“What else is there to try? We’re stuck.”
Their contact last night made it easy to lay a comforting hand on her arm. “Caleb knows we’re here. He’ll get us out if we can’t manage to get ourselves out.”
Suddenly her face brightened. “You have a cell phone, don’t you?”
“I tried it last night. I couldn’t get a signal up here in the mountains. This morning when I turned it on, the battery had run down.”
Her expression looked so forlorn, he joked, “I’ll have to give you an even bigger bonus after this trip.”
Her large green eyes went wider. “Why? Because of that kiss last night?”
He knew she thought he was a ladies’ man, but the idea that he’d up her bonus because of the kiss really irked him. “It was more than one kiss, and you were as involved as I was. But, no, that’s not the reason I’ll give you combat pay. I think you deserve overtime for being stranded where you obviously don’t want to be.”
Then he exited the car before he gave into the temptation to kiss her again.
Inside the cabin once more, Brad lit the fire so they could warm up. It was almost noon, and he decided to make scrambled eggs on the Sterno burner. Emily was skeptical, and it took a while, but eventually they sat down to a lunch of scrambled eggs and buttered bread. As she had the night before, she added fruit to her meal while he finished a candy bar and thought about their options. There weren’t a lot of them, and he considered his comment to her this morning. There could be a neighbor just over the rise—a neighbor with a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Just as Caleb had purchased this cabin during the gold-rush siege, other people had also discovered Thunder Canyon and the surrounding area. He’d heard a movie star had even purchased a ranch near Caleb’s new ski-resort project.
The summer Brad had spent in Montana with his friend James, he’d learned survival skills. He knew how to tell direction from the angle of the sun, the growth on the trees, landmarks he would designate.
Emily was trying to scrub the frying pan with water from the bucket and soap she’d found under the sink. She hadn’t said much since they’d returned to the cabin, and he was sorry he’d been so gruff before. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings. He didn’t want to take advantage of her.
He didn’t want to be attracted to her.
That more than anything made him say, “I’m going to go exploring this afternoon. Maybe I can find somebody who lives closer than we think.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No. I can go a lot faster without you and I want to get some ground covered.” He could see the sun had slipped behind a cloud. In the mountains, the weather could change from minute to minute.
In a gentler tone he suggested, “You stay here, stay warm, keep the home fires burning. Though if you can help it, try not to use more than one log, okay?”
“Brad, this isn’t a good idea.” She looked downright worried.
He stood and went to the kitchen. “Are you afraid to stay here alone?”
“No! Well, yes,” she finally admitted. “And I don’t like the idea of you out there trekking in the cold and snow.”
Taking her by the shoulders, he looked deep into her eyes. “I know what I’m doing, Emily. I spent a summer in Montana with a friend. We went backpacking for three weeks. What I didn’t learn then, I’ve learned since on other backpacking trips. So you don’t have to worry.”
“I will worry,” she said honestly, and he wondered how long it had been since somebody actually worried about him. That thought unsettled him just as Emily herself unsettled him. He hated to admit it, but for the past two days, being around her had made his life seem less empty. She soothed his spirit somehow, and he wasn’t as restless.
The urge to touch her, the urge to kiss her again, was too much of a temptation. Stepping away from her, he said, “I’m going to wear the parka. It’s warmer. Don’t go outside unless you absolutely have to. Understand?”
“All right,” she agreed.
Reaching to the counter for one of her PowerBars, he winked. “I’ll take this along in case I get hungry.”
When she gave him a small smile, he knew he had to leave—now. Too much about Emily Stanton was getting under his skin. A walk in the snow was just what he needed.
For the first hour Brad was gone, Emily did just fine—except for watching him walk away and disappear behind some pine trees. That’s when her stomach sank. Every fifteen minutes she went to the window and peered out, wishing he’d stayed in the cabin with her. Finally settling on the sofa, she read a magazine she’d packed in her suitcase. Then, still restless, she studied the titles of the books on the bookshelf and drank a can of juice.
But during the second hour the sky turned gray, the clouds seemed even more forbidding and the damp cold in the cabin seemed even damper without Brad. A tight knot formed in her stomach. He’d left at one, and by two-thirty she was worried sick. What if he’d slipped and fallen? What if he’d frozen to death? What if—
She couldn’t stay cooped up. The fire had almost burned out, and she didn’t know whether to add another log or not. The sheepskin coat Brad had worn that morning hung over a kitchen chair. Slipping it on, she thought she could smell him. She remembered how he’d looked in it—like a rugged outdoorsman. It was warm, and before she considered his warning to stay inside, she added her sweater under the coat, turned up the collar and went outside.
Snow was falling lightly and she had no idea what she was going to do. She just knew she couldn’t sit still any longer.
Brad’s footsteps were visible from the back of the cabin in a line that seemed to lead very far away. Trying to keep her sneakers from getting too wet, she stepped into each one of his prints, though it was a stretch. His legs were much longer than hers. Everything about him was so distinctly male. She couldn’t erase the picture of him naked. She couldn’t dismiss the erotic sensuality of his kiss.
With each step she took, the snow fell a little more heavily and wind began to blow. She had to turn back.
Gazing into the distance, she stared at the pine trees, wishing she could see through them. She stared so hard her eyes blurred and then she saw something…someone. At first she believed it was her imagination or a wishful mirage that she had conjured up. But then she recognized the green down parka, the fur-lined hood. He was walking in a straight line toward her and she didn’t move. Not until he was about ten feet away.
Then she ran to him and threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re okay. I was so worried. You didn’t come back and you didn’t come back….”
The hood came down over his eyes and his face, but now he brushed it back and it fell away. He was looking down at her with hunger in his eyes and the desire she’d glimpsed there last night. Now it seemed to flame even brighter. “I’m back. I’m fine. Come on, let’s get you into the cabin.”
But neither of them moved, and she felt tears come to her eyes. “I was afraid you’d been hurt.”
Although he’d told her he was fine, that wasn’t enough. Her arms hooked around his neck, and he held her. Their breath mingled as he lowered his lips to hers.
The kiss was so hot she forgot it was snowing. The kiss was so desire filled her head swam. One minute she was standing there kissing him and the next he’d scooped her up into his arms and he was kissing her. Then he carried her to the cabin in much less time than it had taken her to walk in his footsteps.
Once inside, he kissed her all over again. Their lips melded, their tongues tangled and their need for each other seemed to explode out of control.
Carrying her to the bedroll, he set her down there and knelt down beside her. “I want you, Emily.”
“I want you, too.” Making love with Brad had been in her dreams for months. Now they were alone together, needing each other. Couldn’t she make at least part of her dream come true?
Unzipping his parka, he tossed it onto the floor beside him. She slipped off her coat and sweater and looked up at
him with all the anxiety of the past hour and a half. “I was so worried about you.”
“I worried about you, too, at the cabin alone. But I wanted to try to get us out.”
He had been out hiking for her.
When she reached up to him, he bent down to her. This time the kissing was even more urgent. After he undressed her, he pulled a blanket over her. Seconds later he was undressed, too, slipping under the blanket with her. As he took her into his arms, she played her hand across his chest, loving the feel of his hair, loving the feel of him.
Any cold that had lingered from the outdoors dissipated in the heat of their passion as his legs tangled with hers. When his hand caressed her breast, she moaned with such pleasure that she didn’t recognize herself. Every place he touched seemed doubly sensitized. Every kiss he planted on her lips, her neck and her navel made her sigh his name.
“What do you want, Emily?” he asked, finally stretching out on top of her, finally giving her some of the satisfaction she craved.
“I want you. I want you inside me.”
He gave her what she wanted. The first thrust almost took her over the edge, but then he stilled, savoring their fit.
Brad had played her body to a fever pitch, and now it was demanding release. She couldn’t stay still. When she contracted around him, he groaned. Raising her knees, she hugged his thighs and severed the thread of his self-restraint. Thrusting deeper and harder, he set a rhythm that became hers. She rocked with him until he slipped one hand between them and ignited her climax. The moment seemed to go on and on forever, and he kissed her until his release came. When he shuddered, she held him tight, never wanting to let him go.
But minutes later, as Brad pushed himself up on his forearms, then rolled off of her, she caught a glimpse of his face and knew she had to let him go.
As he lay back staring up at the ceiling, shame and regret and hurt filled her. And before he said something she knew she wouldn’t want to hear, she asked accusingly, “Is this the way it happened with Suzette?”
Chapter Four
Brad’s face had been somber but now his jaw set and he looked angry. “I have never had sex with a woman before without protection.”
She found herself wanting to believe him…wanting to believe him with all her heart. She’d like to believe he’d wanted her as much as she’d wanted him and absolutely nothing else had mattered. Maybe at the moment she had mattered to him, but she was afraid it had been just for the moment.
“I can’t believe I was that stupid.” She sat up and dropped her head into her hands on her knees.
When she’d been seeing Warner, she’d been on the pill and she hadn’t missed a day. But somehow she’d made it into that one-percent-failure ratio and had gotten pregnant. This time, however, if she got pregnant, it would be her own fault.
Sitting up beside her, Brad said gently, “If you get pregnant, you won’t have to go through it alone.”
How many men had told women that? She remembered Warner saying a kid wasn’t in his plans. Brad probably meant he’d give her money, just as he’d wanted to give her an extra bonus. That’s the last thing she even wanted to consider. “You mean you’d stick by me like you stuck by Suzette?”
“I am not the father of Suzette Brouchard’s child.”
“Then why did she make the accusation?”
“It really doesn’t matter, does it, Emily? Because you’re dead set on not believing me anyway. I don’t know what I’ve ever done to you that you think I’d treat you shabbily or take advantage of you.”
“You’ve never done anything to me,” she admitted honestly. “But I’ve seen pictures of the women you date. I read the tidbits in the gossip columns. I pass personal calls on to you. Your relationships don’t last much longer than a thunderstorm.”
When he studied her face, she suspected an angry retort, but he didn’t give her one. “You think what you want to think.”
Then he was on his feet and pulling on his jeans. “That log isn’t going to get us through the night. I’m going to try to find some kindling that might be dry enough to burn.”
“You shouldn’t go back out—”
“This time I won’t be gone as long. It was a wasted hike. Tomorrow I’ll try hiking down the mountain.”
Ten minutes ago they’d been locked in the most intimate contact possible between a man and a woman. Now she felt as if they were miles apart. “Thank you for trying.”
“No thanks are necessary. We both want to get on with our business in Thunder Canyon.”
Stranded at the cabin, she’d forgotten all about the investigation. But at least if they ever got out of here, she’d have something else to think about besides the two of them.
She’d dressed and was putting a salad together for supper, complete with beef jerky and cheese, when Brad returned from outside with kindling. “I’m going to try this before I burn our last log. But if it begins smoking, we’re going to have make do with what we have.”
Make do with one log? Just how long would that last?
At least they had shelter. They had food and plenty of blankets. They’d be fine.
Yet when Brad’s gaze met hers, she didn’t feel fine.
As Brad lit the kindling, almost immediately smoke began billowing from the fireplace, as well as up the chimney.
He swore. “That’s what I thought, but I had to try it. Come on. Get your coat. Let’s go outside for a few minutes until the smoke clears.”
Coughing as smoky air penetrated the cabin, she grabbed the sheepskin coat from the chair, shrugged into it and followed him outside.
Snow had stopped falling.
Brad glanced up at the sky. “It looks as if the weather’s going to break.”
“I wonder why Mr. Douglas didn’t try to get through to us today. He probably has an SUV or something.”
“Even if he tried to get up here with an SUV, he would have had to turn back.”
“Why?”
“Because the bridge is flooded from the runoff. We’re good and stuck until he figures a way to get us out.”
Her expression must have shown her fear and Brad swore again. “I thought you’d be better off knowing the truth of it. But Caleb will come get us. A man who could put together the ski-resort deal he just managed should have some kind of contact to get us back over that stream.”
Emily was trying to keep from worrying. She was trying to forget what had happened in the cabin not so very long ago. She was trying to keep her feelings for Brad from growing stronger.
Turning away from him, she looked toward a band of snow-topped firs, then stilled. “What’s that?” she asked in a low voice.
Brad came over to stand beside her. “That’s a bull elk.”
“It won’t come any closer, will it?”
Brad chuckled. “I don’t think he’s too keen for our company.”
“Maybe he wants food.”
“Soon it will be calving season. Maybe he’s just looking for some peace and quiet while he can find it.”
That observation made her smile.
“Let’s see if we can go back in. We don’t want to get any colder than we have to. In fact, we should probably warm water for hot chocolate.”
“When are we going to burn the last log?”
“Tonight. Before we turn in.”
Although that made sense, she was still worried. What if Caleb Douglas didn’t rescue them tomorrow?
She wouldn’t think about tomorrow. Tonight would be complicated enough.
Emily didn’t know what time it was when she awakened in the pitch-black cabin. The log had obviously long died out, and she was freezing. With two blankets doubled on top of her, she was still cold, and no matter what position she curled in, she couldn’t generate body heat. She was wearing her sweats. Maybe if she put on more clothes…
In the stillness she assumed Brad was asleep. She didn’t hear the rustle of his bedroll or the creak of the floor signaling a change in his position. He
’d insisted she keep the flashlight beside her. Now she picked it up from the floor and switched it on with the beam directed at the bedroom. A few minutes later, she’d added a blouse and her sweater but couldn’t get her jeans on over the sweat-pants. The bedroom was even colder than the living room.
Returning to the sofa, she lay there, her teeth chattering, shivers skipping up and down her body. First she tried curling on her side, then she lay on her back, then she turned toward the sofa cushion cupping her hands around her nose, hoping her breath would warm her face. Finally she turned on her back again.
“Can’t sleep?” a deep voice asked.
“I’m cold,” she mumbled from beneath the covers. “I put on more clothes, but they’re not helping.”
There was a long silence until Brad said, “There is another option.”
“What? Using the furniture to light the fireplace?”
He chuckled. “Unfortunately the paints and varnishes on the wood furniture would probably smoke like the damp kindling. It’s a shame someone loves wrought iron so much. Lodgepole furnishings might have worked.”
She didn’t know how he could still be in good humor about this. Maybe he wasn’t as cold as she was.
“What’s the other option?”
“You could sleep with me and we could combine our body heat.”
His suggestion generated a definite warmth just thinking about it. “That’s not a good idea.”
“We could keep our clothes on, Emily. I’m suggesting survival here, not sex.”
Was she being a prude? Was she being ridiculous thinking he might want to have sex with her again? Had the union of their bodies meant anything to him?
It had shaken her world and told her in no uncertain terms that she could fall in love with Brad Vaughn.
When she didn’t respond, his voice pierced the darkness again. “Think about it.”
Then she heard the rustle of covers, as if he’d turned over…as if he were going back to sleep.
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