Read Snow Jam for Free Online

half the time. I wasn't going to fall for him and end up hanging out in a fishing cabin a couple hours outside Atlanta.
    I went back out to play Scrabble.
     
    Snow continued to fall but so lightly it wasn't filling in our footsteps. I could still easily see the trail the Jeep had left in the virgin snow glowing whitely under the moon. The cabin had warmed up, probably more than Rick preferred, but I didn't protest. I was still scared. I didn't know how to look up the weather report for the next day, or exactly where I was. What if when I wanted to leave it went on snowing or snowed harder? What if the rental car was towed or the roads impassable?
    "It's your move," Rick said, as if we were playing chess instead of Scrabble.
    I'd lied about knowing how to play. I really just know words.
    He had an x in a word he'd created. I had a Y. The fire was burning down to a comfortable glow. Shadows stretched long in the cabin. My heart still pounded uncertainly, uncomfortable with the rural setting, the distance from much of anywhere, the snow that kept falling. But within hours I'd be out of here, less than 12 hours, and then up to Hanlin and then off to play at Sunny's.
    I could do this.
    I put an S and an E in front of the X and the Y.
    Rick raised a brow at me. My breathing went shallow. Really shouldn't have done that.
    We held eye contact longer than I was comfortable with it, before he looked away, looked at the clock, and suggested we do something else. I felt vaguely insulted and told myself I felt relieved.
    "So if it's not a secret," he said, folding up the board, "Why are you going to Hanlin?"
    "Job interview." I thought I'd said it before. I couldn't resist the temptation to look at my bag where it sat propped on a chair at the tiny kitchen table. Messenger bag, with laptop and presentation. It would be crazy to go get the bag and hold it all night.
    "Yeah, you said that." He looked comfortable, a little sleepy in the fire's glow. "Secret job?"
    I bit my lip, and finally laughed. "Superstitious applicant. But it's the last interview. Sunny thinks I've got it."
    I saw him start to form the word who ? before he said, "Right, Kurt's wife. So what do you do?"
    It spilled out in a rush then, because I wanted it. Like when new relationships came along, that same pulse-pounding hope and will he call? Only this time the he was one Jared Flenderson who was said to be the managing partner who did the hiring.
    "I'm an economic development specialist," I said, and to his credit he didn't blink, laugh or ask what that was. "In Vegas I was working with a local agency. We've had kind of a silo mentality going on for a while, all municipal, county, regional and state level economic authorities all kind of doing our own thing."
    The firelight caught in his golden hair and outlined the clean square jaw and the sensual mouth. He kicked back on the futon and put his hands behind his head, staring past where I huddled in the one of the armchairs, and into the fire.
    He listened, to how Nevada had pulled itself together after the last recession, the Governor's Office stepping into unify all the different silos into one umbrella with all the regional and city authorities under it.
    Which was great for the state and for the economy, but meant my position, one of the many vice presidents in a Southern Nevada authority, was duplicated and unnecessary.
    None of it was very interesting, how I lost my job. Just disheartening and it reminded me of the charge on my credit card, that I should go grab my phone and cancel the damn hotel reservation, but even as I thought that I realized I didn't have a clue what he did, and asked, phone in hand, one thumb hovering over dial.
    "Advertising," he said, as if waiting for me to make some kind of discouraging remark.
    "My sister Jill is in advertising," I said instantly, happy for the connection.
    "Is she local?"
    "Jill? Los Angeles." No connection. "So how did you get into advertising?"
    He shrugged, looking