Snowbound by Kristianna Sawyer Page A

would offer emotional support, once she recovered
from the shock. No one whose opinion she valued would care about
her being single with a baby. She looked forward to having a piece
of Reed to take with her, to hold onto. It was all of him she would
ever get, so she was going to relish it. Already, she loved her
baby, all the more because she couldn’t love Reed, not the way she
wanted. He didn’t want her love, so she would lavish it on their
child instead.
    Patting her stomach, she said, “We’ll be
okay, little one.” Somehow they would be, though she never would
have chosen to take this journey alone.

Chapter Eight
    Reed stuffed the last of the supplies in the
trailer behind his SUV before walking back into the general store
in Endline. He’d brought the larger trailer to ensure he had room
for everything, since he was a couple months later making the
supply run than he should have been. It had just slipped his mind,
seeming not that important the times he’d remembered he needed to
make the trip. It wasn’t until he’d run out of milk for Aika—who
still enjoyed it as a treat in addition to her usual diet of meat,
fish, eggs, and berries—that he’d forced himself to contact the
store to arrange pick up of his standing order, plus some.
    Hank, the old man who ran the general store,
gave him a big grin when he went back to the register to settle his
account, Aika his little shadow. “She’s a beauty, Reed. I got all
kinds of buyers for blue fox fur.”
    He glowered, though he knew Hank was ribbing
him. “She’s still got her summer coat. Ain’t much value in
that.”
    Hank laughed, shaking his head. “I’ll bet
she’ll still be following you when her coat goes blue or white
again.”
    Reed avoided the old man’s eyes, feeling
self-conscious. It was a bit strange for her to follow him around,
but he couldn’t have left her home alone while he made the trip.
She could be mischievous and needed almost constant supervision.
Plus, she would have been lonely. Not him, of course. He was used
to Aika, but he wouldn’t have missed her if he’d left her behind
for a couple of days.
    She rubbed against his calf, just like a
danged cat, and he knew he was full of it. “I imagine so,” he
conceded as Hank ran his credit card.
    As he bent to pick up Aika, wanting to keep
her close in the parking lot, Hank said, “Oh, don’t forget your
mail, Reed.”
    He scooped up the bag, finding it fuller than
usual—probably because he was two months late in collecting it,
meaning it was eight months of mail instead of the usual six.
“Guess I’m popular,” he joked, making a conscious effort not to be
so surly.
    Hank nodded and waved him off. Reed jogged to
the SUV, depositing Aika in the seat. He’d brought her favorite
“blanket”—some soft sweater Beth had accidentally left in his
room—and she curled up on it as he drove down four streets to the
town’s only lodging. It was a modest motel with four rooms on the
bottom floor. The owners lived above. Since he stayed there twice a
year, the female half of the couple winked at Aika and ignored the
“No Pets” sign posted behind her.
    After a quick meal in the café across the
street, Reed gathered up his mail and headed to his room on the
side of the building, Aika under his other arm. Carrying her
around, he was starting to feel like one of those celebrities with
their damned froufrou dogs. “The day you even think about askin’
for a rhinestone collar and a sweater is the day I trade you in for
a husky,” he muttered to the fox as he opened the door and
deposited her, along with the mailbag, on the bed.
    As Aika jumped down to sniff around the queen
bed and simple furnishings, he sank into the chair closest to the
small round table, stretching to reach the mail and dump it out
before him. He stared at the pile, feeling the overwhelming urge to
shove it back in the bag and deal with it later. Only because he’d
felt like that for months, and had