by Cindy Gerard
He snatched the duffel, ripped it open, and shook the contents onto the cabin floor. “Now if you aren’t out of those wet clothes and into some dry ones by the time I finish building the fire, so help me, I’ll strip you myself.”
She caught herself short of taunting him to do just that as he shed his wet rain gear and turned back to the fireplace. Instead, she watched him crouch before the hearth and shove kindling from the split wood stacked beside it onto the grate.
Quietly, pridefully, she made her point. “I am a woman, Adam. As soon as you accept that and the fact that you want me as one, maybe we’ll both get a little peace of mind.”
“A woman wouldn’t have run off today.” His voice had grown dangerously soft. She thought of cool, smooth silk and sharp-edged steel. “She would have faced the problem and dealt with it. And I’ll have peace of mind, thank you very much, when I get off this godforsaken island, out of your life, and back where I belong.”
His words hurt. She knew they were designed to. She knew something else. She wasn’t the only one running away from problems. He was running scared. Scared of her. Scared of his feelings.
“And where, exactly, do you belong?”
He was silent for a very long time. “Anywhere but here.”
Swallowing back the pain, she asked softly, “Then why are you here? Why did you bother to come after me?”
His eyes were hard and cold when he faced her. “Dammit, Joanna. Hasn’t it gotten through that stubborn red head of yours that you could have died out here?”
The anguish in his voice told her what he refused to put into words. “And you would have cared,” she said, bravely holding his gaze. She stepped toward him. “You don’t like it, but you would have cared.”
Hands bracing the air between them as if to stave her off, he backed away, away from her, away from the truth of her words, and away, she knew, from his feelings.
“Yes,” he said finally, sounding as if he’d run to hell and back trying to avoid the admission. “I would have cared.”
Then he turned his back on her once more, closing the subject with as much finality as if he’d closed and locked a door.
Five
Adam concentrated on building the fire. He added tinder slowly and methodically until he was convinced he was in control again. And then he heard the rasp of her zipper going down. He laid the next log with a shaking hand. The sound of her wet clothes hitting the floor behind him brought his head up and sent his pulse racing.
For a vivid, heart-lurching second he recalled the way her slim frame had felt wedged between him and the wall. Cold and wet as she’d been, her small body had warmed his blood. And she was right, damn her. It had been a woman’s body that had made his own hard with wanting. A woman’s breast he’d caressed.
That woman was just a foot away, his for the taking. He forced himself to picture her elfin face. A woman who looked that young and innocent had surely never been with a man. Especially not a man like him. Knowing it was futile, he struggled to place her in that niche in his mind reserved for puppies and children. She was neither, though, and with each passing moment, he became far too aware of that.
What she was, he acknowledged with an acceptance knotted with longing, what he’d known from the moment he’d laid eyes on her, was everything missing in his life. And he would be everything wrong in hers.
She’d despise him for it, but the only good thing he could do for her was push her away. If he didn’t, she’d end up hating him more.
He turned abruptly to face her, relieved beyond measure to find her covered from neck to bare feet in his gray sweatshirt and sweatpants. Avoiding her huge, hurting eyes, he found a pair of his socks among the heap of clothes on the floor. He tossed them to her, then stoically set out the thermos of coffee and the food he’d snagged from her kitchen.
“Eat,” he ordered.
Turning up the wick in the lantern, he took stock of the cabin. Though fairly clean, it had seen better days and years of wear. Tattered curtains that might have once been blue stirred slightly as the wind continued to rattle the multipaned windows. Rough-cut knotty pine paneled the interior walls and peaked ceiling of the single room that served as kitchen, bedroom, and living area. A braided rag rug covered the bulk of the worn pine floor. The stone fireplace, thank God, was proving to be functional. Already it was stealing the chill from the room.
He walked to one corner and dragged a protective covering from a stack of bedding. Grimly determined, he tugged the two single mattresses in front of the fire, laid them side by side, and covered them with blankets and the sleeping bag.
Only then did he turn to her and deal with the most immediate problem. She was getting shocky, shaking so hard the coffee was about to slosh over the side of the thermos mug.
He pried the mug from her hand, led her to the bed on the floor, and eased her down. He fed the fire, then in silence stripped out of his own wet clothes and into a pair of sweats. Knowing she needed his body heat to warm her, he crawled into the bed behind her. He pulled her against him, closing his mind to the feel of her.
“Adam . . . I’m s-sorry I g-got you into this m-mess.”
“Shhh. Just . . . shhh,” he whispered, hearing the tears in her voice and the gruffness in his. “Go to sleep. We’ll deal with it in the morning.”
Trusting and trembling, she snuggled against him. In a few minutes, she fell into an exhausted sleep.
Hours passed before Adam even dared to close his eyes. Hours in which he felt her thaw and stir and shiver against his warm body. Hours of sweet agony as he lay behind her hard as stone, trying not to think of the matte velvet feel of the skin beneath his sweatshirt, the small perfect shape of her breasts, the dusky brown tightness of her nipples.
The wind rattled the windows. The woman sighed in her sleep. And Adam Dursky weathered his own private storm.
Morning dawned gray and dismal. The rain had stopped, but the wind, if anything, had worsened. It beat like an angry fist against the little cabin. When Adam parted a curtain to look outside, he could see it had whipped the lake into an even more aggressive frenzy than the night before.
The rustle of the bedcovers told him Jo was awake. Sensing that her gaze was focused on him, he turned to face her. How many days, he wondered, could he make it without touching her?
She sat up, tousled and mussed, her hair a wild curling mane about her face. She looked a little battered, a little bruised, and entirely too vulnerable. Entirely too sexy.
His stomach muscles clenched. Her stomach growled. Embarrassed, she covered it with her hand, then flinched in pain.
“Sounds like you could do with some breakfast,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
He snorted. “And I’m the tooth fairy.”
She looked away, plucking nervously at the downy sleeping bag.
“When were you planning on telling me about your hand?”
Her gaze, full of denial, snapped to his. The warning in his eyes must have made her think better of it. In the end, she shrugged. “I wasn’t.”
Watching her, he made a decision.
“About last night . . .” He paused as he sensed her preparing for another lecture. “I didn’t know if I was going to live to see today. And until I found you here, I wasn’t sure you were either. I’m sorry for the rough handling. I was way out of line. Like I said . . . chalk it up to a renegade surge of adrenaline. You scared the hell out of me.”
She blinked hard and looked away.
“But I didn’t have to be such a bastard about it.”
Hunkering down before her, he tentatively brushed her cheek with his knuckles. Heat shimmered along his fingers as he connected with her petal-soft skin. He dropped his hand quickly. “We’re not out of this yet. There’s no sign of a letup in the wind, so we may be stuck here for a while.” More gently, he added, “If we’re go
ing to make it through this without doing each other in, we’ll have to call a truce of sorts.”
She drew the sleeping bag closer to her breast. “I didn’t know we were at war.”
A muscle in his jaw flexed. He stood and looked down at her. “No war. Just a major skirmish or two.”
That finally earned him a smile. A small one. That a tomboy floundering inside his sweats could trigger such protective instincts in him no longer surprised him. That that same tomboy could have him itching to crawl back under the covers and teach her the fine points of seduction almost cost him his voice.
“Now, will you give me your hand?”
Without hesitation, she extended it. A peace offering.
With much hesitation, he took it. War fleetingly seemed the better option. Concern overshadowed hesitancy, however, when he realized the extent of the damage.
He swore softly. “Dammit, Jo, it’s broken.”
“I’ve suspected as much,” she said through clenched teeth.
Gentle as he tried to be, he sensed it took all of her will not to flinch as he prodded her palm. She’d broken the bone just below her thumb. He gave her a sharp look. “Why didn’t you say something about the pain?”
“What’s to say? It hurt. Wailing about it wasn’t going to make it better.”
She was as stubborn as the aspen that bent but refused to break to the force of the wind. She dug in her heels the same way it put down roots and somehow gained a toehold in the rock. He’d always thought of himself as rock hard, at least where giving in to emotion was concerned. Leave it to her to teach him different. “See if you can move your thumb.”
She sucked in a harsh breath. It was the only sign that she’d tried.
“That’s good. Easy. Don’t push it.” He sat back on his heels, ran his hand across his mouth, and broke into a cold sweat considering what he was about to do to her. There was no point in waiting. “Now would be a great time to lay some of your colorful vocabulary on me. I’ve got to set this and it’s going to hurt like hell.” Then he jerked her thumb hard, setting the break before either of them had any more time to think about it.
She made a surprised and anguished sound, then turned deathly pale. Tucking her head tight to her chest, she let out her breath on a slow, tortured moan.
“It’s okay. It’s okay now,” he crooned, agonizing over her pain. “It’s over. Hold on while I splint it. It’ll give you a little protection and ease some of the ache. You still with me, Red?”
She nodded jerkily.
“That’s my girl.” He squeezed her shoulder, quickly made a splint by wrapping a wood chip in gauze from the first-aid kit, and carefully bound her hand.
“You’re very good at that.”
So glad to hear her voice close to normal, he commented without thinking. “A lot of my buddies got hit in the Gulf War. Where we were, medics were in short supply. You learned fast under fire how to treat any number of—” He stopped midsentence, catching himself. His gaze met hers over their joined hands. “Let’s just say I got good at a lot of things.”
Her eyes were full of questions. To her credit, she didn’t ask one.
He tied off the gauze and inspected his work. “How does that feel?”
“Good. It feels good.”
“It feels like hell, but give it a little time and the pain will ease.” He checked the wrap. “Not too tight?”
She shook her head.
“I saw some aspirin in here somewhere,” he said, rummaging around in the first-aid kit until he found it. “Why don’t you take a couple to help knock the edge off?”
“No thanks. I’m fine.”
“You’re so fine, you’re shaking like a small leaf in a big wind. Come on, tough guy. Doc Dursky says take ’em anyway. They’ll reduce the swelling. Might even help the bruises you’re bound to have from the beating you took on the water.”
She reluctantly held out her left hand. “Thank you. I’m not used to having someone fuss over me.”
And he wasn’t used to fussing over anyone. He didn’t want to get used to it either. It felt too good. Rising, he poured a cup of cold coffee for her, then watched as she tossed down the aspirin.
“How old are you anyway?” he asked out of the blue. Immediately, he regretted it. He could see in her eyes that she was remembering another time when he’d asked her that same question. He hadn’t expected an answer then, and she hadn’t expected his kiss.
“I’m old enough,” she answered with a tight smile, “that it’ll be a cold day in hell before I’ll ever forgive you for calling me ‘little girl’ or ‘kid.’ I was twenty-six in August.”
She looked pleased that she’d shocked him. And he was pleased that her spirit was returning.
“Your twenty-six years stacked up against my forty-one still makes you a kid in my book. And that stunt you pulled yesterday reeked of a spoiled-adolescent trick.”
Blinking hard, she stared at her coffee. “It’s the only home I’ve ever known, Adam. It hurts knowing that I’m going to lose it again.”
He tried to ignore the devastation in her voice and the tightness in his chest. “Maybe it just wasn’t in the cards.”
Drawing a deep breath, she gathered herself. “Yeah. Maybe.”
Knowing he had to get away from her before he did something stupid, like drag her into his arms and love away her hurt, he shrugged into his rain gear and jerked open the door. “I’m going to check on your kayak and the boat, see if there are enough pieces left to put together something that will float.”
“Adam?”
Her soft voice stopped him. He didn’t turn around until she repeated his name, and when he did, a knot the size of Alaska seemed to have lodged in his throat.
“Thank you.”
He grunted something that he hoped passed for “Forget it” and headed out the door.
It was like a disease, Jo thought as he slammed the door behind him, this feeling that crept over her. It consumed her heart, her soul, and in the midst of a very real threat to her life, it consumed her thoughts. Its name was Adam. And it appeared to be incurable.
She rose slowly from her bed on the floor, more aware than ever of the beating she’d taken in the storm. Walking stiffly to the window, she watched Adam hunch his shoulders against the wind and make his way slowly through the woods to the shore.
He was a solid, unbendable object as he faced the wind alone. He’d made it clear last night with hard words and this morning with soft ones that there was no future for them together. Alone and hurting, she saw that now, and she saw the wisdom of his decision. He was here on borrowed time. She’d always known that, but had lost sight of the truth somewhere along the way.
Still a little shaky, she pressed her forehead against the cool windowpane. Steve’s news had been a grim reminder of the fickleness of fate. Fate had brought Adam to her. It would also take him away . . . just as it had taken away everything that had ever been important to her. Her mother, her father, Shady Point.
Well, her problems weren’t his and she wasn’t going to solve them by moping. She turned away from the window, determined to make it easier on both of them. Adam was right. As long as the wind held, they were stuck here. Even if his boat was repairable or her kayak was seaworthy, it would be foolish to venture out on the lake when it was this rough. And it was a sure bet no one else would be out on it either. Besides, it might be days before anyone would miss them. When they did, and if they put it together that they were stranded somewhere on the lake, there were miles of shoreline and dozens of islands to search. That Adam had found her was a remarkable twist of fate.
There was that word again, she thought, and thanked God he’d given her one more measure.
Feeling exhausted, she rummaged around the small cache of food he’d brought and nibbled on a cookie. Then she lay back down and fell into a fitful sleep
.
Jo awoke to the scent of fresh-brewed coffee and another trial. A fluttering excitement careened through her breast as she opened her eyes and became totally engrossed in the sight of Adam Dursky taking a bath. A sense of decency should have kept her from staring. Decency, however, had to take a backseat to fascination. She lay perfectly still, knowing he was unaware that she watched him.
Stripped to the waist, his jeans low and snug around his hips, he stood before a small mirror hung on a nail above a tin wash pan, his weight, as she was now so used to seeing it, slung on one long, powerful leg. His blond head was wet and recklessly tousled from a recent washing. A single glistening water droplet trickled from under the towel looped around his neck and tracked slowly downward between his shoulder blades. Watching with acute awareness, Jo held her breath as it drizzled down the long, smooth length of his spine and slipped beneath the waistband of his jeans.
What the pale lantern light hadn’t revealed last night, the daylight streaming through the windows did. He was every inch a male. Every smooth, muscled movement, every tightly sculpted angle, spoke of strength and assurance.
Swallowing thickly, she wondered at his strength beneath the satin sheen of his skin . . . and at the thin scar that hugged his ribs just above his waist and disappeared around the front of his torso.
She felt a rush of pure arousal, but nipping at its heels was a niggling guilt. She snapped her gaze to the mirror and his reflection. He still didn’t realize she was watching as he picked up a razor—Lord only knew where he’d found it—and started shaving.
The cords of his neck stretched taut as he scraped the blade from the hollow of his throat to the tip of his chin. After performing the same ritual on his cheeks and upper lip, he rinsed the razor and set it aside. Gripping both ends of the towel, he scrubbed away the leftover lather before tending to the telltale nicks on his face and neck.