by Lisa Jackson
“Bully you?! I never—”
“Yes, you did. You’ve done nothing but throw one order after another at me like some kind of drill sergeant ever since we left town yesterday morning, and frankly, I resent it. Despite what you may think of me, I do have a brain in my head—”
“I never said you didn’t!”
“Not in so many words, no. But you act like I haven’t got the sense to come in out of the rain, when all I’m worried about is my daughter, and I’m not taking it anymore!”
Wound up, all her worry and frustration coming to a boil inside her, she leveled a finger at his chest and told him what she thought of him and every other man, including James, who’d tried to tell her what to do and run her life. She was tired of it and she wasn’t putting up with it a second longer—not from him or anyone else.
It wasn’t like her to go off on a tirade, and she knew that later she was going to be appalled. But she’d held too much back for too long, and the words just came spewing forth. To his credit, Hunter didn’t say one word to stop her. But his eyes narrowed to a laser glint, and his jaw turned hard as granite. And when she poked him in the chest once too often with that accusing finger of hers, he grabbed her hand, trapping her fingers in his. But still, he let her have her say.
It was snowing hard when she finally ran out of words, but neither of them noticed. In the fading light his nearly black eyes glittered with anger. “Are you through now?”
“Yes, dammit! Let go of my hand!”
Hunter might have, if she hadn’t used quite that tone with him. He considered himself a reasonable man, and he knew everybody needed to vent their frustrations once in a while. But he wasn’t the cause of the lady’s problems—he was only trying to help her. And there was only so much abuse he would take before his own patience ran thin. Naomi had just pushed him to that limit.
“The hell I will,” he growled, tightening his fingers around hers when she would have pulled back. “You’ve had your say—now I’m going to have mine. If you want to rage at me for something I did, I’ll be the first to tell you that’s your right. But I’m not the one who’s hurt you. All I’ve tried to do is keep you safe until we find Laura and get out of here, and you’ve given me nothing but grief for it. Well, I’ve got my limits, too, sweetheart, and enough is enough. You agreed to follow my orders before we ever left your house, and like it or not, I’m responsible for you as long as we’re in these damn mountains. That means you do what I tell you when I tell you—”
“The hell I do!”
“And if you don’t like it, that’s just too damn bad. You gave me your word, and I’m holding you to it.”
“You and whose army? Dammit, let me go!”
He should have. But the lady had a way of pushing his buttons and clouding his judgment, and he’d had just about enough of her temper for one day. She’d nearly gotten herself killed by not following orders, and in the process, she’d scared the hell out of him. That was going to end right here, right now. It was time she learned who was really in charge, and he was just the man to teach her. Muttering a curse, knowing he was making a mistake but unable to stop himself, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
Six
It happened so fast, Naomi didn’t have time to think, let alone resist. One second they were glaring at each other like two fighters in a ring about to pound each other senseless, and the next she was in his arms. Gasping, her heart slamming against her ribs, she should have slugged him one. No one manhandled her without asking to get belted. At the very least she should have demanded that he release her. But although he reached for her in anger, the second his lips touched hers, it wasn’t temper that drove him, but need. A quiet, desperate need that called to something deep inside her, something that she hadn’t even known was there until he’d kissed her that first time and left her reeling.
She’d tried to convince herself it was just her imagination. How could it be anything else? She didn’t know this man! She didn’t want to want him. But he just touched her, kissed her and she melted. His arms tightened around her, his mouth moved hungrily over hers, and the rest of the world just fell away, leaving her alone with him and a need that consumed her. Moaning softly, she pressed closer.
They might have stood there for hours, lost in the taste and heat and feel of each other while the falling snow swirled around them, but Naomi made the mistake of moving to put her arms around Hunter’s waist. Pain, as red-hot as a burning match, flared in her wrist, drawing a sharp, startled cry from her.
Muttering curses, Hunter abruptly drew back to scowl down at her in concern. “Dammit, I can’t believe I forgot about your wrist! Are you all right? Let me see.”
“No! It’s fine. Really! I just moved wrong. I wasn’t thinking.”
Neither of them had been, but that was something he obviously didn’t intend to admit. Too late, Naomi wished she hadn’t, either. She couldn’t deny any longer that she was physically attracted to the man, but that was all it was. Just basic, simple chemistry. It wasn’t something she could control—or anything she was foolish enough to put any stock in. James had destroyed any chance she had of trusting a man years ago, and she would never again let anyone get close enough to hurt her or her daughter again.
If she couldn’t seem to resist Hunter, she told herself, it was only because he was the type of man a woman naturally turned to in a time of crisis. He was a take-charge kind of guy, and for that, she thanked God. Because it would take just such a man to find Laura. But the only thing she was letting him take charge of was the search—not her. She’d do well to remember that.
Ignoring the pain that throbbed in her wrist, she frowned in confusion at the snow that had intensified to almost white-out conditions in a matter of minutes. “What happened?” she cried, stunned. “Just a second ago it was barely snowing!”
“Blizzard,” Hunter said shortly. “C’mon, we’ve got to get out of here and find some shelter!”
They had almost waited too long. It was snowing so hard they could barely see a foot in front of them, making it impossible to get their bearings. Hunter had checked National Forest Service maps before setting out on the search and had a general idea where an old line cabin was, but when he got turned around in the snow, and the cabin wasn’t where he thought it would be, he started to worry. There was no room for error in a blizzard. One miscalculation and you might not be found until spring.
Behind him on the snowmobile, Naomi held herself stiffly against him, and he knew she had to be in pain. But she didn’t utter so much as a word of caution as he darted in and out among the trees, making his way farther north at a speed that was nothing short of suicidal.
With visibility worsening by the minute, he would have missed the cabin if it hadn’t been for Naomi. She spotted it half-hidden among the trees just when he thought he’d missed it and would have to turn back. “There it is!” she said hoarsely in his ear. “Over to the left.”
The cabin, they quickly discovered, wasn’t in the best of shape. The porch roof was sagging, the front door was warped, and in the not-too-recent past, some type of animal had been nesting inside. But the roof was solid, the windows weren’t broken, and the last human occupant had added to the woodpile before he left. That was good enough for Hunter. Hustling Naomi inside, he carried in their gear, then strode back outside for the wood they would need to get them through the night.
While Hunter built a fire in the fireplace, Naomi found a broom, and with her one good hand, awkwardly swept the place clean of its last animal visitor. By the time the fire caught and started to send out a blaze of warmth, the small cabin was, if not clean, at least less cluttered.
Already peeling out of his protective outer gear, Hunter looked over at Naomi and growled, “You need to get out of those wet clothes and into something dry, then we’ll eat. I’ve got some dehydrated stew in my pack. That’ll help warm you up.”
Turning his back to search for it, he gave her the only privacy he could to c
hange, and in the sudden, tense silence, the sound of a zipper being lowered seemed to set the air humming. His jaw set, Hunter tried to close out the sound, but he seemed to have radar where she was concerned and was aware of her every move. When she suddenly went still and just seemed to stand there, he scowled down at his pack and couldn’t even remember what he was looking for in it.
“I thought you were going to change,” he said tersely. “What are you waiting for?”
“My wrist,” she said huskily. “I can’t. The splint—”
Too late he realized that with her hurt wrist, she wouldn’t, in all likelihood, be able to even change her socks by herself. Which meant he would have to help her, touch her. The need that had burned in his gut ever since he’d kissed her flared hotter just at the thought.
Torture. There was no other way to describe what happened next. His jaw rigid, he turned to help her and found her standing before the fire, outlined in its golden glow as darkness gathered outside. Her hair was wet and tousled from her fall and their wild ride on the snowmobile, her cheeks windburned. And still, she was beautiful.
Aching to touch her, he reminded himself that she was hurt and that was the only reason she was asking for his help. But his body, he discovered in disgust, didn’t give a damn about reasons as long as he got to touch her. Already hard for her, he crossed the room and wondered how he was going to get through the next few minutes without going quietly out of his mind.
“I’ll have to take the splint off,” he said hoarsely. “It’s probably going to hurt.”
Without a word she held out her injured wrist to him.
He tried to be gentle, but there was no way he could get her out of the splint and her jacket without hurting her. She didn’t so much as whimper, but she couldn’t blink away the tears fast enough that sprang to her eyes, and Hunter felt like the lowest slug on the food chain. Murmuring soothingly to her, he quickly re-splinted her wrist.
Confused, she said, “But what about my sweater? I still have to take it off.”
“The cuff’ll stretch around the splint,” he assured her. “I’ll work it through, and this way your wrist will stay immobile.” Reaching for the hem of her pullover sweater, he tried not to notice the softness of her bare skin as his fingers brushed against her midriff. But her eyes flew to his and he knew she felt it, too—the heat that always seemed to be there between them. A muscle ticking in his jaw, he rasped, “Ready?”
She nodded, and he slowly began to work her sweater up over her head. His teeth clenched on an oath, and he tried not to touch her any more than was strictly necessary, tried not to look anywhere but at the sweater as he worked the garment off of her. But he was a man, not a monk, and somehow, over the course of the past two days, she’d managed to make him want her in a way that no woman ever had before. With a will of their own, his eyes followed the expanse of soft white skin that was slowly revealed, inch by inch, as the sweater came off.
She’d been riding behind him for days now, her breasts pressed up against his back, and he should have had some inkling of how the lady was built. But imagining and seeing were two different things. She wore a simple cotton bra that wasn’t any more revealing than a bathing suit top, but his mouth went dry just at the sight of her. Lord, she was pretty! And he wanted to touch her so badly that for a second he had to curl his hands into fists just to keep from reaching for her.
Swallowing a curse, he reminded himself that she was hurt and worried to death about Laura. She trusted him to help her, and he would cut off his right arm before he betrayed that trust. So he ignored the fire burning in his belly, kept his expression neutral and, after her sweater was tossed aside, helped her out of her boots and reached for the snap of her pants.
It would have been easier if she hadn’t been as aware of him as he was of her, but although she tried to pretend otherwise, her body gave her away. A slow flush stole up from her breasts to her cheeks, and when he finally got her out of her pants, she was trembling, and they both knew it wasn’t from the cold. Hurriedly, he reached for the dry sweats she’d laid out to change into and began the torturous job of dressing her.
And every time his hands came into contact with her thighs, her hips or accidentally brushed the silken curve of her breast, it cost him. Sweat beaded his brow, he couldn’t seem to unlock his jaw, and he’d have sworn the temperature in the cabin hovered somewhere at 110. If he’d had it to do over again, he would rather have chewed ground glass than put himself through that kind of temptation again.
“There!” he growled, when she was decently covered at last. “Sit down by the fire and warm up while I fix us something to eat. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
Every nerve ending tingling, her blood rushing hotly through her veins, Naomi would have laughed at the very idea of eating now if she could have managed to find the breath. How could he even think about food when she could still feel his hands on her, still taste the heat of a kiss that should have long since cooled? She’d known him what? Two days? And already her body responded to his touch, regardless of how innocent it was.
Confused, she watched him heat water for the dehydrated stew that would be their supper and asked herself not for the first time if she was losing her mind. This wasn’t like her. She didn’t kiss men she’d only known a matter of days—she didn’t even let them touch her. And, thanks to the painful lessons James had taught her, she certainly didn’t trust them.
But she could trust Hunter. If she’d had any doubts before, he’d just proven that. When every other man she knew would have taken advantage of her the second he had her out of her clothes, he had barely touched her, and then only when he had to. And it wasn’t for lack of interest. She’d been on the receiving end of his kiss in the snow; she’d seen the unsteadiness of his fingers as he’d started to pull her sweater up and over her head. He’d wanted her. And she’d wanted him. And that, more than anything, shook her. How had they come to this point so quickly?
It only took a few minutes for Hunter to prepare the stew, and when it was done, they sat on opposite sides of the small fireplace and ate. Forcing each bite down, Naomi had never before been quite so aware of their isolation. Outside, the storm had intensified, cutting them off from the rest of the world. The wind, howling angrily, raced around the cabin, throwing ice and snow against the windows. Icy air slipped through nooks and crevices, and despite the roaring fire, the temperature inside was anything but toasty.
“We’d both better sleep as close to the fire as we can tonight,” Hunter said, shattering the silence that had thickened between them as they ate. “The wind’s whistling through the logs like a sieve, and it’s only going to get colder before morning.”
Shivering, Naomi set her barely touched stew down and hugged herself as a cold draft whispered across the back of her neck. She didn’t want to think of James out there in the cold and the snow with Laura, but she couldn’t push the haunting images from her mind. “Do you think they found someplace to stay?”
She didn’t have to say who—he knew. “You said yourself that James is a survivalist,” he said quietly. “He would have seen the storm coming hours before it hit and found them shelter.”
“But they’re on foot,” she said worriedly as she moved over to one of the curtainless windows and stared out at the black, snowy night. “And Laura would have slowed him down. What if they didn’t have time to find a place? Or—”
“If you start playing what if, all you’re going to do is drive yourself crazy,” he warned. “If you want to help Laura, the best thing you can do for both of you is get some rest and give your body time to heal some after that fall you took today. Now that they’re on foot, we’ll probably find them tomorrow and Laura’s going to need you to be strong. Getting out of here after this storm isn’t going to be easy.”
He was right, Naomi knew, but that didn’t make her worry any less. With a will of their own, her eyes kept drifting to the darkened windows as the supper dishes were quickl
y cleaned up and their sleeping bags unrolled before the hearth. Hunter had her check the messages on her answering machine with his cell phone just in case James had done the decent thing and let her know Laura was safe. But there was nothing. As Hunter built up the fire and made sure the logs he’d brought inside earlier were within easy reach, she crawled into her sleeping bag and tried to convince herself that James wouldn’t be stupid enough to let anything happen to his own daughter. But long after Hunter had slipped into his own sleeping bag and fallen asleep, she lay wide-awake, fear clutching her heart.
Miserable, she never knew when she fell asleep and began to dream. One second she was staring unblinkingly at the flames that danced over the logs in the fireplace, and the next she was fighting her way through the storm, searching, always searching, for her baby in the dark.
Mama! Where’s Mama?
Muffled by the howling wind, Laura’s faint cry floated out of the darkness to her, teasing and taunting and swirling around her from all directions. Glancing wildly around, Naomi stopped in her tracks, her heart pounding frantically. “Here, sweetheart!” she called desperately. “Mama’s here! Where are you?”
Her only answer was the eerie moan of the wind.
Snow slapped at her, blinding her, trapping her, keeping her from her daughter. Terrified, she stumbled forward, searching, tears streaming down her cold face. “Laura? Answer me, sweetheart! Just tell mama where you are.”
Mama…Mama…Mama…
Like something out of “The Twilight Zone,” Laura’s cry echoed back to her, slowly, slowly fading until there was nothing left but silence. Her heart stopping dead in her breast, Naomi screamed, “No! Come back! Don’t leave me!”
Dead to the world, Hunter came awake with a jerk at her tortured cry. In a heartbeat he was on his knees beside her, bending over her in concern when he saw she was crying in her sleep. “Wake up, sweetheart. C’mon. Open your eyes. That’s it. Tell me where it hurts. Is it your wrist again? Did you turn in your sleep and hurt it?”
