“Och, no worries. This auld place has suffered far worse the last few hundred years and fared well enough. It’ll survive a bit of grit and grime.” He smiled. “Or a bit more, I should say.” He gestured to his own less-than-shiny-clean self. He didn’t wait for her to argue. He opened the door and let the dog romp into the room. She set to racing circles around his guest, tail whipping back and forth.
“This is Jinty, my sheep dog and all-around companion.”
His guest didn’t shy away from the dog at all, quite the opposite. She immediately reached for Jinty’s ears and gave her a good scratch. “Hi, there. Good girl.”
Jinty all but preened, quite pleased with the attention. Tristan found himself warming even more toward his guest.
“You’ve a friend for life now,” he told her. “Come on, follow me.” He steered her through the kitchen, into the living area, and turned the opposite way from his own rooms. “Guest room is here,” he motioned. “Bathroom in here.” He opened the door and stuck his head in. “I think you have what you need. Take as long as you like. I’m going to the opposite end of the house and take a shower myself. Make yourself at home when you’re done. I’ll find something for us to eat once we’ve scraped ourselves clean.”
He held open the door and she scooted past him. She was a head shorter than he, and even with muck and mire, or maybe because of it, he found himself drawn to the unusual angles of her face. She had shadows beneath her eyes and hollows beneath her cheeks. Somehow he doubted those were just the result of this evening’s adventures. Her eyes reflected a fatigue that went far beyond a single, difficult night.
“Thank you,” she said. “I won’t take too long.”
“I’ve a water heater at both ends of the house, so take all you need. No hurry.” He smiled. “It’s no’ like we have anywhere we have to be.”
She tried to smile, but it didn’t reach very far. He couldn’t recall ever seeing someone who looked so…weary. Soul-deep weary.
He put the pile of dry clothes on the small towel stand beside the tub and left her to it. But even as he stood under the stinging spray of his own hot shower, he couldn’t erase those eyes from his thoughts. It made him wonder what she’d been doing out here after all, racing around the countryside in that little death trap of hers. Maybe he’d been too quick to assume. Had she been running toward something? Running away?
Of course, he had no idea. But he couldn’t look into those eyes of hers and make himself believe she’d just been happily out and about, only to find herself suddenly stuck in a storm burst.
No, there was a story behind those eyes.
He’d always been drawn to landscapes, wanting to capture the energy of nature in all her glory with nothing more than a pen or brush. But something about his guest made his fingers twitch with the need to draw, to sketch those eyes, that face, to ferret out her secrets and find a way to convey them to paper so as to have more than his memory to call upon when he thought about her.
He shook his head at the folly of that and turned his face toward the spray of water. One night. Then she’d move on. She wasn’t going to linger under his roof.
If only he could be so certain she wasn’t going to linger any longer in his thoughts.
Chapter 5
Bree carefully stepped into the high-sided, claw-foot tub and pulled the circular shower curtain around her. She groaned in deep appreciation the instant the hot water hit her skin. I might never come back out of here, she thought, as all the accumulated tension from the past several hours eased out of her muscles.
And if she stayed in the shower forever—or at least till morning—there was the added bonus of not having to face her rescuer again tonight.
She shivered a little, only this time it had absolutely nothing to do with being stuck in bone-chillingly wet clothes. Or no clothes, which is what he might as well have been wearing. Jesus. She had to stop thinking about him. She closed her eyes and ducked her head under the spray. But that only served to allow his image to pop up, fully formed and quite detailed, in her mind’s eye.
Out in the dark, in the storm, he’d looked like nothing more than a crazed lunatic.
However, standing in his mud room, with nothing more than a towel wrapped around his lean hips and a grin on his handsome face…well…She twitched a little as she ran the washcloth over her breasts and belly, sensations that were definitely pleasurable as they skated across her skin. Dangerous thoughts, Bree. But, dear Lord, who wouldn’t have X-rated thoughts about a man like that? With those dark eyes, that long hair, a hint of a beard shadowing his jaw, and a bottom lip just made for nibbling on…not to mention the accent. Seriously, with the accent. He was every woman’s Scottish hero fantasy come to life. He was certainly hers, anyway. The man cut quite the arresting figure, even in a towel.
She started vigorously scrubbing at her arms and legs. She was the one who should be arrested. She had no business thinking anything remotely of that sort about him. He’d raced out into a dangerous storm to rescue her, and what had she done but scream and beat at his hand with her shoe. Lord, but he must have thought her a completely brainless twit. She realized now, of course, what he’d been so wildly gesturing at. No wonder he’d looked so fierce and wild. Trying to rescue a woman who was drowning in a damn convertible.
She dropped her chin and let the water beat on her back and neck. She’d always thought she’d be calm and collected in the face of crisis, but no, she’d completely lost it. So what if she hadn’t slept in days and was a little strung out? No excuse for the total loss of anything resembling common sense. She’d apologized to him, but of course that was hardly enough, considering.
She could offer him a monetary reward for his heroics, but something told her he’d reject that out of hand as a matter of pride, and might even be insulted. She’d have to figure out something. Just as soon as she found the energy to get out of this heavenly, steamy shower.
She massaged shampoo into her scalp and worked it through her hair, trying to focus on a plan of attack for tomorrow. She’d need another car, she’d have to decide whether or not to contact Dana, or anyone else, and let them know she was all right. She’d intended to do that once she found a place to stay—she didn’t want anyone to worry. Not that she’d planned to tell them where she was, just that she was fine. She just wanted to drop out for a while, find someplace where nobody knew her, and be left alone to figure things out. But there had been no signal anywhere—then the storm had whipped up.
And once again, her thoughts drifted back to him. To his broad, sculpted chest, the scattering of hair dusting the taut skin, arrowing down his flat belly in a nice little line that went straight to—she cut herself off before she could think of how indecently his soaked boxers had molded to his body. He might as well have been naked, as she pretty much knew the contour of what lay beneath. And…well…she definitely needed to stop thinking about that.
Not that it helped. Her rampant thoughts merely hop-scotched to that moment he’d gripped her hips and heaved her up onto the bank. Granted, there was nothing remotely sexy about being shoved face first into mud and muck…but that hadn’t negated for one second her surprise at his easy strength. He’d barely exerted himself. And those hands…she remembered being surprised they weren’t broad and rough-hewn, as the rest of him would indicate. Long, tapered fingers…almost elegantly refined…and yet they’d dug into her hips with surprising confidence and power.
She absently slid her hands over her body again, then realized what she was doing and abruptly went back to rinsing the rest of the suds from her hair. With everything that had happened to her over the past year and a half, it wasn’t any surprise she had lacked any kind of intimate companionship. Not that it wasn’t available. As even a minor, flash-in-the-pan celebrity, she’d had guys all but throw themselves at her. She just hadn’t wanted to catch any of them. Their motives were all suspect now. Besides, she’d been so overwhelmed with the whirlwind her life had become, that despite the
fact that she’d long since grown tired of crawling into a hotel bed alone at the end of another exhausting day, it wasn’t like she had anything left to devote to a relationship of any kind. And one-night stands were not for her.
All she’d wanted lately was to crawl into a cave somewhere, nurse herself and her creative spark back to life…and write. Write something all for herself. With no expectations, no pressure, no deadline.
Ha. Fat chance.
But it was nice to know she had enough of something left inside herself to react at all to the rather virile charms of her rescuer. Any other time in her life, she might even entertain a few impure thoughts of just how she could pay him back for his troubles. She snorted and rinsed the last of the soap from her skin. Yeah, right. Worn out, beaten down, and recently hysterical, she was just certain he was all but drooling at the chance to have her. Not that it really mattered one way or the other. She might be world-traveled now, having hobnobbed with celebrities and even dined with royalty. But when it came down to being a woman, she was still a small-town librarian from Mason, Missouri. And while not entirely the embodiment of the tight-bunned, and even tighter-assed cliché long associated with her profession, she was hardly a wanton, either. This was the first time that it had actually bothered her, though.
Sighing in regret, for that and the fact that her wonderfully rejuvenating shower was over, she stepped carefully out of the tub and grabbed a couple of towels. Heck, as many of those as she’d gone through already, maybe she could repay him by doing laundry for the rest of the night.
Which led her completely inappropriate thoughts circling back to him, and wondering what he was doing right that moment. Wrapped in another towel, slung low on those lean hips? Or still in the shower, with all that hot, sudsy water running down his chest, over that flat belly, only to get all hung up on—Jeez, Bree.
She wrapped her hair in one towel and used the other to dry off. She had to stop thinking about him like that. Really, she did. In a few minutes she’d be facing him again and she couldn’t afford to be distracted by…well, by anything other than sincerely thanking him for his help and offering to somehow repay him for his selfless kindness. She could not be thinking about the way that towel had clung so precariously to his lean hips. And she definitely couldn’t be thinking about how those soaking-wet boxers had clung to, and indecently outlined, every inch of his anatomy. Some inches more indecently than others.
She tried, and failed, to remember him as the crazy man she’d initially believed him to be, wildly gesticulating at her and looking so fierce. Instead, all she could remember was him turning to her in the middle of a deluge, extending his hand…and grinning. Her heart had literally skipped a beat. There he’d stood, mostly naked, long hair plastered to his neck and shoulders, grime and grit streaked across his wet and gleaming torso, with lightning dancing about the skies and thunder rocking the ground beneath their feet. All things considered, that smile should have made him look even more visceral and wild…and it had. But not in a way that had made her want to run screaming into the night. Quite the contrary.
He was completely different from any man she’d ever met. A rough-hewn Scot, tucked away far out in some rural landscape, doing heaven knew what to get by for a living. A man who, at the first sign of danger, had run straight at it without thought to his own safety or comfort.
Those wet boxers flashed through her mind again. She really had to stop that. And she would. Any second now.
Leaving her hair wrapped in a towel, she reached for the pile of clothes he’d brought. The first thing she noticed was how soft they were, well worn and laundered. Without thinking, she buried her nose in the soft cotton. Yes, it smelled like home. No artificial scents, just the aroma of fresh, clean air. He’d dried these outside, she’d bet on it, just as her mother had, and as she had, as well. Stupidly, it made her eyes well up. God, she missed her old life. The slow pace, the peaceful surroundings, the people who all knew your name and cared about you as one of their own.
She was just tired, she told herself, sniffling back the tears and putting the pile of clothes back down. She shook out the t-shirt and slipped it on. The shoulders were halfway down her arms and the hem fell past her hips. His broad chest and well developed shoulders and arms flashed through her mind. She rubbed the soft cotton on her skin, imagining him in this shirt, pulling it over his head and—
Right, right. She was stopping.
She pulled on the drawstring pants, then had to roll them down a couple of times on her hips to keep them up. The ends trailed past her feet, but there wasn’t much she could do about that. The fabric was too loose and soft to be rolled up. She pulled on the thick socks and found herself relaxing into the soft comfort the clothes brought to her. It was too steamy in the bathroom to need the sweatshirt he’d given her, but looking down at the way the t-shirt hung on her bare breasts and detailed the very erect nipples she was sporting at the moment…she yanked the hooded sweatshirt over her head anyway. Or tried to. She’d forgotten about the towel wrapped around her hair. A minute later she was in a straitjacket of towel, hair, sweatshirt, and drawstring.
So, naturally her erstwhile savior and host chose that moment to knock. “Beef stew okay with you?” he called through the door. “I’m afraid the menu is limited.”
Bree’s response was a muffled grunt.
There was a pause, during which she managed to make things worse rather than better. Turning in circles as she fought with the sleeves and snarled hair, she managed to bang into the towel cabinet.
“Is everything all right?”
She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. At what point had her life gone from a Hitchcock movie to a Laurel and Hardy filmfest? Straining her neck in order to find a breath of available air, she called out, “I’m stuck.”
She heard him fumble with the door. “Are you decent?”
Now she did laugh. Asked the man who had just spent the past hour running around quite indecently, she thought. “Yes,” she managed.
Her face was completely swallowed in towel, hair, and sweatshirt, so she felt him enter the room, rather than saw him.
“Here, here,” he said, laying a hand on her shoulder to still her movements. His touch made her jump, but not so much in surprise as in…well, as in she really didn’t need to go there, now did she? Bad enough she was standing in his bathroom, wearing his clothes, and feeling every inch the naked woman she was beneath them, too. Then there was the fact that she had no idea what he was wearing…or not, as the case may be. More images she definitely did not need went floating through her mind. And to top it all off, he was touching her with such gentle confidence. Using those beautiful hands of his.
“Hold still.” He tried to turn her with his hands on her shoulders, but she was so tangled, he opted to steer her around with his hands on her hips. She swallowed a little moan when he held her hips square, then tugged her a little closer. She could only hope he assumed it was the discomfort she was in, not the fact that his mere proximity was tangling her suddenly reawakened libido into far more complex knots than this sweatshirt-hair-towel combo could only hope to achieve.
“You’ve made quite a nest of it,” he said, almost more to himself than to her. “See if you can slide your arm down a little—no, no.” He stopped her movements by taking hold of one arm, then sliding his hand from wrist to bicep. If he had any clue what havoc his touch was wreaking with her senses…
He tugged a little. “Okay, I have hold of the towel and the shirt. All you have to do is move your hand a little and—”
She slid one arm free, and that gave her just enough wiggle room to get her other arm extricated. Suddenly loose, the sweatshirt tugged at her snarled hair even more as the towel fell mercifully to the floor. “Ouch,” she said, wincing as she grabbed for the sweatshirt.
He did, too. “I have it now. Ye’ve only to hold still.”
She did as he asked, trying hard to keep her restored line of vision aimed anywhere but at his ches
t, which was mere inches away. It didn’t matter that he had on a t-shirt now. Her memory was quite fine, thank you very much, and incredibly detailed, as it happened. He worked to untangle the wet strands from the drawstring that ran through the hood of the sweatshirt. She found she was more than willing to let him toy with her hair as long as he wanted to. He was very gentle and she was rather enjoying the view, no matter what she told herself. She’d given up trying not to stare. It’s not like he cared, or knew where her thoughts were going anyway, right?
“Och, but you have a horse’s mane, that ye do.”
How flattering. That was one way to cure her of her wandering imagination. If only it had worked. “Sorry to be such a pain.”
“Dinnae worry,” he said, in that smooth burr of his. “No extra charge for the second rescue. And I didn’t have to risk drowning in anything but terry cloth and hair this go.”
She felt her cheeks heat a little. “Not that you’ll believe this, but I’m generally a very self-sufficient woman.”
“Oh, I pass no judgment. You’ve had a hard enough time of it.”
“You have no idea,” she murmured.
His hands paused for a moment, then continued with the mission. “There,” he pronounced, freeing her from the sweatshirt string. “All is good. Though it might take you a wee bit to get a comb through it.”
She took the sweatshirt from him and their gazes locked for a moment. “It’s usually a bit of a nightmare. I’m used to it.”
He said nothing, just held her gaze, that slight half-smile of his playing at the corners of his mouth. “It’s quite lovely, really. Worth the effort, in my book.”
She was so caught off guard by the compliment she wasn’t sure how to respond. He’d said it directly enough, with no real overtones, save that hint of a smile. Whatever the case, the moment ended when he broke eye contact to reach down and scoop the towel off the floor.
“I—uh, thank you,” she stammered. Oh yeah, she was smooth. Dined with royalty, no problem. But couldn’t untie her own tongue in the presence of a hot Scot. “I really do appreciate all you’ve done for me. If there is anything I can do—”
Unwrapped Bundle with You Don't Know Jack & Bad Boys in Kilts Page 73
