by Sandra Brown
He shrugged her hand off. “Get dressed. And hurry up with dinner,” he ordered with the graciousness of a caveman. “I’m starving.”
Soon after that, he started drinking.
Chapter Nine
The jugs of whiskey had been among the Gawrylows’ supplies. Cooper had discovered them the day they cleaned out the cabin. He had smacked his lips with anticipation. That was before he tasted the whiskey. He had tossed back a healthy gulp and swallowed it without chewing—the stuff had looked viscous enough to chew. It was white lightning, moonshine, rotgut, and it had crashed and burned inside his stomach like a meteor.
Rusty had laughed at his coughing, wheezing spasm. He wasn’t amused. After he’d recovered the use of his vocal cords, he had darkly informed her that it wasn’t funny, that his esophagus had been seared.
Until now, he hadn’t touched the jugs of whiskey. This time, there was nothing funny about his drinking it.
After he had built up the fire, he uncorked a jug of the smelly stuff. Rusty was surprised, but said nothing as he took a tentative swig. Then another. At first she thought he was drinking it in order to get warm. His expedition outside had been brief, but long enough to freeze his mustache. He was no doubt chilled to the marrow.
That excuse didn’t serve for long, however. Cooper didn’t stop with those first two drinks. He carried the jug with him to the chair in front of the fireplace and drank what must have equaled several cocktails before Rusty called him to the table. To her irritation, he brought the jug with him and poured an intemperate amount of the whiskey into his coffee mug. He sipped from it between bites of the rabbit stew she had cooked.
She weighed the advisability of cautioning him not to drink too much, but after a time, she felt constrained to say something; the regularity with which he drank from the tin mug was making her uneasy.
What if he passed out? He’d have to lie where he fell because she’d never be able to lift him. She remembered how much effort it had taken to drag him out of the crashed fuselage of the airplane. A great deal of her strength then had come from adrenaline. What if he ventured outside and got lost? A thousand dreadful possibilities elbowed their way through her mind.
Finally she said, “I thought you couldn’t drink that.”
He didn’t take her concern at face value. He took it as a reprimand. “You don’t think I’m man enough?”
“What?” she asked with bewilderment. “No. I mean yes, I think you’re man enough. I thought you didn’t like the taste of it.”
“I’m not drinking it because I like the taste. I’m drinking it because we’re out of the good stuff and this is all I’ve got.”
He was itching for a fight. She could see the invitation to one in his eyes, hear it in his snarling inflection. Rusty was too smart to pull a lion’s tail even if it was dangling outside the bars of the cage. And she was too smart to wave a red flag at Cooper when his face was as blatant a warning of trouble as a danger sign.
In his present mood he was better left alone and unprovoked, although it was an effort for her to keep silent. She longed to point out how stupid it was to drink something that you didn’t like just for the sake of getting drunk.
Which was apparently what he intended to do. He nearly overturned his chair as he pushed himself away from the table. Only trained reflexes that were as quick and sure as a striking rattler’s kept the chair from landing on the floor. He moved back to the hearth. There he sipped and sulked while Rusty cleaned up their dinner dishes.
When she was finished, she swept the floor—more to give herself something to do than because it needed it. Unbelievable as it seemed, she’d come to take pride in how neatly she had arranged and maintained the cabin.
Eventually she ran out of chores and stood awkwardly in the center of the room while deciding what to do with herself. Cooper was hunched in his chair, broodily staring into the fireplace as he steadily drank. The most sensible thing to do would be to make herself scarce, but their cabin had only one room. A walk was out of the question. She wasn’t a bit sleepy, but bed was her only alternative.
“I, uh, think I’ll go to bed now, Cooper. Good night.”
“Sit down.”
Already on her way to her bed, she was brought up short. It wasn’t so much what he’d said that halted her, but the manner in which he’d said it. She would prefer a strident command to that quiet, deadly request.
Turning, she looked at him inquisitively.
“Sit down,” he repeated.
“I’m going—”
“Sit down.”
His high-handedness sparked a rebellious response, but Rusty quelled it. She wasn’t a doormat, but neither was she a dope. Only a dope would tangle with Cooper while he was in this frame of mind. Huffily, she crossed the room and dropped into the chair facing his. “You’re drunk.”
“You’re right.”
“Fine. Be ridiculous. Make a fool of yourself. I couldn’t care less. But its embarrassing to watch. So if you don’t mind, I’d rather go to bed.”
“I do mind. Stay where you are.”
“Why? What difference does it make? What do you want?”
He took a sip from his cup, staring at her over the dented rim of it. “While I’m getting plashtered, I want to sit here and shtare at you and imagine you...” He drank from the cup again, then said around a juicy belch, “Naked.”
Rusty came out of her chair as though an automatic spring had ejected her. Apparently no level of drunkenness could dull Cooper’s reflexes. His arm shot out. He grabbed a handful of her sleeve, hauled her back, and pushed her into the chair.
“I told you to shtay where you are.”
“Let go of me.” Rusty wrested her arm free. She was as apprehensive now as she was angry. This wasn’t a silly drunk’s prank, or an argumentative drunk’s unreasonableness. She tried convincing herself that Cooper wouldn’t hurt her, but then she really didn’t know, did she? Maybe alcohol was the catalyst that released his controlled violence. “Leave me alone,” she said with affected courage.
“I don’t plan on touching you.”
“Then what?”
“Call this a masochistic kind of...self-fulfillment.” His eyelids drooped suggestively. “I’m sure you can substitute the correct name for it.”
Rusty went hot all over with embarrassment. “I know the correct name for you. Several, in fact.”
He laughed. “Save them. I’ve heard them all. Instead of thinking up dirty names to call me,” he said, after sipping from his mug, “let’s talk about you. Your hair, for instance.”
She crossed her arms over her middle and looked toward the ceiling, a living illustration of supreme boredom.
“You know what I thought about the first time I saw your hair?” He was undaunted by her uncooperative spirit and refusal to answer. Leaning forward from the waist, he whispered, “I thought about how good it would feel sweeping over my belly.”
Rusty jerked her eyes back to his. His were glazed, and not entirely from liquor. They didn’t have the vacuous look of the seasoned drunk. The dark centers of them were brilliant, fiery. His voice, too, was now clear. He wasn’t slurring his words. He made it impossible for her to misunderstand him—even to pretend to.
“You were standing in the sunshine out on the tarmac. You were talking to a man...your father. But then I didn’t know he was your father. I watched you hug him, kiss his cheek. I was thinking, ‘That lucky bastard knows what it’s like to play with her hair in bed.’”
“Don’t, Cooper.” Her fists were clenched at her sides. She was sitting as tall and straight as a rocket about to be launched.
“When you got on the plane, I wanted to reach out and touch your hair. I wanted to grab handfuls of it, use it to move your head down even with my thighs.”
“Stop this!”
Abruptly he ceased speaking and took another draught of whiskey. If anything, his eyes grew darker, more sinister. “You like hearing that, don’t you?”
“No.”
“You like knowing you’ve got that kind of power over men.”
“You’re wrong. Very wrong. I felt extremely self-conscious about being the only woman on that airplane.”
He muttered an obscenity and took another drink. “Like today?”
“Today? When?”
He set his cup aside without spilling a single drop. His coordination, like his reflexes, was still intact. He was a mean, nasty drunk, but he wasn’t a sloppy one. He leaned forward, beyond the edge of his chair, putting his face within inches of hers.
“When I came in and found you bundled up naked in that blanket.”
“That wasn’t calculated. It was an error in judgment. I had no way of knowing you would come back so soon. You never do. You’re usually away for hours at a time. That’s why I decided to take a sponge bath while you were gone.”
“I knew the minute I came through the door that you had bathed,” he said in a low, thrumming voice. “I could smell the soap on your skin.” His eyes moved down over her, as though seeing bare skin rather than her heavy, cable-knit sweater. “You favored me with a peek at your breast, didn’t you?”
“No!”
“Like hell.”
“I didn’t! When I realized the blanket had slipped I—”
“Too late. I saw it. Your nipple. Pink. Hard.”
Rusty drew in several uneven breaths. This bizarre discussion was having a strange effect on her. “Don’t say any more. We promised each other not to be abusive.”
“I’m not being abusive. Maybe to myself, but not to you.”
“Yes, yes, you are. Please, Cooper, stop this. You don’t know—”
“What I’m saying? Yes, I do. I know exactly what I’m saying.” He looked directly into her eyes. “I could kiss your nipples for a week and never get tired of doing it.”
The whiskey huskiness of his voice barely made the words audible, but Rusty heard them. They intoxicated her. She swayed unsteadily under their impact. She whimpered and shut her eyes in the hopes of blocking out the outrageous words and the mental pictures they inspired.
His tongue moving over her flesh, soft and wet, tender and ardent, rough and exciting.
Her eyes popped open and she glared at him defensively. “Don’t you dare speak to me like that.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like it.”
He gave her a smug and skeptical smile. “You don’t like me telling you how I’ve wanted to put my hands all over you? How I’ve fantasized about your thighs being opened for me? How I’ve lain in that damn bed night after night listening to your breathing and wanting to be so deep inside you that—”
“Stop it!” Rusty leaped from her chair and pushed past him, trying to make good an escape out the door of the cabin. She would survive the bitter cold far better than she would his heat.
Cooper was too quick for her. She never reached the door. Before she’d taken two steps, he had her locked in an inescapable embrace. He arched her back as he bent over her. His breath struck her fearful features hotly.
“If it was my destiny to be stranded in this godforsaken place, why did it have to be with a woman who looked like you? Huh?” He shook her slightly as though expecting a logical explanation. “Why’d you have to be so damn beautiful? Sexy? Have a mouth designed for loving a man?”
Rusty tried to wiggle free. “I don’t want this. Let me go.”
“Why couldn’t I be trapped here with someone ugly and sweet? Somebody I could have in bed and not live to regret it. Somebody who would be grateful for my attention. Not a shallow little tart who gets off by driving men crazy. Not a socialite. Not you.”
“I’m warning you, Cooper.” Gritting her teeth, she struggled against him.
“Somebody far less attractive, but useful. A woman who could cook.” He smiled nastily. “I’ll bet you cook all right. In bed. That’s where you cook. I’ll bet that’s where you serve up your best dishes.”
He slid his hands over her buttocks and brought her up hard against himself, thrusting his hips forward and making contact with her lower body.
“Does it give you a thrill, knowing you do that to me?”
It gave her a thrill, but not the kind of which he spoke. This intimacy with his hardness stole her breath. She grabbed his shoulders for support. Her eyes clashed with his. For seconds, they held there.
Then Rusty broke their stare and shoved him away. She despised him for putting her through this. But she was also ashamed of her own, involuntary reaction to everything he’d said. It had been fleeting, but for a moment there, her choice could have gone either way.
“Keep away from me,” she said in a voice that trembled with purpose. “I mean it. If you don’t, I’ll turn that knife you gave me on you. Do you hear me? Don’t lay a hand on me again.” She strode past him and threw herself face down on her bed, using the coarse sheet to cool her fevered cheeks.
Cooper was left standing in the center of the room. He raised both hands and plowed them through his long hair, painfully raking it back off his face. Then he slunk back to his chair in front of the fireplace and picked up the jug and his tin cup.
When Rusty dared to glance at him, he was still sitting there morosely sipping the whiskey.
She panicked the following morning when she saw that his bed hadn’t been slept in. Had he wandered out during the night? Had something terrible happened to him? Throwing off the covers—she didn’t remember pulling them up over herself last night—she raced across the floor and flung open the door.
She slumped against the jamb in relief when she saw Cooper. He was splitting logs. The sky was clear. The sun was shining. What had been icicles hanging from the eaves the day before were now incessant drips. The temperature was comparatively mild. Cooper wasn’t even wearing his coat. His shirttail was hanging out loose, and when he turned around Rusty saw that his shirt was unbuttoned.
He spotted her, but said nothing as he tossed several of the split logs onto the mounting pile near the edge of the porch. His face had a greenish cast and there were dark crescents beneath his bloodshot eyes.
Rusty stepped back inside, but left the door open to let in fresh air. It was still cold, but the sunshine had a cleansing effect. It seemed to dispel the hostility lurking in the shadows of the cabin.
Hastily Rusty rinsed her face and brushed her hair. The fire in the stove had gone out completely. By now she was skilled at adding kindling and starting a new one. In minutes she had one burning hot enough to boil the coffee.
For a change, she opened a canned ham and fried slices of it in a skillet. The aroma of cooking pork made her mouth water; she hoped it would tantalize Cooper’s appetite, too. Instead of oatmeal, she cooked rice. She would have traded her virtue for a stick of margarine. Fortunately she didn’t have an opportunity to barter it, so she settled for drizzling the ham drippings over the rice, which miraculously came out just right.
Splurging, she opened a can of peaches, put them in a bowl, and set them on the table with the rest of the food. She could no longer hear the crunching sound of splitting logs, so she assumed Cooper would be in shortly.
She was right. He came in moments later. His gait was considerably more awkward than usual. While he was washing his hands at the sink, Rusty took two aspirin tablets from the first-aid kit and laid them on his plate.
He stared down at them when he reached the table, then took them with the glass of water beside his plate. “Thanks.” Gingerly he settled himself into his chair.
“You’re welcome.” Rusty knew better than to laugh, but the careful way he was moving was indicative of how severe his hangover was. She poured a cup of strong, black coffee and passed it to him. His hand was shaking as he reached for it. The log-splitting exercise had been self-imposed punishment for his whiskey-drinking binge. She was glad he hadn’t chopped off a toe. Or worse.
“How do you feel?”
Without moving his head, he looked over at her. “My eyelashes h
urt.”
She held back her smile. She also resisted the compulsion to reach across the table and lift the sweaty strands of hair off his forehead. “Can you eat?”
“I think so. I should be able to. I spent what seemed like hours, uh, out back. If the lining of my stomach is still there, it’s all that’s left.”
While he sat with his shoulders hunched and his hands resting carefully on either side of his plate where he’d planted them, she dished up the food. She even cut his ham into bite-size pieces before scooting the plate in front of him. Taking a deep breath, he picked up his fork and took a tentative bite. When he was certain that it was going to stay down, he took another, then another, and was soon eating normally.
“This is good,” he said after several minutes of silence.
“Thank you. Better than oatmeal, for a change.”
“Yeah.”
“I noticed the weather is much warmer.”
Actually, what she had noticed was that the exercise had caused the hair on his chest to curl damply. He’d rebuttoned most of the buttons on his shirt before coming to the table, but it was open far enough for her to get a glimpse of that impressive chest.
“We might get lucky and have a few more days of this before the next storm blows through.”
“That would be nice.”
“Hmm. I could get a lot done around here.”
They’d never had a pointless, polite conversation before. This exchange of meaningless chitchat was more awkward than any of their arguments had been, so both dropped it. In a silence so profound they could hear the water dripping off the eaves outside, they finished their meal and drank their second cups of coffee.
When Rusty stood up to clear the table, Cooper said, “I think the aspirin helped. My headache’s almost gone.”
“I’m glad.”
He cleared his throat loudly and fiddled with the knife and fork he’d laid on his empty plate. “Look, about last night, I, uh, I don’t have an excuse for it.”