allie’s fantasy—only about a third of the size the weather warranted. Not even a real snowplow, just a plow fixed to the front of a green pickup. But she wassaved!

She enjoyed that ecstatically happy thought for about three seconds. Until she realized the green beast wasn’t slowing. The plow kept coming head-on, without showing any sign that the driver saw her.

Her stuck boots trapped her in the deep snow, twenty pounds of buffalo fur weighing her down.

“Hey!” she yelled. And then she yelled other words, ones that would have brought a blush to Calamity Jane’s cheeks.

Thenthe driver finally spotted her, and the pickup slowed before sliding to a stop not a foot from Allie, pushing snow onto her legs, the weight enough to make her topple backward.

Her boots finally popped free from their frozen trap.

And she went down like a big furry tree.

The snow and the coat cushioned her fall, but crashing back still rattled her headache. Wiggling to rise didn’t improve matters.Oh, hell, dammit.She didn’t have enough strength left to lift the coat vertical. The air had been knocked from her lungs. Hard.

“Help!” She meant to shout, but barely made a sound.

Yet help was coming anyway.

She could hear the truck’s door slam shut. Then the driver walked in front of the headlights, and she could see him too—a tall guy in proper winter work boots and a quilted jacket.

He stopped three feet or so away from where she waited. Took another step forward. Then bent cautiously over her.

His square jaw contrasted with soft, warm lips that melted any landing snowflakes. His eyes were Allie’s favorite color: Irish Sea blue. His gaze held both light and shadow, although more of the latter than the former.

The man she least wanted to see, under the circumstances.

Underanycircumstances.

Her notorious ex-ex. HarperflippingFinnegan.

Dagnabbit.

Chapter Two

Allie tucked in her chin to hide more of her face under her scarf.

“For a minute there,” Harper shouted over the wind, “I thought I was hallucinating and you were a grizzly. You okay?”

Do I look okay?

Before she could ask if he was experiencing snow blindness, he said, “Better than your horse, I take it.”

She raised her snow-crusted, frozen eyebrows. No sense in wasting energy with forming words over that particular non sequitur. Maybe he was drunk.

“You’re here and he isn’t. Most folks wouldn’t take an animal out in this storm.” He gestured at her boots. “I don’t condone spurs myself, in any weather.”

God save her from small towns. Everybody had an opinion, and they weren’t afraid to share it.

“No horse,” she forced the words through chattering teeth, her scarf muffling her voice. “My car is stuck in the snow a ways back. Maybe if the town board didn’t spend the whole budget on hokey billboards, they could buy a decent-sized plow instead.”

“What?” He reached for her, grabbed her arm above the elbow, and yanked her to her feet as if she wasn’t wearing half a buffalo.

Show-off. Whatever.