"Well, as long as you're here in Muleshoe, you may want to tone it down a bit. You'll make more friends if you don't go blurting out every thought that comes into your head. Especially your rather negative opinions about Muleshoe."

"I'm not planning to stick around long enough to make friends."

"Whatever you say, Kincaid," he muttered, shifting the truck into drive and punching the accelerator. The back end fishtailed until he brought it under control. "I just don't want to be putting you in Kelly's meat locker."

"You'd lock me in a meat locker to keep me here?"

"No, that's where we put our dead folks until we can fly them out to the funeral home in Fairbanks. If you're planning to try to get out on your own, you'll end up there sooner or later."

She wriggled down in her seat and shot him an uneasy look. "I'll keep that in mind, Brennan."

As they drove down Main Street, Joe pointed out the major landmarks-the general store, the tavern, the mercantile, the post office-but she showed little interest. "And that's the brides' house, right over there." He pointed to a little cabin with smoke curling out of the stone chimney. "The bachelors built it last summer when they cooked up their mail-order plan. They figured to bring the brides up in the middle of the winter to test their mettle. If they could survive the snow and cold, then they might just be worth marrying. You might want to stop by and say hello. The three of them are the greatest concentration of the female sex you're likely to see between here and Fairbanks."

"I don't think we'll have a lot in common," she said, giving the cabin no more than a cursory glance.

"You never know."

"I'm supposed to write an article about them. Milt assigned it to me before he banished me from Seattle. I can't imagine why any woman in her right mind would choose to live out here."