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have a smokehouse or store here in town?” Maybe she could pick some up before she continued on to Seattle.
    Quinn shook his head. “They have a small place on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, east of Glacier National Park, and since they own this place you can only find that brand of bacon here. There’s another reservation south of us, which belongs to the Flathead Nation.”
    She sighed, lost. “I don’t even know where any of those places are. Sorry.”
    “No need to apologize. You weren’t planning on coming here.” He shrugged, making quick work of his meal. “Honey Pot’s in northwestern Montana on the western tip of Glacier National Park, and about five hundred miles north of us is the Canadian border. This area is chock full of lakes, rivers and mountains, so it’s renowned for being an outdoorsman’s paradise. There’s ice fishing, skiing and snowboarding in the winter, hunting in the fall, and mountain biking, fly fishing, zip-lining, white-water rafting and Harley road rallies in the summer. And of course you’ve got gambling year-round on reservation land. Does that help?”
    “Sounds wonderful here.”
    “Heaven couldn’t be better, despite the current weather conditions.” He nudged a plate her way. “Try the bacon. And be sure to tell Khrys how awesome it is before we leave.”
    She sampled the bacon and had to stifle another moan of pleasure when the smoky tang bit into her taste buds. To keep herself from having another near-orgasmic food moment—though she thought she might be forgiven for it, since it was freaking bacon —she tried to focus on the conversation at hand.
    “I’d love to see this area when it’s not being buried by a polar vortex and I’m not in a hurry to get to my fiancée. I’ve never really been anywhere other than my hometown.”
    “Chicago, right?” When she nodded and reached for her coffee, he turned in his seat to study her. “It sounds like you’re a real homebody. Makes me wonder why you’re in such a hurry to get to your boyfriend.”
    “Fiancée.”
    “No ring equals no fiancée in my book. He’s your boyfriend, and a cheap-ass one at that. Answer the question, Red,” he added when she sighed again, loudly. “You said you were in a hurry to get to him, so what’s the rush?”
    “Did I say I was in a hurry?” To her chagrin she realized that she had. Automatically her hand went to her purse, where the envelope of papers was tucked away. Or at least they were there physically. But the packet of papers was also felt in her chest, lying there like a ton of bricks that she couldn’t get out from under. “What I meant was that I’m just anxious to see him again. Jackson’s been getting everything organized in Seattle for the past seven months, so—”
    “Holy shit, seven months ? You haven’t seen your man for seven months?” He stared at her as if she’d just claimed to be engaged to Jimmy Hoffa. “Does he visit you?”
    The uncomfortable heat of humiliation began to prickle her neck. “As I said, he’s very busy…”
    “And this is your first time visiting him? Did he send for you?”
    She pushed her plate abruptly away as the food she’d eaten turned into a ball of cement in her stomach. “That’s none of your business.”
    “So he didn’t send for you.” He looked at her for a long moment, and she hated what she saw in his dark blue eyes—something torn between disbelief and pity. Then he shook his head and picked up his coffee mug to drain it. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Mia, but I don’t think you two are together anymore.”
    That terrible, queasy dread she’d lived with for weeks returned with a vengeance. “I don’t want to be rude to the man who’s helping me out, but what part of none of your business did you not grasp?”
    “I’m making it my business, and don’t worry about being rude with me, since I’m not going to worry about being rude with you. Things are more honest when people say what