I inhaled. “Let me make my answer to your suggestions sweet and succinct.” I leaned across the seat until my face was in front of hers. “No.”

Wrong thing to say. I saw the flash of something go through her eyes that would have had me shaking in my boots if I had any on, and then she grabbed my arms, dug in deep, and pulled. She didn’t stop pulling until my sleeping bag and I had fallen in a heap at her feet. I was adding bruises on top of bruises.

“Shit, Josie. What the hell was that for?”

“That was because I asked you once and I won’t ask again.” Kneeling beside me, she pressed her face so close to mine our noses rubbed together. “Get up and get in my truck. Now.”

“What is the matter?” I worked myself free of the sleeping bag and grabbed my boots.

“You. That’s what’s the matter.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“Care to expand on that?” I had to grit my teeth as I stood because, on top of her finding me camped out in my truck in near Arctic temperatures, I didn’t want her to know I was probably in need of yet another E.R. visit.

“No, I do not. The only thing I care about right now is getting you in my truck and taking you back to my place.”

I managed a weak crooked grin. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

“Leave the dickhead here. I don’t care if that part of you freezes to death.”

“I’m not leaving any part of my dick here to freeze.” I stuffed the sleeping bag back in my truck before closing the door. I wasn’t in the mood to argue with Josie, and I could almost feel the heat from her truck cab.

“If you don’t stop being ‘cute’ with me, I’m going to knee your entire dick all the way up into your throat.”

If I wasn’t a frozen, pulverized popsicle, Josie getting all bossy probably would have turned me on. But really, being turned on was the farthest thing from my mind right then. “Fine. You win.” I followed her as she marched to her truck.

“Whoop-dee-doo. Look at my grand prize.” She glanced over her shoulder long enough to run her eyes up and down me in a way that was the opposite of approving. I couldn’t figure her out. She’d just threatened my manhood if I refused to go with her, and I was. So why did she look about as thrilled as if she’d just learned she had five minutes to live? Josie had never been a tough one to read, at least not until the past couple of years. Lately, she’d been like a faulty Rubik’s cube. There was no figuring her out, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to take a crack at it.

As soon as I opened the passenger door, warm air rushed over me. She had the heater cranked so high the cab was almost as warm as a sauna. It felt so good I actually sighed. Crawling into her lifted truck took a little effort, but as soon as I was seated, with the door closed and warm air enveloping me, I could have fallen asleep in thirty seconds flat. Josie threw herself into the driver’s seat, muttered a curse word I’d rarely heard her say, and shot another death glare my way. For someone who’d seemed like they wanted to help me, she sure changed her tune after I went along with it. Oh, well. It was late, I was bushed, and all of the warm air was clouding my mind and making me one heartbeat above comatose.

She pulled her downy mittens off, threw them at me, and punched the gas. “I can’t believe you did that. You’ve done some crazy shit since I’ve known you, but this is beyond your usual brand of crazy shit.” The way the woman drove . . .

“Joze,” I said, my voice raspier than usual. Probably because of the extreme temperature changes. “Buckle up.”

Her eyebrows came together. “Huh?” She was obviously so worked up that my simple request wasn’t computing.

Reaching over her, I pulled the shoulder strap across her body and clicked it into place. “Buckle up. The way you drive when you aren’t certifiable is scary enough. I don’t need to lose another person.”

Josie blew out a breath. “Well you keep camping out in this kind of weather, and you won’t have to worry about losing another person. Because you’ll be dead.” She practically spat the last word at me.

“Okay, so back to the crazy shit bit you were saying earlier”—I clicked my seatbelt into place, too—“I’m sorry. I’m not going to pretend to understand why you’re so pissed at me, but I know you are. For that, I’m sorry. Me doing what I do isn’t meant to make you so upset.” It was a vague apology—I wasn’t quite sure what I was apologizing for exactly—but it was an apology nonetheless. I issued one about as often as a lunar eclipse.

“You’re sorry about what exactly?”

Of course that would be her follow-up question. Burrowing deeper into the seat, I cupped my hands over the heaters and planned my words carefully. Think before you speak was something I reserved for times like those. When Josie Gibson was at the wheel, hot on the heels of threatening to knee my dick into the next county. “That I was camped out in my truck—”

“In Arctic temperatures,” she interjected.

I nodded. “In Arctic temperatures. I’m sorry for nearly freezing myself into a popsicle-like state. But, you know, maybe if I was kept frozen, I could come back a few hundred years later and—” Another look of death stopped me mid-word. “I’m sorry for nearly freezing myself into a popsicle-like death. There. Is that better?”

“It’s a start, but you’ve got a lot to be sorry for, Garth Black, so keep going.”

I’d rather eat my boot than apologize to just anyone . . . but Josie wasn’t just anyone, so I sucked it up. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you where I’d been staying.”

She kept silent and gave me the And? look.

“And I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you and not returning your calls . . . but I knew if you cornered me, you’d figure where I’d been laying my head every night and you’d do something crazy like this.” I twirled my finger around the cab. I’d also been avoiding her because that was the right thing to do and my number one priority in life. Given her current state, I didn’t think it best to go into how I needed to stay away from her for all eternity.

Her only reply was that same expectant look. It seemed And? was the tone of things right then.

“And I’m sorry you had to come out in this weather in the middle of the night to look for me.” I still didn’t know why she had or how long she’d been looking before making it to my truck, but again, that wasn’t the time to clarify. The more apologies I made, the angrier she seemed to get. Either I was missing something, or she was. Like her sanity.

“And I’m sorry you had to dry up an entire oil field from the amount of gas you went through driving from your place to mine?” Yes, my apologies were starting to tip more the smart-ass scale than the genuine one, but I was running out of ideas.

She gripped the steering wheel so hard, her knuckles blanched white. Okay, what was I missing? What kind of an apology was Josie waiting for? Sure, over the span of the fifteen years we’d known each other, I had a whole universe of things to apologize to her for, but right then, what was the apology she was looking for after I’d lied to her about where I was staying?

Ah, yep, that was it. Since my eardrums were still ringing after she’d gone off about being lied to, I had a good idea what she was waiting for. I twisted so I could look her straight on. “I’m sorry I lied to you, Joze.”

Her anger melted off, one layer at a time, until the face of the girl I was used to came back. It took a moment, but when Josie’s eyes flashed to mine, I knew the screaming and glaring was past. At least for my latest offense.

“So? Am I forgiven?” I dropped my hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. Even though she had on a cushion of down and fleece, the touch still felt intimate. More intimate than I’d expected, and too intimate for the distance I needed to keep between us. I dropped my hand and made a note not to touch her again if I could help it.