She was very pretty, with fine, delicate features—wide cheekbones, small nose, slightly pointed chin. She looked fragile lying there with her eyes closed, long lashes dark against her pale cheeks.
In general, Cal didn’t like blondes. And he didn’t go for fragile-looking girls. He liked women he could hold on to. Substantial women, not delicate flowers.
No, this girl was definitely not his type.
So why was he standing there, staring at her, imagining how beautiful she must look with her eyes open and a smile on her face?
Cal pulled his eyes away from her, and came face-to-face with his own reflection in the mirror over the sink. Damn, he was a mess. His clothes were covered with mud, and his shirt was soaked. His dark hair was dented from his hat, and the shadows and flickering candlelight made his lean face look harsh and stern. His eyes appeared pale and colorless, as if the blue had faded away. Maybe it had. God knows, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled.
He rearranged his face, pushing his mouth up into a grin. It felt odd, as if his muscles were rusty, and it looked even odder. It made him smile ruefully, with a slight twisting of his lips. That was a little better, but not much.
He wasn’t a bad-looking guy. At six feet six, with a hardworking rancher’s well-muscled, lean body, he cut an imposing figure. And he may not have had a pretty face, not the way Liam had anyway, but his dark hair, faintly Native American features, and blue-gray eyes made for a striking combination. Or so he’d been told.
So why was it that he’d spent most of his thirty-seven years alone?
That was a damn good question.
Cal washed up in the sink, pulling the tails of his soaked and muddied shirt from his pants. He took the shirt off and wrapped a towel around his shoulders. His pants were just as wet, but they would have to wait. Wrapping the towel more securely around him, he quietly went out of the bathroom and started a fire in the attached bedroom’s big fireplace. It didn’t take long before flames were snapping and crackling in the hearth. Then he went back into the bathroom to check on the girl. She hadn’t moved.
Cal sat down on the closed seat of the commode to wait for her to open her eyes.
2
Kayla was finally starting to feel warm. She heard the sound of water being let out of the tub and felt warmer water being run in. She opened her eyes and saw the cowboy dip his fingers in the water pouring out of the faucet, testing its temperature. He’d taken off his shirt, and his smooth skin gleamed golden tan in the light from the candles. His muscles moved under his skin as he reached forward to turn off the flow, and he straightened back up, wiping his wet fingers on a crisp white towel.
He was a giant. Dear God, he had to be well over six feet. He seemed to fill the tiny bathroom, making Kayla feel positively petite. And at her own five feet eleven, it wasn’t often she felt that way.
That was when he noticed that her eyes were open. Their gazes met and he froze.
The cowboy’s eyes were the lightest shade of blue-gray Kayla had ever seen. Or maybe they just seemed that way in contrast to his tanned face and the jet-black hair that tumbled over his forehead.
His face was rugged, his features angular—craggy and weather-beaten. He had wide, exotic cheekbones, lean cheeks, and a big, slightly hooked nose. His eyebrows were thick and dark, and his eyes could be described only as flinty.
Kayla’s gaze dropped lower, to the well-defined muscles of his shoulders and chest. His body looked hard. He looked as if it would hurt to bump into him.
But Kayla knew he’d carried her back here, back to the guest house. Much of what she remembered was foggy, but she did remember that his arms had been gentle.
As the rain pounded against the roof, she also remembered a wet nose, a furry face, and inquisitive, friendly brown eyes.
“Is your dog inside?” she asked. Her voice sounded raspy and hoarse.
“Thor?” The cowboy nodded. “He’s waiting down by the door. He was even muddier than you were. And he knows it too. He won’t dare come upstairs.”
His deep voice was pure Montana—soft and rich with a slow western drawl.
“I got you pretty dirty too,” Kayla said. His jeans were soaked and streaked with mud.
“Nothing a load of laundry and a shower won’t cure.”
It was more than the color of his eyes that was odd, Kayla thought as she gazed up at him. It was his lack of expression that was so strange. There was a matter-of-fact detachment in his eyes, as if he kept himself carefully distanced from any and everything.
He seemed particularly distanced from the fact that he was standing in the bathroom, half dressed, while she was in the tub. Of course, she still had her clothes on. But that didn’t make it any less weird. It was oddly, quietly intimate with the candlelight and the wind howling outside. But he seemed not to notice.
“What were you doing anyway, wandering around out there?” he asked.
“That’s exactly what I was doing,” she replied. “Wandering. I wanted some fresh air.”
He almost smiled. “Guess you got some.”
Kayla did smile at that. “I got way more than I bargained for.”
Cal gazed down at her, held in place by her smile. It was wide and uninhibited, and it lit up her entire face, making her eyes crinkle at the edges. Something moved deep within him, something that hadn’t stirred in a long, long time.
“I’m not from around here.” The girl smiled again. “But you probably already guessed that, right?”
Cal nodded.
“It’s still summer back east, where I’m from,” she said.
“It’s still summer here too.”
“You could’ve fooled me. You and Thor saved me from a cold, miserable night. I owe you both a steak dinner.”
“Next time, pay attention to the weather before you go out,” Cal told her. He turned away slightly, afraid she might think he was staring at her. Which he had been. Damn, she was pretty.
“There’s not going to be a next time,” she said melodramatically. “From now on I’m sticking to my car.”
“You’ll miss a lot that way.” He glanced back at her.
“Yeah, like freezing to death.” She tipped her head back under the water and rinsed the silt from her hair. “Or trying to impersonate a prairie dog.”
“That was real smart to do that—to dig into the ground.” Cal watched her sit back up and sweep the water from her hair. He knew he was staring again, but he couldn’t help it. “It probably kept your body temperature from dropping too low.”
“I remembered that pioneers used to make houses out of sod,” the girl told him. “There was no other shelter out there….” She shrugged and smiled again. “I’m serious about that steak dinner. I’d like to pay you back—you’ve gone to a lot of trouble for me.”
Her smile was like sunshine. And when Cal opened has mouth to tell her there was no need to repay him for anything, he found himself saying something entirely different.
“All right.”
“Tomorrow night?” she asked, gazing up at him with those green eyes. “Say…about seven o’clock?”
Cal nodded. “Yeah.”
Sweet Lord, he had a dinner date for tomorrow night. And he was actually looking forward to it. At least, he thought that was what this odd feeling in his gut was. It had been so long since he’d felt anything at all….
Kayla pulled her gaze away from the cowboy’s. He was going to have dinner with her tomorrow night. It meant nothing, she tried to tell herself. It wasn’t really a date. It was a thank-you in the form of a meal. The fact that something subtle had changed in his eyes wasn’t anything to worry about. She glanced up at him again, and sure enough, the heat in his eyes was still there, making her feel for the briefest of moments as if she were the promised meal.
But he quickly looked away, as if he were too well mannered to let her see his attraction to her. And when he looked back again, his eyes were once more expressionless. His feelings were still ther
e though—he was simply hiding them.
Their attraction was a mutual thing, Kayla realized. Maybe it was his western accent, reminding her of Liam. Except Liam’s accent had been faint, barely there, worn down by his years in Boston, by his desire to fit in with the fast-paced city’s way of life. This cowboy’s accent, though, was thick and rich and resonant, surrounding her like the warm wool of a hand-knit sweater.
Physically, the cowboy was nothing like Liam. Liam had been barely taller than she was. He had been slender and blond and quick to smile. His eyes had been blue too, but they were the color of the summer sky, not icicle blue like the cowboy’s.
It was natural that Kayla should feel some sort of fondness for this man, she tried to reassure herself. After all, he’d rescued her from the storm. He’d heroically carried her here. He’d stayed with her, cared for her. And it certainly didn’t hurt that his sternly handsome face and his well-proportioned physique made him look like the poster model for the untamed West.
Kayla glanced down at her hands. Her fingers were raw from the digging she’d done, and starting to sting. “I’m turning into a prune,” she told the cowboy. “I’ve got to get out of the tub.”
He moved closer as she stood, ready to catch her if she slipped.
His presence was oddly reassuring. It was odd because, with her track record, living in the city the way she did, and working full-time for the Boston Women’s Crisis Center, Kayla couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt anything but uneasy from the attention of a strange man. Or even a familiar man. And this cowboy was no lightweight. With his height and build, he didn’t have to say please and thank you to get what he wanted. Still, Kayla felt no threat from him.
She wobbled slightly, and he gently took hold of her arm.
“Let me give you a hand,” he said. His voice sounded tighter, choked, and as Kayla glanced at him, following his gaze, she instantly knew why.
Her wet clothes clung to her intimately. The normally thick white cotton of her shirt was made almost transparent from its wetness. And with the cutaway shoulders of this shirt, she wasn’t wearing a bra. She might as well have been standing in front of him barebreasted.
The cowboy was trying his best not to stare. He looked away, down at the floor, but not before Kayla saw a flare of heat in his ice-blue eyes.
Still, he was almost as embarrassed as she was. He took a big towel from the rack on the wall and wrapped it quickly around Kayla’s shoulders. “Better get out of those wet things,” he said gruffly. He motioned to the door with his head. “I’ll be in the other room if you need me.”
Cal gently closed the bathroom door behind him, letting out a long-held breath.
Damn.
Damn.
The powers that be surely had some reason for putting Cal in a situation like that, but he sure as hell hadn’t figured that reason out yet. He knew nothing about this girl. For all he knew, she was married. The only things he knew about her for sure were that she was a fighter, that she had the prettiest smile he’d ever seen, and that she had a body to die for. Hell, he didn’t even know her name.
He crossed to the fire, crouched on the rug in front of it, and threw another log on the flames.
The bathroom door opened with a creak, and Cal looked up to see the girl peeking out.
“I’m sorry,” she said, a tinge of embarrassment on her cheeks. “I know this is awkward, but…I need your help with these buttons on my shirt….” Cal stood as she crossed toward him, toward the light of the fire. She held out her hands in explanation. “My fingers are still kind of numb.”
She’d also torn up her hands digging that hole he’d found her in. The tips of her fingers looked raw and scraped and very painful.
She shivered, and Cal drew her closer to the fire. There were about two dozen tiny buttons starting at the high neck of the shirt that still clung revealingly to her body. Cal tried to pay attention only to those little buttons as he began unfastening them. He tried not to think about the fact that her breasts were mere millimeters from his fingers.
“I’m sorry,” the girl whispered again. Her face was close to his own, and he glanced into her eyes. “I really couldn’t get these buttons. I don’t want you to think that this is some kind of come-on or something, because it’s not.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, his voice nothing but a whisper too.
Each button he unfastened revealed a little more of her soft, pale skin. The firelight flickered, creating a romantic glow. It was the perfect ambiance for undressing a lover. But this girl wasn’t his lover.
At least not yet.
But maybe after dinner tomorrow night…
Kayla closed her eyes, feeling the cowboy’s work-roughened fingers unbutton her shirt. His knuckles brushed against her and he murmured an apology.
Desire was a funny thing. It had been years since she’d as much as glanced twice at a good-looking man. Yet here she was, alone in a firelit room with some cowboy, and her body was giving her signals she hadn’t felt in ages.
If she swayed toward him, if their lips met, Kayla knew he would kiss her. And that kiss would lead to other kisses, and more…The attraction that sparked between them would follow through to its natural course.
And no one would ever have to know—no one but Kayla and this cowboy.
Whose name she didn’t even know. Dear God, she was actually considering having a one-night stand with Asylum, Montana’s, version of Wyatt Earp.
No. She wasn’t truly considering it. She knew exactly what would happen if she so much as tried. He would kiss her, and she would kiss him. It would feel nice—more than nice—and she’d think that maybe this time was going to be different. And then it would happen. The fear would slam down around her and she would push him away.
“Do you…” The cowboy cleared his throat. “Do you want me to get the…this other button too?”
Kayla opened her eyes. He was talking about the button at the waist of her shorts. “Do you mind?”
He smiled then, a fierce, hot smile that actually warmed his eyes and took a solid five years off his stern face. “Lady, there’s some things I mind doing, but undressing a woman is not one of ’em.”
He unfastened the button, his knuckles warm against her chilled belly. His eyes were still amused as he glanced at her again. “Shoot, I’m going to get years of fantasies out of this one.”
Kayla had to smile. “You mean, like, ‘Dear Penthouse: You won’t believe what I found under the sod out in the back forty..’”
The cowboy actually laughed aloud. “Something like that.” His dark good looks were accentuated when he smiled, but when he laughed, he was totally off the scale. “I don’t suppose you need any additional help…?”
Wordlessly, Kayla shook her head.
“What room are you really in?” he asked.
“I think it’s number three.”
“I’ll go get your suitcase—you do have something warm you can put on, don’t you?”
Kayla nodded.
“Good.” He started toward the door to the hallway. “In the meantime, get out of those wet things, wrap yourself in a blanket, and huddle close to the fire.”
But the sight of thick, damp snow swirling around outside the window caught Kayla’s full attention. “My God!”
The cowboy turned back, ready to come to her rescue again if need be. “You all right?”
“It’s snowing,” Kayla said inanely. She turned to stare at the cowboy. It was September 18, and it was snowing.
“First snowfall of the year,” he told her. “From the looks of it, we’ll get a dusting—no more ’n six inches.”
“Six inches.” Six inches of snow was going to fall tonight. That wasn’t a dusting. That was a major snowfall. At least it was where she came from. “If you hadn’t found me, I would’ve been buried under six inches of snow?”
“Probably.”
“I would’ve died,” Kayla said, the realization hitting her hard in the stomach.
“I would’ve been frozen to death.”
He nodded. “Wearing what you’re wearing—yeah.”
“You saved my life tonight.”
The cowboy thought about it for a half a second. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. Turning, he left the room.
When Cal carried the suitcase back into the room, the girl had wrapped herself in one of the blankets from the bed and was lying on the rug in front of the fire. Her eyes were closed, and Cal moved quickly toward her, setting her case down on the floor and kneeling next to her.
He touched the side of her face and her eyes opened.
“You okay?”
“Just resting.” She smiled wanly. “I feel a little bit like I’ve been hit by a truck, but I’m okay.”
Cal nodded. She was okay. When he came in and saw her lying there…His heart was pounding. But, damn! Four hours ago he didn’t even know that his heart was in any kind of working order.
The girl struggled to sit up, and the blanket slipped off one smooth, pale shoulder before she gathered it more tightly around her.
As they sat on the floor in front of the fire, Cal fought the urge to touch her face again. Her skin had felt so smooth, so soft beneath his fingers. He could reach out, touch her cheek, cup her chin, pull her mouth up toward his and…
“I’m feeling a little off balance,” she admitted, staring into the fire. “When I was out there and the wind started blowing, and it was raining and cold…I was afraid I might be killed, but I didn’t really, honestly believe it could happen. I mean, to think that I could go out for a walk and end up dead…”
She turned and gazed unsmilingly at him, her eyes wide. Her curls had dried, and she was a blonde. Her hair gleamed golden in the firelight.
She was right. She could very well have died. If the sheriff hadn’t called, if Cal hadn’t gone out into the storm, if he hadn’t searched the eastern pasture, if Thor hadn’t had such a good nose…She would have died, and he would have helped bring her body back into town, marveling at the foolishness of her lightweight summer clothes, unaware that she had a smile that could have warmed even his glacial heart.
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