Sandra's Classics - The Bad Boys of Romance - Boxed Set (14 page)

She halted and tucked her cold hands into her armpits. No wonder he’d warned her about staying outside more than ten minutes; her feet were like ice and her fingers felt as if they were falling off.

Had he... could he have said the creek was west of the cabin? She remembered that he’d pointed towards a ridge line, and she’d noticed how rounded it was. Shivering, she glanced behind her at the soft lines of the mountains to the west.

‘OK, dummy,’ she said with a sigh, ‘it looks as if you walked in the wrong direction. But you still know where you are and where you’ve been. As for where you’re going, it had better be back towards the cabin.’

She took a deep breath and started back the way she’d come, surprised at how tired and out of breath she felt. But the snow made walking difficult, especially now that her sneakers were soaked.

Her spirits lifted as she spotted the cabin dead ahead. For an instant, she was tempted to go inside and simply wait for Chad to return. But then she thought about how chilled and wet she was, and the more she thought about it, the less intelligent it seemed to sit for who knew how long in the freezing cold when she could find the cowboy, get the extra matches and start a warm fire.

‘Keep moving, Jessie,’ she said aloud, trudging past the cabin. ‘You’re almost there now.’

But she wasn’t.

Her footsteps lagged; she stopped and stared around her. The cabin was behind her and out of view and there still wasn’t anything resembling a creek in sight. She shifted her feet uncomfortably; they felt leaden and numb. She had a fleeting image of the heavy wool coat hanging in her cupboard back in New York. Boy, she could certainly use it now, she thought, wrapping her arms around herself.

She’d never felt this cold, not in her whole life. Her face felt as if it might crack if she touched it, and the chill wind seemed to cut through her layered sweaters as if they weren’t even there.

But she couldn’t give up now; she was probably only a few hundred yards from the creek. Maybe she’d gotten a bit off course. Maybe that hill to the right was the one she should be heading toward.

‘Last try, Jessie,’ she said aloud, trudging off again. ‘If you don’t find it this time, give it up.’

It made sense, she thought, digging her cold hands into her jean pockets. Even someone who did all her walking on the streets of New York knew it was dumb to wander around in the woods alone. Not that this was the woods, exactly. This was almost a meadow—there were trees, but not too many, and...

‘Whoops!’ Jessica swore under her breath.

She was tripping over her own feet. Well, why not? For one thing, the ankle she’d twisted days before had begun to hurt again. And it was getting hard to see; the sky was getting greyer all the time.

The sun was almost hidden behind the mountains—it was a ball of glowing orange, but she was too cold to appreciate it at the moment. And there was definitely no creek in this direction either, she thought suddenly, coming to a halt.
There was nothing but snow-covered landscape ahead, stretching as far as she could see.

‘That’s it, kid. Back you go,’ she said aloud, turning and trudging across the valley. There was a tiny knot of fear in her chest and she fought it back. Where was that damned cabin? She couldn’t see it, not anywhere, not ahead or to the side
or...

Don’t panic, she thought. Take it easy. Take some deep breaths.

Great idea. But you couldn’t take deep breaths when you were panting and your lungs ached from the icy air.

OK, then, concentrate on something. Think about explaining all this to Chad. He’d probably be at the cabin by the time she got there and he’d have a few choice things to say. But she hadn’t violated his rule of survival—she knew where she was. Obviously, it was the cabin that had got lost.

She laughed aloud at the thought. God, but that was funny! She’d have to remember that line. She could tell that to Chad when he said... when he said...

When he said what? Wasn’t that crazy? She had been thinking about something, and it had just slipped away from her. Of course it was crazy!

Her footsteps slowed. Where had that stand of pines come from? Coleman’s Creek was situated among
lodgepole pines, not these gnarled, twisted trees. Chad had pointed out that the lodgepoles were straight and tall; he’d told her that was why they’d been given the name, because the Indians used to cut them down and use them to construct their lodges.

A gust of wind sighed through the trees, tumbling a dusting of snow from the branches overhead. It landed lightly on her shoulders.

She raised her hand to brush it off but her fingers didn’t seem to want to obey. She spread her hand before her face and stared at it.

How could those fingers be hers? They didn’t feel like hers— they felt thick and clumsy. She smiled. Wasn’t it remarkable, though? Her hands didn’t feel cold any more.

No part of her did, now that she thought about it.

She laughed softly. Wait until she got back to the cabin and told Chad how foolish his warnings had been. The wet and the cold wouldn’t make you sick. All you had to do was adjust to the weather. If only she weren’t so damned tired.

Night was coming on, but that was no problem. The cabin was out there somewhere; she’d taken a wrong turn or made a wrong step or something. All she had to do was keep walking towards the rounded mountain...

Was that right? No, she thought, no, the rounded mountain was where the creek had been. But the creek hadn’t been anywhere. Neither had the cabin. Well, she’d find the cabin and if not the cabin, then she’d find the creek and it didn’t really matter which she found first, did it?

She laughed again. It was a riddle. Did the creek come first or did the cabin? It was like the chicken and the... the chicken and the... the something... It didn’t really matter. She felt so good, so relaxed—like the way she’d felt at her high school graduation party, light and floaty and giggly. That was the time two of the guys had spiked the punch and no one had known anything about it until the next day when everybody was sick to their stomachs and then she remembered thinking, so that’s what it is to be drunk ...

Her feet slipped out from under her and she landed on her rump.

 
Her laughter died suddenly and tears filled her eyes. She was so clumsy. It was terrible to be like that. And she was so tired...

At least it was comfortable sitting here. Maybe she’d just lie down and rest for a while.

‘Jessie ... Jessie
!'

Chad’s voice floated to her on the sighing wind. For a second, she struggled to open her eyes and answer, and then she frowned and shook her head. No, she thought, he’d be angry because she’d made a mess of the rules.
She was supposed to know something but she couldn’t remember what it was...

‘Jessica, where are you? Please, Jessie, answer me.’

She whimpered softly. She wanted to go to him, even if he scolded her, even if he told her she’d been dumb. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and tell him... tell him...

‘Jessie? Oh, God, Jessie
!’

A shadowy figure knelt beside her. She narrowed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the figure’s face, but it took so much effort.

‘Chad?’ she whispered.

‘Thank God,’ he murmured hoarsely, lifting her into his arms. He held her against his heart for an instant and then touched his mouth to hers. Fear caught at his gut. Her skin was cool, her lips tinged with blue. There was a strange, almost unearthly quality about
her...

Hypothermia
.

He had seen it once before, in Alaska. One of the men he was working with had fallen into an icy stream. They’d pulled him out before he drowned, but not before his internal temperature had dropped rapidly.

A couple of minutes later, the poor bastard was acting like a drunk. He could barely string three words together or stand up, much less walk back to their Land Rover.

And they’d almost lost him, Chad remembered, while fear knifed through him again. It had been touch and go.

His arms tightened around Jessica and he rose to his feet. ‘You’ll be fine, Jessie,’ he said fiercely. ‘I swear it, love, I swear it.’

Whispering assurances as much to himself as to her, he started towards the cabin at a trot, slipping and stumbling in the drifting snow.

Slow down, O’Bryan, he told himself, slow down, or neither one of you will get there.

‘You’ll be fine, Jessie,’ he said again, almost crooning the words into her ear.

She made a sound midway between a sob and a laugh. ‘I am fine,’ she mumbled, her voice thick and furry. ‘You’re not the only wilfer—wilter—wiln’ness expert, Doctor.’

‘Where the hell were you going?’ he demanded, even though he knew the question was meaningless to her, that she was past logical thought and reason.

‘Don’t be ...’

He bent his head to hers. ‘What is it, love? I couldn’t hear ...’

‘Don’ be angry,’ she whispered drunkenly. ‘I was... I was looking for you. The cabin ...’ She fought to remember what had been so important about the cabin, what she’d set out to tell him, but it was impossible.

‘Yes, love, yes,’ he whispered, ‘we’re at the cabin now.’

He kicked open the door and stepped into the little room. It was chilled and damp. There was no fire in the fireplace, only a stacked batch of fresh wood and kindling.

Chad deposited Jessica tenderly before it and covered her with the motley assortment of torn blankets and musty scraps of fabric they’d collected from the other cabins. She was so pale, so cold...

It took less than a minute for him to dig out the matches from his pack and start a fire, and then he went back to her. Her eyes were closed and her breathing shallow.

  A terror unlike any he’d ever known filled him. With trembling fingers, he began to ease the cold, wet clothing from her limp body.

Chad
brushed a tendril of hair off Jessica’s forehead.

S
he sighed in her sleep and turned away from his hand.

It was such a natural, simple action that it made him smile.

Hell, he thought, a couple of hours ago he’d been afraid she’d never do anything that normal again.

S
he’d been like a rag doll in his arms, limp and senseless while he took off her wet clothing and then dried her chilled body.

Carefully, fearful she might choke, he’d spoon-fed her some warm bark and berry tea, constantly talking to her, urging her to live, scolding her for having left the cabin and then telling her it was his fault, that he should have warned her about hypothermia, even though he knew she couldn’t hear him.

But talking had kept him sane. He hadn’t stopped until the glow began to return to her skin and she fell into a deep sleep, not into the coma that would have led to death.

‘Thank you,’ he had whispered, and then he’d cradled her in his arms and watched her as she slept.

Another storm had moved in during the past couple of hours. He could hear the high-pitched howl of the wind as it rushed through the trees, but it was warm and comfortable in the cabin.

Chad yawned and burrowed deeper into the tangle of blankets. Just a half-hour’s nap, he thought, that was all he needed. Then he’d see if it was time to put another log on the fire and maybe heat some more tea for Jessie. She might be awake by then...

A smile flickered across his face.

He
could just imagine her reaction to things when she woke up. Well, he’d explain the second she opened her eyes.

He was just too tired to think about it now
.

Asleep yet not asleep, suspended half-way between dreams and reality, Jessica struggled towards a dim light glowing somewhere above her.

She hated the sensation; it was the way she’d felt when she was ten and she’d had to have a tooth pulled and the dentist had sent her to a place where they put a needle into her arm.

You’ll fall asleep,
the nurse had said, but she hadn’t fallen asleep, she’d plunged into an abyss and then, the next thing she knew, she was drifting through time, looking down on herself as she lay on a couch in the recovery room, her body waiting for her mind to re-enter it.

She fought against the image of the dental surgery. There was no smell of antiseptic, there was just a pleasant blend of scents.
Woodsmoke, she thought, woodsmoke...

Her eyes snapped open. Of course she could smell
woodsmoke. She was in the cabin at Coleman’s Creek and ... had she fallen asleep in front of the fireplace?

Yes, she must have. She was in a soft cocoon of blankets and she was wonderfully warm
. A silken heat seemed to surround her. She stretched lazily, luxuriating in the warmth. Her skin felt hot…

Her breath caught in her throat.

She was sleeping beside Chad. No, that didn’t half describe it. Chad was lying on his back and she was cradled in his arms, her head nestled on his shoulder, both of them warm and cozy under what seemed like every blanket in the cabin.

The only thing that separated their bodies was a thin scrap of blanket that had got tangled between them
, but it was hardly a barrier. She could feel the ridge of his ribcage and the hard muscles of his abdomen pressing against her. And she was aware of every heated inch of his body from ankle to thigh to...

No, she thought, it was impossible...

Her heartbeat skidded erratically.

Under the pile of blankets, she was as naked as a baby.

And Chad ... even the worn blanket caught between them couldn’t hide the fact that he was as naked as she was

My God, she thought,
how...? And when?

She closed her eyes, willing the return of memory, but there was nothing, nothing
, only an image of snow and trees, a fleeting remembrance of freezing cold and wet.

Please, she thought, taking a ragged breath, please, there had to be more.

She fought against the grey emptiness until finally there was a sudden rush of unsettling, half formed images, and sensations: the comforting feel of Chad’s arms and the sound of his voice and his whispered words...

A
nd then, oblivion.

But something had happened between then and now, something that had left her nude and in his arms.

An inky blackness filled the little cabin. She knew it must be two or three in the morning; the past nights in the wilderness had taught her that the hours just past midnight were the deepest part of the night.

Only the flickering of the fire pierced the dark.

She had a sudden picture of the flames in the hearth extinguished under the punishing burden of the snow.

Yes, she remembered now—the falling branch, the limp
matches. . She’d gone to find Chad, hadn’t she?

A
nd she must have succeeded; otherwise, the cabin would be cold and dark. With effort, she could recall going out into the snow but everything after that was wrapped in a milky haze.

There was a vague memory of bone chilling cold and then ... and then Chad lifting her into his arms and bringing her back to the cabin and then the heat of his hands and his
body...

She froze as he stirred and murmured something unintelligible. After a heart-stopping instant, his arm tightened around her and he drew her against him.

She held her breath until he was still again. Then, with deliberate caution, she lifted her head, tilting it back until she could glimpse his face. Yes, he was still asleep, his lashes lying against his bristled cheeks like dark smudges.

How could she face him? She couldn’t even remember what had happened.

And that was impossible.

Of course it was impossible. The times he had kissed her had left her trembling, wanting him with a need that frightened her. Surely his lovemaking would have seared her soul.

Then why couldn’t she remember?

He stirred again and moved against her. She closed her eyes, almost overcome by sensation. How many times had she thought about being in his arms like this? She longed to stay right where she was, safe and secure and warm.

Get moving, Jessie, she thought quickly. Do it now, while you can. Get away from the feel of his body, the warmth of his breath, the steadying beat of his heart.

Slowly, carefully, she began to ease herself away from him. But not carefully enough, she thought, as he awoke
with the rapidity of a wolf.

‘Well, now,’ he said softly. ‘Welcome back, Jessie.’

She closed her eyes in despair. ‘Chad?’ she said stupidly.

He chuckled softly. ‘Who did you expect?’

She twisted her fingers in the thin blanket caught between them, clutching it to her.

‘I ... I must have slept for hours.’

‘Yeah, you did.’ His arm tightened around her and he cleared his throat. ‘You gave me quite a scare.’

She ran her tongue across her lips and tugged uselessly at the blanket, as if that would change it into a suit of
armor, or at least something longer and wider and thicker.

Now was hardly the time to tell him she hadn’t the faintest idea of what he was talking about. All she wanted to do at this minute was get her clothes on.

‘I’m fine,’ she said quickly. ‘In fact, if you’ll just let me get up ...’ Chad rose up on one elbow and stared down at her. She could see his face in the fire’s glow. His eyes narrowed, the irises almost glowing with a golden light like the eyes of some great predatory animal.

‘You damned near died on me, Jessica Howard,’ he said gruffly, and then he shook his head and his expression softened. ‘What the hell were you doing out there?’

Images flashed into her mind and she drew a deep breath. ‘I—I was looking for you,’ she said slowly. ‘I—I remember the branch breaking and the fire going out.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I couldn’t re-light it. The matches were soaked. And—and it was freezing in the cabin. So I decided to walk to the creek ...’

‘To the creek,’ he repeated, and she nodded her head. ‘You were nowhere near the creek when I found you.’

‘I followed your footsteps as long as I could,’ she said slowly, staring up at him. ‘I remembered what you said about knowing where you were and all the rest and I tried, I tried, but it all got mixed up ...’

‘You must have been wandering around out there for a couple of hours. You were like ice when I finally found you.’ He shifted beneath the blankets and the length of his body brushed against hers. ‘What is it?’ he demanded as a tremor ran through her. ‘Are you still cold?’

‘No,’ she said quickly, ‘no, I’m fine now. But... what happened to me?’ Her glance dropped to the tangle of blankets that covered them and she blushed. ‘I—I only remember bits and pieces ...’

‘Hypothermia’s what happened to you, Jessie. It never occurred to me to warn you about it. I mean, I figured you’d never be out of the cabin without me.’

‘Hypothermia?’ she repeated. ‘What’s that?’

‘A killer,’ he said shortly. ‘It’s what happens if you get too cold or wet and your temperature drops too quickly. You lose the ability to make decisions and the worst of it is, you don’t
realize it’s happening. And then your motor canters start shutting down. You can’t walk or talk and finally, your heart shuts down, too.’ He ran his hand lightly along her cheek. ‘Thank God I found you before that happened.’

‘I... I really am OK now, Chad. I’d like to get up and ... and get dressed ...’

He smiled, his teeth flashing whitely in the shadows. ‘Yeah, I wondered when we’d get around to that. In fact, I’d have thought that would be your first question.’

‘Well,’ she said quickly, ‘of course. I mean, it is. It was. I wondered ... I wondered ...’ She felt a rush of crimson flooding her cheeks. ‘Can’t we talk later, after I get ...’

He grinned. ‘Dressed? Sure, Jess. Just answer a question, OK? Do you remember getting undressed?’

‘No—I mean, it’s all fuzzy...’ She took a deep breath, trying to maintain some semblance of dignity. ‘I thought at first—the thing is, I thought I’d remember, and ...’

Chad laughed softly. ‘You’re damned right you’d remember,’ he said. ‘I guarantee it.’

The color in her cheeks deepened. ‘Are you going to tease me or tell me what happened?’

‘I told you what happened. You collapsed in the snow. I found you and brought you here.’

‘And undressed me?’ she asked in a small, unsteady voice.

He nodded his head. ‘And put you to bed.’

Jessica cleared her throat. ‘Where does it say that in the Boy Scout Manual?’

He grinned and touched his finger to the tip of her nose. ‘I
haven’t any idea.’

‘But...’

‘Any survival handbook will tell you that the approved method of treatment for advanced hypothermia is to get the wet clothing off the victim.'

‘Which you certainly did. But only one of us was the victim
.'

‘
Then you get the victim into a tub of warm water or under an electric blanket. In case you hadn’t noticed, we haven’t got either. When that happens, you use body to body heat until the victim shows improvement.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘That means skin to skin.’

‘I see.’ She ran her tongue over her lips and then she shifted carefully under the blanket, trying to
put at least some distance between them. ‘Well, I’m very grateful.’

‘You’re welcome,’ he said solemnly.

‘And now, since the victim shows improvement, I... I think she can get up.’

His eyes burned into hers. ‘Is that what she wants?’ he whispered.

A wildness raced through her. No, she thought, it’s not what she wants. But she nodded. ‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘Turn your back, please.’

For a heartbeat, she thought he was going to refuse. The possibility sent her pulse racing.
But finally he shrugged his shoulders and rolled away from her.

‘You stay there,’ he said. ‘I’ll get up.’

She turned her head away as he eased out from under the tangled blankets, though not before she had a glimpse of broad shoulders and muscled arms, painted golden bronze by the fire.

The parts of her body that had been in contact with his through the long, cold night felt suddenly vulnerable, and she fought against the desire to reach out and pull him back down beside her.

The hiss of cloth and zipper told her that he was putting his jeans on.

‘I don’t mean to seem ungrateful,’ she said carefully.

He turned so quickly that she flinched. ‘I don’t want your gratitude, damn it,’ he said angrily. ‘I told you that before.’

‘That isn’t what I meant, Chad. But you did save my
life...’

‘Forget it, OK?’

‘Please, don’t be angry. I couldn’t stand it if you were.’

‘I’m not angry.’

‘Yes, you are,’ she whispered. ‘I can hear it in your voice and I don’t—I don't…’ A sob wrenched her body. Tears flooded down her cheeks and she covered her face with her hands.