It was an invitation from her brother-in-law. She let her fingers run alongside the edge of the door and thought long and hard about his silent offer. A part of her longed to dash up the stairs and throw herself into his arms. Another part restrained her. J.D.’s invitation was one she couldn’t accept. She’d been a fool to kiss him tonight. Letting him touch her and feeling all those long-buried sensations was tantamount to emotional suicide. With renewed determination and more than a trace of regret, she closed the door and walked to her room.

She could never, never let J.D. get close to her again. It was just too dangerous.

Slowly she unbuttoned her dress and caught a glimpse of herself in the freestanding mirror. Her hair was mussed, her dress wrinkled, her face still flushed. “Oh, Tiffany,” she said. “Be smart. For your kids’ sake.”

She tossed her dress into the hamper and slipped on a cotton T-shirt, then slid between the sheets of her bed and turned off the lamp. Why couldn’t she just tell J.D. to take a hike? To leave her and her small family alone?

Because you want him, Tiffany. It’s just that simple.

And oh, so complicated.

Once before, she’d given in to temptation and she’d lived to regret it. She shuddered and closed her eyes. It had all started with the accident, the damned accident that had altered the course of her life forever. She’d been driving down from the mountain after a day of skiing. Philip had dozed off in the passenger seat. The kids had been in the back of the sedan, Christina strapped in her toddler seat while Stephen, exhausted and half asleep, was listening to his headphones. It had been nearly nine months ago, but she remembered it as vividly as if the horrible night had just been this past week.

* * *

The snow had been blinding as she’d eased down the steep hillside, not realizing that within minutes her entire life would change....

The snow just wouldn’t let up. Fat flakes fell onto the windshield before the wipers could scrape them off. Ice had collected on the wiper blades and the steady glare from the headlights of the cars driving up the mountain were giving her a headache.

She’d never liked driving in the snow in western Oregon where it usually began to melt only to freeze over again, leaving a layer of ice on the pavement.

Road crews were working around the clock and she comforted herself with the fact that the road past Government Camp on Mount Hood had been sanded and plowed and resanded. Yet her studded tires slid a little as she rounded a corner and she looked forward to finding dry, or wet pavement, at the lower elevations.