Massachusetts State Trooper Ross Huber is giving one last sweep of the roads before heading in for the night. The nor’easter hitting the Boston area is worse than expected by an order of magnitude, and the governor has just issued a travel ban. Ross finds a wrecked car half-buried in a snowbank and rescues its human and canine occupants from carbon monoxide poisoning, but is forced to take shelter with them in a vacant or abandoned house when the roads are blocked. When he gets the victims indoors, he thinks the human looks uncomfortably familiar ... Ash Machado has been through a lot in his career as a war correspondent. Sidelined by an injury, he’s returned to Boston to take up a job as a news anchor. After he loses control of his car on an icy road, he wakes up in an unfamiliar home, looking into the face of the guy who broke his heart in college. Neither Ross nor Ash are the same men they used to be, but now they’re trapped in the abandoned house with no place to go. Can they get past old hurts long enough to get through the storm, or will the same misunderstandings that drove them apart years ago make this confinement unbearable?

Snowed In: Ross and Ashton

Porthos barked, warning Ash of more people coming in. Two men in what were probably EMT uniforms appeared. Ash knew he should feel something, gratitude or wonder or relief. Right now, he was just numb. He’d tried to stop Ross from getting hurt, but it hadn’t helped.


“Hey, aren’t you the guy who leaked to the media about the tow truck driver?” Dixon asked, while the EMTs got Ross strapped to the back board.


Ash couldn’t tear his eyes away. He could almost hear the helicopter in the background, except there was no helicopter. They wouldn’t MedFlight a guy for a broken leg and a concussion. “Technically no. I’m the media.” He held out a hand. “Ash Machado.”


Dixon gave him a wry grin. “I should be mad about it, but they’ve raised over half a million for that guy’s family. I can’t be too upset, I guess.”


Chapter 29