by Linda Howard
“I’ll be careful,” she promised. A yawn took her by surprise. “How can I be sleepy? I got plenty of sleep last night.”
“It’s the heat. Why don’t you take a nap? I’ll watch the fire.”
“Why aren’t you sleepy?”
He shrugged. “I’m used to it.”
She really was sleepy, and there was nothing else to do. She didn’t feel like setting up the tent, so she dragged her bag into position behind her and leaned back on it. Silently Chance tossed her sweater into her lap. Following his example, she rolled up the sweater and stuffed it under her head. She dozed within minutes. It wasn’t a restful sleep, being one of those light naps in which she was aware of the heat, of Chance moving around, of her worry about Margreta. Her muscles felt heavy and limp, though, and completely waking up was just too much trouble.
The problem with afternoon naps was that one woke feeling both groggy and grungy. Her clothes were sticking to her, which wasn’t surprising considering the heat. When she finally yawned and sat up, she saw that the sun was beginning to take on a red glow as it sank, and though the temperature was still high, the heat had lost its searing edge.
Chance was sitting cross-legged, his long, tanned fingers deftly weaving sticks and string into a cage. There was something about the way he looked there in the shadow of the overhang, his attention totally focused on the trap he was building while the light reflected off the sand outside danced along his high cheekbones, that made recognition click in her brain. “You’re part Native American, aren’t you?”
“American Indian,” he corrected absently. “Everyone born here is a native American, or so Dad always told me.” He looked up and gave her a quick grin. “Of course, ‘Indian’ isn’t very accurate, either. Most labels aren’t. But, yeah, I’m a mixed breed.”
“And ex-military.” She didn’t know why she said that. Maybe it was his deftness in building the trap. She wasn’t foolish enough to attribute that to any so-called Native American skills, not in this day and age, but there was something in the way he worked that bespoke survival training.
He gave her a surprised glance. “How did you know?”
She shook her head. “Just a guess. The way you handled the pistol, as if you were very comfortable with it. What you’re doing now. And you used the word ‘reconnoiter.”’
“A lot of people are familiar with weapons, especially outdoorsmen, who would also know how to build traps.”
“Done in by your vocabulary,” she said, and smirked. “You said ‘weapons’ instead of just ‘guns,’ the way most people—even outdoorsmen—would have.”
Again she was rewarded with that flashing grin. “Okay, so I’ve spent some time in a uniform.”
“What branch?”
“Army. Rangers.”
Well, that certainly explained the survival skills. She didn’t know a lot about the Rangers, or any military group, but she did know they were an elite corps.
He set the finished trap aside and began work on another one. Sunny watched him for a moment, feeling useless. She would be more hindrance than help in building traps. She sighed as she brushed the dirt from her skirt. Darn, stranded only one day and here she was, smack in the middle of the old sexual stereotypes.
She surrendered with good grace. “Is there enough water for me to wash out our clothes? I’ve lived in these for two days, and that’s long enough.”
“There’s enough water, just nothing to collect it in.” He unfolded his legs and stood with easy grace. “I’ll show you.”
He led the way out of the overhang. She clambered over rocks in his wake, feeling the heat burn through the sides of her shoes and trying not to touch the rocks with her hands. When they reached more shade, the relief was almost tangible.
“Here.” He indicated a thin trickle of water running down the face of the wall. The bushes were heavier here, because of the water, and the temperature felt a good twenty degrees cooler. Part of it was illusion, because of the contrast, but the extra greenery did have a cooling effect.
Sunny sighed as she looked at the trickle. Filling their water bottles would be a snap. Washing off would be easy. But washing clothes—well, that was a different proposition. There wasn’t a pool in which she could soak them, not even a puddle. The water was soaked immediately into the dry, thirsty earth. The ground was damp, but not saturated.
The only thing she could do was fill a water bottle over and over, and rinse the dust out. “This will take forever,” she groused.
An irritating masculine smirk was on his face as he peeled his T-shirt off over his head and handed it to her. “We aren’t exactly pressed for time, are we?”
She almost thrust the shirt back at him and demanded he put it on, but not because of his comment. She wasn’t a silly prude, she had seen naked chests more times than she could count, but she had never before seen his naked chest. He was smoothly, powerfully muscled, with pectorals that looked like flesh-covered steel and a hard, six-pack abdomen. Alight patch of black hair stretched from one small brown nipple to the other. She wanted to touch him. Her hand actually ached for the feel of his skin, and she clenched her fingers hard on his shirt.
The smirk faded, his eyes darkening. He touched her face, curving his fingers under her chin and lifting it. His expression was hard with pure male desire. “You know what’s going to happen between us, don’t you?” His voice was low and rough.
“Yes.” She could barely manage a whisper. Her throat had tightened, her body responding to his touch, his intent.
“Do you want it?”
So much she ached with it, she thought. She looked up into those golden-brown eyes and trembled from the enormity of the step she was taking.
“Yes,” she said.
Chapter 7
She had lived her entire life without ever having lived at all, Sunny thought as she mechanically rinsed out his clothes and draped them over the hot rocks to dry. She and Chance might never get out of this canyon alive, and even if they did, it could take a long time. Weeks, perhaps months, or longer. Whatever Margreta did, she would long since have done it, and there wasn’t a damn thing Sunny could do about the situation. For the first time in her life, she had to think only about herself and what she wanted. That was simple; what she wanted was Chance.
She had to face facts. She was good at it; she had been doing it her entire life. The fact that had been glaring her in the face was that they could very well die here in this little canyon. If they didn’t survive, she didn’t want to die still clinging to the reasons for not getting involved that, while good and valid in civilization, didn’t mean spit here. She already was involved with him, in a battle for their very lives. She certainly didn’t want to die without having known what it was like to be loved by him, to feel him inside her and hold him close, and to tell him that she loved him. She had a whole world of love dammed up inside her, drying up because she hadn’t had anyone to whom she could give it, but now she had this opportunity, and she wasn’t going to waste it.
A psych analyst would say this was just propinquity: the “any port in a storm” type of attraction, or the Adam and Eve syndrome. That might be part of it, for him. If she had to guess, Sunny would say that Chance was used to having sex whenever he wanted it. He had that look about him, a bone-deep sexual confidence that would draw women like flies. She was currently the only fly available.
But it wasn’t just that. He had been attracted to her before, just as she had been to him. If they had made it to Seattle without trouble, she would have been strong enough to refuse his invitation and walk away from him. She would never have allowed herself to get to know him. Maybe they had met only twenty-four hours before, but those hours had been more intense than anything else she had ever known. She imagined it was as if they had gone into battle together; the danger they had faced, and were still facing, had forged a bond between them like soldiers in a war. She had learned things about him that it would have taken her weeks to learn in a normal sit
uation, weeks that she would never have given herself.
Of all the things she had learned about him in those twenty-four hours, there wasn’t one she didn’t like. He was a man willing to step forward and take a risk, get involved, otherwise he wouldn’t have stopped the cretin in the airport. He was calm in a crisis, self-sufficient and capable, and he was more considerate of her than anyone else she had ever known. On top of all that, he was so sexy he made her mouth water.
Most men, after hearing something like what she had told him, would have immediately gone for the sex. Chance hadn’t. Instead, he had kissed her very sweetly and said, “I’ll get the rest of the things from the plane, so I can change clothes and give you my dirty ones to wash.”
“Gee, thanks,” she had managed to say.
He had winked at her. “Any time.”
He was a man who could put off his personal pleasure in order to take care of business. So here she was, scrubbing his underwear. Not the most romantic thing in the world to be doing, yet it was an intimate chore that strengthened the link forming between them. He was working to feed her; she was working to keep their clothes clean.
So far, Chance was everything that was steadfast and reliable. So why did she keep sensing that edge of danger in him? Was it something his army training had given him that was just there no matter what he was doing? She had never met anyone else who had been a ranger, so she had no means of comparison. She was just glad of that training, if it helped keep them alive.
After his clothes were as clean as she could get them, she hesitated barely a second before stripping out of her own, down to her skin. She couldn’t tolerate her grimy clothes another minute. The hot desert air washed over her bare skin, a warm, fresh caress on the backs of her knees, the small of her back, that made her nipples pinch into erect little nubs. She had never before been outside in the nude, and she felt positively decadent.
What if Chance saw her? If he was overcome with lust by the sight of her naked body, nothing would happen that hadn’t been going to happen, anyway. Not that it was likely he would be overcome, she thought wryly, smiling to herself, her curves were a long way from voluptuous. Still, if a man was faced with a naked, available woman—it could happen.
She poured a bottle of water over herself, then scooped up a handful of sand and began scrubbing. Rinsing off the sand was a matter of refilling the bottle several times. When she was finished she felt considerably refreshed and her skin was baby smooth. Maybe the skin-care industry should stop grinding up shells and rock for body scrubs, she thought, and just go for the sand.
Naked and wet, she could feel a slight breeze stirring the hot air, cooling her until she was actually comfortable. She didn’t have a towel, so she let herself dry naturally while she washed her own clothes, then quickly dressed in the beige jeans and green T-shirt that she always carried. They were earth colors, colors that blended in well with vegetation and would make her more difficult to see if she had to disappear into the countryside. She would have opted for actual camouflage-patterned clothing, if that wouldn’t have made her more noticeable in public. Her bra was wet from its scrubbing, so she hadn’t put it back on, and the soft cotton of the T-shirt clung to her breasts, clearly revealing their shape and their soft jiggle when she walked, and the small peaks of her nipples. She wondered if Chance would notice.
“Hey,” he said from behind her, his voice low and soft.
Startled, she whirled to face him. It was as if she had conjured him from her thoughts. He stood motionless about ten yards away, his eyes narrowed, his expression focused. His whiskey-coloured gaze went straight to her breasts. Oh, he noticed all right.
Her nipples got even harder, as if he had touched them.
She swallowed, trying to control a ridiculous twinge of her nerves. After all, he had already touched her breasts, and she had given him permission to do more. “How long have you been there?”
“Awhile.” His eyelids were heavy, his voice a little rough. “I kept waiting for you to turn around, but you never did. I enjoyed the view, anyway.”
Her breath hitched. “Thank you.”
“You have the sweetest little ass I’ve ever seen.”
Liquid heat moved through her. “You sweet talker, you,” she said, not even half kidding. “When do I get a peep show?”
“Any time, honey.” His tone was dark with sensual promise. “Any time.” Then he smiled ruefully. “Any time except now. We need to move these clothes so I can set the trap up here. Since this is where the water is, this is where the game will come. I’ll set the traps now and try to catch something for supper, then wash up after I clean whatever we catch—if we catch anything at all.”
He wasn’t exactly swept away with lust, but there was that reassuring steadfastness again, the ability to keep his priorities straight. In this situation, she didn’t want Gonad the Barbarian; she wanted a man on whom she could depend to do the smart thing.
He began gathering the wet clothes off the rocks, and Sunny moved to help him. “Let me guess,” she said. “The clothes still smell like humans.”
“There’s that, plus they’re something different. Wild animals are skittish whenever something new invades their territory.”
As they walked back to the overhang she asked, “How long does it normally take to catch something in a trap?”
He shrugged. “There’s no ‘normal’ to it. I’ve caught game before within ten minutes of putting out the trap. Sometimes it takes days.”
She wasn’t exactly looking forward to eating Peter Cottontail, but neither did she want another nutrition bar. It would be nice if some big fat chicken had gotten lost in the desert and just happened to wander into their trap. She wouldn’t mind eating a chicken. After a moment of wishful thinking she resigned herself to rabbit—if they were lucky, that is. They would have to eat whatever Chance could catch.
When they reached “home,” which the overhang had become, they spread their clothes out on another assortment of hot rocks. The first items she had washed were already almost dry; the dry heat of the desert was almost as efficient as an electric clothes dryer.
When they had finished, Chance collected his two handmade traps and examined them one last time. Sunny watched him, seeing the same intensity in his eyes and body that she had noticed before. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she asked, only mildly surprised. This was, after all, the ultimate in primitive guy stuff.
He didn’t look at her, but a tiny smile twitched the corners of his mouth. “I guess I’m not all that upset. We’re alive. We have food, water and shelter. I’m alone with a woman I’ve wanted from the first minute I saw her.” He produced a badly crushed Baby Ruth candy bar from his hip pocket and opened the wrapper, then pinched off small pieces of it and put them in the traps.
Sunny was instantly diverted. “You’re using a candy bar as bait?” she demanded in outraged tones. “Give me that! You can use my nutrition bar in the traps.”
He grinned and evaded her as she tried to swipe the remainder of the candy bar. “The nutrition bar wouldn’t be a good bait. No self-respecting rabbit would touch it.”
“How long have you been hiding that Baby Ruth?”
“I haven’t been hiding it. I found it in the plane when I got the rest of the stuff. Besides, it’s melted from being in the plane all day.”
“Melted, schmelted,” she scoffed. “That doesn’t affect chocolate.”
“Ah.” He nodded, still grinning. “You’re one of those.”
“One of those what?”
“Chocoholics.”
“I am not,” she protested, lifting her chin at him. “I’m a sweetaholic.”
“Then why didn’t you pack something sweet in that damn survival bag of yours, instead of something that tastes like dried grass?”
She scowled at him. “Because the idea is to stay alive. If I had a stash of candy, I’d eat it all the first day, then I’d be in trouble.”
The golden-brown gaze flicke
d at her, lashing like the tip of a whip. “When are you going to tell me why you packed survival gear for an overnight plane trip to Seattle?” He kept his tone light, but she felt the change of mood. He was dead serious about this, and she wondered why. What did it matter to him why she lugged that stuff everywhere she went? She could understand why he would be curious, but not insistent.
“I’m paranoid,” she said, matching his tone in lightness. “I’m always certain there will be some sort of emergency, and I’m terrified of being unprepared.”
His eyes went dark and flat. “Bull. Don’t try to blow me off with lies.”
Sunny might be good-natured almost to a fault, but she didn’t back down. “I was actually trying to be polite and avoid telling you it’s none of your business.”
To her surprise, he relaxed. “That’s more like it.”
“What? Being rude?”
“Honest,” he corrected. “If there are things you don’t want to tell me, fine. I don’t like it, but at least it was the truth. Considering our situation, we need to be able to totally rely on each other, and that demands trust. We have to be up front with each other, even when the truth isn’t all sweetness and light.”
She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes, giving him an “I’m not buying this” look. “Even when you’re just being nosy? I don’t think so.” She sniffed. “You’re trying to psych me into spilling my guts.”
“Is it working?”
“I felt a momentary twinge of guilt, but then logic kicked in.”
She sensed he tried to fight it, but a smile crinkled his eyes, then moved down to curl the corners of that beautifully cut mouth. He shook his head. “You’re going to cause me a lot of trouble,” he said companionably as he picked up the traps and started back to their little water hole, if a trickle could be called a hole.
“Why’s that?” she called to his back.
“Because I’m afraid I’m going to fall in love with you,” he said over his shoulder as he walked around a jutting curve of the canyon wall and disappeared from sight.