2

      Present Day

      “ARE YOU TELLING ME there is not one single flight leaving from this city today?”

      Ellie Blake stared at the clerk behind the airline counter, who appeared as exhausted and frazzled as the streams of irritated travelers swarming around her. People yelled from farther back in the line, angry travelers vented their frustrations on their cell phones, babies cried in strollers and fights seemed ready to break out at other stations.

      Acknowledging this wasn’t the woman’s fault, Ellie tempered her disappointment and added, “I’m sorry, I realize you don’t control the weather. But isn’t it possible some airline is still getting out of here? Send me south, send me anywhere. I’ll fly to Florida and change planes to get to Chicago by tomorrow.”

      Tomorrow. Christmas Eve.

      She had to be home. Damn it, she just had to. She couldn’t bear to miss the baby’s first Christmas.

      Plus Denny would be all smug because he’d warned her she shouldn’t risk traveling so close to the holiday.

      “I’m terribly sorry, ma’am. Every person here feels exactly the same way,” the woman said. “But the winds are just too severe, and with blizzard conditions expected later tonight, all the airlines are canceling flights.”

      Why on earth did this have to happen now? Why did a major winter storm have to hit New York City the very day she was supposed to fly home to Chicago?

      She should never have come here for the conference on new surgical trends for canines. She shouldn’t have risked traveling right before the holidays with, not only Denny and Jessie, but also her sister, her parents and her friends also waiting for her back home. She’d never missed a Christmas in Chicago, not even when she’d left the country to volunteer at a wild animal preserve in Africa two years ago. She’d been gone almost an entire year, yet she’d still managed to be there with her family, drinking eggnog at midnight on Christmas Eve and waking up the next morning to an orgy of presents and goodwill.

      “I wonder if I could catch a train?” she mused, speaking more to herself than to the airline clerk.

      “The lines are already shut down. The tracks are freezing up; it’s much too dangerous.”

      Ellie swiped a frustrated hand through her hair, knocking loose the ponytail that had begun to give her a headache. Actually, the whole afternoon had given her a headache. She’d arrived at the airport early this morning, having watched the weather reports and gotten the warnings that travel would be difficult today. Only to be told her flight had been canceled and the airport was going to close altogether within a couple of hours.

      “I gave up my hotel room and there’s no way I’ll get another one. Great way to spend Christmas—on the floor of JFK.”

      “You’ll have a lot of company,” the woman said unhelpfully.

      “I can’t believe I’m not going to make it home for the baby’s first Christmas,” she whispered, imagining the disappointment she’d be sure to see in Denny’s face and, of course, in Jessie’s. The new parents had been planning for ten-month-old Annie’s first holiday with all the fervor of elves training for sleigh duty, and as the child’s godmother, she’d fully intended to spoil the baby rotten.

      Funny that she should be so anxious not to disappoint her ex-fiancé and her best friend, who’d realized during Ellie’s own engagement that they were far too attracted to each other. Ellie was sure they hadn’t betrayed her; they both cared far too much about her for that. But she wasn’t blind; she recognized serious attraction when she saw it. What Jessie had with Denny was something Ellie’d never shared with her fiancé.

      And after Rafe had shocked her with that New Year’s Eve visit, she hadn’t been very successful at hiding the fact that she still cared far too much about her ex. It hadn’t been fair to Denny to be angry about his obvious feelings for Jessie when Ellie had been a little less than subtle about her own for Rafe.

      So she’d let Denny go, gracefully, calmly, and had been right there in the front pew when her ex-fiancé and best friend had gotten married the very same month Ellie and Denny had intended to say “I do.”

      The woman reached over and patted her hand, as if hearing the genuine misery in Ellie’s voice. Or maybe it was the mention of a baby. Ellie didn’t point out that it wasn’t her own child’s holiday she’d be missing; right now, she’d take whatever help she could get.

      “Listen, you may not have any luck at this point, but a lot of people have gone to the car-rental counters hoping to get an SUV or something so they can drive out of the city ahead of the worst of the storm.”

      Hope blossomed in her chest. Yes, it was a long way from New York to Chicago. But if she got on the road within the next hour or so, she should, indeed, be able to get ahead of the storm. Driving through the night, she ought to be able to find clear roads all the way home and arrive by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.

      It was worth a try, anyway.

      “Thank you so much,” she said, meaning it. “I’ll go there right away.” She glanced at the queue behind her, which had edged closer and closer as people pushed for their chance to hear the same bad news in person. “And good luck tonight. I hope you make it home to your family for Christmas.”

      Hurrying away, she followed the signs through the terminal, searching for the car-rental area. As she came down the escalator and saw it, she also saw that the lines were probably at least double what they were upstairs.

      Hell.

      There weren’t enough SUVs in all of Manhattan to service this many people. Or even standard rental cars. Still, she wasn’t going to give up yet.

      Heading for the counter that she gauged to have the shortest line, she didn’t notice that someone had stepped into her path. Not until she came within a step of walking right into a broad, camouflage-wearing chest.

      “Ellie? Is it really you?”

      That voice. Oh, God in heaven. Could this really be happening?

      She looked up and saw The Face.

      What did they say about déjà vu all over again? How many times in her life was she destined to run into this man at a moment and in a place where she least expected him?

      It was Rafe. Older—pale, visibly exhausted—but still so handsome her heart forgot to beat and her brain cells began to leap and spark. He was dressed in rumpled fatigues and appeared unshaven, with eyes that were faintly bloodshot and a few fresh scars that immediately carved themselves into her soul.

      “It is you.”

      “Hello, Rafe.”

      “I can’t believe it.”

      “Ditto.”

      “Small world, huh?”

      “Very.”

      “What are you doing here? You don’t live in New York now, do you?”

      She shook her head. “No, I was here for a conference. I was supposed to fly home this afternoon, but that didn’t work out too well.”