“What’s the matter?”
“The door’s stuck,” she shouted, the wind taking her words away.
“Here, hold this,” he shouted back to her. Then, bracing himself, Jimmy rammed the door hard with his shoulder. The only thing that moved was the pain that shot through his shoulder all the way to the top of his head. “Where’s John Wayne when you need him?” he muttered to himself. Taking a deep breath, he tried again. This time, the door groaned.
Or maybe that was him, he thought. Two attempts later, the door finally gave. Relieved, he took the box from her and let her enter first.
The inside of the cabin was nestled in cobwebs, dust and gloom.
“Now it won’t close,” April commented, frustration scratching at her as she struggled to shut the door against the wind and snow. Nothing in this house had ever worked right, she recalled bitterly.
He let the box drop to the cracked wooden floor. “Here, let me try.” This, at least, should be easier, he consoled himself. Hands braced against the weathered, splintering wood, he pushed hard until the door finally creaked to a close.
Some of the remaining light outside struggled in through the windows, offering some sort of illumination. That would be gone soon, she thought, unless they could get a fire started in the fireplace. Feeling slightly overwhelmed, April looked around, trying not to allow any of the memories from her childhood back in.
It looked as if someone had moved in after they’d left and then subsequently abandoned the cabin in their wake.
It wasn’t a place meant for happiness, she thought.
“Well, it’s not the Hilton,” she murmured.
“Right now, it’s better than the Hilton.” Jimmy rubbed his hands together, trying to chase away the cold. “It’s here,” he explained when she looked at him quizzically. “Think it’ll last long?”
“The cabin or the storm?”
He laughed at that. “The storm.”
“I have no idea,” she told him honestly. “These things can blow over quickly, or last for days.” And it was the latter she worried about.
He moved the cardboard box over against the wall. Its sides were now damp and soggy. “Good thing your sister gave us this box of food.”
He seemed bent on concentrating on the positive. Was that for her benefit, or did he really view life that way? “Is that all you can say?”
“No.” Coming to her, he slipped his arms around her waist. “Looks like I’ve finally got you alone.”
She looked up at him, amazed at his composure. “You’re not worried.”
Jimmy cocked his head, a smile playing on his lips. He liked the way she felt against him. Liked the smell of her hair and skin, fresh and alive with color. “About?”
Her eyes widened. “The storm.”
Storms blew over. He was more interested in what could potentially go on inside the cabin while they waited than what was happening outside of it. “The storm can take care of itself. It doesn’t need me to worry about it.”
“I mean about being marooned out here.”
He shrugged slightly. “I figure someone will find us eventually.”
“Maybe not until it’s too late.”
“No sense in worrying about that now.” He nuzzled her neck, pressing a kiss there. He felt her shiver against him. “Is there?”
“No.” She tried not to sigh. “I suppose not.”
Releasing her, he stepped back, then stooped over the box. He read the different labels in the fading light. “Okay, what’s your pleasure?” he said, moving to stand in front of her again. “Soup? Or beans?”
“First you need a fire.”
He looked at her significantly and brushed the hair from her cheek. She felt his smile reach down clear to her bones, warming her.
“Oh, you mean in the fireplace.” Jimmy glanced at the empty place beside the hearth where firewood had clearly once been stacked. “There doesn’t seem to be anything to use.”
Pulling away from him, she picked up a rickety chair and handed it to him. “Yes, there is.”
Taking the chair from her, he debated about the best way to break it up. He needn’t have bothered. As he tested the back, it gave way in his hands, splintering. “I guess where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
“If you don’t stop sounding so cheerful, I may be forced to kill you.” She had to admit that it was difficult to remain annoyed with him. He had such a way of putting a positive spin on everything. “Aren’t you the least bit worried or upset?”
“Not really. A lot of people know where we were. Someone is bound to come looking for us and find us eventually.”
That all depended on where they looked and how quickly they did it. With the storm raging, no one was going to be able to find them and who knew how long it would take? Though she wasn’t about to go to pieces, it perturbed her that Jimmy wasn’t more concerned about their situation.
“There could be a lot of days in ‘eventually,”’ she pointed out.
“Well, then, I really wish I’d had that cup of coffee before we left.” Dropping the pieces of the chair into the fireplace, he looked at her. “Satisfied?”
“Guess it’ll have to do.” Leaving him to work on building the fire, April looked around the rest of the cabin. She seemed to remember there being more furniture than this. Whoever had lived here after they’d left had taken everything with him. There was next to nothing except for the now broken chair and a table that listed unevenly on a floor that was far from level.
Squinting, she noticed something in the corner she didn’t recall being here when her family had occupied the cabin. Moving closer, she saw it was a small, rusting cylindrical contraption.
As she circled it slowly, her foot came in contact with something on the floor. She bent to examine it and discovered a jar filled with a deep amber, almost-brown liquid. Unscrewing the top, she sniffed gingerly. The scent was strong enough to make her eyes water.
“No coffee,” she told him, holding the jar aloft. “But whoever once lived here made his own moonshine.”
Tiny flames had begun to lick their way around the dissembled chair. Feeling a sense of triumph, Jimmy glanced quizzically over his shoulder at her. “Moonshine?”
She nodded, crossing to him so he could see for himself. She offered him the jar. “Homemade whiskey. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof.”
Taking the jar from her, he set it down away from the fire. No sense in taking chances. “Food, beverages and a beautiful woman. Looks like the makings of a perfect date to me.”
She shook her head, amused despite herself. “Not many people would call being marooned in a dilapidated cabin a date.”
“I’m not many people,” he told her.
That he wasn’t. April didn’t know whether to laugh at him or to despair because he didn’t understand the gravity of the situation.
She did neither.
Because the next moment, he was kissing her.
Chapter Thirteen
This was crazy.
The thought vibrated through her head.
The situation they found themselves in was so tenuous. There was so much to think about, so many plans to make. She should be checking to see if the windows were secure enough to withstand the storm, not letting herself be cast adrift on this flaming island that Jimmy and his lethal mouth had suddenly created.
But for the life of her, she couldn’t summon a single drop of energy to do anything but kiss him back. There was no inclination within her to do anything but let this feeling take her a million miles beyond where she was physically standing.
April pressed her heating body against his and reveled in the hard planes she felt.
The man was a rock, a sculpted rock, and she longed to run her hands across every single angle, every single plane.
This time, there were no hidden reasons to pull away because she felt herself weakening in a place where her father had made vows to her mother he was destined to break. There was no one to sudde
nly intrude on them as innocently Gran had the other day. There was no one to save her from him.
Or from herself.
Here, in the place where she had once been happy.
She didn’t want saving. She would have shot anyone who tried.
Her heart hammering wildly, April could feel every single pulse point throbbing throughout her body, felt every hair stand on end in anticipation. She moaned as desire took a firmer hold.
The kiss deepened. She continued to spiral out into space, her fingers digging into his shoulders. She wanted this to go on forever.
Tongues of fire licked at her as she felt his hands caress her body. Gentle, capable, skillful surgeon’s hands moving along her body as if she were something fragile.
Precious. Something he had wanted to hold and touch for so long.
The beat of her heart sped up even more, leaving her in awe. She’d never thought she was capable of feeling this way. Of feeling so much.
He’d had women who’d been more experienced, women who’d been more eager, but somehow Jimmy was certain he’d never had one who’d been sweeter. Never had one he’d wanted more than this woman, who was both strong and vulnerable, capable and needy, all at the same time. This woman who’d suffered the same wounds as he and traveled on a path so similar to his own. A path that kept her several miles ahead of love so that ultimate heartbreak wouldn’t find her.
Wasn’t that a heartbreak of a kind in and of itself?
He didn’t know. There were no answers occurring to him. All Jimmy could think about was making love to this woman with whom fate and inclement weather had conspired to maroon him. He wanted to make love with her. Slowly, quickly, every way possible until there was nothing left of either one of them and they were in danger of meeting their end by burning rather than freezing.
He couldn’t get enough of her, not her smell, not her taste, not the feel of her. The more he had, the more he wanted. He could feel the need vibrating within his very body.
The glow of the fire cast warm shadows of their bodies on the wall as he slid the clothes from her.
Not to be outdone, April mimicked him movement for movement. Buttons were separated from holes across chests that tightened in anticipation, allowing shallow breaths to come and depart. Shirts were slowly slid off desire-slicked shoulders as the momentum increased. Kisses were pressed to dampening throats, heaving breasts, quivering bellies, causing pulses to leap and breaths to grow even more shallow. So shallow that they both became dizzy.
April felt herself tremble inside as his mouth anointed her breasts a second after he undid the clasp at her back and her bra sighed away from her body.
She shivered only a second before the fire consumed her.
Payback came when she flicked her tongue across his own tightened nipples. The moan she heard satisfied her that she had at least managed to drive small shafts of desire through him, the way he had driven huge ones through her.
The rest of the clothing vanished quickly away from their bodies, being tossed aside in haste as the heat of the moment threatened to completely swallow them up.
Get control of yourself, Jimmy chided silently, struggling to think. He didn’t want this to be just another pleasurable evening for April. He wanted it to be different. Memorable. He wanted her to think of him and smile as she remembered this night above all others. The way he would of her.
With effort, he reined himself in and began a systematic conquest of a terrain that was unquestionably already his.
Nude, they sank to their knees in front of the fire, upon the tanned hide of a bear that had not drawn breath for close to a century. The still soft fur hardly registered with April. Every fiber of her being was focused on Jimmy.
He was playing her body as if it was his own personal violin, making it sing each time he passed his hand over it. Make her want to weep with a kind of joy she couldn’t begin to understand.
It became a blur, a wondrous blur, with movements, all blending into one another.
She could feel her body priming, her very core yearning for the fulfillment final lovemaking rendered.
Mouths sealed, slanting over and over again, their limbs tangled as they tumbled to the floor, the points of contact sending shards of pure pleasure and sweet agony through each of them.
She’d never felt this free of spirit, this devoid of thought and the burdens that came with it, before. Eagerly, April pressed her mouth to his, drinking deeply of every sensation, every taste. Wanting more, much more. Wanting him.
Wanting love.
Lovemaking, lovemaking, she insisted silently, frantically racing her hands over his body. She wanted lovemaking, not love. Never love.
Lightning in a bottle, that was what she was, he realized in wonder. Something to cherish in awed disbelief. Her verve, her enthusiasm, fired his own, sending it coursing through his veins until he was convinced that they would outblaze the flames that burned so brightly within the confines of the hearth.
“Going out in a blaze of glory” took on new meaning for Jimmy.
Always before, he could detach himself. A part of him could stand back and witness what was unfolding around him. But this time there was no separation, no space, however tiny, between him and what was happening. He was right there in the middle, involved. Absorbing it all and reveling in it.
He couldn’t find that tiny space, that makeshift wall to hide behind, and very quickly he ceased looking. He was too consumed.
Feasting on her, marking her limbs with his kisses, with his desire, making her his own, Jimmy knew he couldn’t hold himself in check any longer. Her body was fairly vibrating with needs, needs that echoed his own.
Searching again for her lips, he pulled himself up, slowly dragging his body along hers, feeling her body tighten, bracing. Feeling his own body pulse.
April opened for him. With a muffled cry of surrender, he drove himself into her.
Lacing his fingers through hers, he tasted her moan in his mouth. The sound ricocheted within his, joining the plaintive groan of anticipation born within his core.
He’d meant to take this last step slowly, as well, but it was completely out of his hands. Passions greater than his resolve took over, driving his body as the last leg of the journey they had been preordained to take together began.
His hips fitted against hers, Jimmy increased the tempo faster and faster until it swept them both up in its grip. He could feel her heart pounding beneath his chest as she matched his every motion.
He felt every single one of her fingernails rake across his back at the final moment.
The climax left them both spent, their skin as damp as if they had both just been caught by an unexpected summer downpour.
Somehow managing to raise himself up on his elbows, Jimmy focused on her face.
Her makeup was completely gone, erased by the sweat of their passion, her hair plastered against her forehead, her lips an undefined blur, mussed from the imprint of his.
He thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Taking a deep breath, he managed to say one word. “Wow.”
Her smile slowly moved over her lips until it finally reached her eyes where it settled in. “My sentiments exactly.” It almost hurt to breathe, she thought. She certainly couldn’t turn her head. “Is the cabin still standing?”
Jimmy pretended to look around, although for the life of him he couldn’t see anything but her. She seemed to fill his very head. What was that all about?
“Just barely.” Looking into her eyes, he combed his fingers through her hair. A sweetness poured itself through his veins. “You really were something.”
“Ditto.” She moved slightly beneath him and felt sharp licks of desire slice through her again. How was that possible? He’d just exhausted her every fiber. Could she actually want to make love again so soon? She had to be hallucinating. Lack of oxygen did that to you, she recalled. “Are you hungry yet?”
“Yes.” Leaning down, he nip
ped at her mouth, running his tongue gently across her lower lip.
She could feel her core quickening again. This wasn’t a hallucination, this was real. “I meant, for food.”
“I didn’t.”
With a laugh, she laced her arms around his neck and brought her mouth to his.
Frustration jabbed at Max as he stood at the window, staring out into the storm that had swooped down on all of them so suddenly. April and Jimmy were hours overdue.
He’d never felt so helpless before.
“You can’t go out in this storm,” he heard Luc say from behind him. “There’s nothing to be gained by you getting lost, as well.”
As well. Turning around, Max saw Luc tighten his arm around Alison. He’d braved the storm and come to their house to see if perhaps April had decided to stop here for the night rather than continue on to their grandmother’s place. June had called him just before the lines went down to say April hadn’t returned.
Max saw tears shimmering in Alison’s eyes. He didn’t have to guess what she was thinking. Exactly the same thing that was haunting him.
“Your brother’s all right, Alison,” he told her with a confidence he didn’t feel but had gotten accomplished at projecting. It was all part of the job. But the job had never felt as personal as it did right at this minute. “April would have found shelter long before the brunt of the storm hit them. She’s not a tenderfoot.”
Alison knew Max only meant well, but his assurances didn’t assuage her fears. “Your sister’s been away from this region for so long.”
Moving away from the window and the constant reminder of the savage weather outside, Max hooked his thumbs into his belt. “It’s not something you forget. April knows this terrain like the back of her hand.”
She offered a small smile at the kind words. “How about if there’s snow on that hand?”
Max shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.” If the storm had hit up north first, April would have had more sense than to venture out in it. “For all we know, they’re still back at the Inuit village, having a hearty supper right now. There’s no way they can get word to us. The lines are down,” he reminded her.
The M.D. Meets His Match Page 15
