Max backed his rusty old Blazer out of the driveway, doing his best to ignore Elena’s gasp when the wheels locked and he skidded a whole two inches to the right.

Great. Ten seconds into this trip, and she was already freaking out. He paused and glanced over at her. Her pretty profile was tense, her full lower lip pulled between her teeth, but she didn’t make another sound.

“You okay?” he asked, his voice gruffer than he intended.

“I’ve been better,” she said with a shaky laugh. That pretty profile turned his way, showcasing an even prettier version of herself head-on. For some reason, Elena always looked like a startled doe to him—those big brown eyes framed with heavy lashes, her features delicate and wide—but it wasn’t meant to be a bad comparison. She was very attractive as a doe. “But for the sake of the rest of this journey, you should ignore any and all sounds that escape me when we’re facing immediate peril. Unless it’s help. If I say ‘help,’ I usually mean it.”

Tina giggled from the backseat. “Can I start?” she asked and, without waiting for an answer, said, “Avalanche.”

Max was busy pulling the car forward, agonizingly slow this time so as not to upset his passenger, so he wasn’t sure at first what Tina meant.

Elena did, though. “Oh, good one. I know the answer, too. To survive an avalanche, you’re supposed to face away from the coming snow and start swimming. Breaststroke, if I remember correctly.”

“Nuh-uh!” Tina protested, giggling again. “You can’t go swimming without water.”

“You can too. I saw it in a movie once. The snow hits you hard and fast, and the only way to rise to the surface is to pretend like you’re swimming downstream in a river.” Elena turned to him, a question in her eyes. “Isn’t that so?”

“Er, yes,” he said and, at her look of triumph, quickly quashed it down again. “But it rarely works. If you’re getting hit by a wall of snow that close and you don’t have an avalanche pack, you’re probably going to die.”

“Da-ddy!” came Tina’s sharp rebuke from the backseat.

“What?” He glanced at his daughter in the rearview mirror. She was still puffed up in her eleven thousand layers of clothing, despite his protests. Both she and Elena were. With the heater going, they were both going to melt in about ten minutes. “It’s true. If you’re out there where avalanches are a possibility, you need a special pack that has a balloon to bring you to the surface. Otherwise, your chances of survival are slim.”

“He’s joking, Elena,” Tina said, her small tone resolute. “Don’t listen to him. You’re a great swimmer. You could swim out of anything.”

“Actually, she couldn’t—” Max began, but he didn’t make it very far. His daughter spoke again in a voice that allowed for no argument. She was so much like Quinn that way.

“It’s your turn now, Daddy. Do B. Pick something that starts with the letter B and could kill you in the woods.”

He returned his attention to the road. Was this the infamous alphabet game? It didn’t seem very fun.

“Is this something you play often?” he asked Elena, doing his best to sound casual.

“Pretty often,” Elena said. “Tina invented it for me.”

From the corner of his eye, he could see a flush of red steal over her cheeks. It didn’t make her look any less like a delicate forest animal—or any less attractive. He’d always found that Elena’s charm lay primarily in the matter-of-fact way she said exactly what she was thinking. She could admit that she was more scared than a seven-year-old in one breath and then tell a man she’d like to climb him like a tree the next.

It was alarming, yes, but also appealing. Not many people were willing to put all of themselves out there like that—it was probably her extreme youth that accounted for it.

Yes. Her extreme youth. He needed to focus on that.

“Whenever I start to worry about something, we go through the alphabet and figure out everything that could possibly go wrong and what we could do to fix it,” Elena explained. “By the time we get to Z, I’m usually pretty calm again.”

Max didn’t know whether to be alarmed or proud. “Tina came up with that? And her mother is okay with it?”

“Quinn finds my work highly satisfactory,” Elena said tightly. “Even if I’m not perfect all the time. It’s good for kids to see adult fallibility, you know. It teaches them to be independent thinkers and develop empathy. And to realize that it’s okay not to live up to the unrealistic expectations society sets on them all the time.”

He blinked. “Um…” Was he supposed to argue with that?

“Elena knows all about it,” Tina piped from the back. “She did her thee-sees on me.”

“My thesis,” Elena gently corrected her. “And it wasn’t about you, specifically. It was about all kids. Although you, of course, are my favorite one.”

Tina beamed obligingly. “Okay, Daddy. Do B.”

“Um…” he said again. He still wasn’t sure he liked this game, but at least it would pass the time. The cabins were a good two hours away, and he wasn’t sure how else the three of them would stay occupied. Elena always made it a point to act professionally when Tina was around, but there was no denying that she was a…presence. She didn’t have to say a word, but Max was acutely aware of her sitting there, all soft layers and waist-length hair that smelled like a patch of wildflowers in May. “Bazookas?”

“Daddy!” Tina protested. “It has to be for reals. Something that could actually happen.”

“A bazooka attack could happen,” he said mildly, casting a glance at Elena out of the corner of his eye. She bore a look of suspicion, as though expecting him to pull the plug on whatever kind of childhood development experiment she was testing on his only offspring. “Some of the people out there in the woods are real weirdos. Doomsday preppers love heavy artillery.”

“Blizzard starts with B,” Elena suggested.

“So does boring.” When he cast her another sidelong look, he found, this time, that she was smiling. “Aren’t you a little curious how to survive a bazooka attack?”

“Do you know how to survive a bazooka attack?”

Not really, no. Max imagined that in the event he came face-to-face with a rocket launcher, he was probably pretty close to a dead man already. But Elena looked both genuinely interested in his answer and assured that he had one. Despite his resolution not to pay her any more attention than he had to, he couldn’t resist that doe-eyed belief in him.

“Tuck and roll, my friends,” he said. “Tuck and roll.”

Elena laughed, the low, deep sound infecting the whole car—Tina included. When his daughter shouted happily for her nanny to lose no time in making a selection that started with a C, Max relaxed. Strange though the game may seem—and it did seem strange, there was no denying that—his daughter was enjoying herself.

And, really, a little wilderness survival training was always a good idea. No one knew that better than himself.

Elena decided on cougar, and the game proceeded from there: drifts, electricity loss, frostbite, and all. By the time they reached the letter Z—at which point they had to combine their powers of creativity to come up with a Zamboni that took a wrong turn at the ice rink—not only were all of them relaxed and laughing, but they were almost at their destination.

Not once had Tina asked for the tablet that invariably accompanied her on every road journey. Not once had she complained of boredom or hunger or even the heat exhaustion he’d expected from her heavy layers. And even though Elena faltered a little when he turned off the highway to the access road that would take them to the ranger’s cabin, she hadn’t lost any of the cheerfulness that kept all of them so entertained.

“So what happens now?” he asked, curious what else Elena had hidden up her Gore-Tex sleeves. Figuratively speaking, that was. The less he dwelled on the actual parts contained within them, the better. What with all those wrists and forearms and that soft inner patch of elbow… He coughed. “After the end of the alphabet, I mean?”

“Well, I was sort of hoping we’d be there by now,” she said with characteristic frankness and a wince as he hit a slippery patch of pavement. “I probably should have mentioned how much I dislike winding mountain roads. Is it much longer?”

“Five more minutes.”

And it would have only taken five more minutes, too, if not for the sudden burst of movement off to one side of the road. Deer were usually farther down the mountain this time of year, since the foraging was better in the open fields, but it wasn’t uncommon for them to leap across the roads at the most inopportune moments. Max gently touched the brakes and hoped he wasn’t about to give his daughter and her nanny an impromptu lesson in roadkill removal—bonus points for double Rs—but the figures that darted across the road were moving on two legs.

“What the—” he said as four people dashed in front of him, all of them clad in various shades of camouflage. His gentle touch on the brakes became a rapid pumping movement, and it was only by virtue of swerving into the sudden skid that he was able to avoid sending them all plummeting into the nearest ditch.

As it was, the car’s front bumper touched a spindly evergreen tree, splintering it at the base. In terms of automotive accidents, it hardly ranked up there with the worst he’d ever seen—in fact, he wouldn’t even rate it in the top one hundred—but one look at Elena’s white face had him swearing under his breath.

“Stay where you are,” he commanded, the stern note in his voice due primarily to that severe lack of color. She’d been doing so well keeping herself calm thus far—what kind of idiot ran across a winter road without checking for traffic first? After checking in the backseat to make sure Tina was okay, he slipped out the door to approach the quartet standing off to the side.

“Oy, Mister, we’re really sorry about that,” the smallest of the bunch said. It appeared to be a woman, though it was difficult to tell through the muffled layers of scarves and outerwear.

“Did you see him cross the road?” asked another, this one undeniably male if only by virtue of his size.

The third person—another man, though slighter in build and hunched with age—didn’t bother to wait for a reply. “I think he turned north-northwest, but I couldn’t tell. Damn! And we were so close this time. Your car probably scared him away. There isn’t supposed to be anyone on this road.”

Max wasn’t sure what to make of this final accusation, since he was clearly the one least at fault here. Before he could whip out his best forest ranger voice and warn them about the forest rules, however, the fourth voice spoke up.

“Max? Is that you? I’ll be damned—just the man we need right about now.”

Max didn’t have to ask Ace to pull away his layers of scarves and camo in order to recognize him. He and the other man had shared so many rescues over the year that he sometimes heard the bastard in his sleep.

“What are you doing, darting across the road like that?” he demanded before accepting his friend’s hearty handshake. This was Ace’s mysterious money-making scheme? Killing unsuspecting drivers on back mountain roads? “I could have ended up in the ditch.”

“You?” Ace raised one bushy gray eyebrow and shook his head. “I doubt it. I’ve seen you take hairpin turns on a sheet of ice without breaking a sweat. Team Delta, you’re in luck. You stand in the presence of greatness.”

Team Delta? Max cast an appraising eye over the three people assembled off to Ace’s side. They didn’t look like any team he’d come across before—sure, the large man looked like he could hold his own in a sporting event of his choosing, but the smaller guy was eighty, if he was a day. The woman could lean either way. She wasn’t very large, but she was about his age and seemed to be in good physical condition.

“Um, nice to meet you?” he offered tentatively.

“Not only can Max here navigate winter roads with his eyes closed, but he was also once nominated for a Piolet d’Or,” Ace continued to his audience. “In the mountain climbing world, that means he’s kind of famous.”

“I didn’t win,” Max said, lest they get any mistaken ideas. “And it was years ago, so it doesn’t count.”

Fame and all its accompaniments was something he’d never had any use for, even when he had been a competitive climber. He’d done it for the sport of it, for the sheer glory, the feeling that he was unstoppable, if only for a few hours.

God, he missed his climbing days. Sometimes it was an actual physical ache.

“Did you really do that?” Elena asked from somewhere behind them.

He whirled to find Elena standing off to the side of the road, her grip tight on Tina’s hand. For the first time, they looked weather-appropriate, their layers matching that of the motley crew assembled alongside Ace. Max wasn’t wearing much more than a thin jacket, but he rarely felt the cold. Once you climbed a few mountain summits in the dead of winter, freezing became a relative term.

“It’s not a big deal,” he said curtly. The last thing he needed was for Elena to add one more virtue onto the list she’d composed in his honor—especially since this one didn’t count for much. Not anymore. Not since the day he’d been forced to choose between his daughter and his dreams. “And I thought I told you to stay in the car.”

“You did,” she replied and then proceeded to stay exactly where she was.

With a sigh, Max returned his attention to Ace and his strange team. “Look—I’ve got to get these two settled into the ranger’s cabin and then make my rounds. Are you staying in the area? Is this a hunting party or something?”

Ace let out a loud guffaw. “You might call it that. We’re up at the main lodge, if you want to stop by later. We lost the trail, so we might as well call it day. You ready to head back, team?”

A chorus of reluctant voices chimed their agreement. It was only then that Max noticed they weren’t carrying any kind of hunting gear—no guns, no crossbows, no traps of any kind. The woman did have an expensive-looking camera around her neck, though, so it might be one of those bird-watching groups. Strange. Ace didn’t usually play tour guide for nature lovers. It was a tad sedate for his tastes.

“And you’re invited, too, little lady,” Ace called as he bustled his group back toward the footpath they’d come through. He paused long enough to make a thorough survey of Elena, absurdly youthful in her knit cap and bright, rosy cheeks. Her age didn’t seem to bother Ace, however, his gaze both obvious and appreciative.

Elena flushed even brighter under the scrutiny. “Am I the little lady, or is Tina?”

Ace winked. “You both seem pretty small to me. I think we can manage to fit you both.” He turned to Max with a conspiratorial smile and a finger to the side of his nose. “And keep your eye out for anything strange, would you? The bigger, the better.”

Max didn’t like where that comment had the potential to lead—nor, if Elena’s look of horror was anything to go by, did she.

“This better not be like the time you tried to take those people panning for gold and you all ended up with Lyme disease,” Max warned.

Ace winked again, doing nothing to allay Max’s fears. “Don’t you worry, Max. The worst thing any of us will catch this time of year is frostbite.”

---

“It seems like such a waste to leave it here, is all I’m saying.” Elena stood near the front of the car, blowing on her hands to keep them warm. Quinn had warned her that twenty degrees in the mountains always felt colder than twenty degrees in town, but she hadn’t realized the extent to which that was true. Her fingers were one snowball fight away from falling off altogether. “We might as well make use of it.”

“Please, Daddy?” Tina turned a pair of large, pleading eyes Max’s way, her own hands—now clad in both her own and Elena’s mittens—clasped in front of her. “You can’t just leave it here to die.”

“It’s already dead. It’s a tree. And not a very pretty one, I might add. The trunk is almost split in half.”

All three of them glanced at the tree under consideration. Elena was disposed to look kindly on it, since it had stopped the Blazer from going even farther into the ditch, but she could see Max’s point. It had all of three branches, and the splintered bottom wouldn’t last long even if they did put the tree in water. An elegant holiday decoration it was not.

“Please, Daddy? It’s the only Christmas tree I want.”

Max proved unequal to his daughter’s quivering lip. With a sigh and an accusatory look at Elena, he gave in.

“Fine. You win. I’ll cut it the rest of the way down and tie it to the top of the car.”

Elena couldn’t help but laugh at the look on Max’s face. He wore grumpy resignation well. Too well. She’d had no idea a darkly scowling man could do such strange things to her libido.

“I don’t know why you keep glaring at me about it,” she said, her voice low enough that Tina wouldn’t hear. Not that there was much of a chance of it. The girl was busy chattering excitedly to the tree, informing it of all the delights it had in store. “I’m not the one who can’t stand up to a seven-year-old.”

Max bristled. Which, as it turned out, was right up there with glowering in terms of sending her pulse skittering. “What are you talking about? I can stand up to her.”

“Yeah, right. You caved after ten seconds—no, five. All she had to do was bat her eyelashes and stick her lip out, and you were a goner. She knew it, too. She’s no fool.”

“Is that your professional opinion?”

“That your daughter isn’t a fool, or that you can be easily manipulated by feminine wiles?” She didn’t wait for an answer. The temptation to test the theory was too strong. Although she didn’t go for the full pout, she opened her eyes wide and turned them on him, giving them an extra bat or two for good measure. “I’m sorry if you feel I overstepped my bounds about the tree. Of course we can do whatever you think is best. You’re in charge out here, and I trust you completely.”

It was, she knew, one hundred percent true. She wouldn’t have been able to say it otherwise. She really did trust him—to a ridiculous, dangerous level. In fact, if Max told her that the only way to survive for the next two weeks was to become his sex slave and promise a lifetime of unquestioning satisfaction, she’d have agreed on the spot.

She’d have probably come on the spot, too, but that part went without saying.

Some of her feelings must have come through in her expression, because Max audibly swallowed. Elena couldn’t help but fixate on the scruff of hair along his jaw, the bob of his throat, the way every small move he made seemed to cause the long, lean muscles of him to flex.

“It’s fine,” he eventually said, his hazel eyes growing dark at the edges. “You didn’t overstep. If this is the tree you two want, then it’s the tree we’ll get.”

Despite the mesmerizing power of his eyes, Elena was betrayed into a laugh. “I can’t believe that actually worked. You were like putty in my hands. Soft, pliable, oh-so-supple putt—”

He fell into a coughing fit. Elena checked on Tina and, finding that she was watching them with interest, dropped the pretense of seduction as easily as she’d picked it up.

“Cheer up, Max.” She slapped him on the back. It was a nice back, all broad and hard under her palm. “You’re not the first man to fall for it, and I doubt you’ll be the last.”

He glowered. “Is that something you learned at school?”

“Do you mean was it part of my graduate-level psychology degree?” Elena paused, thinking of the hours of lectures she attended, the hundreds of research journals she read, the study sessions crammed wherever she could fit them while accompanying Tina to parks and picnics and playgrounds. There hadn’t been much room in the strenuous curriculum for Seducing a Man 101. “No, it wasn’t. But did I learn it in a dorm room or two?” She winked, unable to resist. “You bet I did.”

His entire body went still. Sensing that the time was right for retreat, she extended one of her bare hands in Tina’s direction and said brightly, “Should we leave your dad to get the tree all set? I’m freezing, and I’m still not sure what that gray-haired man meant when he said to be on the lookout for something big. Bears? Moose? I’d feel much safer—and warmer—waiting in the car.” She turned an innocent look of inquiry Max’s way. “Would you mind?”

“No,” he said, his voice gruff. “I wouldn’t mind. In fact, it’s the best idea you’ve had all day.”

Which is how she and Tina ended up watching, cozy and under cover, as Max located an axe from the trunk and set to work cutting the tree the rest of the way down.

If men had any idea how good they looked felling timber in the woods, it was a chore they’d perform on the regular. Especially a man like Max, who set to his task with an unselfconscious ease she could have watched for hours. Sure, the way his shoulders strained against his jacket as he lifted and swung was nice, and the gently graying beard was a perfect foil for his lumberjack duties, but that wasn’t it.

“He’s just so competent,” Elena said on a sigh.

“What did you say?” Tina piped from the backseat. Elena had distracted her with a bag of high-calorie trail mix unearthed from her purse, but the little girl had ears like a super spy.

“I was just noticing how good your dad is at wilderness things,” she said, since it was no secret. “I always admire people who do the things I can’t, things like chopping trees. You know how terrible I am at anything related to the great outdoors. Adventure makes me hyperventilate.”

Tina paused in the act of chewing. “What can my mom do that you can’t?”

Elena considered for a moment, never once losing sight of Max out of the corner of her eye. He’d managed to get the tree the rest of the way detached and was hoisting it easily to the top of the Blazer. His shirt lifted just enough so a strip of nicely toned skin showed above the waistline of his jeans.

She got that man to fall in love with her, she thought, but said, much more sedately, “Your mom is a super smart lawyer. She never loses her cool or says the wrong thing.”

“You can’t do that?”

Elena thought back over all the times she showed too much feeling, said too much of what was on her mind, gave too much of herself away, and shook her head. “No, I can’t do that.”

She most definitely couldn’t do that. Her older sister had once likened her to one of those tennis balls machines people used for practice on the courts. She shot her thoughts out there at full speed, heedless of where they were heading or who was on hand to smack them right back at her again. “I say whatever pops into my head, unfortunately.”

The fact that both Quinn and Max knew of her passionate one-sided affair was evidence of that. Quinn had once asked her what she thought of Max, and Elena, being Elena, had promptly said that he was everything she’d ever wanted in a man—personally, romantically, sexually. Lots of employers would have sacked her right then and there, but Quinn had only told her in that cool, grave voice that she couldn’t, in good conscience, continue to keep Elena in her employ unless she let Max know about the unfortunate state of affairs.

So of course Elena had done just that. She liked taking care of Tina, she was well paid to do it, and even more to the point, the hours had worked well with her school schedule.

She would never forget the way Max had stared at her the day she’d confessed her feelings. Horror was the best word for it. Horror and, because it was Max they were talking about, kindness. In terms of embarrassing outcomes for a declaration of love, horrified kindness was just about as bad as it came.

The driver’s side door pulled open then, sending in a blast of cold air as Max climbed into his seat. Flakes of snow had gathered on his hair and beard and settled at the tips of his eyelashes, glittering gently. It was all Elena could do not to lean forward and brush them away. She sat on her hands just in case her limbs decided to become as runaway as her mouth.

“Okay, you two. The Christmas tree has been chopped down and is secured on top of the car. Are we ready to rock and roll?” He paused, his glance moving quickly between the two of them. “Why so serious?”

Elena slapped on a smile so as to avoid having to talk about it, but Tina, bless her, had no such qualms. “Elena said she likes it when people do stuff she can’t. Like you, chopping trees. And mom, being smart.”

Max cast her a quick, almost suspicious glance. “Is that so?”

“I was telling Tina that I admire the qualities in others that I myself don’t possess,” she said primly. “It’s a very common thing, actually—to strengthen your personal weaknesses by filling in the gaps from your community circle. It’s evolutionary, a way to ensure your own survival. Most people just aren’t aware they do it.”

“Is that true, Daddy?” Tina asked.

Max further solidified his place in Elena’s heart by pausing to consider his daughter’s question. It would have been so easy for him to dismiss Tina’s chatter or start up the car, claiming the cold as a reason to be on his way. But he didn’t. In this, as in all things, he showed himself to be capable and competent and, Lord help her, kind.

“You know, I think it might be,” he said, reaching back to steal a handful of Tina’s trail mix. He glanced at the snack in his hand and laughed. “The thing I like best about you is how you’re always willing to share. Even if you don’t have very much, and even if you don’t want to do it.” He popped a few peanuts into his mouth as if to prove it.

It was a good answer, and Tina beamed accordingly. But then, with the painful bluntness of youth, she asked, “What about Elena? What do you like about her?”

Max glanced across the seat at her, causing Elena’s face to flame up in mortification. Her whole body was aflame, actually, a situation not helped by the fact that she was covered from head to toe in Gore-Tex and synthetic filler.

The heat didn’t abate as he continued looking at her, almost as though he was seeing her—really seeing her—for the first time. She didn’t want to blink or breathe or do anything to break the spell, but his silence grew quickly unnerving.

“Maybe we should just go—” she began, but Max stopped her with a smile that set her pulse rocketing. It was unfair that a few muscle twitches could set off such a devastating chain of events inside her heart, but so many things in life were. It wasn’t fair that she’d been born with all the scaredy-cat genes in her family, even less that she’d fallen in love with a man for whom fear was a four-letter word.

Yet here she was.

She smiled back, unable to stop herself, but the gesture had the opposite effect of what she’d intended. What had been rapidly becoming a moment of friendly solidarity dissolved into another one of Max’s heavy frowns.

Damn. She’d ruined it. Again.

“You never have to guess what Elena is thinking,” he said, his voice grave. To hear him, you’d think he was reading a eulogy for his worst enemy. “It shows on her face and in her words. She’s incurably honest about everything.”

It was, without question, the worst compliment she’d received in her life. He made honesty—made her feelings for him—sound like he was one last meal away from his final execution.

Tina picked up on none of the subtext and started clapping with delight. Elena wished she could do the same, but of course her mouth opened up, and out came the worst possible combination of words.

“You’re supposed to admire things that are different from yourself,” she said. “But I can tell what you’re thinking, too. Your face is plenty expressive right now.”

In other words, I get it—you’re not interested. She was an annoyance, a pest, a little girl with a crush he wanted nothing to do with. Her two weeks of bliss under the ranger cabin’s roof had been vanquished with a frown.

As if in response, Max started the car and floored it. The mad, sudden flight had the benefit of distracting both Tina and her. Tina, because the girl squealed with delight; Elena, because she was pretty sure they were going to plunge off the edge of the cliff and crash to the rocks below.

“What are you doing?” she cried, clutching at the car door until her knuckles turned white. She would have said more, but she didn’t think her tongue would keep working much longer. It couldn’t. All of the saliva in her mouth had dried up in terror.

“I’m getting us to the cabin as soon as possible” came Max’s tight reply. “No offense, Elena, but I don’t think I like playing your games anymore.”