Snowed In

  SNOWED IN

  By Tricia Wentworth

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination. Any resemblances to persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

  Published by Tricia Wentworth

  Cover design by Parker Premades

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return it to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  Copyright 2019 by Tricia Wentworth

  To my Husker loving family that brainwashed me from a young age to love college football. Go Big Red.

  Mom and Dad, this one is for you.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  EPILOGUE

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Bio

  Straight Up Terrible

  CHAPTER 1

  She was the biggest hypocrite in the history of hypocrites, and she knew it. Jordyn Mack hated everything about small towns. The gossip. The lack of anonymity. The way the people could turn against you. It was almost ironic she would work for a multimillion-dollar agricultural software corporation. But, here she was, working for a company that was helping the small-town farmer. The very type of people who had made her life hell.

  She was good at what she did, and it paid well, so oh well. That was life. You had to do the best with what you’d been given. And sometimes life didn’t give you lemons. Sometimes you had last week’s Chinese leftovers, and if you were lucky, a half-eaten pint of ice cream in the back of the freezer. Life, she had learned, was about playing your current hand of cards like they were the ones you had wanted dealt to you all along. Even if they weren’t.

  She rolled her neck and twisted her long hair in a bun at the base of her neck. After completing the final touches on some new graphs for the app, she shut down her laptop, slipped her feet into the heels she’d ditched under desk, and mentally prepared herself for the drive home. If she hit traffic right, she just might be able to whip up a batch of her famous cookies and then binge-watch her favorite TV series. The stuff Friday nights were made of. Or her Friday nights anyway. And she preferred it that way. Her future was bright. A nice weekend of sweatpants, baking, and TV watching. A short week next week, and then the long Thanksgiving break. Yes, things were looking up.

  “Jordyn, you got a minute??”

  Her boss was at her door. His game face on.

  Uh-oh. She’d be willing to wager money she’d now be working this weekend.

  “Yeah, Walt. I was just leaving for the day. What can I do for you?” She hoped he knew she was trying to shrug him off. She’d been putting in some ridiculous hours on those graphs and needed a weekend off. They had big things in the mix for the next year, and she had been pulling some serious weight.

  He scratched a spot on his bald head above where his glasses rested on his ear. Double uh-oh. His nervous tick. That usually meant he was about to deliver bad news.

  He took a deep breath and blurted out, “I need you to head to Nebraska tomorrow morning.”

  “Ne—what? Excuse me?” Had he lost his dang mind? Gone senile? He wasn’t even that old yet; they had just celebrated his sixtieth birthday this fall.

  His shoulders slumped in apology before any words came out of his mouth. “Look. I know it’s short notice and the weekend. I’ll pay you overtime.”

  She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. “Walt, I am not a field tech. Send someone else.”

  He winced. “I know, but I need you personally this time.”

  Realization hit her, and she softened a bit, the tension in her shoulders easing up. “Because next week is Thanksgiving and I’m your only employee without family stuff going on?”

  His brow furrowed. “No actually, but that’s another decent point.”

  “Why, then?”

  More nervous itching. This time he ran a hand around the back of his head, rubbing where the hair was long gone. Boy, this was going to be good, whatever he was about to say.

  “I need you on Beckett Harper’s farm to run his quarterly soil checks.”

  “Walt, again, I am not a field tech. So why me?” And why was he being so weird about this? Yeah, he was her boss, but they were friends too. He’d always looked out for her after she moved to Houston.

  “Well. As you already know, marketing has been trying to get him to do our Super Bowl commercial. He’s not budging.”

  She again suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. Marketing had been acting like Beckett Harper was Moses delivering them to the promised land. She didn’t get it. Or even care. The company should be strong enough by now to not need a famous face behind it. “So send one of the marketing guys. How is my taking his soil samples going to help?”

  Walt sat down on the other side of her desk and she knew this was about to get real. As in real-ly bad.

  “Jordyn. I’ll be honest. You are one of maybe twenty women in this company. I need a nice face there in person to woo him over. I need to play on his reputation.”

  An eye-roll may have squeaked out. And a disgusted sigh. “So you need a woman?”

  He nodded.

  She groaned and fought off the urge to bang her head against her desk. Was this really happening?

  Walt stood and bounced back on his heels. “You know what they call him. Heartbreak Harper.”

  If only he knew of her extreme distaste for football players. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes again. A real, honest-to-goodness eye-roll to the heavens that she didn’t even try to hide this time. “So you want me to suck up to an ex–pro football player to get him on our Super Bowl commercial because I’m a woman and he’s known for being a lady’s man? Since I’m unmarried, I seemed like the girl for the job. Does that about sum it up?”

  He grimaced but nodded.

  She counted to five slowly in her head. It didn’t help. “You do realize this is by far the most sexist thing I’ve heard of since working here?”

  He sighed again, defeated. “I know. But honestly . . . you know this company in and out, and so you’ll be great at it. I do know how you feel about small towns . . . . ” He shifted his weight back and forth uncomfortably. “But it would be good for you to get out of the office too. Go to Nebraska. Get out from behind your desk and graph designing and get some fresh air. Meet with Harper. If you somehow manage a miracle and convince him to do the commercial, I’ll give you not only a raise, but two additional weeks of paid vacation next year.” He paused to let that sink in. “You need a break right now just as bad as I need a pretty face. We both win here.”

  Now she sighed in defeat. This was not how she was planning to spend her Thanksgiving. Okay, she didn’t exactly know how she was planning to spe
nd her Thanksgiving, but this certainly wasn’t it. Small towns gave her the heebie-jeebies.

  “When does my flight leave?” she asked despite still feeling nauseous about what she was about to do.

  He winced again and took off his glasses, probably to look more apologetic. “There’s a winter storm rolling in and they’re already cancelling flights. Since he lives in the middle of nowhere, we can’t get you close enough without a bit of a drive anyway. I’m giving you one of the company trucks. I’d hate for you to get stuck at an airport overnight. If you leave early in the morning, you’ll still beat the storm.”

  Don’t roll your eyes, don’t roll your eyes, she thought. “So I’m driving myself there too?”

  He nodded. “Yep, but you aren’t expected back until we have a Super Bowl commercial. He thinks you’ll be shadowing him for greater understanding of improving our software. Stay for as long as you need. Take all of next week and have a nice holiday weekend in Nebraska.”

  That sounded straight up terrible, actually. “This is ridiculous, Walt. It’s not going to work. My face, a woman’s face, is not going to be enough to get Harper to change his mind here.”

  Walt shrugged, not to be deterred. “Well, you’re my last shot, we are almost out of time. Either way, you get a break from the office. I want Harper on that commercial. If I have to do something ridiculous to get that, so be it.”

  She groaned, already thinking of the long hour she’d be stuck in traffic before having to pack up and go. She was contemplating leaving tonight to drive part of the way just to be sure to beat the storm. Good thing Walt entrusted her to keep a company card on her at all times.

  “Jordyn?” Walt asked as he reached her door.

  “Yeah?”

  His shamed smile was wrapped around a wince. “Thank you. You’re one of the best we have, and you and I both know it.”

  “I know, Walt. I know. If it were anyone but you asking, I’d have already told them to shove it.”

  He gave her a full grin at that. “That’s my girl. Now go get me Harper.”

  ****

  “Hey, Harp! You hear what the weatherman’s been sayin’?”

  What a stupid question. Who hadn’t? He slammed the tailgate of his pickup shut and turned to one of his neighbors. “Yep. Getting last-minute supplies and gearing up like everyone else. But knowing the weatherman, it’ll probably be a dud like last year’s supposed storm of the century.”

  “I hear ya. But we’ve always got to be prepared. Can’t afford to lose any head in the off chance they’re right.”

  He nodded. Couldn’t argue there.

  “You gunna be watchin’ the big game Friday?”

  Football. Of course. Beckett Harper both loved and hated the game. It had given him everything and then taken it all away in only a few seconds. He just so happened to own a farm in the one state in the entire country that lived for college football. In the one state that he would forever be remembered, a “hometown hero.” The one state where no one would ever just leave him alone.

  When he was their star receiver, there wasn’t a better feeling. When he was washed up, out of the pros before he could finish his second season due to a career-ending injury, it sometimes annoyed him. Believe it or not, there was life outside of football. Only in Nebraska would he still be considered somewhat of a celebrity even though his football career had ended years ago.

  “Of course. Go Big Red!” he yelled back with a polite wave as he got in the truck and started it up.

  The rivalry game was always played the Friday after Thanksgiving. People got over-the-top amped up to beat the neighboring state at football. It was ridiculous really. The Corn Belt duking it out over a pig skin. You just had to love people from the Midwest. Even if they were a bit . . . obsessed? Maybe overzealous? Yep. Definitely overzealous.

  When he played, he had lived for these types of games. Both sides determined to take the other out if for nothing more than bragging rights. Nowadays they just served as a reminder of better times. A career in the pros he dreamt of but would never get to have. A career that was over as fast as it all began. All his hard work over the years obliterated in one damn play.

  But storm of the century or not, a storm was coming. As if the animals acting strange wasn’t enough, you could feel it in the air. It took him a while to get last-minute blizzard necessities as the small town was full of people all thinking the same thing. It was Picketts, after all, and of course they had all heard the weather report. Hell, even his grocery-store run felt like a mini class reunion as he saw people he hadn’t for ages. It had taken him forever just to get the things he needed and get out of there without chatting any longer than was necessary to not be rude.

  It was much later in the afternoon than he wanted when he finally arrived back at the farm, three errands later. He immediately started up the tractor and got to haying the cattle. He was thinking of the list of everything he’d need to do in the morning with the storm when he noticed the AgGroSo pickup in the driveway.

  Before the storm? Trip must already be here for the soil tests and trying to get out of town ahead of it. He got the AgGroSo email saying he would be staying a few extra days this time to shadow him to better understand what farmers were needing out of the software. He didn’t mind. Trip was a decent guy, kept to himself, and didn’t care about Beckett’s semi-celebrity status. But he wasn’t sure Trip would be much help if he got snowed in with him.

  It seemed like odd timing, but then again, maybe the storm changed things. Maybe Trip just wanted to hurry up and get out of there before all hell broke loose to get back to his family before Thanksgiving. Maybe he’d want to shadow him a different time when a storm wasn’t on the brew. His brow furrowed when he spotted some long dark-brown hair in one of his fields. Trip was looking awfully womanly these days.

  The hell?

  When she turned around, tapping on the soil vial and clearly knowing what she was doing, he couldn’t help but be a little impressed. Then he saw her shoes. Heels? Out here, woman? Had she lost her mind? She was probably freezing. It was right at freezing temperature outside. In fact, his pickup had read thirty-two degrees exactly when he was on the way home from town.

  He finished feeding, put his gloves in the pockets of his tan Carhartt coat, got out of the tractor, and quietly approached while watching this woman work for a while. She completely knew what she was doing, yet she was dressed like that in the middle of a farm in Picketts, Nebraska. Intelligence and cluelessness fought for control within her small frame. Well, small compared to him anyway. He was six feet, four inches tall. And she looked a solid foot shorter than he was, heels or not.

  “You going to stand there all day watching or are you going to say hello?”

  As a football star, the all-American boy, the small-town hero, he wasn’t used to hostile-sounding greetings. He couldn’t help but smirk. “Since you’re on my land, I was thinking you should be the one to greet me.”

  She almost rolled her eyes, taking one long blink to reel it in, but he could tell she had wanted to.

  “I’m with AgGroSo. Clearly.” She stopped to gesture toward the pickup in his yard. “I tried your house. No one answered, so I figured you wouldn’t mind if I got started.”

  “You mean Mable didn’t let you in?” he asked.

  “Um, no. No one named Mable.”

  She was saying all the right words, but still sounded pissed off. “They sent you from Houston? On a Saturday?” he questioned.

  She turned to grab her kit and nodded. “I had to get here before the storm, of course. I’ll just stay in a hotel until it passes. Then I’ll be here for the first part of next week until I have adequate research. I’ll just finish up my initial tests here and be out of your hair to go check into a hotel.”

  He laughed. She obviously hadn’t done adequate research about Picketts. Her bright green eyes were sharp though; he knew she wasn’t dumb.

  “What?” she asked, looking him over with a puzzled expre
ssion.

  He cocked his head to the side and couldn’t help the smile slowly spreading across his face. “Welcome to the sticks, Houston. Picketts doesn’t have a hotel. Closest one is seventeen miles north in Homesteel.”

  She groaned. “That didn’t even cross my mind. I figured I’d be able to stay where Trip stayed. I was in a hurry to beat the storm and didn’t even consider the distance or think to ask him where he usually stays. My bad.”

  Oh, this was going to be good. “He stays with me,” he supplied honestly.

  “Oh.”

  He grinned, enjoying her discomfort. It was just too darn easy to push this woman’s buttons. After a moment he remembered his manners. “You're welcome to stay here until you figure out other arrangements.” But he wasn’t really sure he wanted this city woman anywhere near him or his farm. Still, it was the neighborly thing to offer. His mom raised him right, so he had to at least offer. Right? Especially since the clouds looked like they would be letting loose snow or rain or a combination of the two any second now.

  She said it under her breath so quietly he almost didn’t catch it. “Typical.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Where I’m from, this”—he stopped to point to her and back to him for emphasis—“is called being hospitable. Neighborly. Kind.”

  She squinted at him, sizing him up. “Oh, I’m sure you’re very”—she pointed in the same way from him to her—“hospitable.”

  “What the hell is your problem, Houston?” he asked bluntly.

  She was so damn high-strung. Even when she was trying to be nice, she was still hostile toward him—from the way her green eyes seemed to scan him over to the way she stood as far away from him as possible. She was still close enough for him to catch a whiff of her perfume though, and it was nice smelling. Not as overpowering as the stuff the women he was used to wore.

  “That’s not my name, but small towns and football players are my problem. They’re all one and the same,” she fired back, clearly flustered. “Look. I’ll do my job and be out of your hair as much as possible.” Then she added under her breath, “This is never going to work.”