She was out of breath when she made her way back to Luke. “Oh, no, you don’t!” she cried when she saw that he’d leaned against the table, his head cradled against his arm. “No sleeping!” she literally yelled.
Luke lifted his head and eyed her suspiciously. “Your name is Dana,” he stated as if it were breaking news.
“Yes.” She walked over and placed her hands against his shoulders, taking a steadying breath. “And I need to check the wound on your head.”
His body went perfectly still. “Go ahead,” he finally answered.
Dana felt his deep voice resonate through his body, pass through his shoulders and into her hands. She pulled her hands away and rubbed them over her heated face. This was awkward, intimately touching someone she barely knew. That was all. It had nothing to do with the sexual tension that arced between them.
What a lie.
Luke sat forward and started to remove his jacket, his motions awkward and stiff.
Dana placed her hand against the leather, stilling him. “You don’t have to—” Just as she spoke the words, crusted snow fell from the collar of his jacket and landed at her feet. “Oh,” she whispered, “okay, then. Go ahead.”
He pulled his arms free of the jacket and threw it against the floor as if it were the enemy. Dana touched the thermal shirt he wore and realized it was soaking wet. Skin-warmed fabric and snow didn’t mix. Had he been knocked unconscious from the blow? He either had tumbled hard enough to accumulate the snow or had lain in it until it adhered to his shirt.
She frowned. “We’ve got to get you out of this.” She turned to go in search of a dry shirt when she heard him moan. Looking back, she saw that he’d gotten the shirt halfway over his chest and had stopped, obviously in pain. She walked back, suddenly unsure of herself. When he didn’t make another move to finish the job, she grabbed a handful of the wet fabric and tugged upward, eliciting a new moan from Luke. “I’m sorry,” she apologized, biting her lip, then finished pulling the shirt over his head.
“Oh, my God…” she whispered.
Chapter 7
Dana’s gaze fell to an angry bruise that covered Luke’s right shoulder. Despite the wound, his body was beautiful, as she’d instinctively known it would be. His shoulders were wide and tanned, the flat planes of his chest muscular, covered with a light spattering of brown curls. Without thinking, she gently touched the bruise, running her fingers over the inflamed patch of purple that covered part of his bicep and chest. His skin was warm and soft, and Dana’s fingers lingered over the wound.
Luke shivered and Dana instantly withdrew her hand, meeting his eyes. Something passed between them, something more than concern, or necessity or survival.
“What happened?” she whispered.
A sideways grin hid the expression of desire that was there moments before. “You hit me.”
What? Was he talking out of his head again? He certainly seemed lucid, at least for the moment. Dana shook her head. “No. You’re confused.”
Luke’s eyebrows lifted. “Boot scraper.” He examined the bruise, then rotated his shoulder.
Oh, no. Dana’s gaze fell to the dark-purple bruise. The boot scraper. She’d tried to hit her attacker… Only Luke hadn’t attacked her. He’d saved her life.
“Oh, my God, I’m sorry.” She clapped her hand over her cheeks. “You should have said something. I could have checked it…”
“You can’t treat a bruise.” His eyes met hers for a moment, and Dana literally watched the moment of clarity shift, saw Luke swept back into a world of confusion.
“Luke?” She practically yelled his name, frantic to keep him with her.
Dana squeezed her eyes shut, trying to recall her last emergency training course. A blow to the head… She couldn’t remember much, but she did recall that she was supposed to keep the victim awake. For how long? she asked herself. The term eight hours stuck in her head.
Dana watched as Luke glanced around the room, focused on her and frowned as if he had no idea who she was. He leaned his bare chest against the table and laid his head against his arms. Just then a frantic cry echoed through the cabin. The baby. She looked down at the near-helpless form of Luke, at six feet four inches of heavily muscled man. Short of cloning herself, the best she could do would be to situate her two charges in the same room.
When Dana saw Luke’s eyes flutter shut, she leaped into action, grabbing him by his uninjured shoulder and hauling him upright. She bent her knees and draped his arm over her shoulders, trying to ignore the sensation of muscled flesh sliding against the sensitive skin of her neck, the scent of Luke’s warm skin.
“Come with me,” she commanded. When Luke didn’t budge, she added, “The baby needs us.”
He stood abruptly, toppling the heavy wooden chair to the floor and nearly toppling her in the process. Sam retreated from the sudden chaos and made himself at home on a nearby sofa as though he knew his master was being taken care of. Luke, however, appeared to have a new mission and followed the baby’s cries at a staggering speed.
Staggering being the operative word.
To both their credit, they made it to the bedroom in a flash. Before she knew what was happening, Luke knelt down and lifted the baby from the makeshift crib. Dana’s breath caught in her throat, but he seemed suddenly lucid as he walked the few feet back to the bed and lowered himself against the mattress. To her relief, he held the infant with steady hands and placed him against his bare chest. She watched in fascination as the baby snuggled against Luke’s warm skin, curious fingers tangling in the curls of chest hair.
“There you go, little man,” he whispered so softly that she wondered if she’d heard the soothing words correctly. Luke scooted gently against the mattress until his back rested firmly against the headboard.
Dana openly stared at the scene before her. The stoic veil she’d wrapped around herself during the past year and a half slipped, and raw emotion hit her like a fist. How many times had she imagined just such a scene? A father comforting a child while she, the mother, looked on… Only she wasn’t a mother. And the pastoral scene before her simply wasn’t.
“I—I’ll be right back.”
She shook off the onslaught of emotions and bolted from the bedroom in search of something to tend the wound. Her feet flew across the cabin floor as she made her way to the kitchen. Luke seemed steady enough holding the baby, but she couldn’t take anything for granted. She’d seen him slip in and out of conscious awareness several times already.
Dana found a clean dishcloth in a kitchen drawer and rummaged through the cabinets until she located an old porcelain bowl. She tossed the dishcloth inside the bowl and filled it with cold water from the tap.
After making her way back to the bedroom, she found that Luke had leaned his cheek against the headboard of the bed and closed his eyes. Luckily his grip on the baby had remained strong. She eased the now-sleeping infant from his arms and gently laid him back in the makeshift bassinet with a whispered promise to return soon. By her calculations, it was past time for the baby to have another bottle. The reprieve couldn’t last much longer. She only hoped that the hunger pangs wouldn’t wake him before she’d tended to Luke.
Returning her attention to Luke, she gently touched his shoulder. “I need to check the wound on your head,” she said in her most commanding voice. “Are you awake?”
“Unfortunately,” he mumbled.
Dana switched on the bedside lamp and sat down on the edge of the mattress. Hesitantly she lifted his hair, gently moving the dark strands aside in search of the wound. She didn’t have to search long. An angry gash at the base of his skull was crusted with dried blood, impossibly matting Luke’s hair around it.
“I’m afraid this might hurt a bit,” she apologized in advance.
“And I was afraid you were going to say that,” he replied, his voice laced with sleepiness.
The dried blood loosened little by little as she dabbed the damp cloth over the wound. Dana rinsed t
he cloth in the bowl and watched with horror as the water began to turn a murky blood red. How long had he staggered in the cold and how had he managed to find his way back to her and the baby? When Luke didn’t stir, let alone flinch, a tremor of fear trailed up her spine.
“Luke?” she whispered. He didn’t answer. She sat the bowl on the bed stand. “Are you okay?”
Luke shifted positions, sitting upright and turning his head so that Dana could have better access to the wound. He rested his hand absently against her thigh. “I’m okay,” he finally whispered.
Dana shivered. The man had a voice like dark silk, even when it was laced with sarcasm or barking orders. And right now he was doing neither. Right now his words were lazily Southern, whispered and seductive. For a split second she wondered what it would be like to really have Luke Sutherlin whisper to her in bed. She started to brush his hand away but hesitated. In his state of mind he probably wasn’t even aware that he was touching her, and to call attention to it would just make things more awkward.
“Are you finished?” he asked.
“No. I still need to clean—”
Dana froze when his thumb began tracing lazy circles against her thigh, the soft fleece that separated his fingertips from her flesh only enhancing the sensation. A rush of unexpected longing vibrated through her.
“Luke…” she said in protest, but her tone said something else.
Luke turned to look at her, and his gaze held such intense desire that she froze. Without warning, he threaded his hand through the back of her hair and pulled her mouth against his. His lips were hard, hungry with a desire she’d never felt before. He didn’t wait for permission, his tongue delving deep to find the sweetest response from her.
And she did respond. In the back of her mind she knew it was ludicrous, knew intimacy and desperation had mixed to form some fleeting cocktail of desire. Still, she kissed him back. The sensations poured over her like water from a fountain. She was frightened yet secure, aroused beyond belief. Most of all she felt needed. And for the first time in a long, long time, Dana felt like a woman. Reveling in the sensations of the moment, she met the thrusts of his tongue with her own, her hands sliding over his bare shoulders.
He responded by pulling her against him. Dana reached to steady herself, her palms flattening against the warm, silky flesh of his chest. He was living muscle beneath her hands. Firm, warm and alive. Her mind reasoned with her traitorous body, told her to pull away. But she couldn’t.
Luke made a throaty moan of pleasure and slid his hand beneath her shirt, sliding one breast from the cup of her bra. She gasped as he rubbed his knuckles against her hardened nipple.
Something inside Dana stilled at the intimacy of Luke’s hand against her breast. Heady desire and encroaching reality battled within her. In the past year and a half she’d been abandoned by her husband and betrayed by her own body. Infertility treatment had stripped her of her identity as a woman, and her ex-husband had stripped her of her self-worth. No man, no matter how seductive his touch, could ever restore what had been forever lost to her.
Luke stilled. Had he sensed her hesitation? He drew away slowly, looking as puzzled and confused as she felt. In the next instant he leaned across her and switched off the lamp. The waning daylight left little light in the bedroom, and Dana felt the scrutiny of his gaze in the near darkness.
“No light,” he whispered.
“Luke—” she started to protest.
He shook his head, glancing over his shoulder at the window. “It’s getting dark outside. The light is too risky.”
He was giving her an out, a way to end what he’d begun. “I’m sorry.” Dana felt the sudden urge to cry, the apology having little to do with the light.
“Don’t be,” he whispered, tracing the outline of her cheek with his fingertips.
“We—I should bandage the cut,” she commented, her voice shaky.
Dana stood, smoothing her hands against the fabric of her shirt, and did her best to control her pounding heart. She needed to keep her wits about her and concentrate on Luke’s injury. She began rummaging through the bureau drawers, eventually finding a second thermal shirt and an old pillowcase that was a likely candidate for a bandage.
She wadded the shirt in her fist as she looked over her shoulder at Luke, recalling the way her fingers had trailed over the warm flesh of his chest. The shirt was a really good idea. For her sanity as well as Luke’s body temperature.
Dana shook the shirt open and eyed it with doubt. It looked suspiciously small, even though the fibers would give. Dana tugged on the binding of the neck, stretching the fabric so that it would slide over Luke’s head without grating against the wound.
“We need to get this on,” she said as she returned, her voice shaky. “Are you ready?”
“I’m ready when you are.” The words slid over her like heavy cream, and Dana felt her face flush with heat.
One look into Luke’s eyes told her he’d hit the intended mark. Her. She tossed the shirt in his direction and turned her back as he worked it on. Dana took her frustrations out on the pillowcase, tearing half of it into strips. She folded the remaining half of the fabric into a thick square and turned to face Luke.
The shirt didn’t do much to conceal the wide contours of his chest. On the contrary, it hugged his muscles and curled over his shoulders like a second skin. Dana swallowed and met his eyes. “Let’s get the wound bandaged.”
Before I forget what I’m trying to do.
She pressed the folded square of fabric over the sensitive wound, careful not to touch Luke unnecessarily, and tied the ends around his head. A nervous laugh escaped her when she looked at him.
“What?” he asked.
“You look—” she grinned “—less imposing.”
“I feel less imposing,” he added with a grimace.
Dana noticed that his arms trembled slightly as he adjusted himself to lean against the headboard. Frankly, she felt a little shaky, too. But she wasn’t vain enough to think that she’d affected Luke as deeply as his kiss had affected her.
Would Luke even remember the incident in the morning? She took in the drawn expression on his face, noticed dark shadows beneath his eyes. Even in the waning daylight he looked pale. He wasn’t the delirious comedian she’d found wandering in the snow but he wasn’t entirely lucid, either.
It struck her then that he was probably starved. Was it okay to give someone in his condition food? That portion of the first-aid lesson was totally lost on her, but she decided that he needed to keep his strength up. Dana made her way to the kitchen and opened a second dusty can of pears, placing a beat-up old fork in it. Making the best use of her time, she prepared the baby a bottle and carried both back to the bedroom.
Luke wasted no time drinking the liquid from the pears, then used the fork to polish off the rest of the food. As if on cue the baby began to fret, glancing frantically from side to side. Dana went to him immediately, kneeling beside the bureau drawer that was serving as his bassinet. He punched at the air with one chubby fist then presented her with a gummy smile. Dana felt her heart twist, felt the imaginary barriers she’d constructed between this child and her heart tumble down around her.
“He recognizes you,” Luke commented.
Dana glanced over her shoulder at Luke, surprised by the lucid observation. “He just recognizes me as the food lady,” she replied. But the smile never left her face.
Dana felt Luke’s gaze follow her as she changed the baby’s diaper and sat cross-legged on the foot of the bed, preparing to give him the bottle.
“You need to feed the…” Luke’s sentence trailed off as if he couldn’t remember what he was about to say.
Dana smiled. “I have the bottle.”
“No,” he argued, shaking his head. “Not the baby. I need you to feed the…Sam.”
“Oh, the dog.” Dana substituted the word he’d been searching for.
Guilt washed over her. With all she’d faced, Sam had
n’t entered her thoughts. She wasn’t sure what she’d find in the cabinet to feed him but she’d definitely find something. If not for the overzealous Labrador, Luke might have frozen to death within sight of the cabin. The realization caused a fresh wave of fear. She stole a sideways glance at Luke, who looked perturbed by the blank spaces in his vocabulary. He was obviously still shaken by the blow.
The baby hungrily consumed the bottle, his eyelids drooping by the time the last of the formula was gone. Dana was surprised that he would drift back to sleep so soon. She frowned, adding that to her growing list of worries. It wasn’t supposed to be that easy, was it? Was he getting enough nutrition? The only experience she had was from reading baby-care books. An old sadness settled in her chest as she remembered how excited she’d been at first when trying to conceive. She’d bought volume after volume of how-to books and read most of them before hope faded into disappointment.
The baby gave a healthy burp when she shifted him to her shoulder, and Dana couldn’t help but grin. Despite her concern, he was lively and alert when awake and his cheeks literally glowed with color. She sighed. Hopefully he was merely coping with the stress he’d endured during the accident by getting additional sleep.
Yawning herself, Dana settled the contented baby back into the dresser drawer. She glanced at Luke, who was again watching her every move. Being the focus of his gaze was unnerving, especially since the kiss, so she adjusted the space heater, which didn’t need adjusting, locked the bedroom door and focused on the baby, the floor, her feet. Anything but Luke. She doubted her actions were that fascinating, there was simply nothing else for him to do. Finally, when she’d endured all she could stand, she hightailed it down the hall to the kitchen in search of something for Sam.
The hungry dog greeted her with enthusiasm. She rinsed and filled an old mop bucket with water, then perused the dwindling canned goods in the cabinet, finally choosing a can of salmon. Though she and Luke desperately needed the nutrition themselves, Dana decided the unappetizing fish, coupled with an impending expiration date, made it her best choice for the dog.
In The Arms of a Stranger Page 8