By Hook or By Crook

by Linda Morris

  “Wait here.”

  Too tired to question him, she waited while he went back down the steps, circled the building, examined windows. He disappeared behind the cabin for a few minutes and then returned. “Looks like we’re going in the front door.”

  Her eyes widened as he pulled a credit card out of his wallet and grabbed the doorknob.

  Ivy stared. “What in the world are you doing?”

  “Is that a rhetorical question?”

  He wriggled the knob, wedging the credit card in the crack of the door. He lifted, eased the card back and forth, and lowered the knob, until with a click, the lock finally gave way.

  “Coming?” He shot her a questioning look over his shoulder as he stepped inside.

  “I’ll just wait out here until I hear the shotgun blast.”

  He shot a glance over his shoulder. “Are you fearing one or hoping for one?”

  “I’d say something witty, but I’m too cold to think of anything.”

  “Poor thing. We’ll get you warmed up soon.” He gazed around. “Hello? Anyone in here?” Joe called.

  He disappeared inside, and Ivy shot a nervous look back up the road. If an irate homeowner caught them and they had to make a run for it, how would she get through the deep snow on her numb, soaking feet? She wouldn’t. She would have to beg for mercy. Fortunately, she didn’t have to. After a minute, Joe returned.

  “Coast is clear. Looks like nobody lives here in the winter. No clothes in the closets, and the fridge is unplugged.”

  When she hesitated, Joe gestured, impatient. “What are you waiting for, an omen? Come on!”

  The agonizing cold made the decision for her. She hurried inside and closed the door behind them. The plainly furnished room contained a kitchenette, sofa, and TV. Moving to the back, she saw a small bedroom and bathroom. Joe was right. It appeared to be uninhabited. The countertops in the kitchen were empty, and the bathroom, bare of toiletries, suggested no one lived here full-time.

  “Probably a summer home,” Joe guessed. “There’s a boat shelter in the back with a couple of canoes. I’m guessing the lake isn’t too far from here.” He bent to examine the fireplace. The flue opened with a resisting squeal. “I’ll try to get a fire going. Why don’t you get undressed while I get the firewood?”

  “Excuse me?” Her head swiveled to stare at him.

  “You need to get out of your wet pants and shoes. I saw some blankets in the bedroom closet you can use to wrap up.” As he headed out the door, he paused. “Or forget the blankets, if you want. I’m easy,” he said with a grin.

  She stared at the door after he left. For a minute there, she had almost thought Joe Dunham was flirting with her. She’d better get into dry clothes ASAP. Obviously she was on the verge of hypothermia, because she hadn’t even minded.

  Chapter 6

  “That was the most delicious canned soup I’ve ever had, hands down,” Joe said, scraping his spoon to get the last few drops.

  Ivy concurred as she put her empty bowl on an end table and leaned back.

  “Nothing like thinking you might starve to death to make any meal seem like a feast.”

  The house ran on propane. Joe found only a small tank in the boat port, so they had decided to go without central heat and lights to save the propane for cooking and hot water. No matter. The roaring logs in the fire threw off plenty of heat and light in the deepening gloom of imminent nightfall. They would sleep in the living room instead of the bed—warmth took precedence over a soft mattress.

  Ivy sat wrapped in a blanket she’d gotten from a plastic tub in the bedroom closet as Joe got up to put another log on the fire. The stack of firewood on the porch ensured they could keep the blaze as high as they wanted without fear of running out tonight. With nightfall, the temperatures had dropped dramatically and the snow still fell, but the fireplace created a warm oasis in the chilly cabin.

  After he tended to the fire, Joe sat next to her, leaning back against the cushion. Part of her blanket somehow ended up on his lap. She should probably object to the intimacy, but somnolent and warm, she let it slide.

  In the silence broken only by the crackling of the fire, the possibilities of their situation gradually became evident to Ivy. Was he feeling it too? She remembered the tension that had hung thick in the hotel room when he’d fastened her dress, and the odd look on his face later when he’d asked her if she’d ever wanted the wrong man.

  If she didn’t know how much he disliked her, she would suspect he might hit on her. If he did, she would reject him, of course. No matter how strong and capable he might be in a crisis, he wasn’t her type. She didn’t have one-night stands, and she suspected he probably had little else.

  They were so wrong for each other—why even waste time thinking about him? Still, drowning pleasantly in the warmth of the cabin and the hard beauty of his male profile, she had no particular desire to be anywhere else at the moment. Until, that is, she had a thought that filled her with anxiety.

  “You don’t think Pock and Daisy are stranded too, do you?”

  Joe shook his head. The firelight played across his face, casting a golden glow that softened his harsher angles. “They had several hours’ head start on us. They probably got through before the storm got this bad.”

  “That’s good.” She relaxed, pulling the blanket tighter around her. She had a thought. “On the other hand, that could mean they’re married right now.” She looked at Joe, hoping he’d tell her she was probably wrong.

  He didn’t. “Would that be so terrible?” he asked her quietly. “For your sister to be with a guy nobody approves of?”

  Something in Joe’s voice gave Ivy the feeling they weren’t talking solely about her sister any longer. Her heart started a slow thud. Surely he wasn’t trying to drop some kind of hint about them, was he? She lifted one shoulder in a silent shrug. “I don’t know. I mean, I’d rather she be married to Pock than stranded in the snow, that’s for sure.”

  “Like we are, you mean?” he asked. She shot a glance at his profile, which had gone still and unexpressive. “I didn’t know this was such an ordeal for you, to be stuck with me.”

  She frowned. He almost sounded hurt, but that couldn’t be. Guys like Joe Dunham didn’t get their feelings hurt, at least not by girls like her—prim, reserved girls they didn’t even like. He thoroughly disapproved of her—he thought her meddlesome and judgmental.

  “Why should you be offended that I don’t want to be stranded with you? I’m sure you would have chosen to be stuck here with someone other than me if it was up to you.” Inexplicably, the friendly concierge at the Bellisimo with the fake hair, tan, and teeth came to mind. Guys like Joe—the players, the cool guys—always went for girls like that. Yes, the concierge was more Joe’s type, she thought with a pang she didn’t want to examine too closely. “I wasn’t trying to insult you. Why do you take everything I say the wrong way?” she asked. “I don’t want Daisy to be in physical danger, stuck out in this snowstorm! That doesn’t mean I want her to marry someone who is so wrong for her.”

  Joe rose, flipping the blanket off his lap as he did so. “Fine. I’m not having this argument again with you. As long as your dad’s check clears, and I’m sure it will, I’m happy.”

  “You’re only in this for a paycheck. I’m here to help my sister. Please remember that,” she answered sharply, and instantly regretted it. She hadn’t meant to imply he was nothing more than a hired hand, but sometimes he could be so damned irritating that her tongue got a few paces ahead of her brain. She had never experienced anything like it. She never let her emotions get away from her. She disliked his ability to slide past her defenses and stir her usually placid temper.

  “Fine.” He strode to the bedroom, and then came back after a moment.

  He turned on his heel and paced. They were trapped together. He couldn’t flee and the cabin wasn’t big enough—or warm enough—to allow them to create any physical distance from each other.

  He sto
pped in front of the fireplace, braced his arm on the mantel, and stared at the flickering flames. She had the feeling he wasn’t even seeing them; he simply wanted an excuse to turn away.

  “Joe, I didn’t mean to insult you. I don’t know what to tell you. Pock is wrong for my sister. It’s no reflection on you.” She desperately needed him to understand. “My problem with Pock is not that he doesn’t have money, or that he’s an MMA fighter, or any of that stuff. He’s trying to use my sister. He just wants her to support him while he gets his MMA career established. Someone used me for my money and family connections once, and it hurt me very badly. I don’t want to see her go through that.”

  His shoulders remained set, like something she couldn’t quite see churned under his still waters. After a long moment, his shoulders dropped and he turned halfway to face her, his eyes pensive.

  “It’s been a long day. We ought to get some sleep. Hopefully we’ll be able to get out of here tomorrow.” He raked the fire again and added two more logs.

  “Should we take turns keeping the fire going?” she ventured after a moment, when she realized he wasn’t going to directly address what she’d said.

  “No. You get some more sleep. I’ll take care of the fire.” He disappeared into the bedroom and came back with a couple of pillows and another blanket. “You take the couch. I’ll curl up on the floor.”

  She settled in on the sofa with her blanket and pillow as he made a place to sleep on the floor beside her. He settled closer to her than he probably needed to, but she didn’t mind. It reminded her of an illustration she’d seen in a medieval manuscript: a knight curled up at the foot of a lady’s bed, guarding her while maintaining a chaste distance to prove his courtly love.

  In the chilly dimness of the cabin’s interior, it didn’t take much to imagine Joe Dunham as her chevalier. As sleep made her lids heavy, she watched the firelight flicker on his rugged face. This stubborn, difficult, loyal man had set himself to protect her, if only for the night.

  ****

  In his office on the far south side of Vegas, Phil Cantor swore at the two men who appeared in his doorway, Jerrie fluttering behind them. He dismissed her with a scowl and waved the men into his office, shutting out his assistant’s prying eyes with a slam of the door. It rattled in its flimsy frame. You get what you pay for, Cantor figured, and he hadn’t paid a lot for this office.

  “What the hell are you two doing back here? Aren’t you supposed to be finding Pock?”

  The shorter of the two men, Belton, shook his head. “You sent us out there in an Acura, man. You have any idea what it’s doing in the mountains right now? It’s a freakin’ blizzard.”

  Ramirez agreed. “We couldn’t do anything in that weather. We would have gotten killed if we’d stayed with it. Oya told me so. The passes are gonna be closed for sure.”

  “Jesus.” Phil rose from his desk and wandered over to his office’s sole window. The view was as low-rent as the office itself—rocky scrub dotted with low vegetation. The snow-dusted mountains in the distance almost compensated for the ugliness of the near view, but not quite. “What the hell am I gonna do now? If they get through the mountains before the storm hit, we might lose them for good.”

  The fight manager had been able to give a good description of the couple who had been asking about Pock, but it didn’t make up for his stupidity in replacing Pock without notifying Cantor first. Using his description, Jerrie placed a few calls and found out all about a gorgeous guy and the bitchy girl with him from the very talkative concierge who had arranged a Jeep rental for the pair. The concierge, eager to help, had volunteered that she’d requested snow chains for the Jeep at the gorgeous guy’s request. He’d explained they were heading into the Sierra Nevadas and didn’t want to take a chance, what with the forecast being so sketchy.

  Ramirez lifted a cell phone from his pocket. The device looked tiny in his meaty fist. “No big deal, man. We put a beacon on the Jeep.”

  Phil’s mood brightened for the first time since he’d heard about Pock taking off. “Why the hell didn’t you say so in the first place?”

  “We put it on when they stopped at the gas station. We didn’t want to take the chance of losing him in the mountains.”

  “Why did you need a beacon?” Phil couldn’t resist needling Ramirez. “Couldn’t Oya tell you where they went?”

  “That’s not funny, man,” Ramirez said with a scowl. “You don’t fuck with Oya. She doesn’t like people who doubt her.”

  Phil ran his hand down his face, rubbing his eyes as he mulled over the situation. He couldn’t risk sending these two out by themselves again. He didn’t tolerate screw-ups. At least they had thought to use a tracking beacon. If they hadn’t, he would have had to put a bullet in each of them.

  This time, he had to handle it personally. Pock wouldn’t get away with double-crossing him. He’d fielded angry calls from too many powerful—and dangerous—people who’d lost money on Dykeman. How the hell would it look if he let Pock get away with it? His own life wouldn’t be worth a damn if he let some no-name thug thumb him in the eye without consequences. He’d take Ramirez with him. The mountains wouldn’t stay closed forever, and when the passes opened, he intended to be right on Pock’s trail.

  ****

  The bruising cold woke Ivy from a sound sleep. What time was it? She peered outside. No streaks of dawn light relieved the blackness of the sky. The fire had subsided to nothing more than glowing embers, and the temperature in the cabin had dropped accordingly. Beside her on the floor, Joe slept on.

  She felt a stir of pity for him. He must be exhausted. At the wheel for hours of dangerous driving, he hadn’t been able to snatch naps as she had. She pulled back her blanket and stepped lightly over him. Shivering in the frigid air, she scampered to the fireplace and added two more logs. Easing the poker out of its rack as silently as possible, she stirred the embers to life again and waited for the new logs to catch fire. When the heat flared against her face, she replaced the poker and headed back for the sanctuary of her blanket.

  Intent only on climbing back into her warm cocoon, she once again stepped over Joe. She gasped as a strong warm hand caught her bare ankle and pulled. Surprised, she fell off-balance to the couch with a plop.

  “Sorry,” she whispered. “I needed to put more logs on the fire.” Belatedly, she wondered why she was apologizing to him. She tried to tug her ankle out of his grip, to no avail.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  His voice, husky from sleep, and, just possibly, desire, made the fine hair on her arms stand up. The heat of his hand sizzled all the way up her leg to the inside of her thigh.

  Ridiculous, really, she told herself. She’d never thought of her ankle as an erogenous zone before, but she couldn’t otherwise explain the sexual tension that flowered between them at his briefest touch.

  Clearly she’d been celibate for too long.

  She tried to remember how long it had been since she’d been to bed with a man. A year, at least. Chas Coffey, from her father’s club. They had dated for six months or so before she’d finally let him spend the night at her apartment. The experience had been unmemorable and never repeated.

  While these thoughts spun through her mind, she realized she’d been staring at him like a frightened mouse, not answering his question. What had he asked?

  “Nothing. I mean, I’m not going anywhere,” she said, and then paused to try to smooth down a flutter of inexplicable panic. “Just getting back into bed. I was cold.”

  “I can fix that.”

  Before she could respond, he slipped his other hand behind her knee and tugged on her leg, pulling her inexorably down until she lay half atop him. With a flick of his arm, they were huddled together inside his blanket.

  Her breath caught. Her body temperature skyrocketed, likely having more to do with the impressive erection against the inside of her thigh than a mere blanket. The recognition of his arousal warmed her face. Caught unawares, s
he had to will herself not to tilt her hips and press against his heat. The simmering attraction she’d felt toward him since she’d met him flared to life, and she couldn’t hide it, no matter how much she wanted to.

  Uncertain, she met his gaze and held it. Did he realize what he was doing to her? Did he know she could feel the hardness so blatantly against her body? One look at his face told her that he did. She held her breath, unable to react, unable to do anything except let the energy sizzle through her body. Joe Dunham seemed to have that effect on her. She bit her lip. Would he make a move? She hoped and feared he would.

  Brushing a strand of hair back from her face, he raised his mouth to hers. His tongue explored her mouth, insistent yet tender. The scents of the fire, the pines, and some fragrance that belonged only to Joe overwhelmed her senses. The tension in her gut eased, lulled by the feel of his mouth on hers. She basked in his kiss for untold moments.

  She would have never expected such gentleness from this tousled tough guy. It soothed her frazzled nerves and allowed her to relax. She probably should have been mentally reviewing all the reasons she shouldn’t be doing this, but instead the hum of anxiety faded and she simply enjoyed him. The heat of his body slowly penetrated hers, and her shivering gradually ceased, replaced by an entirely different frisson of excitement.

  Without her intending it, her hand crept around his waist, sliding under the blanket to caress his back. Even that tame gesture seemed to set him aflame. His answering groan sent fire streaking through her veins.

  She—she, Ivy Smithson, introvert, scholar, and dull, dutiful daughter—had what it took to attract this beautiful, prickly, unpredictable and difficult man?

  Unbelievable.

  He shifted, his body covering her.

  His lips left hers and began a long, slow slide down her neck. She wondered if he could feel her pulse hammering in her throat. It beat so hard, she wouldn’t be surprised if he could hear it. Lost in the delight of his mouth, she didn’t realize his hand had slipped under her shirt until his fingertips closed over the tip of her breast. Electricity streaked through her, along with a dash of panic.