Sarah's hit an age where she's ready to give up on finding love. Widowed for several years, she's had a few affairs, but nothing lasting. After a tragic one-hour stand on New Year's Eve, she's through looking…until Cooper Valley's newest paramedic saves her life and takes her home with him.

Richard moved to Cooper Valley to escape the chilling memory of tragic loss. It's not until a near-tragedy-when he rescues Sarah from a snow bank in the midst of a dangerous blizzard, when he brings her home and warms her body-that his own heart begins to thaw…and heal.

Sarah paced across the plush beige rug in the rustic log home she was supposed to show, and cursed under her breath. The Mallorys were supposed to have been there almost two hours ago, and she worried over the snow falling outside. Already her Cadillac in the driveway had several inches of the wet stuff covering it, and it was beginning to get dark.

She should have heeded the warning of the weatherman on the news that morning, but he'd been wrong for the past two weeks, predicting snow, so she'd ignored him. It was twenty miles back to town, and it looked as though the blizzard he'd been warning about finally hit.

She stalked to the breakfast bar separating the kitchen from living room and pulled her cell phone from her purse. If she couldn't reach them, she had to leave. As it was, her Caddy ran like a sled over wet snow rather than a high performance car.

"Shit," she muttered when she flipped open her cell to find it dead. She dug back into her purse, found her charger, and walked into the kitchen to plug it in by the stove. As she inserted the prongs, the lights went out.

"Damn it!" Darkness dropped heavy over the house, the gray dusk outside doing little to light the space through the wall of windows in the living room. She dug back into her purse for her key ring, turned on the tiny flashlight, and made her way to the attached garage and the fuse panel there.

Her heart sank. None of the fuses had popped. The power had gone out. No phone, a blizzard blowing outside, and in a couple of hours this cozy little house would be as cold as tomb. Even the fireplace was electrically ignited, so there was no heat. She had no choice but to head out to the car and pray she made it home before too much more snow fell. For an educated woman, sometimes she could be pretty damn stupid.

It took only moments to gather her purse, papers, and slip on her wool coat. She opened the front door. Stinging pellets of snow stung her cheeks as she put the key back into the lockbox on the side of the house. Within moments, her toes went numb inside her pumps, and when she tried to open her car door, she had to tug extra hard, almost landing on her butt when it gave way, because it was partially frozen shut.

Muttering about the stupidity of living in the Midwest, she started the car and turned the heat to full blast, hoping to thaw the ice on the windows so she didn't have to scrape. She reached into the back seat for the snowbrush, then put on her thin leather driving gloves before getting out to try to clear off the car.

By the time she was done, her legs up to her knees stung from the cold, she called herself a hundred names because she didn't have boots, didn't have pants, wore a skirt in a blizzard, and now that it was full dark, she had to try to drive home in the shit.

The windows were clear though, so that was a plus, and the car was almost too warm. She took off her gloves because her hands would be colder inside of them then out at this point, and carefully executed a three-point turn in the driveway. Her heart sank as she stared through the blowing snow at the half mile long driveway in front of her. She could barely make out the edges of the gravel drive. Thank God the snow from an earlier storm had been plowed into mounds on the sides or there'd be no telling where the road ended and the lawn began. She only had about a hundred yards until the trees began, and then it was much easier to stay between them. Finally, after what seemed an hour, she reached the highway. Not that it looked like a highway. It was as white as everything else, and the wind was even harder here, away from the trees. She knew across the highway was a field, but she could barely see to the end of her headlights.

She turned left onto the highway, slowly, carefully, her tires spinning on the ice beneath the wet layer of fluff, and bit her lip. It looked as if no one had driven this way since the snow began. It was several inches deep, no other tracks on the road, and she stayed to the middle, unsure of where the edge might be. Twenty miles, usually driven in less than a half hour, was going to take her forever. She kept her speed under twenty, her foot light on the gas pedal.

A gust of wind hit the side of the car, and she yelped as it pushed her to the right, toward the edge. She slammed on the breaks in panic, and the car spun. And spun. She closed her eyes and braced for impact. When it came, it was almost soft, more of a puff than a crash. But when she looked out her side window, she wanted to cry. She'd landed in a bank, and the snow came up to her window. This boat of a car couldn't drive out of that.

She tried though, pressing on the gas just a bit. Her tires spun, and the car didn't so much as budge.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she held in the scream of frustration and anger. So fucking stupid! Not the car, not even the snow, but the fact that ever since her son gave her the new Blackberry cell phone for Christmas, she'd put off purchasing a car charger for it. Well, at least she had heat.

Just as the thought formulated, the car sputtered and died.