Free Ice Storm by Anne Stuart Page B

cheese and fruit. She was grumpy, she was hungry and she was in love. Not the best possible circumstances.
“How far would we have to drive to find a hotel?” she asked. It was already after ten, and a light rain had begun to fall, fogging the windows of the small car.
Killian shrugged. He’d been quiet all day. She knew it had to be Marie-Claire, and she felt that familiar-unfamiliar knot of guilt and longing. He’d used a pay- phone just after lunch, and though he’d said nothing, she could guess there was trouble. “Probably two or three hours on these roads. And then only if we’re lucky.”
    “Do you want to head straight to
Paris
?”
    He turned his head, looking at her out of those mesmerizing green eyes, clearly surprised. “Why would we do that? Neither of us is starting classes for another week, and we wanted to see Marseille.”
    “I thought you might want to get back to Marie- Claire and patch things up. You’ve been quiet all day, and I know you’re thinking about her. You could leave me here and I’ll hitchhike to
Paris
. I’m sure I can find some cheap hotel to stay in until I get my student housing, and you’ve spent far too much time—”
    “She’s not in
Paris
.” His voice was quiet, unemotional.
    “Where is she?”
    “In
Austria
, with someone named Wolfgang. Apparently she’s fallen in love.”
    “Oh, Killian, I’m so sorry,” Mary Isobel said, her heart aching for him. He looked out into the rainy night. They were parked on a side street of the small village, the motor running, and she watched his profile in the dim light. “I’m not sure I am,” he said. “We’d been drifting apart for months now.”
    “But you loved her!”
    “Maybe. Maybe it was just really good sex. It doesn’t matter—it’s over now. And you can find really good sex anywhere.”
    She wasn’t going to argue with that. Maybe it was easy for him. He was tall, strong and gorgeous, and not cursed with a crazy mane of red hair and a few too many pounds. She’d never had all that much luck with men and sex.
    But talking about sex with Killian was something she intended to avoid. Particularly since every time he touched her, brushed against her, her nerve endings sang and her stomach clenched and she wanted to cry or fling herself at him.
“And I don’t expect you’re in any hurry,” she said, trying to sound tranquil, and almost succeeding.
“No hurry,” he said. “Since I’ve fallen in love with someone else, myself. This just makes it a little easier.”
    She’d been able to deal with Marie-Claire fairly well—after all, she’d been in place when Mary Isobel first met Killian, before she’d fallen deeply, hopelessly in love with him. But someone else, someone new, was a little harder to deal with.
She’d been around boys who were madly in love with other people, had listened to them pour out their hearts, oblivious to her. Killian was no boy, and he wasn’t about to do that. But they were friends. They’d talked about everything over the last two weeks as they’d traveled around
France
. Of course he’d want to talk about the new woman in his life.
Funny that he hadn’t mentioned her. He’d told Mary Isobel enough about Marie-Claire to make her sickeningly jealous. She didn’t want to hear about the new one. She knew he was out of her league—a good friend and nothing more—but that didn’t mean she wanted to listen to him.
    “Oh,” she said, knowing she sounded idiotic. Not caring. “So we don’t bother with
Paris
. Where are we going to spend the night?”
    “Let’s head for the Camargue. We both wanted to see it—how many times do you get to see French cowboys? If we don’t find a place to stay we can always sleep in the car.”
The rain grew harder, steadier, streaming across the roads as he drove into the night. The Citroën was small and boxy—she could always curl up on the backseat, but he’d have a harder time folding his tall, lanky frame into any kind of