“I can believe that about you,” Grace said to her.

“My name’s Amy.” Amy tossed her chin toward Mallory. “And that’s Mallory, my polar opposite and the town’s very own good girl.”

“Stop,” Mallory said, tired of hearing “good” and “girl” in the same sentence as it pertained to her.

But of course Amy didn’t stop. “If there’s an old lady to help across the street or a kid with a skinned knee needing a Band-Aid and a kiss,” she said, “or a big, strong man looking for a sweet, warm damsel, it’s Mallory to the rescue.”

“So where is he then?” Grace asked. “Her big, strong man?”

Amy shrugged. “Ask her.”

Mallory grimaced and admitted the truth. “As it turns out, I’m not so good at keeping any Mr. Rights.”

“So date a Mr. Wrong,” Amy said.

“Shh, you.” Not wanting to discuss her love life—or lack thereof—Mallory rose up on her knees to take another peek over the counter and outside in the hopes the snow had lightened up.

It hadn’t.

Gusts were blowing the heavy snow sideways, hitting the remaining windows and flying in through the ones that had broken. She craned her neck and looked behind her into the kitchen. If she went out the back door, she’d have to go around the whole building to get to her car and her phone.

In the dark.

But it was the best way. She got to her feet just as the two windows over the kitchen sink shattered with a suddenness that caused Mallory’s heart to stop.

Grace’s Bic lighter came back on. “Holy shit,” she gasped, and holding onto each other, they all stared at the offending tree branch waving at them from the new opening.

“Jan’s going to blow a gasket,” Amy said.

Jan was the owner of the diner. She was fifty-something, grumpy on the best of days, and hated spending a single dime of her hard-earned money on anything other than her online poker habit.

The temperature in the kitchen dropped as cold wind and snow blew over them. “Did I hear someone say cake?” Grace asked in a wobbly voice.

They did Rock-Paper-Scissors. Amy lost, so she had to crawl to the refrigerator to retrieve the cake. “You okay with this?” she asked Mallory, handing out forks.

Mallory looked at the cake. About a month ago, her scrubs had seemed to be getting tight so she’d given up chocolate. But sometimes there had to be exceptions. “This is a cake emergency. Joe will live.”

So instead of trying to get outside, and then on to the bad roads, they all dug into the cake. And there in the pitch black night, unnerved by the storm but bolstered by sugar and chocolate, they talked.

Grace told them that when the economy had taken a nosedive, her hot career as an investment banker had vanished, along with her condo, her credit cards, and her stock portfolio. There’d been a glimmer of a job possibility in Seattle so she’d traveled across the country for it. But when she’d gotten there, she found out the job involved sleeping with the sleazeball company president. She’d told him to stuff it, and now she was thinking about maybe hitting Los Angeles. Tired, she’d stopped in Lucky Harbor earlier today. She’d found a coupon for the local B&B and was going to stay for a few days and regroup. “Or until I run out of money and end up on the street,” she said, clearly trying to sound chipper about her limited options.

Mallory reached out for her hand and squeezed it. “You’ll find something. I know it.”

“I hope you’re right.” Grace let out a long, shaky breath. “Sorry to dump on you. Guess I’d been holding on to that all by myself for too long, it just burst out of me.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Amy licked frosting off her finger. “That’s what dark, stormy nights are for. Confessions.”

“Well, I’d feel better if you guys had one as well.”

Mallory wasn’t big on confessions and glanced at Amy.

“Don’t look at me,” Amy said. “Mine isn’t anything special.”

Grace leaned in expectantly. “I’d love to hear it anyway.”

Amy shrugged, looking as reluctant as Mallory felt. “It’s just your average, run-of-the-mill riches-to-rags story.”

“What?” Mallory asked, surprised, her fork going still. Amy had been in town for months now, and although she wasn’t shy, she was extremely private. She’d never talked about her past.

“Well rags to riches to rags would be a better way of putting it,” Amy corrected.

“Tell us,” Grace said, reaching for another piece of cake.

“Okay, but it’s one big bad cliché. Trailer trash girl’s mother marries rich guy, trailer trash girl pisses new step-daddy off, gets rudely ousted out of her house at age sixteen, and disinherited from any trust fund. Broke, with no skills whatsoever, she hitches her way across the country, hooking up with the wrong people and then more wrong people, until it comes down to two choices. Straighten up or die. She decides straightening up is the better option and ends up in Lucky Harbor, because her grandma spent one summer here a million years ago and it changed her life.”

Heart squeezing, Mallory reached for Amy’s hand, too. “Oh, Amy.”

“See?” Amy said to Grace. “The town sweetheart. She can’t help herself.”

“I can so,” Mallory said. But that was a lie. She did like to help people—which made Amy right; she really couldn’t help herself.

“And don’t think we didn’t notice that you avoided sharing any of your vulnerability with the class,” Amy said.

“Maybe later,” Mallory said, licking her fork. Or never. She shared just about every part of herself all the time. It was her work, and also her nature. So she held back because she had to have something that was hers alone. “I’m having another piece.”

“Denial is her BFF,” Amy told Grace as Mallory cut off a second hunk of cake. “I’d guess that it has something to do with her notoriously wild and crazy siblings and being the only sane one in the family. She doesn’t think that she deserves to be happy, because that chocolate seems to be the substitute for something.”

“Thanks, Dr. Phil.” But it was uncomfortably close to the truth. Her family was wild and crazy, and she worked hard at keeping them together. And she did have a hard time with letting herself be totally happy and had ever since her sister Karen’s death. She shivered. “Is there a lost-and-found box around somewhere with extra jackets or something?”

“Nope. Jan sells everything on eBay.” Amy set her fork down and leaned back. “Look at us, sitting here stuffing ourselves with birthday cake because we have no better options on a Friday night.”

“Hey, I have options,” Grace said. “There’s just a big, fat, mean storm blocking our exit strategies.”

Amy gave her a droll look and Grace sagged. “Okay, I don’t have shit.”

They both looked at Mallory, and she sighed. “Fine. I’m stalled too. I’m more than stalled, okay? I’ve got the equivalent of a dead battery, punctured tires, no gas, and no roadside assistance service. How’s that for a confession?”

Grace and Amy laughed softly, their exhales little clouds of condensation. They were huddled close, trying to share body heat.

“You know,” Amy said. “If we live through this, I’m going to—”

“Hey.” Mallory straightened up in concern. “Of course we’re going to live. Soon as the snow lets up, we’ll push some branches out of the way and head out to my car and call for help, and—”

“Jeez,” Amy said, annoyed. “Way to ruin my dramatic moment.”

“Sorry. Do continue.”

“Thank you. If we live,” Amy repeated with mock gravity, “I’m going to keep a cake just like this in the freezer just for us. And also…” She shifted and when she spoke this time, her voice was softer. “I’d like to make improvements to my life, like living it instead of letting it live me. Growing roots and making real friends. I suck at that.”

Mallory squeezed her hand tight in hers. “I’m a real friend,” she whispered. “Especially if you mean it about the cake.”

Amy’s mouth curved in a small smile.

“If we live,” Grace said. “I’m going to find more than a job. I want to stop chasing my own tail and go after some happy for a change, instead of waiting for it to find me. I’ve waited long enough.”

Once again, both Amy and Grace looked expectantly at Mallory, who blew out a sigh. She knew what she wanted for herself, but it was complicated. She wanted to let loose, do whatever she wanted, and stop worrying about being the glue at work, in her family, for everyone. Unable to say that, she wracked her brain and came up with something else. “There’s this big charity event I’m organizing for the hospital next weekend, a formal dinner and auction. I’m the only nurse on my floor without a date. If we live, a date would be really great.”

“Well, if you’re wishing, wish big,” Amy said. “Wish for a little nookie too.”

Grace nodded her approval. “Nookie,” she murmured fondly. “Oh how I miss nookie.”

“Nookie,” Mallory repeated.

“Hot sex,” Grace translated.

Amy nodded. “And since you’ve already said Mr. Right never works out for you, you should get a Mr. Wrong.”

“Sure,” Mallory said, secure in the knowledge that one, there were no Mr. Wrongs anywhere close by, and two, even if there had been, he wouldn’t be interested in her.

Amy pulled her order pad from her apron pocket. “You know what? I’m making you a list of some possible candidates. Since this is the only type of guy I know, it’s right up my alley. Off the top of my head, I can think of two. Dr. Josh Scott from the hospital, and Anderson, the guy who runs the hardware store. I’m sure there’s plenty of others. Promise me that if a Mr. Wrong crosses your path, you’re going for him. As long as he isn’t a felon,” she added responsibly.

Good to know there were some boundaries. Amy thrust out her pinkie for what Mallory assumed was to be a solemn pinkie swear. With a sigh Mallory wrapped her littlest finger around Amy’s. “I promise—” She broke off when a thump sounded on one of the walls out front. Each of them went stock still, staring at each other.

“That wasn’t a branch,” Mallory whispered. “That sounded like a fist.”

“Could have been a rock,” Grace, the eternal optimist, said.

They all nodded but not a one of them believed it was a rock. A bad feeling had come over Mallory. It was the same one she got sometimes in the ER right before they got an incoming. “May I?” she asked Grace, gesturing to the smart phone.

Grace handed it over and Mallory rose to her knees and used the lighter app to look over the edge of the counter.

It wasn’t good.

The opened doorway had become blocked by a snow drift. It really was incredible for this late in the year, but big, fat, round snowflakes the size of dinner plates were falling from the sky, piling up quickly.

The thump came again, and through the vicious wind, she thought she also heard a moan. A pained moan. She stood. “Maybe someone’s trying to get inside,” she said. “Maybe they’re hurt.”

“Mallory,” Amy said. “Don’t.”

Grace grabbed Mallory’s hand. “It’s too dangerous out there right now.”

“Well, I can’t just ignore it.” Tugging free, Mallory wrapped her arms around herself and moved toward the opening. Someone was in trouble, and she was a sucker for that. It was the eternal middle child syndrome and the nurse’s curse. Glass crunched beneath her feet, and she shivered as snow blasted her in the face. Amazingly, the aluminum frame of the front door had withstood the impact when the glass had shattered. Shoving aside the thick branch, Mallory once again held the phone out in front of her, using it to peer out into the dark.

Nothing but snow.

“Hello?” she called, taking a step outside, onto the concrete stoop. “Is anyone—”

A hand wrapped around her ankle, and Mallory broke off with a startled scream, falling into the night.

Chapter 2

If it’s a toss up between men and chocolate,

bring on the chocolate!

Mallory scrambled backward, or tried to anyway, but a big hand on her ankle held firm. The hand appeared to be attached to an even bigger body. Fear and panic bubbled in her throat, and she simply reacted, chucking Grace’s phone at her captor’s hooded head.

It bounced off his cheek without much of a reaction other than a grunt. The guy was sprawled flat on his back, half covered in snow. Still holding her ankle in a vice-like grip, he shifted slightly and groaned. The sound didn’t take her out of panic mode but it did push another emotion to the surface. Concern. Since he hadn’t tried to hurt her, she leaned over him, brushing the snow away to get a better look—not easy with the wind pummeling her, bringing more icy snow that slapped at her bare face. “Are you hurt?” she asked.

He was non-responsive. His down parka was open, and he was wet and shivering. Pushing his dark brown hair from his forehead, she saw the first problem. He had a nasty gash over an eyebrow, which was bleeding profusely in a trickle down his temple and over his swollen eye. Not from where she’d hit him with the phone, thankfully, but from something much bigger and heavier, probably part of the fallen tree.

His eyes suddenly flew open, his gaze landing intense and unwavering on her.