Free Married While Intoxicated by Fran Shaff Page A

bring them both
to full consciousness.
    He slid his fingers through his thick,
disheveled sandy-brown hair, and gave her a shameless grin. “What
I’d like to know is how we ended up in bed together fully
clothed.”
    Melinda wanted to slap the charming smirk off
his face. “I’m not in the habit of waking up in bed with a man I
don’t know under any circumstances,” she said resolutely.
    “Really?” His grin became even more
brazen.
    She grabbed the collar of his green plaid
flannel shirt with both of her hands and got his full, wide-eyed
attention. “What happened last night?”
    “You don’t remember?” That smirk of his was
three seconds away from being slapped away.
    “If I remembered how I got into this
situation, I wouldn’t be asking,” she said, using every bit of
strength she had to try to calm down.
    He rubbed a strong hand over his cheek. “You
must have been as drunk as I was.”
    He tugged her fingers away from his collar,
stared at her a moment, and let go of her hands.
    Drunk? She’d been drunk?
    She wiped her hands over her face and ran her
fuzzy tongue around her Sahara-like mouth.
    She’d only been intoxicated twice before in
her thirty-two years, and this is what it had felt like the
mornings after both of those occasions.
    But how had it happen?
    “Maybe I was drunk,” she admitted. When she
looked directly into his eyes she noticed he seemed to be sizing
her up. “Where did we meet,” she asked, undeterred by his scrutiny,
“and why did you get me drunk?”
    “You think I got you drunk?” he
said, leaning back and grinning at her. His deep brown eyes
twinkled.
    Gees, he had gorgeous eyes. Gorgeous eyes had
always been her downfall. Gorgeous man-eyes could get her to do
almost anything. She’d cancelled important plans she’d made just to
work overtime, given up seats on mass transit and left tips bigger
than the price of her meal all because exquisite man-eyes had
seduced her into giving a man what he wanted.
    But gorgeous eyes had never convinced her to
go to bed with a man.
    “You really don’t remember anything about last night, do you?”
    She gnawed on her lower lip and looked away.
It was better if she didn’t look into his eyes. She was far too
vulnerable at the moment. “What happened last night?”
    When he didn’t answer right away, she looked
at him. “Are you going to tell me?”
    The devilish grin he’d issued too many times
already curved his lips once more. “I’m half tempted to let you
keep wondering. It hurts a man’s pride when a woman he’s in bed
with claims to have forgotten all she meant to him the previous
night.”
    She threw back the covers. “I’ve had it with
you. I’m getting out of here!”
    He seized her arm and pulled her next to him.
“I’m sorry. I’m not being a very good host.” He pulled the covers
over her when she settled back where she’d been a moment
before.”
    “You got caught in yesterday’s snowstorm. I
found you stuck in a snowdrift where our driveway meets the
highway. I plucked you out of your car and brought you inside.”
    Melinda closed her eyes and massaged the ache
in her temples. “The storm.”
    “You said you were on your way to your
sister’s wedding.”
    Sunbeams were finally pushing away the clouds
in her brain. “Tamara’s wedding. The snowstorm. Gees, that storm
was awful,” she said, looking at him.
    “That’s an understatement. We barely made it
in my four-wheel drive pickup from the highway to our
farmhouse.”
    “I’m at your farm?”
    “You’re at my family’s farm. My mother runs
it. You met her last night.”
    More clouds began to dissipate. “Yes, Sheila.
Sheila Pottaski. And you have a brother, Derrik, and you are
Matthew Pottaski.”
    He sent her a stunning smile. “That’s
right.”
    Matthew. Now she remembered. How could she
ever forget that billion-dollar smile? Man, he was handsome. “You
rescued me.”
    He released a half laugh. “I fished you out
of a snowdrift.