“That’d be mud,” he said with the first hint of humor in his deep voice. She had to admit it was a nice voice. Too bad it belonged to someone who cared more about a moose than he did about her poor car. “Welcome to mud season in Vermont.”

“Mud has a season. This just gets better and better all the time.”

He turned back to his truck, and for a heart-stopping second she thought he might be planning to leave her there. Instead, he fetched a long black object that resembled the billy clubs carried by New York’s finest and started toward her.

As the menacing music from Texas Chainsaw Massacre played in her head, Cameron’s heart began to pound. If she hadn’t been stuck in the muck, she would’ve been tempted to run into the far less threatening forest.

The axe murderer turned on a powerful flashlight, aimed it at her feet and let out a lusty belly laugh.

“What the hell is so funny?” In the residual glow from the flashlight she caught a glimpse of what might’ve been an arresting face if he hadn’t been so sanctimonious. Chiseled was the first word that came to mind. Rugged was the second. She hated herself for wanting a better look at him when she had much bigger problems at the moment.

The quicksand episode from Gilligan’s Island chose that moment to pop into her head as she realized she could no longer feel her feet.

“Are those suede boots?” he asked when he finally quit laughing.

“Yeah, so?”

“Um, just FYI, suede boots usually don’t fare too well in Vermont mud season.”

“Thanks for the advice, Cliff Clavin. Now maybe you could tell me how I’m supposed to get free of this crap?”

“Quickest way would be to step out of the boots and leave them.”

“Leave them? They’re five-hundred-dollar boots!”

“Ouch,” he said, wincing. “I hate to break it to you, but they’re probably a total loss.”

Cameron refused to believe that. Her dry cleaner in the city could get anything out of anything. “Where’s it coming from?”

He directed the flashlight beam to her left, the light scaling an imposing hill, tracing the path of mud flowing like a river down the slope and across the highway. “When the snow melts it makes mud.”

“How charming.”

“After months of hip-deep snow, the mud is a welcome harbinger of spring around here.” He brought the flashlight back to her feet. “So what’s it going to be, princess? Save the boots or save yourself?”

“God, what a choice.”

The flashlight provided just enough illumination for her to catch his eye roll.

Annoyed, cold and furious over the loss of her favorite boots—not to mention the carnage that was her new car—she bent to unzip the first one. “Where do I, um, step when I take them off?”