Taking a deep breath, Andi mustered the energy she needed. “Let’s go. I sure hope the electricity is still working.”
It wasn’t.
When they finally arrived at the cabin, Andi savagely ripped off the yellow caution tape. She located the hidden key where Harley said it would be then unlocked the rear door. Teeth chattering in harmony, they found the place almost as chilly as outside and a lot darker.
Andi knew from experience that in cases of hypothermia, time was critical. “I’ll find some towels. Put Sarge on the rug and cover him with that couch throw for now. You and I need to dry off. Right away.”
Shivering nonstop now, she stripped off her jacket and peeled away her stiff, soaking-wet skirt. Her white T-shirt stuck like plastic wrap and announced the fact she wasn’t wearing a bra, but modesty was the least of her problems.
Groping in the darkness, she stumbled through the tiny house to where she thought the bathroom might be.
The house smelled of pot, indoor animals and an unwashed miner. She found a stack of scratchy, sun-dried towels folded on a shelf in the bathroom. The abrasive texture chafed her skin, but she dried her arms and legs then stripped off her shirt and wrapped one towel above her breasts. She used another, turbanlike, for her hair.
“Dammit, Lars, did you have to buy the smallest, cheapest towels you could find?” she muttered as she grabbed the rest of the stack and backtracked into the living area.
To her surprise, Harley had started a fire in the potbelly stove that sat atop a semicircle of flagstone in the corner of the room. “Wow! You must have been a Boy Scout.”
He shook his head. His teeth were chattering badly. But instead of looking her way, he patiently fed another few pieces of kindling into the cast-iron mouth.
Andi dropped a couple of towels beside him then moved to the big braided oval rug to check on Sarge. She removed the knitted throw Harley had covered him with and carefully dried the dog’s legs and body. While whispering encouragement and praise, she squinted in the half light to see if she caused him any pain.
“Is it his leg or hip?” Harley asked from a spot beside her elbow.
Andi had been so intent on Sarge she hadn’t heard him move. She glanced to her left. He wore two towels—one at his waist, one draped over his broad shoulders like a child pretending to be a superhero. His hair stood up in several spots, adding to his boyish look.
“He whimpered when I touched his back leg,” she told him. “It could be a dislocated hip. Hopefully, it’s just bruised, but, in all honesty, I’m more worried about internal injuries. Those might not show up right away.”
Harley made a harsh sound. “Let’s pull the rug closer to the fire, then I’ll find us some clothes. Lars kept everything in a trunk by his bed.”
Dragging the heavy rug with the dead weight of the dog on it would have been easier if her towel stayed in place, but every time she tugged, the two halves would pop apart, flashing Harley. His frustration must have matched hers, because he let out a groan not unlike Sarge’s low moans.
“I’m sorry,” she said, retucking the material.
He didn’t respond but disappeared the second after they got Sarge situated in front of the now-crackling fire. Andi knelt near the open grate and added two small hunks of wood. A splash of sparks gave a burst of light to the room and she looked around.
She barely remembered the interior of the cabin from her first visit years earlier, but, like the exterior, it seemed unchanged. A small room crowded with a man’s life and playthings. Fishing gear and two rifles stood clustered in one corner. Mining magazines, newspapers and a dog-eared copy of Playboy lay scattered on the floor near a well-used, brown tweed recliner. The kitchen looked surprisingly neat. Canned goods of every size and shape were visible on several shelves of a pantry. At least they wouldn’t starve until help arrived.
A flickering light to the left caught her eye. Harley stepped through the doorway of the adjoining bedroom holding a candle. He’d donned baggy gray sweatpants and a bulky, red thermal pullover. He walked in a shuffling manner due to oversize moccasins that made a scratchy sound against the plank flooring.
“Lars was a big guy,” he said. “Size sixteen shoes.”
Andi anchored her towel to her sternum and rose. The warmth at her front versus the chill at her back made her shiver. Harley noticed. He carried his candle to a small cabinet on the opposite side of the room, then hurried toward her. In his left hand rested a stack of blankets with some articles of clothing balanced on top. The shish-shish of his slippers made her smile.
He looked at her quizzically. Except for the murmur of rain and the crackle of the fire, the cottage was too quiet. She needed a distraction to keep from thinking about the wreck. How scared she’d been to lose control.
She helped herself to a massive flannel shirt and a pair of thick socks, ignoring the sweatpants. “I don’t think Lars’s pants will fit. He was a couple of inches taller than you and weighed more than Sam.”
She turned her back, dropped her towel and shrugged on the shirt. She might have been more modest if she hadn’t lived, slept and dressed in the company of GIs for six years. A bare behind was the least of her problems.
The mammoth shirt hung to her knees and the socks came almost to her kneecaps. “There,” she said, spinning on one heel to face him. “Much better.”
The look in Harley’s eyes said he agreed, but there was something else in his look. Something she wasn’t ready to acknowledge. “Cocoa?” she asked, heading for the stove with an ancient teakettle resting on the back burner.
“Whiskey.”
“Alcohol isn’t as warming as people think,” she said, recalling a lecture she’d heard years before in search and rescue training.
“That’s not why I want it,” he said softly. He walked back to the small cabinet. “There are more candles on the shelf above the sink. Matches, too. Lars said he was always the first to lose power in a storm. The stove is propane.”
Andi stepped carefully to avoid the hunks of rock littering the floor in small piles. She guessed these were assays going to or coming back from the geologist in town. Sam once told her Lars made just enough money from his gold to pay his property taxes and buy food. Since he never bothered with income tax, licenses or insurance, he didn’t have much overhead.
She found the matches and lit one of the burners on the stove. Instead of cocoa—the only milk she could find was canned—Andi decided to have tea. She lit two more candles, anchoring them in chipped saucers. The soft yellow light gave the place a cozy feeling. The thick log walls made her feel safe and snug. Only the ping and plop of the rain on the tin roof reminded her that she’d just had an accident.
“I wrecked Rosemarie,” she said to herself. A ripple of sadness passed through her. Ida Jane loved that car.
“Here,” Harley said, holding a small stinky glass under her nose. “You need this more than tea.”
She hated whiskey. The taste, the smell. “No thanks.”
“Trust me. In a few minutes, you’re going to feel the aftermath of the accident. Your muscles will start to shake and your head will feel like it’s going to explode and your stomach will heave.”
Something about his tone told her he spoke from experience. She took the glass. “How will this help?”
“I don’t know. But it does.”
She pinched her nostrils closed—which caused Harley to chuckle—then took a mouthful. It scalded the inside of her mouth and she swallowed fast. The burn raced down her throat and blossomed in her upper chest like a volcano. “Eouw,” she said, taking a breath. Residual fumes seemed to singe her nose hairs. “I’ll throw up for sure now.”
“Not if I keep you preoccupied.” His tone was soft and deceivingly benign—until she looked into his eyes and saw a fire beneath the blue. She saw a determination there that had nothing to do with crisis management.
He took the glass from her numb fingers and set it to one side then opened his stance so his legs s
traddled her. Andi’s lower back pressed against the counter.
“This isn’t a good time to make out, Harley,” she said. “We need to call for help.”
“Why? No one can get here. It’s probably snowing on the upper pass. And no one is going to make it past Snot Corner.”
The mention of the accident site made her stomach turn over. “But we at least need to let people know we’re okay. Jenny’s probably too busy with wedding plans to be worried, but Kristin is arriving this evening, and she’ll worry.”
“We’ll walk to the animal lady’s house as soon as we’re warmed up,” he said, raising his eyebrows at the double entendre. “In the morning, we’ll use Lars’s truck. The snow won’t last long and the truck has four-wheel drive.”
“What about Rosemarie?”
His lips flattened. “Do you have to call her—it—that?”
“It’s her name. She’s practically a member of the family. Why does it bother you?”
He moved back. “It seems profane.”
Suddenly she remembered something she’d read in his bio, and she understood. “Jonathan Newhall’s mother—your mother—was killed in a car accident.”
His gaze didn’t veer, but a muscle above his right eye twitched. She gave a small, spontaneous peep. “You were in the car with her, weren’t you?”
He started to shake his head then stopped. “Was I?”
The look of confusion on his face reminded her of Ida Jane at those times when her memory failed her. He closed his eyes and rocked back on his heels, as if dizzy.
Andi took his hand. “I’m sorry. That was me being my usual insensitive self.”
He inhaled slowly. “I can almost remember. But I can’t quite bring it back….” He paused, his eyes still closed. “I picture a woman. Driving the car. Laughing. The music was playing. She’s my mother. She was singing along with a song—the Beach Boys, I think. She liked to change the lyrics to make me laugh. She was quick, and very clever with words.”
He wasn’t looking at her. His gaze seemed focused on the candle she’d set on the table.
“She lost control for a second and the tire hit something—a curb, I think—and the car flipped. It landed upright just like the Caddie. Only, we weren’t wearing seat belts.” He shook his head sadly. “Nobody did in those days.”
Andi closed her eyes and groaned. “Oh, Harley, I’m so sorry. This wreck must have felt like déjà hell for you.”
Impulsively, she threw her arms around him and kissed the side of his face. He didn’t return the embrace. His arms hung limp at his sides. “She put her arm out to protect me—like mothers do when their kid is in the front seat—and her head hit the steering wheel. They said she died instantly.”
“And today I walked away without a scratch,” Andi said to herself.
He looked at her. “Thank God,” he said, pulling her to him. “I don’t think I could have lived with myself if history had repeated itself. Talk about cursed—”
She didn’t let him finish. She pressed her mouth to his, just as he’d done earlier to her. She knew all about survivor’s guilt. Even though Andi and her sisters had had no control over the events surrounding their birth, Andi knew the circumstances of their loss had always been a factor in their lives.
She’d read somewhere that the surest way to block hurtful memories was to create pleasant new ones. This wreck was one memory that wouldn’t hurt this man ever again—not if she had any say in the matter.
HARLEY WASN’T PREPARED for the onslaught of emotions that hit him. First, the memory of his mother’s death. Then the life-affirming joy of Andi’s kiss. A powerful need made him jump at the escape Andi offered. “Are we going to make love?” he asked, closing his eyes as she trailed kisses from his lips to the scar on his temple.
“You have anything better to do on a rainy evening?” she quipped.
Her playful tone was too enticing to resist. “At the moment, I can’t think of anything I’d rather do, provided we can find…um, what we need.”
She gave him an impish look. “A raincoat of another kind, you mean?”
He nodded. “Lars kept a stash in the loft.”
“Lucky us. As long as they’re still in working order.”
Harley laughed and kissed her again. Andi wiggled free. She looked at him and smiled, then took his hand and tugged him toward a large lumpy couch. “The bedroom’s right over there,” he said softly, nodding toward the doorway a few feet away.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Harley understood. “I know what you mean, but I think Lars would be cheering us on. He wasn’t one to pass up a sweet deal.” He lifted her hand and dropped a kiss on the inside of her wrist. Her skin smelled liked rain. “In fact, Lars once told me, ‘Harley, if you’re open and receptive, the good stuff will drop right in your lap.’ At the time, I thought he was talking about dope.”
She laughed. “Well, if you’re implying that fate set this up, then it would be a tragedy not to take advantage of the opportunity, right?”
“Sweet logic,” he said with a grin. “I love a convoluted mind.”
She pressed herself to him and dropped her hands to his butt. “I’ve been lusting after your body for weeks. Maybe from the first day I met you.”
He’d longed for her, too. But, there were valid reasons why he shouldn’t become involved with her. How did a car crash change that?
He stepped back. She had a surprised look on her face, but before she could respond, a shrill siren pierced the air. The teapot sent a plume of steam into the air, along with its whistle.
Andi snatched the vessel off the burner. “Whether we make love or not is up to you, Harley. There’s something between us, and I’m tired of pretending it doesn’t exist.”
She poured the hot water into a cup then set it aside. Before turning around, she lifted the faded gingham curtain. “The rain doesn’t look like it will let up any time soon. We may be here overnight.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Are we going to settle this or not?”
A part of him—probably the Harley part—wanted to do the honorable thing, but his mind and body were weary. He felt as though he’d been running a marathon—and Andi was the finish line.
He nodded. “Why don’t you pour me a cup of that? First, we need to talk.”
ANDI TOOK a deep breath. A funny shiver passed through her. She knew the sensation. She’d felt the same thing when she signed her name on her enlistment papers. She closed the distance between them and placed her hand flat against his breastbone. Below the layer of sweatshirt and muscle beat a steady thump.
“I’d rather kiss you,” she said.
Harley covered her hand with his own. “This probably sounds like I’m stalling, but shouldn’t you call home first?”
“I know this doesn’t make any sense. And it’s probably not something you want to hear. But, Harley, when I’m with you, I feel like I am home.”
He looked into her eyes with a vulnerability she’d never seen before. “I have so little to give you, Andi. I barely feel any connection to my life back in Missouri. And I’m slowly getting more and more cut off from this life. I’m in limbo,” he added grimly.
Feeling more confident than she had any right to feel, she kissed the side of his mouth. “That’s not true. You’re here. With me. In the cabin your mother’s brother left you in his will. It doesn’t matter if your name is Harley or Jonathan. I want to be with you.”
“I want you, too,” he said, returning her kiss with the same fire she’d felt in their earlier kisses.
Maybe a wise person would have waited until there was an understanding—a commitment—between them. Promise of a future. But at the moment, she wasn’t feeling wise. “Is there a bed in the loft?”
He nodded. “It’s where I slept once my shoulder and ribs had healed and I could climb the ladder.”
“Then that’s where I want to go. To make love.”
There was a moment, right before she placed
her foot on the bottom rung of the ladder that Andi had second thoughts—and third and fourth. A voice in her head argued the merits of waiting until the trial was settled and she knew whether or not Harley planned to stay in Gold Creek, before jumping into bed with him. But Andi wasn’t listening to that voice. She needed this man with an urgency she didn’t understand and refused to question any further.
“You’re grinning.” His voice rumbled from below her.
Andi stuck out her butt and sucked in her gut so she could look down. Even though Harley’s face was barely visible beyond the hem of Lars’s oversize shirt, she guessed he had an unobstructed view of her breasts under the shirt. The knowledge sent a quiver of heat channeling through her limbs. “How could you tell?” she asked. Her voice seemed unnaturally husky.
“Masculine insecurity.”
“Never heard of such a thing,” she teased, scrambling up the final few rungs. The sleeping platform was nothing more than a landing covered in hideous orange shag carpeting, straight out of the seventies. Dark, hewn rafters provided anchors for spiders to build galaxies of webs. A simple bed—double mattress and box spring—was situated right below a tiny window made opaque by the rain. There was a faded yellow sheet covering the mattress. A stack of neatly folded bedding and pillows sat to the left of the bed; an end table made of two cinder blocks and a piece of plywood was to the right.
Crouching in the dim light, she also spotted an oil lamp, a box of kitchen matches and a Zane Grey novel on the table. She quickly lit the lantern, adjusting the wick to produce a mellow glow. She turned to face him. Her nipples felt chafed by the shirt’s soft material and she quickly unbuttoned it all the way. She left it on, but made sure the gap exposed the bare skin between her breasts. It was about as risqué as one could get with flannel.
Her reward came from the heart-stopping smile that lit Harley’s face as his head cleared the platform. He hoisted himself into a sitting position with his legs hanging over the edge, his back to her.
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