“What in the hell are you doing?”
“What in the hell does it look like I’m doing?” He didn’t bother looking up from his task. Nor did he bother to acknowledge the return of that tiny kernel of warmth her voice—despite its tone—seemed to inspire. And he refused to even consider that it felt sort of nice to have someone care about him. On any level.
She crossed the room and took the lantern from his hand. “You should be sitting down with your leg elevated.”
He pinned her with a hard gaze, stomping flat his irrational emotional response to her concern. “One thing you should know about me, lady, is that I don’t do a lot of things other people think I should.” She was close, only inches away. He should just take the lantern back and continue on with what he’d been doing. Even with a leg half out of commission, she would be no match for him.
Yet he didn’t move. All he seemed to see was that her eyes weren’t lifeless anymore.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she shot back, apparently not intimidated in the least by his fierce words.
He half expected her to try to forcibly move him back to the table. After treating him to her best glare, she just huffed a small sigh and grabbed another lantern.
“End of lecture already?” He silently cursed the almost plaintive note that had crept into his voice.
“Yep.” She shoved fresh batteries into the base compartment and snapped the cover back on.
“Is this how you treat all your patients?” He had no idea why he was badgering her. After all, it wasn’t like he wanted her hanging all over him, dripping with unnecessary concern he didn’t need or want.
She turned to rummage in another box on the counter. “No. Though I should thank you for one thing.”
He refused to take the bait. But her continued calm, when he felt anything but, gave him the uneasy feeling that he’d wandered too close to the edge of a cliff. He fell back on old defensive tactics in his scramble for safer footing. “Don’t bother, I’m sure it was my pleasure.”
She lifted hard flat eyes to his. “Yes, there was never any doubt of that.”
He sighed heavily. “Would you mind telling me exactly what in the hell we’re talking about?” Too late he realized she’d maneuvered him into asking anyway. He scowled, but didn’t stop her from answering.
She set the lantern on the counter and faced him squarely. “I’ve dealt with all sorts of creatures, suffering in a variety of ways. Your attitude merely reinforces my belief that, when it comes to help, human beings are the least appreciative of the lot.”
Reese stared at her for a long moment. She looked at him without so much as a blink. He’d lifted his hand halfway to her face before he realized he meant to touch her. He let his hand drop. “Is that why you refused to let me help you? Just being human?” He’d meant the words to be harsh, but his voice sounded damnably gentle.
“I refused to leave with you because I’d made a commitment. I don’t make them lightly, and I don’t walk away from them just because things get a bit rough.”
He lifted his hand again, this time following through on the motion, letting the backs of his knuckles trace softly down the side of her face. Her skin was remarkably smooth and fine. Delicate. Quite the opposite of her personality.
When she didn’t smack his hand—or his face—he brought his fingers to rest under her chin. Tilting it up slightly, he was again drawn to the stormy tempest raging quietly inside her.
A dozen questions sprang to his lips, but he asked her nothing. “I won’t apologize for trying to save your life. But I am sorry I asked you to compromise your principles.” His thumb drifted up to rub softly across her bottom lip. Warm, velvety. Seductive textures so unexpected he was at a loss at how to handle his quick response to them. When he spoke, his voice was barely more than a rough growl. “It’s been so long since I’ve run across a person who had any, I’d stopped expecting to find them.”
As the echo of his words faded away, a strange quiet descended between them, a vacuum amidst the howling wind that pounded mercilessly against the house. Reese didn’t move his hand, Jillian didn’t break their locked gaze. His heart began to pound a heavier rhythm, his body tightened, the finger touching her lip tensed. Unmistakable signs. Arousal. He didn’t want it. Couldn’t half believe it.
He also couldn’t deny it.
Before he could decide what, if anything, he was going to do about it, Jillian stepped back and turned away. The moment dissolved instantly, making him wonder if he’d imagined it. He hadn’t. But he had to admit it made him feel strange, sort of like having an out-of-body experience.
He shifted his weight, the twinge of pain in his thigh reassuring. He belatedly wondered if anything of what he’d begun to feel during that off moment in time had been reflected in his face. He doubted it. Keeping his expression unreadable was second nature.
Of course, so was maintaining complete control over his mental and physical responses—regardless of the stimulus. Lacking constant challenges, he was apparently getting rusty. His gaze wandered back to her again, completely detached now that she’d moved away. Rusty and desperate, he amended, chalking the whole thing up to repressed hormones and the combined events of the last several hours.
After quietly putting batteries into another flashlight, Jillian looked up at him. One glance into those steady eyes and he felt a tremor rock his sturdily built walls.
Lying to others had been part and parcel of his career, he’d done it many times without a flicker of remorse. It had saved his butt too many times for him to question the practice. But never, ever, had he lied to himself. No matter how harsh, it was the one and only truth he could count on.
Until now.
Because damn if he didn’t want to pull her into his arms and find out how those warm, velvety lips would feel under his.
Weak. He was weak. And soft. A year ago he’d have never allowed himself to respond to anyone like this, much less a mousy little Yank. Abruptly he grabbed the last lantern and a package of batteries and hopped back to the table. The jolting pain was much stronger now. He’d been unaware of just when the Novocain had worn off.
Good. Pain he could handle. Solid, direct, mind-clearing pain.
Angling himself beside the chairs, he lowered himself and propped his foot up, not caring in the least what she thought about his actions as long as she stayed on the other side of the room for the next five minutes while he sorted things out.
“I’m guilty of the same thing, you know.”
After the prolonged silence, her quiet statement grabbed his full attention. It probably shouldn’t have. Careful to stay focused on his leg, he asked, “What’s that?”
“Expecting others to act only in their own best interest. I may not like your methods, but I don’t deny that you have principles. Although if you’d asked me an hour ago, I’d have refused to admit it.”
A smile entered her voice, prompting him to look over at her. Even in the shadows cast by the lantern, he saw the soft curve of her lips. He found his own lips twitching in response and wasn’t quite sure whether or not to stifle the rare notion.
Her smile faded before he could decide, his desire to smile evaporated along with it.
“I’m sorry our commitments got all tangled up,” she said with convincing sincerity. “I know you didn’t plan on getting caught out here.” With me.
Reese wasn’t sure if he heard those last two words with his ears or with his mind. But either way, they’d come through loud and clear.
She tucked a flashlight under her arm and lifted a lantern in each hand. “I’m going to store some of these in the other rooms as a precaution. If you’re hungry, I’ll put together something to eat in a few minutes.” She left the room before he could comment.
Which was just as well. Because in that exact instant, he realized that the adrenaline rush he’d felt, the challenge he’d perceived, had very little to do with the storm that was barreling down on them. And everything to do wi
th the woman he was trapped in it with.
He doubted she’d have been happy to hear the string of words that revelation brought to his lips.
FOUR
Jillian glanced up the stairs, debating on whether it was worthwhile stowing a lantern on the upper level of the house. Another loud crack resounded outside, turning her head instinctively toward the front window. Damn, but it was frustrating not being able to see what was happening out there.
Compromising, she set the last lantern on the bottom step where it could be easily grabbed from either direction. Crossing her arms, she rubbed her hands over them, more in reaction to the turmoil surrounding the house than because she felt any chill. She hadn’t thought the howling and moaning could possibly get any louder. The house seemed to vibrate from the noise alone. Maybe it was just as well she couldn’t see outside. She’d done all she could to protect herself and the old house left to her by a father she’d barely known.
Jillian’s mind flashed back over all the other houses she’d lived in during her childhood. Each one bigger and more cavernous than the last as her mother remarried farther and farther up the income ladder. It was funny, but she couldn’t seem to distinguish one from the other in her mind now. It was all just a bland, monochromatic blur of spacious, perfectly decorated rooms; full of style and taste, but empty of heart or soul.
She glanced around her, a smile coming to her lips. But this house … this old weather-beaten house had been her first, the one she’d been born in. Barely remembered, except for the ever-present feeling that it had been the only one that had ever felt like a home.
Jillian whispered a fervent prayer, asking the old house which had survived for almost thirty years, to hold out for another twenty-four hours.
Shutting out the old ghosts, she turned her mind to organizing a mental priority list of all the things she’d have to check on once the storm passed over. She shut out the possibility that she wouldn’t be around to carry out the tasks. Nothing productive came out of negative thinking. She’d made that her motto the day she’d returned from Alaska four years ago; she’d be damned if she’d give it up now.
Her thoughts strayed back to the big Aussie in her kitchen. She’d meant every word she’d said to him. She hadn’t wasted a second deciding whether she’d leave or not. But she’d certainly never meant for someone else to get trapped by a decision she’d made, no matter how unexpected the intrusion.
Dinner. They should eat now, just in case … She turned quickly on her heel and headed back down the short hallway connecting the small front parlor to the large country-style kitchen. She loved that room. Aside from her office in the converted garage/clinic, it was where she spent the most time. Yet she paused in the doorway.
Reese’s back was to her, his shaggy blond head bent as he apparently examined her handiwork on his thigh. Her fingers twitched as she remembered the feel of his skin. There had been no give whatsoever, as if it were wrapped around marble. The stitches seemed even enough; she doubted the scar would be too noticeable when fully healed.
Allowing her gaze to drift over his broad shoulders, past his narrow waist, and down the length of the well-muscled leg propped on her kitchen chair, she couldn’t help but wonder if he had other scars on his body. She knew—sensed—on some level she couldn’t identify, that he did.
A shiver raced lightly over her skin. The sensation not chilling or unpleasant. She didn’t know much about him. But what little she did know seemed to indicate a life led just outside the rules. She couldn’t imagine him holding down some quiet, staid job, punching a time clock every day at five. Maybe it was the dramatic way they’d met.
No. This man had renegade written all over him. If the idea weren’t so completely laughable, she might have even allowed herself a minute or two—or even ten—to imagine what it would be like to have a fling with an outlaw like Reese Braedon. To fantasize that the darkening of his blue eyes when he’d stared at her earlier had been the result of passion, not consternation.
She allowed herself a small smile. She wouldn’t catch the attention of a man like Reese Braedon if she stripped down naked, waltzed into the kitchen and offered herself up to him like a turkey on Thanksgiving.
“I don’t mind you standing there staring at me, but I figure we should eat before Ivan comes banging on the door.”
Jillian hadn’t thought a person’s entire body could blush simultaneously. She’d guessed wrong. Total humiliation rooted her to the spot. Not even when she’d overheard Richard Laxalt regaling the rest of the Valdez project crew with the story of her infamous engagement—which she’d confessed to him in private because she thought he cared, truly cared, for her. Even then she hadn’t felt this exposed.
“Never mind.” He grunted as he started to lever himself up to a stand, the motion more than the noise grabbing her attention.
She hurried into the room. “Don’t get up.” Halfway toward him, hand outstretched to hold him down if necessary, she abruptly changed direction, heading instead to the pantry to the right of the hallway door. No way would she be able to touch him now. No matter how innocent the gesture.
Regardless of what happened in the next few hours, she was determined to stay as far away from Reese Braedon as possible. Those fantasy images had been all too vivid for her peace of mind. And for the last four years, she’d placed peace of mind above all other considerations.
Being stranded in a hurricane with a hunk—even a big, blue-eyed Australian hunk that could give Mel Gibson lessons on chemistry—was no reason to abandon that painfully learned creed. In fact, it was the best reinforcement for her current choice of lifestyle. If and when she decided to test the waters again, the very last person she’d try to wade out to would be an Aussie with an attitude.
Sighing in relief when he settled back in the chair, she stepped into the small shelved closet that held all of her canned goods and cooking supplies and set the flashlight on one end so she could see. She’d already decided to use up some of the lunch meat in the refrigerator, figuring she should save the canned food just in case things got desperate. She had stored three cardboard cartons full of emergency rations in the large storage closet in the hallway along with the medical supplies she’d carted in from the clinic, but it never hurt to be cautious.
She grabbed the bag of tortilla chips she’d opened the day before and a bag of sesame seed rolls and turned to leave, then remembered she had a can of prefab nacho dip stashed somewhere in here. She spared a half a second wondering what Reese would make of her less than nutritious eating habits before deciding she didn’t care. Putting down the chips and bread, she began rooting through the shelves, eventually stepping up on an unopened can of shortening to grope around on the top shelf.
“Aha!” Just as her hand closed around the small round container, the can beneath her feet shifted. In the next instant, she lost her balance and fell in a painful heap on the floor of the pantry.
“What the hell are you doing in there?”
She’d managed to bang both elbows, one ankle-bone, and her fanny smarted like the dickens. “I’m fine, thanks,” she called back, not bothering to hide the sarcasm. Wonderful, she thought, make him think you’re a klutz as well as an idiot.
Discovering she still cared what he thought of her did little to improve her mood. “Don’t bother getting up,” she muttered as she gingerly rolled out of her awkward position.
“Too late.”
She froze at the sound of his raspy voice, which was far too close to still be coming from the table. She stifled a groan and pieced together her control. She’d already made a complete fool of herself, but she’d be damned if she’d give him an encore.
“You shouldn’t have gotten up.” She tucked her feet under her and knelt, wincing despite her efforts not to when her knee pressed against the hard tile floor.
“So I heard.”
Before she could comment, strong fingers clamped around her upper arm and helped her to a stand. As soon as she was st
eady on her feet, he let her go.
His hand had been hot against her skin. She ignored the lingering traces of warmth. Not wanting to risk looking him in the eye just yet, she gathered the bread and chips, then ducked back down to grab the can of dip she’d dropped when she’d fallen.
“I hope you’re not into health food,” she said as she straightened back up. Anything else she’d been about to say went unspoken as her gaze connected with his.
“If I can stomach Vegemite, I can handle anything.”
His tone wasn’t light or amused, yet he’d put her at ease. Or at least as much at ease as she could be staring into those eyes of his. Clear blue crystals, they captured her complete attention, despite her inner voice urging her not to be a fool twice.
“You okay?” The small pantry muted the storm noise, allowing the soft rasp of his voice to carry easily over the short distance between them.
“No. I mean, I’m fine. A few bruises.” She wished he’d back out of the doorway. This was exactly what she’d wanted to avoid. She made a desperate stab at humor. “What is it you guys down under say? No worries.”
He lifted his hand and reached forward, causing her to instinctively shift away, banging her sore elbow against the shelf beside her. “Ouch.”
He reached past her and grabbed the flashlight. “Jillian?”
Not for all the money in the world would she look at him now. She rubbed her elbow, keeping her gaze on the floor.
A callused fingertip prodded her chin upward until she was looking at him again. She swore to herself that she’d rather run out into the heart of the storm than let him see embarrassment on her face, and used every scrap of control to paste a blank expression on it instead.
“Would you mind moving out of the way?” She was proud of the calm sound of her voice. So what if it wobbled a bit? “You should rest that leg, and I’ve got a meal to prepare. Such as it is.”
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