Snowed In Read Free Page B

the best burgers in the county. And he knew the owner; he could make it work.
    â€œCute. ’Bye, Gavin Fraser.”
    â€œ ’Bye, Maureen O’Connell.” She rolled up her window, and she was gone.

Chapter 6
    Maureen didn’t burn the sweatpants, but she did throw them in the back of her closet. She couldn’t have burned them if she wanted to because her new apartment didn’t have a fireplace. A co-worker’s cousin had rented it to her. She knew she should be grateful for finding something on such short notice, but it was drafty and bland. It didn’t help that almost all of her worldly possessions (i.e., books) were in boxes. Normally she was a very organized packer, labeling each box by the room it would go in, but she’d left Dave’s in such a hurry that she could only hope she hadn’t forgotten anything.
    On the way home from the grocery store—the one she would never cry in again—she thought about her apartment full of boxes, and how she had only dug out enough clothes for work, and how she only had four hours to open every box and hope that her cute date clothes were not buried at the bottom of a box of paperbacks.
    Then she made a quick right to get on the highway and headed out to the mall.
    One pair of butt-hugging jeans, a scoop-neck sweater, an impulse buy in the lingerie department, and she was ready for the god. Well, the clothes, the lingerie, some cheap but fabulous dangly earrings, a new tube of mascara and she was ready for the god.
    A date. She hadn’t let herself think about it too much as she got dressed. If she thought about it, she would have reconsidered—really, she was in no position to be going on a date, emotionally or otherwise. It had only been two weeks since Dave had dumped her. But if she didn’t get out there she’d never, well, purge the memory of Dave. And if a promise to a funny-looking stranger in a grocery store wasn’t sacred, what was?
    She could picture her new friend Billie’s look of horror as she tugged on her snow boots and squashed her curls with a knit hat, completely ruining the Casual Sex Kitten look she was going for. But Gavin’s weatherman was right, snow was predicted. And besides, he seemed to like her well enough in her spinster sweats; surely a little practical weather gear wouldn’t turn him off. She knotted a scarf around her neck and headed out the door.
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    Gavin watched her pull into the little parking lot behind the Cold Spot, right next to his truck. He’d been waiting outside for her, and the tips of his ears felt like they were going to freeze off. But from the moment she’d accepted his date—or he’d accepted hers—he couldn’t stop thinking about her, about her smile, and her quick wit, and her lush body pressed against his . . .
    The cold air was not doing enough to dampen his lust. Pippa had given him hell the whole ride home, teasing him for chasing after strange women in the parking lot like a dog in heat, then chastising him for not introducing her. He hadn’t told her about his previous experience with Maureen O’Connell, former mystery woman. Pippa had enough to worry about with her own romantic evening, though, so he could keep the memories to himself.
    He was in such a good mood about it that he sent the new guy home early. Then it was just him in the big old house, puttering around the office, pretending to check his email, killing time until six o’clock. He had tried on every damn shirt in his closet before he realized with disgust that he was nervous. Nervous! Gavin Fraser was not nervous around women! In the end, he just picked up the nearest shirt, a button-down flannel, tugged on his boots, and left the house.
    He arrived at the restaurant twenty minutes early.
    Sitting alone in his warm car gave him too much time and space to reminisce about Maureen O’Connell’s lush little sweatpants, so out he went.