Taming His Montana Heart(4)

“My rig isn’t fancy,” she said to keep the silence from continuing. “I was more interested in a workhorse than looks.”

“All-wheel drive’s essential around here.” He reached behind his neck and pulled a chunk of snow out of his collar. He rolled down the window enough to toss it out. “Too bad I can’t package this up and send it back to her. She has me wrapped around her little finger and knows it.”

“I kind of got that impression. I hope I didn’t interrupt—”

“You didn’t. She pulled you in.” His features soft, he looked at her for the first time since getting into the vehicle. She wished she knew what he was seeing and thinking. “I’m glad you and I are able to get together today,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you, just couldn’t find the time.”

What did you expect? For him to touch you?

She swallowed. “I’m glad it worked out.”

“Me too.”

She’d expected him to keep a close eye on her. In fact, she was still surprised he’d hired her for a job she knew she could do but he didn’t. The basic issue was that she was a woman in what most people considered a masculine endeavor. She’d never weighed more than a hundred and twenty pounds and was shy of five foot four inches tall. She’d been prepared to be given a conditional position or handed a lame excuse for not being hired. Instead, he’d offered her the head of snowmobile operations job at the end of the face-to-face interview that had taken place here in late September. He’d been all business and she’d taken care to be equally professional. No way, hopefully, could he know she’d been aware of him as a male from the moment they’d shaken hands.

“What did you want to talk about?” she asked.

Another bulky RV was heading their way in the middle of the snow-narrowed road, but she was already as far to the right as she could get.

“That was stupid of me,” he muttered. “I should have never let Alexa talk me into walking where we did.”

“It worked out all right.”

“No thanks to me. If something happened to her…”

Knowing he’d never forgive himself, she waited for him to bring up the official reason for their conversation.

He sighed and shook his head. “As much snow as we’re getting, I’m thinking we should have a wrecker up here.”

“It might not be a bad idea,” she said even though he didn’t need her opinion. “Kolina used to drive big rigs. She could probably handle a wrecker.”

The RV splashed slush against the side of her rig. She cranked up her windshield wipers to deal with the increasing snowfall. Come dark she’d feel trapped—and protected.

“So now that you’ve checked out all of the snowmobiles, what’s your assessment of them?”

Believing he had no complaints about her performance, she relaxed. There was still the matter of their close proximity, but if it had no impact on him, she could do the same. Hopefully.

“They’re all operational, but three are marginal. I changed the spark plugs, replaced the filters and fluids, and put on new drive belts. However, they’re all at least nine years old and some more than twice that.” She paused, thinking. “They’ve had a lot of hard use. That’s understandable given that they’re rentals, but whoever used to be responsible for their upkeep didn’t do the kind of maintenance I’d recommend.”

“What do you mean by marginal?”

They’d reached the parking lot. He hadn’t said anything about where he intended to go once he was done talking to her, not that she should care. But she did.

“Two have carburetor issues. Pulling out the cylinders and taking them to a place in Kalispell so they could be rebored didn’t make enough of a difference. I was able to adjust the V-belt clutch settings but haven’t been able to resolve the piston problems in the three oldest machines.”

“You did all that?”

She slipped into the only vacant parking space in the lot, turned off the engine, and faced Shaw. He barely fit in his seat, his shoulders infringing on her space in a way that kicked up her heart rate. She wanted him gone, wanted him to remain where he was. Wanted to hear him laugh again.

“I’m glad I’m getting the chance to prove I can handle the job, but some issues are pretty serious.”

“I’m not surprised.” He opened the passenger’s door but made no move to get out. “You don’t have to go back to work, do you?”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t sure how long our meeting would take so I called Terron. He has things covered.”

Shaw studied the front windshield which was rapidly being covered by snow. “And I cleared my desk as much as possible while Boone and his family were here.” When he rubbed his hands together, she noted how red they were. He hadn’t worn gloves during the snowball fight with Alexa.

“I’m going to get some hot chocolate in the cafe,” he said. “We can talk there about what you believe needs to be done.”

Unexpectedly nervous, she swallowed. “We might not have the same priorities.”

“Don’t worry about my priorities. I really want your opinion.”

“I appreciate you saying that, but my focus is on minimizing the amount of time a machine’s out of service. I’m sure you’re primarily concerned with the bottom line.”