Boom (4 page)

Chapter Three

The Diner Bell, a small shotgun-style diner on Honey Pot’s Main Street was almost empty when Mia stumbled through the heavy door decorated with twinkle lights and a cardboard cutout of Santa. She stopped just inside, staring at the twin rows of tan and cream-colored booths separated by a narrow aisle. That aisle led to a fifties-style counter, and a kitchen beyond that could be seen through the heat-lamp dotted pass-through. Glittery red and green garland twined along the ceiling line and around the pass-through, and paper snowflakes, clearly made by children with their names scrawled in crayon in the centers, hung from above.

Mia took this all in, and her dazed brain wondered very clearly if she’d somehow managed to go back in time. Bing Crosby crooned about dreaming of a White Christmas, and a flashy pink and white Mylar tree stood next to a couple of coat racks by the door.

What the hell was she doing here? This wasn’t Seattle. The rest of her life depended on getting to Seattle and Jackson. She
had
to get there. She didn’t have time to be in some cute little hole-in-the-wall called The Diner Bell, a place that may or may not be an existing paradox in this universe’s time continuum.

Didn’t anyone understand she had to get to Seattle?

Hands clamped over her upper arms still covered in Quinn’s red and black hunter’s jacket, steering her toward one of the booths. She went without resistance, plodding one foot in front of the other before being stopped, bodily placed onto the booth’s bench and slid over to the snow-filled window.

Forget about Seattle. Even the meager hope of seeing a shower and a bed, of simply being able to
relax
, had been snuffed out. With Seattle, Jackson, settling the rest of her life and even a damn bed now out of her reach, she now had no plan. With nothing to work toward, her internal engine—already running on fumes—stalled right the hell out.

She was done.

“You need food.” Some kind of movement happened in front of her on the table but she didn’t bother to focus on it. She could barely keep her eyes open and really, what did it matter? Her travel nightmare had no end. “Mia, look at the menu. You’ve only had crackers and water for twenty-four hours. Prisoners of war eat better than that. Come on now, what do you want?”

“A bed.” At this point even a couch or a park bench would be nice. But if she went for a park bench in this weather she’d be dead in an hour. “What time is it? Wait, no. What day is it?”

An arm came around her shoulders. Only then did it register that Quinn had sat down beside her. “After seven on Saturday morning. Sun’s coming up.”

She wasn’t sure how he could tell that, since outside still looked pitch black to her. “I left my apartment in Chicago at five-thirty Friday morning, local time. What’s the time difference between Chicago and… where are we again?”

“Honey Pot, Montana, and there’s an hour’s difference. Don’t think about it, you’ll just get more turned around and confused.” He kept his arm firmly around her shoulders as he scooped up the menu he’d placed in front of her and stuffed it behind the napkin dispenser. “Fuck it. You’re getting a waffle and a double order of bacon, orange juice and coffee. Want anything else?”

“A bed.”

“I know, baby.” To her shock she felt his mouth brush her temple, and it momentarily lifted the fog for her to note how the long length of his thigh was pressed against hers. For a man, he really had some great legs. If it weren’t for all the bulky coats between them, she’d be able to fully drink in his wonderful body heat… “Food first. Bed second.”

She made a noncommittal sound, her brain still lingering on how good his leg felt next to hers. “Do you think they’d let me sleep here if I asked? I don’t think they’re going to do any business today, not in a storm like this.”

“You kidding? This is just a little blow to us Montanans. In another hour or two, this place’ll be packed, but that won’t matter to you because you’re going to be snoozing away in a big, soft bed under a mountain of blankets, with a nice, quiet fire crackling away nearby.”

“Oh.” She wanted that so bad it brought tears to her eyes. “Where? Let’s go there now.”

“After you eat. Then, since neither of us has any choice at this point, I’ll take you home so you can zonk out there.” He lifted his free hand to an older woman behind the counter, who headed toward them immediately.

It took a while for his words to sink in—long enough for him to give the waitress their order and to admire how they’d greeted each other by their first names. As much as she adored her hometown, there was probably a lot to be said for living in a small town where everybody knew your name…

“Wait. Home?”

Aha. There. It finally sank in.

“My home for now, anyway. Thanks, Khrys,” he added when coffee and orange juice arrived. He picked up her hand and curled it around the glass of OJ. “Vitamin C in liquid form. Someone in your zombified condition is just begging to get sick, so we’re fighting that shit off with OJ and bacon. I threw the bacon into the mix because bacon can fix anything. Drink.”

She could only follow orders, and only if they were simple. She raised the glass and the first hit of bright, tangy citrus brought a faint ray of sunshine into her dim and hopeless world. “My God.”

“What?”

“That’s the best orange juice I’ve ever tasted. I wonder what brand this is. God’s brand, probably.”

“Red, your body’s so pushed beyond its limits that anything you put in your mouth right now would be the best thing you’ve ever tasted. Keep going. Bacon’ll be here soon.”

Suddenly her stomach let out a growl that she was sure the entire diner heard. “Let’s revisit this
home
thing.”

“Look, it’s not like I want this to happen either, but what’s the alternative? Leave you here? Let you stumble around in a fucking blizzard? What’s the answer?”

She shook her head, helpless. Hating her helplessness. “I don’t know.”

“Drink up. Once you’re done with your juice, you’re having a little coffee. Not a lot, just enough to get you through the next hour.”

“I don’t want you to be forced to take me in, Quinn. I’m not your responsibility just because you got stuck transporting me.”

“I know what my responsibilities are. How do you take your coffee?”

“Four sugars, four creams. Look—”

“
Four
?” His surprised laugh was deep and mellow, and it rolled out of him to fill the small diner with life. It had to be her fatigued brain imagining things, but Mia could have sworn the room’s cracked linoleum floor and the heavy wood paneling brightened and warmed with a golden glow just from that deliciously masculine sound alone. “So basically you like super-sweet coffee-flavored cream?”

“I’m too tired to tell. Are you judging me?”

“I’m judging that you’re too cute to be allowed out on your own. Who knows what would happen if some wild mountain man got a good look at you? I can’t let you out of my sight.” He leaned across her to get the sugar, and her world was momentarily filled with a nice, clean scent mingling with something deliciously spicy—nutmeg or cardamom.

Something yummy. Something lick-worthy.

Holy crap, she wanted to lick him.

She stifled a shiver and tried one last time while he took care of her coffee, all the while unable to remember when anyone had ever doctored her coffee up for her. “I don’t want to force you into playing host, and you obviously don’t want to be my host. I hate being a burden.”

“No one on this earth can force me to do a damn thing if I don’t want to do it. I do whatever the hell I want. Just ask my oh, so loving and supportive family. I’m sure they’ll only be too happy to tell you all about that.”

There was a world of bitterness threading through those words, so much so that even her exhausted mind took note of it. “If you do what you want, yet you obviously don’t want to have me as a house guest, why are you going to take me home with you?”

“Because Mother Nature is currently being a bitch, there are no other available beds for fifty square miles, and I don’t want to deal with the guilty conscience I’d get if I just dumped your ass here to wait out the storm.”

He wasn’t making her feel any better. “But—”

“I’m done discussing this, Red, do you hear me? I’ve come up with a solution, so whether you’re comfortable with it or not isn’t my problem. Personally, I think you’ve had enough problems to deal with the past twenty-four hours, so it’d be stupid of you to create another one, and the one thing you’re not is stupid. Exhausted, stressed, stranded, starved and so sleep-deprived you can’t see straight, yeah. But you’re not stupid.” As he spoke, he stirred her coffee, then slid it toward her. “Give that a try, see if you like it.”

“Thank you.” The words seemed so inadequate in expressing her gratitude to this man who was so obviously going above and beyond the call of duty that her tired, scratchy eyes burned with wetness. “Thank you so much.”

“Don’t cry.” Again his tone became alarmingly hard and he was close enough to feel his body stiffen. “Don’t you fucking cry, Mia. Look, food’s here, so concentrate on that and just… don’t cry.”

She didn’t answer as steaming plates of golden waffles with mounds of melted butter and crispy, still-sizzling strips of bacon appeared before her, mainly because two basic needs had shut down her brain. She was starving and needed to eat, yes, but she also
wanted
to cry. She wanted to let it all out and just freaking
bawl
. Every cell in her body quivered with bone-breaking tiredness, and on top of that she was swamped with the fierce frustration of not being where she wanted—
needed
—to be. While she sat there in the middle of nowhere, Jackson was living it up in beautiful, non-stormy Seattle without her and posting pictures designed to make her think terrible things. Wrong things.

Heartbreaking things.

Anyone would have been crying if they’d been in her shoes.

“Mia.” A hand came down to grip the nape of her neck. Warm. Solid. Strong. She knew she shouldn’t allow herself to enjoy this stranger’s touch as much as she did, but she was too exhausted to fight anything that felt that good in a world that held no comfort. “Eat.”

Nodding mutely, she grabbed up her fork and stared at the waffle. It was too much trouble to cut. Maybe it would be okay just this once if she ate it with her fingers…

“Don’t wimp out on me now.” He poured on a small ocean of maple syrup over the waffle before his hand engulfed hers still holding the fork, and began cutting it up. “The pancakes here are okay, but the waffles are the total shit. Seriously, I don’t know how they do it, but they’ve got this great buttery, crunchy outside but they’re still really light on the inside. One taste and you’ll see why this place’ll be packed a couple hours from now despite the sixty-below temp outside.” With that, he guided her hand holding the fork to her mouth.

Heaven.

“Good, right?”

She moaned and closed her eyes, and she didn’t give a hoot if the sound she made was inappropriate. It was seriously that good. “Oh my God,
yes
.”

“Damn, woman. Do that again.” He helped her shovel in another bite. Maybe it was the fatigue, but it seemed like the heat of his hand at her nape and the leg that was against hers intensified to the point of making her feel feverish. “Let me know you like it.”

Eyes still closed, she sighed as she savored the bite. “I
love
it.”

“Yeah, you do. You know you do.”

“More.”

“I’ll give you more. So much you can’t handle it.”

“Trust me, I can handle it.” Slowly Mia’s eyes opened as she ate another bite, and with the nutrients hitting her zapped system it dawned on her that their hushed conversation, in a different context between two complete strangers, should have been pretty damn creepy. Or maybe that was just her brain seeing things that weren’t there.

No.

It wasn’t that she was seeing things.

She was being totally creepy.

Ugh.

“On second thought, maybe I should slow down. If I eat too fast I’ll just wind up making myself sick.”

“Yeah. Right. Good thinking.” The hand at her nape went away, as did his guiding hand on hers. Without warning, she was once again aware of the cold seeping in from outside. He pulled his own waffle toward him, dumped a healthy slug of syrup on it and dug in. “I think you’re going to like the bacon, too. Organically raised and cured by Khrys’s uncle. You won’t find any better.”

“Wow.” She breathed in the salty, smoky flavor while her mouth watered. “Do they 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?”