by Cherry Adair
Just as he'd heard her greet her stepbrother for the check-in, he'd had to turn her off to take a call from his sister. Marnie had questions about their father's upcoming nuptials. Her call had then been interrupted by a call from his T-FLAC control.
He'd been only too pleased to talk business instead of wedding. As much as he loved his sister, there was only so much a man needed to know about canapes and coral-colored napkins. Still, there was a lot to be said for all the new technology that made talking on a phone, at least this phone, possible no matter where he might be. As much as he'd rather talk business, Derek scowled. He could've done without this second call from HQ.
T-FLAC, or Terrorist Force Logistical Assault Command, the anti-terrorist black ops organization he worked for, had been alerted to a possible act of terrorism in the northern section of Alaska. He was closest. Closest being relative in such a large state. There was nothing T-FLAC was aware of that would make the Iditarod, or any of its participants, a target for any known terrorist group. But they were looking into possible scenarios, and he should keep his eyes and ears open.
Yeah, he'd do that. But right now an encounter with Lily was a hell of a lot more appealing than dealing with some nebulous tango threat. Not that he wouldn't keep an eye out for anything untoward, and he sure as hell would keep his sat phone on for further updates. But unless his other life intruded, and he hoped to hell it didn't right now, he had a serious op of his own. Something a lot more personal.
Derek readjusted the ear bud and clicked over to the other channel so he could hear Lily breathing. Then he set a steady pace to a point where she would have to stumble over him to go any farther.
The problem with keeping his two lives separate was that Lily only saw him through Sean's skewed point of view. And while the playboy persona was part image, and he'd fostered that image intentionally, now it no longer suited his purposes.
Lily knew she'd traveled an hour past sensible.
Time to stop.
She'd taken the route over the huge moguls, big ruts and bare hills left in the wake of hundreds of snowmobiles and four-wheelers after their big race. No problem if you were in a vehicle. But the Iditarod teams tackling these man-made obstacles had a much tougher time of it.
She could've gone around the tracks and bare spots. But it would've added several hours to her time. Instead, she put up with the less than fabulous conditions and considered a bitten tongue and a headache well worth the miles she'd made up on the miserable, aggravating route.
She'd been traveling by moonlight, admiring the monochromatic, black-and-white landscape through gritty eyes. Time to stop and rest the dogs and herself. A few hours were all she needed to revitalize.
She had to force herself to keep her eyes open, and even then, the world looked blurry. Suddenly seeing an orange sparkle through the blackness of the trees up ahead was almost surreal.
She blinked. Still there. For a moment or two she thought the orange-red glow of a fire might be a hallucination. The dogs didn't. Seeing what she did, and probably smelling wood smoke long before she could, they suddenly got a renewed burst of energy and raced toward the glow like kids on the last day of school. Lily let them have their heads; knowing the sport as she did, they'd be welcome at the other team's fire. The closer she got, the stronger the fragrance of wood smoke and hot coffee became, and something else: a smell savory enough to make saliva pool in her mouth.
"Whoa! Hello, the fire," Lily caroled, pulling on the brake to slow down the team as they approached the campsite with noisy enthusiasm. Her arms and legs quivered from the continuous motion of the sled and the strength required to guide it.
Sleepy dogs lifted their heads from beneath their tails and yipped hello as Lily's team pulled into the shelter of the trees. A large figure, backlit by the fire, rose to greet her.
"You made good time."
Crap. Derek.
Anticipation snuffed out in a heartbeat. She was too tired for this. Lily yanked off the brake and pedaled like mad, keeping one foot on the runner and pushing with the other. "Mush! Haw! On by. Coming through."
So much for a hot cup of coffee and a few hours' rest. She felt a spurt of guilt that she'd told the dogs to stop and then immediately instructed the poor, tired animals to do exactly the opposite. But she wasn't staying. Not here. Half an hour away would be much more comfortable for everyone.
"Whoa!" Derek told her team, snagging Arrow's neckline as they tried to pass him. "Whoa!" he repeated, with no room for negotiation. The well-trained dogs stopped on a dime.
Derek walked purposefully toward her. "Nice try, Doc." One-handed, he effortlessly hefted the heavy straw bale out of the cargo bed and tossed it on the ground near his own dogs. "I've got some of Annie's beef Burgundy heating up, and hot coffee. Chow for the dogs is ready, too."
Lily smelled the rich, heavenly fragrance of food and coffee and her mouth watered. Her body still felt as though she were in motion even though she was no longer moving. Like a sailor too long at sea, feeling the ocean beneath his feet even while on land. "Let go," she said tightly.
"No." His bulky coat and black fur hat made him seem as big as a mountain and just as immovable. He gave her a penetrating look. "Don't be an idiot, Lily. You let go," he told her roughly, grabbing her arm before she could do—what? Hit him? Run? "Now." His tone was implacable.
Screw you, she thought belligerently but without much heat as she tried to shake him off. It would be a nice trick if she could let go.
Deliberately, he let his gaze roam over her face. Lily gave him a stony look in return. "What are you trying to do?" he demanded. He frowned, apparently not liking what he saw. "Kill yourself?"
"Did you ask that ridiculous question of any other musher as they came through?" Lily snapped, trying without success to release the handlebar so she could step off the runners and move out of his range. Her stiff, cold fingers were locked in place. She couldn't even use one hand to pry off the other. Much longer in this position and she'd be petrified. They'd have to bury her standing up on her sled.
Only Derek Wright would have specialty meals prepared and waiting for him at each stop. The rich, savory fragrance of Burgundy and the image of succulent, tender chunks of beef drenched in thick, dark gravy seduced her. Her stomach growled so loudly and for so long that several of the dogs turned around to look for the source of the noise. Derek swore under his breath. They were nose to nose. Far too close for Lily's comfort. His face was almost completely in shadow, yet she could clearly see the devilish sparkle in his midnight blue eyes. Her breath caught in her throat as he reached out—
For her hand. He pried her gloved fingers loose until she could release the handle. She sighed with pleasure. Liberated, and feeling strangely as though she'd escaped some unseen peril, Lily flexed stiff fingers and stumbled off the back of the sled. Derek or no Derek, it felt good to move.
"Go eat. I'll take ca—"
She mustered up a glare. "And have me disqualified? I don't think so."
"Fine. Take care of your dogs. But at least save time and use the food I heated up. There's plenty."
Stupid to refuse. And frankly, she wasn't sure she could wait long enough to heat anything up for herself. She might just start gnawing on whatever first came to hand. "Fine. I'll feed the kids and be right there."
She started removing the dogs' food and a large pot.
Derek took both items out of her hands. Lily didn't put up a fight. Just watched him through glassy eyes as he stashed the food and pot back under the sled bag in the cargo bed.
"I'll trade you," he said quietly, his features hard to read. "There's food ready for them. Just feed the dogs so you can feed yourself."
"But—"
"Do it before you collapse face-first in the damn snow, for God's sake."
"Thanks." Numb with fatigue as she was, Lily went down the line and fed and watered the dogs, feeling the heat of Derek's gaze on her back as she performed the tasks by rote.
Done, sh
e examined the animals' legs and feet for injury, then bedded down the dogs on the straw Derek had spread.
By which time she could barely put one foot in front of the other. The first day on the trail always seemed to last forever. Once she got a momentum going it wouldn't be quite so bad. Or so she assured herself at this point every year.
"Why do I always forget how bad the first day is?"
He laughed shortly. "Probably a lot like childbirth. My sister insisted the only reason she had more than one child was because she'd forgotten how hard the delivery was. After five my mother probably felt the same way."
Lily glanced at him. He looked a little less ferocious now that he'd gotten his own way. "Difficult to imagine you as a child. Or having a mother."
His mouth quirked. "What? You figure I dropped full-grown out of the sky?"
She gave him a half smile. "I was thinking more like slithering out from under a rock."
"Not up to your usual pithy standards, Doc. You usually do better than that in cutting me down to size."
"It's the best I can do when I'm this tired. Tomorrow is another day."
He laughed, his teeth white against the darkness of his face. "Poor baby. Get some sleep and a better perspective."
His low, deep seductor's voice sent shivers up and down her spine. Annoyed with herself, she wandered over to the fire to warm her hands. Derek sat off to one side drinking a steaming cup of coffee as he watched her. Minutes ticked past. The teasing done, quiet reigned. His silence unnerved her. A world of words hung almost visibly between them in the darkness. Each razor-sharp accusation suspended in the frigid darkness like laundry on a line. As merciless and cruel as the icicles bowing the branches around them.
She wanted to trust him. She really did. But she'd been so badly burned by Sean and his lies that it was hard for her to give a man so similar the benefit of the doubt. And while it might be unfair to tar Derek with Sean's brush, she didn't know how to change it.
There was no reason for her to presume that Derek wasn't the head honcho in the illegal sperm sales. God only knew, he was smart enough…
Derek had spread his wide sleeping bag on a bed of branches. Lily tried not to be jealous. She was tired enough to beg him to share. A thought that wouldn't have crossed her mind unless she was desperate. Still the idea sent a welcoming heat through her so it served a purpose in some convoluted way. She'd been relatively warm while she'd been on the sled, but her body temperature was lowering the longer she stood around.
She tried to figure out how to get from upright to flat with a small amount of dignity. Her sleeping bag was way over there, strapped to the sled. All she had to do was put one foot in front—
"Snap to it before you keel over, sweetheart," Derek said grimly, not moving from his position.
Right. She really, really needed to do that.
Lily looked at him through eyes glazed with exhaustion, then stumbled away from the meager heat of the fire and unstrapped her sleeping bag from the sled. She glanced around for a decent spot to lay it, out of the path of any other mushers coming through. If she didn't do this before she ate she might very well be tired enough to lie down in the snow for her nap.
"Over here."
She suddenly noticed the second bed of branches beside him. No freaking way. Even exhaustion had its limits. "I don't think so."
"Me or the snow."
"Snow's safer."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"That's too close to you," Lily told him. "Way too close."
"I won't bite," he said, his eyes on her mouth. "At least not very hard."
Lily's heart did that weird flip-flop in her chest. Ridiculous. "I'm presuming," she said as coolly as she could manage while swaying on her feet, "that you're practicing your seduction skills on me because there isn't another female humanoid around for a couple of hundred miles. News flash, Romeo: you're wasting your breath. I've been vaccinated. I'm immune, remember?"
"Are you now?" he asked, his voice silky. He rose and went to the fire, where he poured a mug of steaming, fragrant coffee. He came back to her, his large, booted feet crunching in the snow, and handed her the cup. "Sit down and drink this."
"I don't want—" She met him glare for glare, then shook her head. Why was she arguing? He held the elixir of the gods in his hand, and her legs were about ready to collapse anyway. She sat down on his sleeping bag and reached for the mug, careful not to touch his hand as she did so. And ignored the little thrill of excitement in her tummy as his fingers brushed hers anyway. Not excitement, she assured herself. Annoyance.
"If you're immune, you're okay to take coffee from the enemy."
"You're not the enemy…" Exactly. She took a scalding sip of coffee.
"That's my girl," he said with approval as she took another sip. "Sometime when you're not falling over exhausted, you'll have to elaborate on that one for me."
She bit her tongue. "I'm not anybody's girl." The heat of the mug warmed her hands even through her gloves. "You're flogging a dead horse. Again."
"Drink it," he instructed harshly, standing over her, the light of the fire flickering on his face. "Because you're a widow?"
"Because I—I loved my husband, and he's only been dead six months." She took several more sips of the hot liquid and it burned all the way down her esophagus. Oh yeah. Just the way she liked it. Then Derek spoke again and ruined a perfectly good coffee rush.
"Sean was sick for years before he died. You didn't have a husband. You had a patient."
She stared up at him, appalled by his callousness. "That's a terrible thing to say." True, but callous.
"It's the truth and we both know it. It was a terrible thing for you to go through."
"Not me. Sean."
"He's the one that got all the attention and sympathy. What about you?"
"I wasn't the one dying."
He gave her an enigmatic look. "Weren't you?"
"My God, Derek. That's low. Even for you."
"You're still alive, Lily. When are you going to take something for yourself?"
"I have everything I need. I'm perfectly fine, thank you very much."
"You're going to be a hell of a lot… finer, believe me."
Her heart started pounding erratically in her chest and her mouth went arid. She licked dry lips as she stared up at him. "What does that mean?"
"Think about it," he said softly, his eyes focused on her mouth. "And while you do, let's get you settled for the night before you fall asleep sitting right there." In seconds he'd spread her bag and unzipped it. "Get your boots off and climb in. Unless you want to share mine with me. We'd both be a lot warme—" He gave a short bark of laughter. "Jesus, if looks could kill I'd be a smoking ember right about now. Okay, move onto your own sleeping bag then. Now, where are your dry socks?" His eyes tracked her features and he shook his head. "Never mind, I'll find them."
He strode over to her sled and rummaged around for her duffel bag. He didn't look up from what he was doing, and she stared at his broad back with glassy vision as he pawed through her personal items. "Outside left pocket," she told him, feeling cranky and out of sorts and… itchy, for God's sake. The man would drive a saint to drink.
Lily shifted over the two feet separating the two sleeping bags, and started unlacing her boots. She put up a hand to take the ball of socks from him.
He shook his head and crouched down beside her. "If I were so tired I braided my shoelaces, wouldn't you help me?"
Lily glanced at her gloved hands on her left boot. Instead of untying the laces, she'd twisted them into a rope. She was loopy with exhaustion.
He tucked the clean socks inside his jacket. "Lie down," he said briskly, shoved her useless hands away and untied the laces of her heavy boots himself.
No way was she going to lie do—He solved that little problem by yanking her leg up to remove the boot. Lily fell backward onto the soft, insulated bag. It felt incredibly wonderful to be flat. She closed her eyes and stayed where sh
e was. In a second or two or three, she'd protest that he was removing her shoes as if she were a sleepy two-year-old. Soon. Very soon, she'd tell him just what she thought of his caveman tactics. In fact, any minute now, she'd fry him with a scathing comment.
The second he removed her boot, cold air took a searing bite at her clammy foot, making her jerk back her leg. Derek pulled off the sock and wrapped his warm, bare hands around her foot to keep it in place on his rock-hard thigh. For several seconds he massaged her icy toes until warmth seeped back into them. She wasn't sure which felt better—the heat or the foot rub. And for one glorious minute, she forgot all about killing him. He removed one of her socks from beneath his jacket and tugged the warm wool up her foot.
He touched the small knife she had tucked into a pocket inside her boot. "You think there'll be time to whittle out here, or are you planning on using this on me?"
"You never know." At the moment she couldn't imagine moving, let alone whittling anything. As for carving a slice out of him, she'd need a bit of energy first.
"I've never seen a woman who hates to sit still as much as you do."
"Hey, check me out now. I can't seem to take off my own damn shoes."
"I kinda like having you malleable and acquiescent under my hands."
Lily closed her eyes as he removed her other boot. "Opportunist. I'm as limp as a dish rag with exhaustion."
She was confounded by his gentleness and care. Nobody had taken care of her since her mom had died when she was eight. Her father had always been busy with his veterinary practice. And he'd reminded her enough times that she was a big girl and didn't need babying. He'd been right. She was quite capable even then of preparing her own meals, bandaging her own cuts and scrapes and making her own dentist appointments. She'd even called the local volunteer fire department for help when Cinnamon had thrown her and she'd broken her arm.