She shook her head. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said briskly. ‘You’re talking to a New Yorker, remember? Nothing fazes us.’ She smiled and pushed him gently towards the door. ‘Go on, Chad. By the time you get back, I’ll have the floor waxed and the windows washed and the walls painted and the furniture gleaming.’
He grinned and touched his finger to her nose. ‘Don’t forget to put the steak on.’
She smiled at him in return. ‘How about if I open a bottle of Beaujolais?’
Chad laughed and ran his finger down her nose to her mouth. It was a lightly affectionate gesture but it sent a tremor spiraling through her.
‘I only wish,’ he said. ‘Maybe I can at least find us some coffee or tea.’
‘I’m counting on it,’ she said lightly. She watched as he headed out the door and then she shook herself. ‘Get to work, Jessie,’ she muttered aloud. ‘Do something useful.’
There was a tumbled pile of old rags on one of the shelves. Carefully, using two fingers, she pulled out a piece of cloth and turned towards the table, attacking its dusty covering gingerly at first and then with a vengeance. She stood back and admired her handiwork. At least you could see the wood, she thought, which was more than you’d been able to do before.
She grimaced and swung the rag at a spider web hanging from the ceiling. The fragile structure collapsed and she whisked it away.
With increasing vigor, she moved about the cabin, dusting the lopsided chair in the corner, the stool beside the table, the cupboard against the far wall. She swung the cloth towards the narrow, wood-slat bed beside the cupboard and her hand stopped in mid-air.
A tingling sensation danced down her spine as she thought of spending the long, dark hours of the night in this little room with her cowboy.
Silly, of course, considering the way they’d been living. Except for a handful of minutes, they hadn’t been out of each other’s sight.
There was an intimacy about their living arrangements that went beyond anything she’d experienced before.
They had eaten together and slept together—a figure of speech, she reminded herself quickly. Until now, she hadn’t spent this many consecutive hours with any man, not even the one or two who had been important to her in the past. Relationships that took you from dinner to breakfast and back to dinner again had more disadvantages than benefits.
‘What is the matter with you, Jessie?’ she whispered. ‘Stop being foolish.’
The door swung open and a gust of cold air swept into the room.
‘Cabin fever already?’ Chad asked with a grin. ‘Gotta watch that, Jess. It’s a bad sign.’
She laughed self-consciously. ‘Hasn’t anybody ever told you it’s disconcerting to have somebody sneak up on you like…' She paused, staring at the stuff in his arms. 'What is all that?’
‘That, Miss Howard,’ he said, dropping an armload of cans on the table, ‘is dinner. A veritable feast, in fact.’
‘Beans?’ she asked warily, picking up one of the cans and peering at the darkened label. ‘Beans are a feast?’
Chad shrugged his shoulders. ‘They are when you consider that it’s beans or nothing.’
‘How quickly we forget, Dr. O’Bryan. You promised me trout.’
‘It’s too late. The market’s closed.’ Chad laughed at her expression. ‘I won’t have time to try my luck down at the creek, Jessie. It's gonna be beans and bannock tonight.’
‘Bannock?’
‘Yeah. I found some flour, you see, so ...’
‘So we’ll have bannock. Of course.’ She folded her arms. ‘I don’t suppose you’d mind telling me what bannock is, would you? I mean, I don’t know if you wear it or drink it or chew it.’
‘You chew it, and then you compliment the chef.’ He tossed his hat on the table. ‘Bannock is trail bread, and I make the meanest batch of it this side of the Rockies.’
Jessica eyed the cans warily. ‘But this stuff may have been here forever, Chad. Is it safe to eat?’
‘Take a look, Jess. No bulges, no holes, nothing but a little rust and dust.’ He picked up one of the cans and polished it on his sleeve. ‘It hasn’t been here more than a couple of years. Coleman’s Creek probably had a resident hermit a while back.’ He glanced at her. ‘It’s not uncommon. There was an old guy who lived in a ghost town in Colorado for almost a decade.’
‘But ... if there was a hermit in Coleman’s Creek, what happened to him?’
‘I don’t know. He might have got lost in these mountains or fallen through the ice ... Hey,’ he added quickly, seeing the sudden look of fear on her face, ‘I bet it was nothing half so dramatic. He probably just moved on.’
‘At least he left his beans behind, ’ Jessica sighed. ‘OK, beans and bannock it is. Sounds delicious. To tell the truth, I am absolutely starved.’
‘In that case,’ Chad said, reaching into his pack, ‘You’ll be happy to hear we even have dessert.’ He grinned and held up a large can with a faded, illegible label. ‘Ta da! Cherries Jubilee, ma’am. How’s that sound?’
‘Like you’ve lost your mind,’ she said, peering at the can. ‘You can’t read the label on that thing.’
‘OK,’ he said agreeably, ‘then it’s Peach Melba.’
‘Sure it is,’ she laughed. ‘Then again, maybe it’s Baked Alaska.’
‘Well,’ he said, prying open the top of the bean can with the blade of his pocket-knife, ‘whatever it is, it’s dessert.’
‘You’d better hope it’s not dog food,’ Jessica said wryly.
‘Stop looking at the dark side of things, woman. We have a roof over our heads, food for our bellies, and a stack of dry firewood in the corner. What more do we need?’’
‘Some heat,’ she said immediately. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m cold.’
Chad nodded. ‘Yeah, the sun’s going down and the snow’s getting heavier. Let me clear that hearth out a bit.’
He shrugged out of his denim jacket and squatted on his heels before the fireplace.
She watched in silence as he reached into its depths, scooping out chunks of wood and debris and tossing them to the side.
He was wearing an old red and black flannel shirt, its colors faded to soft pastels. She could see the muscles in his back moving under the clinging fabric and almost picture how they would look flexing under his skin.
More than once, she’d run her hand over shoulders and backs that were well muscled, setting male models into positions as Hans snapped away with his camera, but she’d never had the desire to rim her hand over a man’s back for the sheer, sensual pleasure of it.
That was what she wanted to do right now. She wanted to reach down and touch Chad and have him turn around and touch her...
‘Cabin fever,’ she muttered aloud. He looked at her over his shoulder. Jessica cleared her throat. ‘I said, I’ll get cabin fever unless I do something useful. Let me help with those ashes.’
She leaned past him and scooped an empty, charred can from the back of the fireplace. They worked quietly for a few minutes, clearing the hearth until finally he leaned back and nodded.
‘Good,’ he said, wiping his hands on his jeans. ‘That ought to do it.’
‘What’s next? I hope it’s dinner.’ She stood up and made a face as she looked at her hands. ‘I don’t suppose there’s running water in this place.’
Chad shook his head. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t you have any magic formula this time, Dr. O’Bryan? You know, like lake water and sand?’
He shook his head again as he rose to his feet. ‘No, I’m afraid not. You’ll just have to wipe your hands on your jeans.’
‘Your jeans, remember?’ she said, grinning at him as she rubbed her hands on the seat of her trousers.
He smiled crookedly. ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you, Jessie—you look a lot better in them than I ever did. Of course, I know they’re not the latest thing in the fashion world ...’
Suddenly, she could feel the pulse beating in her
throat.
‘I’m not the latest thing in the fashion world,’ she said quickly. Her hand went to her hair. ‘I’m probably a mess.’
His fingers closed lightly around her wrist. ‘You look beautiful,’ he said softly.
This time, he was definitely going to kiss her.
Was that what she wanted?
‘I ... I thought you were going to build a fire…'
‘I should. I mean, we need some heat. It's cold in here.' His gaze fell to her lips. 'Second lesson of survival,’ he said softly. ‘Make do with whatever’s at hand.’ He closed his arms around her. 'See? Aren’t you warmer?’
Jessica raised her hands and put them against his chest. His heartbeat was steady and sure beneath her fingers.
‘Jessie?’ he whispered.
She tilted her head back and looked up at him. His jaw and upper lip looked as if they’d been charcoal- smudged, but she knew it was because he hadn’t shaved in two days.
Suddenly, she wondered what it would be like to feel the roughness of his beard against the smoothness of her throat.
A sudden heat coursed through her body.
‘Chad?’ she whispered.
‘Yes?’ The single word was soft and husky.
‘Are you making a move on me?’
He smiled lazily. ‘I don’t know. Am I?’
She had asked the question deliberately, hoping the little touch of humor would defuse the situation, but his answer only made her think of how it would feel if he kissed her. ‘This isn’t fair,’ she whispered.
Chad nodded. ‘You’re absolutely, positively right. It isn’t.’
‘It isn’t?’ she repeated in a small voice.
He drew her closer. ‘I’m at a disadvantage here. I mean, if we’d met in Los Angeles or Dallas or even New York, at one of those places in the Village where you have to push your way through a hanging jungle of spider plants to get to the bar, I’d know how to deal with you. I’d come on to you so fast your pretty head would spin.’
An unexpected shiver of pleasure ran through her like a shock of electricity.
‘How about Canton, Ohio?’ she whispered.
Chad grinned. ‘Is that where you’re from, Jessie? I’d definitely make a move on you in Canton.’
She smiled up at him. ‘Like you did on the plane?’
‘No, that was ...’ The protest died and he nodded. ‘OK, it’s true. I didn’t kiss you for therapeutic reasons.’
‘I didn’t think so, doctor,’ she murmured. ‘And I’ve got the definite feeling this has nothing to do with keeping me warm.’
‘Right. But—hell, Jessie, I’ ‘Hell,’ he said, 'I'm sorry.'
She looked at him in surprise. ‘For what?’
‘Here you are, out in the middle of nowhere, alone with some guy who’s helped you out some ...’
‘You saved my life, Chad.’
‘That’s what I mean,’ he said, almost angrily. ‘Look, I don’t want you to do anything out of gratitude or ...’
Anger blazed in her eyes. ‘Is that what you think I'd do?’
‘Damn, I'm making a mess of this, aren’t I? What I mean is, we’re in a kind of artificial situation, Jessie, and I don’t want... I don’t... Hell, I just...’
Suddenly, it was important to tell him she understood what he was trying to tell her. Something was happening between them, had been happening almost from the moment they’d met.
She took a deep breath and raised her eyes to his.
‘Are you telling me you’re an old-fashioned gentle- man, Chad O’Bryan? That would be fine, you know, because I’m a pretty old-fashioned type myself.’
‘Yeah,’ he said with a hesitant smile, ‘that reference to Canton, Ohio gave me a shred of hope.’
Jessica laughed softly. ‘I’ve got to tell you that you wouldn’t get the chance to make any kind of move on me if we were in one of those places on Third Avenue.’ A shadowed look of hurt darkened his hazel eyes and she shook her head. ‘No, you don’t understand,’ she said quickly. ‘I don’t go to those places. She laughed at the expression on his face. ''The thing is, you can take the girl out of Ohio, but you can’t take Ohio out of the girl. .’
‘You had me going for a minute there, lady. I thought you were going to slice me to ribbons.' He caught hold of one of her dark curls. 'So you don’t bother with the hanging plants and the phony stained glass, hmm?’ ‘Well, then, where would I find you?’
‘Depends on the weather,’ she said, fighting against the desire to move so that his fingers would brush her skin. ‘If it’s raining, you might find me watching old movies at the Museum of Modern Art.’
‘Old movie? Bogart? Bacall? That sort of thing?’
Jessica nodded. ‘Exactly. I wouldn’t have thought you’d like them, though.’
He laughed softly. ‘I don’t. I’m more a science fiction man myself. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was a classic.’
That made her grin.
'And what do you do when you’re not watching gems like that?’
He grinned back at her. ‘In the city, you mean? Well, I like to go to the Museum of Natural History.’
‘You’d find me across the park in the Metropolitan.’
'So, we're both museum people—but we still haven't come up with a place where I'd have made my move on you.'
Jessie caught her bottom lip between her teeth. 'There's this one other place I love…'
'What is it?'
'You'll think I'm crazy.'
''Try me.'
"Well, it's the ferry. The Staten Island Ferry.' Chad said nothing and she felt ridiculous. A grown woman, loving to ride the ferry? 'See, I knew you'd think—'
'I ride it whenever I'm in the city.'
Her fact lit. 'Really? You're not just saying that?'
'It's the one place I can get past everything. The crowds. The buildings. You can always find a place by the railing and feel—'
'Exactly.'
A sweet sense of relief flooded through her. Thank God, she thought, although she knew such jubilation was insane. After all, what did it matter whether they had at least one thing in common?
Still, she felt a blush spread across her face.
‘So, we'd have met on the ferry. Me, snapping pictures and you—'
'And me, keeping an eye out for the occasional dolphin that wanders into the harbor.’ Chad grinned. I’d have made a move—something subtle, but definite— and you’d have said ...’
‘Depends on what you’d tried on me, Dr. O’Bryan,’ she said teasingly. His thumb drifted over her cheek and she cleared her throat. ‘For instance, if you asked me to get off on the Staten Island side and have a cup of coffee, I’d probably have said no.’
Chad lifted his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Really?’
Jessica smiled. ‘I'd have said, but I know this great little coffee house in Manhattan…'
‘Suppose I asked you out to dinner?’
‘I might have said yes,’ she said archly. ‘Then again, I might have said no;’
He sighed and shook his head. ‘It’s what I said before, Jessica Howard. You're a tough lady.’ His hand moved into her hair. An electric tremor ran through her. ‘If you said no, I’d have no choice but to resort to my final tactic.’
Her heart gave a sudden thud. ‘And what would that be?’
He smiled and moved nearer to her. ‘I’d have moved up close to you while you were taking your pictures. Like this.'
‘I’d have thought you would have been concentrating on watching for dolphins.’
His hand slid to her shoulder. ‘Well, there wouldn't have been any dolphins, so I'd have had to watch another species.'
‘Did anybody ever tell you you’ve got a pretty good big city technique, cowboy?’
‘I don’t know what you mean, Jessie,’ he said innocently. ‘I’m just trying to be helpful. I know lots about species behavior, you see ...’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’ll bet you do.’
His arms
closed around her.
She could feel the hard length of his body pressing lightly against hers, feel the heat of him burning through the layers of clothing.
She looked into his eyes and saw the sudden gleam of topaz fire. Her throat went dry; all the teasing banter was gone.
A minute ago, the thought of his kiss had seemed an exciting possibility. Now, suddenly, it was an overwhelming reality.
‘Chad,’ she whispered, wait.’
‘You don’t mean that, Jessie,’ he murmured. ‘I can see what you want in your eyes.’
She put her hands on his chest; she could feel the rapid thud of his heart and she knew it matched the racing beat of her own.
‘I don’t know what I want,’ she whispered. ‘We only just met.’
Chad’s arms tightened around her.
‘Hell, we’ve lived a lifetime since we met. People who’ve known each other for weeks don’t know each other as well as we do.’
He was right. About what she wanted, anyway.
Even when she’d told herself she despised him, there had been a spark between them just waiting to flame into passion.
It was just that everything about the past couple of days had been outside the realm of reality—and reality was what would happen when they got out of these mountains. He would go back to his world and she would go back to hers and all this would be a bitter sweet memory.
‘None of this is real,' she said. 'Do you understand? It isn't real, and I can’t—I can't—'.’
There was a long silence. She knew that if he kissed her—if he kissed her, she would give herself up to the need burning inside her…
After what seemed forever, he let go of her and stepped back.
'Dinner,' he said briskly. 'And a fire. I promised you both and I haven’t delivered on either one.'
'Thank you,' she said softly.
He smiled at her. ‘For what? You haven’t tasted my beans and bannock yet. Or my Cherries Jubilee.’
She laughed softly. ‘I thought it was Peach Melba.’
He walked to the table where he'd dumped all the canned foods.
'Cherries Jubilee, Peach Melba, it doesn't matter.’ He looked back at her and smiled. 'I promise, after a few days with me, your tastes will never be the same again.’
And Jessica thought, watching him in silence, that he was probably right.
Sandra's Classics - The Bad Boys of Romance - Boxed Set Page 10