The Rancher's Christmas Baby. Cathy Thacker Gillen
“You could take it with us and eat it in the truck if you’d let me drive.”
It would be so easy to lean on him. It would also be a bad precedent to set, unless she wanted him telling her what to do, every day for the rest of her life. Amy went back to glaring at him. “Just because I don’t inhale my food at the speed of light the way you do…”
He arched a brow, obviously fed up with all the waiting around, even though they’d only been in the restaurant for twenty minutes or so.
“I’m going to get some coffee for our thermos.” He left the table.
Amy looked out the window. It was raining pretty hard. Now that the sun had gone down, the temperature was dropping, too. She hurried up, despite her early admonition not to be worried by all the alarmist predictions on the airwaves. By the time she emerged from the ladies’ room, the check had been paid. Full thermos in hand, Teddy was ready to go.
As they walked back out to the truck, icy rain pelted their faces.
It hadn’t been coming down anywhere near this hard when they had stopped for dinner half an hour ago. In fact, it had barely been raining at all.
Her foot slid on the slick pavement as she approached the driver’s side. He caught her.
She had only to look into his eyes to know what he was thinking.
They could spend the night here.
They wouldn’t have a bed, or any privacy, but they’d have heat, food, bathrooms. And he’d be looking at her with that I-told-you-this-was-a-bad-idea gaze all night long.
“I want to keep going.”
His expression remained impassive. “You’re the boss. It’s your call.”
Amy didn’t like the sound of that. There weren’t supposed to be any bosses in their marriage between friends. She stuck her hands in the pockets of her down jacket. “No need to be sarcastic.”
He kept the steadying hand on her elbow and gave her a chivalrous boost up into the cab. “Be grateful I’m still this circumspect.”
Amy scowled and started the truck. To her relief, the dashboard indicated the outside temperature was still thirty-three degrees.
She went over to gas up, and then turned the truck back onto the two-lane highway. “It’s thirty-four miles to the next town,” she said. “If it looks any worse by the time we get there, we’ll stop there for the night.”
Teddy nodded.
To Amy’s relief, the next fifteen miles were fine, although she drove very slowly and carefully, just to be on the safe side.
It was only when they got into an area that was as desolate as the desert, that the temperature began to dip even more. And that was when the road got really slick.
One minute they were cruising along, easy as you please, the next they were skating across a sheet of black ice. Fishtailing, then spinning all the way around, before bumping across a cactus-riddled field and coming to an abrupt halt.
IT TOOK A GOOD FIFTEEN seconds after they stopped for Amy to catch her breath. Recovering, she gripped the wheel hard with both hands and stepped on the gas. The truck went exactly nowhere.
She tried again and was rewarded with a spinning sound and a sinking truck.
“Try rocking it back and forth,” Teddy suggested.
She did…to no avail.
She eased off the gas, frustration knotting her gut, and shifted the truck into Park. Swearing softly beneath her breath, Amy unfastened her seat belt and jumped down from the cab. Teddy followed her onto the ground. It took only a moment to see what the problem was. The truck’s front wheels were stuck in the mud.
Amy sighed, as the freezing precipitation continued to rain down on them. “We’re not going to be able to get out of this, are we?”
“Not until it stops. Which should be by daylight.”
“Lovely.”
She climbed back in the truck and turned off the ignition.
Silence surrounded them, broken only by the pelting sounds of the ice hitting the windshield and top of the cab.
Teddy reached around behind them. He brought out a couple of wool blankets and draped them over their laps.
He lit a candle, stuck it inside a hurricane globe and set it on the dash. “This candle will keep it fifty degrees in here, all on its own.”
The heat of his body would keep it warmer than that.
Amy ran a hand over her eyes and slumped down in her seat. “You can say I told you so any time now,” she grumbled, feeling incredibly foolish.
Teddy draped his arm along the back of the bench seat and turned toward her. Using the pressure of his hand on her shoulder, he urged her out from behind the wheel, not stopping until they were sitting side by side in the center of the wide bench seat. “When in our many years of friendship have I ever said I told you so to you?” he asked her in a deep, kind voice.
“There’s a first time for everything,” Amy replied miserably.
He shifted, getting more comfortable, too. His leg nudged hers beneath the blankets. “Are we talking about me now or your ex-fiancé?”
Amy shut her eyes and tipped her head back until it rested against the seat. “You know I don’t talk about that.”
He pulled her deeper into the curve of his arm. “Maybe it’s time you do.”
Needing to see the expression on his face, Amy opened her eyes and looked at him. “You first, then.’ Cause you never said why you and Vanna broke it off, either.”
For a long moment, Amy thought Teddy was going to put up the usual smoke screen into his most private thoughts about all members of the opposite sex. Then something in his gaze shifted, became more intimate still. With the change in his mood, a new peace stole over the cab of the truck. His sensual lips curving ruefully, he murmured, “Vanna said the thrill was gone. Our life together was too ordinary. I was too ordinary. Too nice.”
How could someone be too nice? Amy wondered, incensed.
“There weren’t enough fireworks. Vanna needed drama and I couldn’t…or to hear her talk—wouldn’t—give it to her. So she handed me back my engagement ring and left.” Teddy reached over and absently squeezed Amy’s hand.
“At the time I was pretty hurt,” he continued reflectively. “Now I realize she did us both a favor. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself, Amy, is that I like ordinary. I probably even like dull as long as life is one smooth ride.”
Amy blinked. “Wow.”
He grinned, looking relieved to finally have that off his chest, gave her hand another squeeze and let it go.
He gave her another nudge. “Your turn.”
Hoping the candlelight hid her blush, Amy drew an enervating breath. “It’s embarrassing.”
Teddy scoffed, not about to let her off the hook. “And mine wasn’t?”
He had a point.
Reluctantly, Amy plunged into her own confession. “I found out I wasn’t Ken’s only fiancée. He had another one in his hometown of Boise, Idaho. And a third one in California, where he went to grad school.”
His eyes widened. “All at once?”
Amy scowled, wishing she still didn’t feel like such a fool for letting her romantic notions about the magic of falling in love with Ken overshadow what had really been happening. “That’s the beauty of life as a winery sales rep. Apparently, you can have as many lives as you want while you travel the world.”
Sympathy radiated in Teddy’s