“That’s how it should have been from the beginning,” Leslie pointed out, still wary.
“True. But be that as it may, I think I can prove to you how harmless I really am and that I’m not such a bad guy after all, if you’ll allow me to.”
Leslie was doubtful, but for some inane reason she wanted to believe him. A lot of it had to do with his being the only other human for miles around, and some of it had to do with Leslie’s basic good nature. But that still left a small part of the reason unaccounted for, a part that made Leslie feel uncomfortable and excited at the same time, a part she didn’t want to examine too closely just yet.
Leslie gave her nonverbal consent for the experiment to begin. This time she was sure of the approval she saw in his eyes, and even though he didn’t actually smile, he did look pleased.
Three
“NOW I KNOW you’re nuts,” Leslie told Joe several minutes later. “There’s no way I’m going to crawl in there with you.”
He had placed the tarpaulin lengthwise beside the fire. She’d watched as he stretched his long body out across the far half and covered himself with half the blanket. Panic had overtaken her quickly when he held up the other half of the blanket invitingly and motioned for her to get in beside him.
“Then you’ll freeze to death,” he pointed out casually. “And I won’t get a chance to prove what a perfect gentleman I can be when I set my mind to it.”
Leslie gave a very unladylike snort, and said, “You blew your chance at that hours ago.”
When the “experiment” began, she had stood up when he asked her to. Now she shivered as the frigid wind blew, chilling her to the bone.
“I want my blanket back,” she said, her voice sounding very childlike, even to herself.
“It’s my blanket and we’ll share it,” Joe said. “And hurry it up, my arm is getting tired.”
Leslie frowned in displeasure for several more seconds, and then, as she was once again caught in an icy breeze, she said, “You’re an easy person not to like, Mr. Bonner.”
She could feel him watching her as she lay down beside him facing the fire. She welcomed the shelter of the blanket as he covered her with it. She wouldn’t admit it out loud, but between the blanket, the fire, and the man, she could feel the warmth almost immediately. It felt like a blessing.
“Comfy?” Joe asked.
“Hardly.”
“Warm at least?”
“Barely.”
“Want my coat? You, the blanket, and my thermals ought to keep me warm through the night. That dress of yours and just the blanket aren’t much protection.”
“I’ll be fine,” Leslie said in a tone that left no room for argument. She was convinced her anger would keep her warm.
“Do you want to tell ghost stories, or should we just go to sleep?” he asked, a teasing quality creeping into his voice.
“You may do as you please, Mr. Bonner,” she said, “I’m going to sleep to escape this horrible dream.”
“You can call me Joe, if you want.”
“I don’t want to call you anything. I want to go to sleep,” she said, knowing it wasn’t likely to happen with him literally breathing down her neck. His breath was warm against her cool skin and made goose bumps break out across her back.
“Well, before you do, could you tell me where I can put this hand?” he asked, holding his free arm out above her. “I don’t want to get you all stirred up again by putting it somewhere you don’t want it to be.”
“How considerate, Mr. Bonner,” she said acidly, trying to shut out thoughts of the first place that had come to mind. Taking his arm, she laid it firmly along his own hip and leg. “How’s that?”
“Stiff and awkward. But for you … I’ll try it.”
Leslie made another small, disdainful noise in her throat and wiggled into a more comfortable position, getting as close to his body as she could without actually touching him. Gradually her muscles began to relax, and her bones seemed to thaw. And when Joe made no further attempt to talk to her or touch her, she allowed herself to become lulled into a semiconscious state of tranquility.
“So, what happened at this wedding you arrived at but didn’t get to?” Joe asked, after a long while, sounding as drowsy as she felt.
Leslie tried to put her defense shields back in place, but she was too tired. It had been an extremely long and exhausting day filled with one personal revelation after another, and they weighed heavily on her heart. It occurred to her that talking about it might make her feel better … but to Joe Bonner? She’d heard of people talking to plants and other inanimate objects as a form of therapy. This man, who in her opinion had no heart and didn’t give a whit of concern about the way she felt, would be as good as any tree to talk to, she supposed.
“My sister locked herself in the bathroom,” Leslie finally answered.
Joe made a funny little noise in the back of his throat. “Why?” he asked.
Leslie sighed. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to go to all the trouble of explaining it to him. “It’s a long story.”
“Well, I’m not exactly comfortable, so I’ll probably be awake all night anyway,” Joe said, using his own unique form of encouragement.
Leslie’s eyes were closed, and she left them that way as she tried to decide where to start.
“It was my fault. I—”
“If you slept with her boyfriend, I don’t want to hear this,” Joe said.
“Oh!” she gasped. “Really. You are the most disgusting man.” She pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders as if to form a stronger barrier between them. “I’d never dream of doing such a thing, not to mention that he’s not at all my type.”
“So what’s your type?”
“I … well, I have … I want,” Leslie stammered. Her mind was a blank. Jeff Warner’s face flashed briefly in her mind but was gone quickly. She knew in that instant Jeff was not the man she was looking for. But if not Jeff, then who? “I’m not sure what my type is,” she said, angry at having to admit it.
Joe was silent for several seconds. Then he quite nonchalantly asked, “Are you gay?”
It wasn’t easy but Leslie managed to roll over onto her stomach. She turned her face to meet Joe’s, and glared at him haughtily.
He had the grace to look startled by her reaction. “Well, I was only asking. There aren’t many women your age who have no idea of what they’re looking for in a man. Haven’t you ever been in love?”
Put on the defensive once again, Leslie couldn’t maintain her angry stare. Looking back at the fire, she gave into another impulse, the second one that day. This time it was to lie. “Of course I have,” she muttered in a low voice.
“No, you haven’t,” Joe said, coming up on one elbow, delighted with his discovery. “I’ll bet you can’t even tell me what you don’t want in a man.”
“I know I don’t want anyone like you.”
“Of course. What else?”
Leslie paused to consider the question. Then slowly she said, “I don’t want someone like me either.”
“Explain.”
“I’ve been too involved with myself, my career, and the material things I want out of life to pay much attention to what’s going on around me. I’ve … lost touch with the things that are really important in life.”
“Like?”
Leslie looked at Joe. His expression was one of interest. There was no mischief or mockery in his eyes, just mild curiosity.
“Like nature,” she said, using her hands to indicate the land she’d built a career on by betraying it. “Like people and how and why they feel as they do sometimes. There’s a lot about human nature that, well, that I just don’t understand.”
“Like what?” he asked.
“Oh … ,” Leslie pretended to be thoughtfully picking a subject, but there was only one uppermost in her mind at the moment. “Love, for instance. How do people know when they’re in love?”
Too late she realized she had admitted
to his accusation of never having been in love, but he didn’t seem to be inclined to press the point. Instead his green eyes were intense and very serious.
“They don’t know when they’re in love. They feel it,” he said, answering her question sincerely as if she were a child. “It’s an emotion. You don’t always have a reason for feeling the way you do, do you?”
Leslie pondered this. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
Joe frowned, then asked, “What’s your favorite color?”
“Red.”
“Why?”
“It’s a bright, warm color, and I look good in it.”
Joe’s frown deepened. “Do you ever get what they call the ‘blues?’”
“On the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth day of my cycle I’ll sometimes be a little out of sorts.”
“I suppose you always know exactly why you’re happy or sad or angry or jealous of someone too,” he said, beginning to get a picture of Leslie’s problem.
“Of course. Why would I feel those things if I didn’t?”
“Well, you took an instant dislike to me, and you didn’t even know me,” he pointed out.
“I don’t need to. I know exactly why I don’t like you,” she said, then went on to list her reasons. “You’re rude, you’re presumptuous, you like to be threatening sometimes, you’re crude, conceited, and you’re grumpy.”
“But other than that I’m okay, right?”
Leslie slid him a sidelong glance. “That remains to be seen,” she said, and then she smiled.
Maybe he’s a little better than a tree, she thought, feeling almost happy for the first time in quite a while. At least this distempered man made her feel things. Shock, outrage, and distrust were preferable to a constant diet of apathy.
A slow grin spread across Joe’s face before he said, “You’re something else, lady. I’m not too sure what you are yet, but you’re definitely something else. Tell me, does any of this have anything to do with your sister locking herself in the bathroom?”
Leslie nodded. She folded her arms and pillowed her head with them. Briefly she hit on the highlights of her morning, culminating with, “My parents all but asked me to leave. I don’t even know if my sister’s married right now or not.”
She felt Joe’s hand move under the blanket and over her bare back. It moved slowly up to her neck, where he began a gentle massage. Leslie’s first impulse was to pull away, but his touch was so warm and the careful kneading of her neck muscles was so relaxing, she was hard put to move at all.
Blissfully she allowed her eyes to close. From far away she heard the man speak. “I have to admit, it doesn’t sound as if you’ve had the best of days. But none of this explains why you’re up here in the mountains.”
“’Nother long story,” Leslie mumbled.
“And why do I get the feeling I won’t be hearing it tonight?” Joe asked, receiving no answer.
Joe Bonner didn’t remove his hand from Leslie’s back nor did he sleep. Long after her breathing had become deep and regular, Joe’s hand continued to glide lightly over her warm, soft skin. He enjoyed the feel of it, and he liked the way she looked when she was sleeping. He liked the way she looked when she was awake, too, but he was sure she wouldn’t allow him to stare at her as he was now.
He couldn’t help wondering about her. She was like an angel from out of nowhere—suddenly there, breathtakingly beautiful, and full of spirit. She’d knocked him for a loop the first time he’d really looked at her. From that point on, she had only become more and more intriguing to him.
It amazed him that no one had staked their claim to her yet. That no man had taught her to love floored him. The inclination to teach her himself was very strong, but a woman like Leslie Rothe was the last thing he wanted or needed in his life.
The evil temptation to reveal the secrets of love to her, to possess her body and soul and then break her heart crept into his mind, but he quickly banished it. It was natural and very human to want to hurt someone as badly as he had been hurt, but he knew he shouldn’t and wouldn’t act on the desire. Especially with this woman, who obviously would have no idea what was happening to her. She had probably broken a hundred hearts just being so incredibly naive. Men had probably been throwing themselves at her feet for years, but for some reason, she’d never noticed it.
How many women had specific reasons attached to everything they felt? Better yet, he thought, how many refused to feel something because they had no reason to? Had he ever met a woman who didn’t use “just because” as a reason or an excuse to react to any given situation? Joe didn’t think so.
Idly he traced the shape of her body from shoulder to hip with his hand. It would be interesting to pit her against the other women he’d known, he thought. Would her overabundance of logic be an asset or a detriment? Would lying and cheating be on her list of acceptable ways to get what she wanted? Or would this woman be as honest as she was rational in achieving her goals?
Joe was trying to visualize a trustworthy woman with a syllogistic mind, when Leslie began to stir in her sleep. She turned toward him and burrowed closer, seeking his warmth. Joe frowned and shied away. Resting beside her was one thing, having her pressed up against him was quite another. It didn’t matter that he was totally dressed and wearing a down parka besides. Just knowing that with the flick of a zipper she’d be completely exposed to him from the waist up was like lighting a string of firecrackers under his libido.
He tried to ease himself away without waking her, but she only renewed her unconscious efforts. He was giving some serious thought to leaving their makeshift bed altogether, when she groaned and began to shiver. Joe grimaced even as his arms folded about her, automatically pulling her close to him, trying to warm her. He slid his hand between them and unzipped his jacket. Instinctively Leslie was drawn to the greater heat of his body. She wrapped her arms about him securely, while Joe enfolded her in his coat, trying to share as much of it as he could with her.
Leslie wiggled into a comfortable position, tucking her head neatly under Joe’s chin. He heard her soft moan of satisfaction and rolled his eyes heavenward. The woman was enough to try the patience of a saint, he decided. And everyone who knew him knew he was no saint. Her hair smelled sweet and clean, and holding her was too easy; she fit in his arms too well.
Was he supposed to sleep like this, he wondered skeptically. His mind dared him to try, while his body made its own intentions perfectly clear. There would be no sleep for Joe Bonner tonight, was the message he got.
Joe sighed heavily in resignation. “Women,” he said very like a curse. Then he closed his eyes and fought for control as Leslie stirred in his arms once more.
Leslie was toasty warm, but the right side of her body was sore and aching. She tried to readjust her position, but it did little good. Her eyes, heavy with sleep, opened slowly.
The world was cloaked in grayness. Just looking at it made Leslie cold. A gelid wind brushed across her left cheek, and she blindly buried her face deeper into the soft warmth at her right. Thick, hard bonds tightened about her possessively, and a peculiar sensation rippled through her body in response.
Leslie’s eyes opened wide, and this time she was alert to her surroundings. Her nose was pressed tightly against red plaid flannel, and out of the corner of her eye all she could see was army green.
She quickly came up on one elbow and peered down at Joe Bonner. He opened one eye, then closed it again, saying, “Now what?”
Embarrassed beyond belief, Leslie stammered and said, “I … nothing … I’m sorry. I must have gotten cold in the middle of the night … or something.”
“Must have,” he agreed, yawning rudely in her face. “And it still is the middle of the night, so go back to sleep.”
“No. No, I think the sun is beginning to rise,” she said, observing the dull gray lightness around them. She noted, for the first time, that their campsite was smack in the middle of the road, very near the place where they almost had collided
.
“Dawn in my book is still the middle of the night,” he said drowsily. “Go to sleep.”
“Well, actually, most people hold to the general consensus that the day begins at dawn, although technically it begins at midnight. But I think the idea is that if it’s light out, it’s day,” Leslie said, realizing how foolish she sounded but unable to stop the nervous prattle that was falling from her lips.
Accustomed to coming awake slowly, it was a jolt to Leslie’s system to wake up and instantly have to feel awkward and agitated. Recalling their final discussion of the night before only increased her mortification. Where had the idea that this man could pass as a tree come from, she wondered.
Slowly Joe turned his head to look at her. She couldn’t tell if he was angry, amused, or thinking about throwing a net over her. After several seconds, in a voice that was quiet and most sincere, he said, “The next two weeks are going to be very long, aren’t they?”
Leslie didn’t know how to respond, and she no longer could hold his incredulous gaze. She began to slide away from him, carefully, so as not to disturb him anymore than was necessary.
“I’ll be very quiet if you want to go back to sleep,” she said, growing cold again as his hands slipped away from her. “I’ll gather wood or something for the fire. I want to do my share. In fact, I think we should keep track of the food I eat, and then once I get home, I’ll mail you a check to reimburse you.”
Joe made no reply. He continued to stare at her as if she’d suddenly turned green and grown antennae.
“Are you okay?” Leslie asked, concerned. It hadn’t as yet been confirmed that he wasn’t some sort of escapee, although he had proved to be trustworthy during the night. Perhaps it was simply time for his medication, she thought sympathetically.
Bound to Happen Page 4
