“Well, I’ll call you a tow,” I said. “But I bet they’re busy out of their minds, so if nobody comes in a while and you get cold, just come up to that inn behind me.”

The man didn’t thank me, and he looked so skeptically at the Seahorse I got angry.

“And don’t tromp on your gas pedal anymore, it makes things worse,” I said.

“How could things be worse?” asked the man.

I backed my car around, drove up to the inn, and telephoned the tow garage. They said no, try again tomorrow.

I told Dottie, in her bathroom, that we’d been blockaded by an ingrate in a Granada.

“Where did you need to go?” she asked. She was brushing shadow on her eyelids, blusher on her cheeks.

“You can tell there’s a man in the house,” I said, stepping around her.

“What is wrong with you, Paige?”

As I opened the medicine cabinet, my reflection swung woozily away. “Raymond,” I said. “He came up with something pretty smart, bordering on wise. I hate that.”

“You wish he were just a big hunk of beautiful cowboy?”

“Wouldn’t that be fucking enough?” I said.

By three, the storm had us caught; Dottie had smoked a couple joints and fixed me with a warm brandy-coffee mixture.

Raymond had found the inn’s wine stock. He was stewing in a dark corner of the saloon with an unopened bottle in his fist. He raked the wine’s label off with a thumbnail, saying, “Now this here’s distressing. A huge temptation, altogether. It’s not enough I’m corralled with two pretty women. But I got on top of that enough liquor to drown a bull. You, me, and the booze could just get into bed and pull up the covers.”

“In fact,” I said.

Raymond wore my baggiest sweater, an old blue Norway, with snowflakes and reindeer. Still, the sleeves ended too soon for his wrists.

I said, “I better stay alert, though. This’s a killer storm. We’re marooned. The Mass. Turnpike’s closed. The villagers’ll probably be evacuated when their heat and lights go. They’ve already got choppers lifting out hospital patients.”

“I hear you,” Raymond said.

The man from the stuck Granada, chilled to rose pink and shivering, came through the front doors. He kept his cap on, still down to his eyes, and inspected the place warily.

“I thought you’d show up sooner or later. There’s hot coffee if you want,” I said.

“Did you call a tow for me or not?”

“Yes, but they can’t come just now. You might have to spend the night and wait until tomorrow. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not paying for anything,” he said.