Dangerously Charming

by Deborah Blake

  The woman nodded, spattering rainwater over the polished wood floor. “I was doing okay, but then a couple of miles back I slipped on some wet leaves and twisted my ankle. It’s swelling up pretty nicely, or I would have kept going. I’m sorry to bother you. I’ll wrap it in something and warm up a little, and then I’ll be on my way again.”

  Right. Day might not be charming anymore, but even he wasn’t going to send a woman out into the pouring rain as night fell. For one thing, he rather liked the bears that lived in the neighborhood, and he’d prefer not to give them a temptation they might regret later.

  “We’ll see” was all he said, tossing her the towels and letting her use them to dry her long hair and the worst of the wetness on her clothes. Finally he relented and fetched a pair of loose linen pants with a drawstring waist and a long-sleeved cotton shirt—both of them a dark green, not white. Never white. Not anymore.

  “You’re dripping all over my floors,” he said briskly. “Put these on and we’ll dry yours by the fire. It won’t take long.”

  She hesitated for a minute then took the clothing, waiting for him to turn his back before dropping what she was wearing to the ground with a sodden plop.

  Day’s mouth quirked up when he turned around again. She was slim and tall for a Human woman, probably five nine or so. But he was six three, with broad shoulders and long arms; his clothing made her look like an adorable, slightly damp child.

  No, not adorable. Just silly. At least that’s what he told himself. Either way, it was hard not to laugh. Fortunately, his unwelcome guest clearly had a good sense of humor, and grinned back at him as if she could tell how ridiculous she looked.

  “I have clothes in my bag,” she said. “Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure they’re almost as wet as the ones I was wearing. So thanks for lending me these.”

  “Better that than to have you ruin my floors,” he said. “Do you want to tell me what you’re doing up here in the middle of the woods?” He gazed at her milky white skin, dark hair, and wide eyes. “If you’re looking for the seven dwarfs, they live in the next forest over.”

  “Thanks, but I prefer my men on the tall side.” She looked up at him, as if reconsidering her words. “And, you know, friendly.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “I know,” she said brightly. “Got any tea?”

  Day rolled his eyes but put the kettle on top of the stove anyway. “How about a name?”

  “Sure,” the woman said. “Steve.”

  Day glared at her, his blond brows drawn together. “Very funny,” he said. “I meant, what is your name? Or should I just call you Snow White?”

  The woman’s teeth chattered together, and she moved closer to the fire. “I’ll tell you what: if you give me that cup of tea, you can call me anything you want.”

  Day poured the hot water into a pot filled with tea leaves and let them steep for a few minutes before letting the dark, aromatic liquid slide into a mug. Then he held it up in the air, just a tantalizing couple of inches out of reach.

  “Jenna,” she said. “Jenna Quinlan. And you?”

  He handed her the mug, smirking a little. “Mikhail Day. Nice to meet you, Jenna Quinlan.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, not believing it. “Did you say Michael?”

  “Sure,” Mikhail said. New life, new name. Why not? “Michael Day. You can call me Mick.”

  As Jenna sat drinking her tea, her chair pulled as close to the fire as she could get without actually being inside it, Mikhail rooted around in one of the kitchen cabinets to find his first aid kit. What with one thing and another, he and the other Riders tended to get a bit banged up as they traveled around assisting the Baba Yagas. Banged up, blown up, and occasionally stabbed just a little. Especially huge Alexei, who liked fighting and drinking almost as much as Mikhail liked women (and fighting) and Gregori liked philosophy (and fighting).

  He suppressed a sigh as he pulled out the supplies he’d need to wrap Jenna’s ankle. Even with their supernaturally fast healing, they’d often had to resort to the bandages and salves that Barbara, the herbalist among the Baba Yagas, had supplied them with. Now that he wasn’t immortal, Day had no idea if his powers of rapid healing remained or not. But it probably didn’t matter, since the Riders were Riders no more and the Baba Yagas would have to manage without them from now on.

  Jenna’s eyes widened at his muttered cursing. “Is it that bad?” she asked.

  Mikhail shook his head. “Sorry, no, I was thinking of something else.” He turned his attention to the slim ankle and shapely foot he held in his hands. Other than the obvious swelling and redness, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with her ankle. Or the rest of her, not that he was looking.

  “It doesn’t seem to be broken,” he said. “Just a bad sprain. I’ll wrap it for you; that ought to help. But you’re not going to be able to put much weight on it for the next couple of days.”

  Her porcelain complexion turned even paler at his pronouncement. But she sat up straight in the wooden chair, her chin raised defiantly. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “I’m tougher than I look.”

  That might be, Mikhail thought, as he glanced from her duffel bag to her mud-caked sneakers to her lightweight jacket, all dripping wetly onto his floors. But you’re sure not equipped for a long hike through the woods. Who or what are you running away from?

  Then he reminded himself sharply that such things weren’t his business anymore. Hopefully, she was as tough as she said, since she was going to get no help from him beyond a bandage and a place to warm up for a night. He was out of the rescuing business for good. Truth was, the way things ended up when he tried to help, she’d probably be better off with the bears.

  * * *

  JENNA tried not to wince as Mick wound the bandage tightly around her injured ankle. His large hands were gentle but professional, his expression grim and his eyes shuttered as he focused on his task. He clearly knew what he was doing, but just as obviously would rather not be tending to her at all. She didn’t know whether to be embarrassed, indignant, or alarmed, so she vacillated among all three.

  With his attention turned elsewhere, she had a minute to take a good look at her reluctant host. When she’d stumbled in from the storm, all she’d taken in was a general impression of intimidating size and blond hair. Now that she had time to absorb more details, she discovered that the hair was long and straight, hanging loose past his shoulders like a fall of liquid sunlight. His eyes, what she could see of them, were the blue of a crystalline lake, with slightly bushy eyebrows above. His position, kneeling at her feet, made his shoulders look even broader than she’d thought at first glance, and strong, muscular forearms dusted with light hairs were revealed by the rolled-up sleeves of his simple blue cotton shirt.

  In truth, Jenna thought Michael Day was the handsomest man she’d ever seen. Too bad he was also the rudest.

  Still, she reminded her rapidly beating heart, she wasn’t exactly in the market for a guy anyway. Not only had she just gotten out of a relationship, but she was on the run from a faery curse. And twelve weeks pregnant, of course. That would probably have kept her from being interested even if it weren’t for the other issues and Mick’s clear lack of any social graces whatsoever.

  Whatever. She wasn’t sure if he was shy or just a woman-hater, but he had a dry roof over his head, and hopefully some food, since she hadn’t eaten since the questionable diner breakfast she’d bolted down—and barely held on to—that morning. If it had been just her, she might have kept going, ankle or no ankle, but she had someone else depending on her now. She’d just have to hope he was simply a grumpy hermit and not an axe murderer. She had Mace in her bag and had been taking kickboxing for years, but somehow she didn’t think this guy would be stopped by anything short of a grenade.

  Part of her wished she could just hobble back to her car and keep going within
its familiar confines. The realistic part knew that even if she had money for a new transmission, which she didn’t, and even if it made sense to put one in a car that was worth at best five hundred dollars if you included the duct tape, she didn’t dare run the risk of attracting attention by calling in a tow truck and a mechanic. Or have the time to waste while she waited for them to dig up parts for a car that hadn’t been made in over a decade.

  No, her only option now was to hunker down with her reluctant host until the rain stopped and she could put enough weight on the twisted ankle to go find her cousin’s cabin. If she couldn’t run, she’d limp as fast as she could. Jenna put one hand protectively over her stomach. She might not have gotten pregnant intentionally, knowing as she did what it would mean if such a thing happened. But now that it had, she wanted to keep this child safe more than anything in the world. Whatever it took, no one was getting her baby.

  CHAPTER 2

  DAY wasn’t really asleep—not with some strange woman in his cabin, invading his hard-won solitary space. Mostly he was just lying in bed trying not to remember, when a small whimper from the couch below brought everything slamming back with the power of a runaway freight train, carrying him along helplessly into a dark tunnel of despair.

  The tiny sound faded away without being followed by another; probably the woman having a bad dream about whatever it was that had set her on the run. But it was too late for Day. That small noise brought back echoes of others, and they brought along smells and sights and feelings he’d spent many long months trying to leave behind him.

  He knew that was never going to happen.

  Even now, the flashback grew in strength until cave walls seemed to form around him, replacing warm and sturdy wood with dank and dripping rock, redolent with the odor of pain and fear and the acrid, caustic mix that had churned and bubbled in Brenna’s iron cauldron.

  The smell had been horrific, worming its way into his nostrils so that he’d still been catching stray whiffs long after they’d finally escaped from the cave where he and his brother Riders had been held captive. The stink of their own filth had been the worst of all, coated as it was with the copper tang of blood, shed and re-shed for the monstrous potion the former Baba Yaga had labored over at such a great cost to him and his friends, all in an effort to attain an impossible eternal life.

  But the sound of Jenna’s whimper had mostly triggered his memories of lying in the muck, hopeless and helpless as he listened to Gregori and Alexei try to suppress their moans of pain. Pain that he had caused. Pain that none of them would ever be able to forget, no matter how much their bodies healed outwardly. He’d only ever had a fraction of what most people would consider to be a family—his brother Riders, and the Baba Yagas. And he’d let them all down.

  Shudders racked his body as the memories poured over him once again, a tsunami against which there was no way to swim to safety. Safety was an illusion, as much as the cave walls that seemed to surround him. When the torture continued in your own mind, there was no place to run, no place to hide. All he could do was endure, and wait for the blessed light of morning.

  * * *

  WHEN Jenna woke up early the next morning, it took a minute before she could figure out where she was. Rain still streamed down the windows and intermittent lightning flashes through a skylight overhead showed her the shadowy insides of a peaceful cabin, silent other than the rumbling of thunder outside and an almost musical snoring coming from the bed up in the loft.

  The couch she was lying on was reasonably comfortable and the soft woven blanket covering her was warm, but the pressure on her bladder was too strong to allow her to lie there and enjoy them. She swung her legs over and put her feet on the floor, but when she went to stand up, her ankle wouldn’t hold her weight and she fell face-first onto the braided throw rug with a thud and a muffled “Shit.”

  Two large bare feet appeared in front of her nose. “Problem?” an amused bass voice asked.

  “Not at all,” Jenna said to the rug. “I was just communing with the floor. It’s a spiritual thing. I try and do it every morning.”

  “Uh-huh.” Mick scooped her up as if she weighed about as much as the blanket. “I assume you have to use the outhouse?” He started walking toward the door before she could protest, not that she really had a lot of choice. For one thing, the guy was huge. For another, she really had to pee. Being pregnant came with all sorts of unexpected annoyances.

  She’d managed to shuffle outside by herself last night, although her host had insisted on lending her a strong right arm to lean on and carrying a lantern to light her way. But this morning the ankle seemed worse instead of better, so she forced herself to endure the indignity of being carried out to the tidy little wooden shed, although thankfully she was able to get in and out on her own, hopping on one foot. The leather coat he’d tossed over her shoulders covered her like a tarp.

  “I still can’t believe you have an outhouse,” she said indignantly after she was done and Mick had taken his turn, then carried her back into the cabin and plopped her down at the kitchen table. “The rest of this place is so nice.”

  Mick shrugged, his broad back turned to her as he coaxed the fire back into life from embers of last night’s logs. It might be May, but here in the woods the mornings were still brisk.

  “You’re lucky there’s a pump to bring running water into the house,” he said calmly. “Most cabins around here don’t even have that. Besides, it beats sleeping in the woods.”

  She couldn’t argue with that. A sudden sinking feeling told her that the temporary refuge she was heading toward wasn’t likely to be as comfortable as she’d originally assumed.

  Nor was she in any position to argue when he insisted on making breakfast. After all, she couldn’t exactly make it herself, and despite her somewhat unsettled stomach, she was starving. These days she was either starving or so nauseous she couldn’t even look at food. She felt like a yo-yo.

  At least her own clothes were dry, so after they ate she was able to change back into something that fit. Mostly. She tugged surreptitiously at the waistband on her pants and wished she’d had time to do some shopping before she’d left the last large city behind her. It was early days yet, but she could see the handwriting on the wall. Maybe she’d be able to convince Mick to lend her his drawstring pants when she moved on.

  Speaking of which, she tried again to put weight on her bad leg, leaning against the couch this time so she didn’t end up on the floor.

  “The more you stress it, the longer it will take to heal,” Mick said from behind the book he was reading while she changed clothes, his eyes still on the page. Jenna didn’t know how he always seemed to know where she was and what she was doing, and it annoyed her to no end.

  “How long do you think it will take before I can walk on it?” she asked, trying not to sound like a cranky child. “I can’t just stay here forever.”

  “I’m that bad to be around, eh?” he said, one bushy eyebrow raised. But she thought she caught a glimpse of something that looked like hurt in his eyes.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be happy to see the back of you too,” Mick added. “Give it another day or two, the storm will pass, and I’ll carve you a walking stick and shove you out the door. Now shut up, will you? I’m trying to read.”

  Or maybe not.

  Her host was certainly a marked contrast to Stu, her former boyfriend. Stu was polished and civilized, always polite even when he was being critical of her clothes or car or apartment, none of which ever quite measured up to his standards. Of course, as one of the Wadsworths, his standards were rather lofty. She’d never been quite sure what he saw in a quiet PA from a dubious family; they certainly didn’t run in the same social circles, and would never have met if Stu hadn’t played racquetball three times a week with Jenna’s boss.

  Unlike Mick’s towering height and heart-stopping good looks, Stu was more generic
ally attractive, with brown hair that flopped endearingly over one brow, and eyes that twinkled when he smiled. He could be quite charming, when he bothered to be.

  Not a bad guy exactly, Jenna often thought. Just a bit spoiled and self-involved and used to getting things his way. On the other hand, he didn’t have much in the way of morals or backbone and was a lot more interested in having fun than contributing to society in any useful way.

  Jenna kept trying to convince herself that she was in love with him, since on paper he was the perfect guy, but really, they didn’t have much in common. They’d been going out for about a year, and it had started to look like things might get serious, which gave Jenna a funny feeling in her stomach that she’d tried to tell herself was hope.

  After all, what woman in her right mind wouldn’t want a wealthy, good-looking, pleasant man? And for her, of course, the fact that he’d had a vasectomy and had no interest in children had seemed like a gift from the gods.

  Funny about the gods and their gifts, wasn’t it?

  Now, sitting in a cabin in the woods, trying not to stare at the grumpy blue-eyed wonder studiously ignoring her from across the room, Jenna scanned her emotions for even a modicum of heartache over losing Stu. Like poking at a loose tooth with your tongue, waiting for it to hurt but unable to resist the action anyway, she waited to feel a pang of regret.

  All she could find was a sliver of what if that didn’t bear much resemblance to the prospect of whatever a life shared with Stu would have brought. She’d spent most of her adult existence seeking a way to create a family to replace the one she’d lost, knowing it couldn’t be done. Maybe a real relationship was nothing but a fairy tale she told herself, alone in the dark late at night, hugging her arms around herself for an illusion of comfort. If so, she would probably never have found what she was looking for in Stu, no matter how much she’d tried to convince herself otherwise.

  Still, she thought, patting her stomach, it wasn’t as though he hadn’t given her something, even if that parting gift was likely to threaten her heart, her sanity, and maybe even her life.