by Carol Grace
She just wished she'd taken a moment to decide which box to carry in first. But she couldn't. Not and retain her dignity. Because he was watching her. Waiting for her to stumble. To fail. Then he'd close in on her like a mountain lion after a deer and snatch away her property.
If she had taken a moment, she would have chosen the box with the hammock or the groceries. Because by the time she got back to the bathhouse next to the stream, it was dusk and her arms ached. It was no problem to hike back to where her boxes sat, no problem at all. On the other hand, it would feel so good to stretch out in that tub and let the steaming waters work their magic on her aching muscles, then heat something over her new propane camp stove and rock herself to sleep in her new hammock.
She dumped the box on the ground and rubbed the muscles in her arms. Then she tore at the cardboard with her fingernails. It was her hammock and the stove. Thank heavens. Even if she didn't get back to pick up the rest of the stuff tonight, she'd at least have a hot meal and a good night's sleep. And after a hot meal and a good night's sleep, she could do anything. Without anyone's help, she thought smugly.
From the supply of freeze-dried food in her suitcase, she chose turkey tetrazzini, added spring water, lit the stove and sat cross-legged on the ground in front of it. When it was hot she ate every reconstituted noodle and every shred of turkey, then washed it down with cold mountain spring water. Her very own water, from her very own spring. She sighed with contentment, satisfied with her self-sufficiency.
She wished Zeb Bowie could see her now. He'd see how well she fit into the Rocky Mountain lifestyle. So she'd ordered the wrong drink at the bar and maybe she had said the wrong thing to the bartender. That didn't mean she didn't belong there. She belonged there as much as anyone. Maybe more than anyone. Because her great-grandfather was a pioneer, and she'd inherited his spirit.
Filled with turkey tetrazzini and a new confidence, she unwrapped her new hammock and tied it between two trees. It was made of strong canvas and she was very tired. After pulling on an extra sweatshirt she rolled into the hammock. Her stomach, full of spring water and freeze-dried turkey, lurched as she swung between the trees. If she hadn't known she was landlocked, she would have sworn she was seasick. She threw one leg over the edge of the hammock and dug her toe into the ground to stop its movement. Then, ever so carefully, she lifted her leg and tucked it back. The breeze picked up and she was swinging back and forth again. She moaned and buried her face in the stiff canvas and closed her eyes.
The wind blew out of the west and tossed her from side to side. Tiny rain drops began to fall gently on the back of her head and her shoulders. Soon her whole body was wet. She rolled out of the hammock.
“All right, I give up,” she muttered and shuffled back to the bathhouse for the second straight night. Only this time she didn't gaze up at the stars through the slats above her head, she stared at the rain that splatted intermittently against her forehead like a Chinese torture. Finally, somehow, she drifted off into a damp, uncomfortable sleep.
Zeb was uncomfortable, too. Not that he was damp. He was warm and dry on the second floor of the old house as he listened to the rain on the shake roof. But he couldn't help thinking of those cardboard boxes stacked on the side of the road—and the woman who'd left them there. The woman who'd stomped away without a backward glance, with a huge box in her arms, a box she could barely see over. He wondered how she made it back without stumbling in those flimsy sandals. Even if she had, the rest of the boxes and bags must still be there. There was no way she could have carried them all the way back to the springs. So right now the cardboard was probably disintegrating into pulp, leaving her new survival equipment exposed to the elements.
Not to mention her groceries, which were turning to mush. The twenty-five-pound bag of flour would be paste by now. The sugar would be dissolving into syrup and running off like snow melt. He should be happy about that. Without food she couldn't survive. She'd have to leave. The very thought should have made him smile. But it didn't.
He stood at the window in his boxer shorts and stared out at the rain. He wanted her to leave. There was no doubt in his mind that she was destined to fail. Eventually. Because he knew something about failure. And he knew that it was okay to fail if you'd done your damnedest to succeed. She hadn't had a chance to do that yet.
There was nothing he wanted more than to see her walking back down the trail from where she came, in her silk shirt and suede boots. But not without a go at it. Not without trying. Why not give her a fighting chance? Would it be that hard to haul her stuff down to the springs and store them in a cabin?
The answer was yes, but he did it anyway. He led two of his pack mules down to the road in the rain, loaded all of her goods onto their backs and into their saddlebags and led the way by horseback down the trail, with the rain beating a tattoo on the hood of his parka. And the voice in his head said, “You're a fool, Bowie. A stupid idiot. You think she'll thank you for this and then leave? Is that the deal? Think again.”
It was coming down hard now. The trail was pure mud and the mules brayed their protest. He felt like braying himself. But he kept going. When they finally reached the springs, he tossed her boxes on the dirt floor of a deserted cabin. He had no idea what condition her groceries were in. That was for her to find out. He'd done enough for her already. Too much.
He looked around at the old pool, slowly filling with rain water. Noticed the hammock swinging in the wind. Stood there wondering where she was. In one of the other cabins? In the bathhouse? Back in San Francisco? No, that would be too good to be true. Wherever she was, he didn't plan to see her again. He would send her a message. How he would do that, he didn't know. There was no mail delivery at the springs. And carrier pigeon was out.
Sam. He'd wait a day or two and he'd have Sam make her their final offer. By then, she'd be ready to accept. By then, Sam would see what a misfit she was. What a gorgeous, gutsy, misfit she was. Which was why he was not going to see her again. There was something about her that made it hard for him to stick to his principles. Something about the way she looked at him, with a mixture of stubborn pride and vulnerability. Which was why this was the last, the positively last thing he was going to do with her or for her.
What if Sam didn't see what a misfit she was? He had this tendency to feel sorry for poor, defenseless creatures. Poor, defenseless Chloe Hudson? Hah! He'd have to think of something else. He didn't even want Sam to meet her.
He thought so long and so far into the night that he overslept the next morning. Small wonder, since he'd been out in the rain half the night and spent the other half worrying. At least he'd had no dreams about Chloe Hudson to interfere with his rest. She was out of his dreams. Now if only he could get her out of his mind and out of his life. He might still have been sleeping if George, his foreman, hadn't pounded on his bedroom door.
“Boss, you in there? Somebody here to see you.”
“What? What time is it? Who is it?” Zeb staggered across the room and opened the door.
“It's a lady,” George said in a stage whisper, his eyes wide with shock.
Zeb rocked back on his bare heels. “No further questions. Tell her I'm not here,” he whispered urgently. “Tell her I left the country.”
“But...I already asked her in for a cup of coffee and a biscuit. She looked so puny, like she could use a bite. She's sittin' at the kitchen table right now,” George added with a nervous glance over his shoulder.
Zeb closed his eyes for a moment hoping he was dreaming this part. But when he opened them, George was still standing there, staring at him.
“Okay, okay, I'm coming,” he assured him.
Zeb dragged his feet as he came down the stairs and approached the kitchen. It wasn't too late to sneak out the front door. On the other hand, maybe she'd come to say goodbye. He didn't want to miss that. Besides, he was hungry. And George's biscuits were worth waking up for.
Evidently she thought so too, because she was sitting a
t the table with a thick mug of steaming coffee in front of her, watching George take a pan out of the oven. The kitchen was warm and steamy, fragrant with the smell of his hot flaky biscuits.
But the minute Chloe looked up at him, and her gaze collided with his, he forgot about food and remembered the way she'd kissed him at the edge of the road. The way she sighed and moaned with reckless abandon, letting him think...letting him imagine what might come next. He squeezed his eyes shut and forcibly blocked the image. But he couldn't forget the way she'd wrapped her arms around him and opened her lips to welcome him in as if there was no tomorrow.
But there was tomorrow. Tomorrow was now. He had to get rid of her. Now.
“Here you are, little lady,” George said, sliding a half dozen biscuits onto a plate in front of her.
Zeb shot daggers at his old friend and foreman but George seemed oblivious. “Wait a minute,” Zeb said. “She can't eat all those. What about me?”
“Plenty more where those came from,” George said with a grin that showed his gold front tooth. Then with a deliberate wink in the direction of his employer, he left the room.
The room was silent, except for the coffee percolating on the stove. Zeb reached for a cup. What in the hell was she doing there? It was bad enough she'd taken over his hot tub, now she'd invaded his kitchen as well. He snuck a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. And noted with satisfaction that she looked tired. Why he should feel a stab of sympathy in the vicinity of his gut, was beyond comprehension. Maybe it was just hunger. Yeah, that's what it was.
The next time he looked at her there was a faint blush on her cheeks. She looked embarrassed. She should be embarrassed.
“I didn't come here for breakfast,” she explained.
“You could have fooled me,” Zeb grumbled, pouring himself a cup of coffee since it looked like no one was going to do it for him.
“I came to thank you,” she said, “and—”
“Forget it.” He sat across from her, took a biscuit off her plate and slathered it with butter and honey.
Chloe studied him from under long lashes. She only wished she could look that good first thing in the morning. Maybe after she had her inflatable mattress set up she would. For now she felt like her back was in a vise. Her eyelids were heavy and red around the rims.
Not him. His eyes were the clear blue of the ocean outside the Golden Gate, though he must have spent hours in the night bringing her goods down the trail to the springs. He moved around the kitchen with the grace of a panther. And he ate like a bear, putting away biscuits one after the other. Everyone she knew at home watched what they ate. A plain bagel for breakfast, a salad for lunch and lean meat for dinner. This man did hard physical work all day. It showed in every muscle of his physique. He was quite a specimen. She'd noticed that right away as he stood there in the bathhouse, in all his naked glory. She stared into her coffee cup as if there might be a message in the grounds. If there was, it would surely say: Don't get carried away. You 're in a vulnerable state. Just divorced, away from friends and family. Tired, hungry and depressed.
But there was no denying he was a beautiful man. On the outside. If you liked the rugged type, that is. It was the inside she didn't understand. What made him tick? Why had he driven away in a huff, leaving her with a stack of boxes, only to return in the middle of the night to haul them to the resort?
“As I said before,” she murmured, “I don't understand you.”
“What's not to understand?” he said, lifting his cup in the air. “I didn't want to see your stuff dissolve in the rain. Call it thrift. Call it prudence.”
“I call it kindness.”
He glared at her. “Well, don't.”
She hesitated, afraid to offend him again with another compliment.
“Look,” she said, “I know you don't want me here. I shouldn't have come and barged in on your breakfast like this. But I don't have a phone, and I was grateful and the biscuits smelled so good.”
“All the way over to the springs?”
“No...no. I mean when I got to the door. But now that I know you don't want to be thanked, I just—”
“You got that right.”
“I just want to say, I was hoping maybe we could get along somehow. As neighbors, maybe friends and—”
“What about the doctor?”
“Doctor? Are you sick?”
“I'm not sick. But I'm not stupid, either. And I don't like being used. As some kind of substitute.”
Her face wrinkled into a puzzled frown. “What?”
“You're married.”
She set her mug down with a thud. “No, I'm not. I was, but I'm not anymore.” She tried for a casual, I-don't-care tone and it almost worked. If her lip hadn't quivered it would have. The truth was that she did care. She cared that her marriage had failed. She cared that she'd put so much into it and had nothing to show for it. Nothing but a determination not to let it happen again. She pressed her lips together. No more quivering. No more tears.
“What happened?” he asked, bracing his elbows on the old pine table.
She almost told him it was none of his business. But there was something in his eyes. It wasn't sympathy. She hated sympathy. That was why she'd left San Francisco. Everybody felt so sorry for her. Even if they didn't say anything. It was there in their eyes.
It wasn't understanding, either. How could he possibly understand? He didn't know her. He didn't know Brandon. It was just interest. Interest in her, as a neighbor, and in her story. Was that what she was looking for? Was that what she'd come a thousand miles to find?
She took a sip of coffee, then gazed off over his head and out the window to the barn and the fields beyond. She never intended to tell a stranger the story of her marriage, but somehow the words tumbled out.
“He wanted some space,” she said.
“Space?”
“Yes, you know. He felt like he'd been crowded all his life. His parents pushed him to succeed, first to get into the right college, then medical school, internship, residency. It was nonstop work, work, work, for years and years.”
“Tell me about it,” Zeb muttered.
“And now that he's made it he's got his own practice, and money coming in, he wants to live a little.”
“And you don't?” he asked.
“Of course, but in a different way. He, uh, he wants to go out with other women. He is going out with other women. Was going out with other women.”
Once those words spoken aloud would have filled her with humiliation. Now, just getting them out into the air gave her a feeling of relief.
“Not exactly conducive to a good marriage,” Zeb said dryly.
“No. Are you speaking from experience?” she asked hesitantly. She expected him to tell her it was none of her business. But she hated spilling her guts to someone she knew so little about.
“No. But I came close once. And I've observed some happy marriages and some unhappy ones. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know you can't cheat. There goes love. There goes trust. Out the window.”
He glanced out the open window over the kitchen sink at the gray skies. Then he stood abruptly and closed it with a loud bang, as if that would keep love and trust inside. It signaled an end to the conversation.
“And now if you'll excuse me.”
“Of course. I'm keeping you from your work. I just wanted—”
“To thank me, I know.” He took his hat from the rack and reached for the door.
“Not only that,” she said running her damp palms down the sides of her jeans. What was wrong with her, a seasoned San Francisco hostess, accustomed to giving dinner parties for twelve, afraid to ask one cowboy to dinner? If she didn't speak now, he'd be out the door in a second. “I was wondering if you'd like to come to dinner tonight.” There, she'd said it
“Dinner?” he asked, stupefied.
“Yes, dinner. Now that I've got my supplies, I wanted to celebrate. And I owe you for the other night and now for bre
akfast. It won't be elaborate, all I've got is the little stove, but I thought I could...” She was blathering. Unable to stop. Afraid if she did, he'd say no. For some reason it was terribly important for him to say yes. If she kept talking, he'd keep standing there with his hand on the doorknob, staring at her as if she was asking him to go hang gliding from Sheep Mountain. “Of course, if you're busy...”
“I am pretty busy,” he said and pushed the door open halfway.
Her heart sank. The tears she'd been holding back sprang to her eyes. Why, because a neighbor was too busy to come to dinner? Come on. She forced her lips to form a quavery smile and walked to the door, where she turned sideways and brushed by him on her way out. And in that split second, the tips of her breasts came into contact with the hard muscles in his chest.
She froze. She wanted to move. To get away from him and his kitchen and his ranch. But she couldn't. Their faces were so close she could see the faint worry lines in his forehead. See the rough shadow of a beard that lined his jaw. Almost feel how it would scrape across her face.
“Sorry,” she said under her breath. Surprised that she could speak at all. Surprised she could breathe.
Zeb grabbed her by the shoulders, intending to push her away. Instead he groaned and pulled her tight against him. So tight he could feel her full breasts pressed against his chest. Her hips locked onto his. So close she must be aware of his hot unmistakable arousal. What must she think of him? Turning her out of his house, then holding on to her so she couldn't leave? He didn't know. He didn't care. He wanted her. He wanted her to go. He wanted her to stay. God help him, he just wanted her.
