“Bless you, Rose, for being such a good saleslady,” she said, taking one of the blankets.
Winter had helped Matt shop for his camping equipment, but Rose was the one who had insisted he needed extra blankets, a lantern, and a jug for carrying water from the nearby spring Tom had shown them. Rose had also sold Matt ten pairs of wool socks, several pairs of long johns, and a tarp to hang over the entrance of the cave in bad weather.
Winter noticed Matt hadn’t bothered to hang the tarp, likely because the twisted entrance didn’t allow rain or snow to reach very far inside. That way he could build his fire close to the entrance so the smoke wouldn’t fill the cave.
It wasn’t a very big cave, maybe twenty feet deep and about fifteen feet wide, but it was more than tall enough for Matt to stand upright. All in all, Winter had thought it an appropriate den for the son of a bear, which is exactly what she’d told Matt when she’d helped him settle in last week. She smiled as she carried the blanket outside, remembering how her comment had gotten her a very passionate kiss.
“I’m sorry you won’t fit inside with us,” Winter told Snowball, who had ducked his head into the cave and turned his rump to the wind. She tossed the blanket over his back, smoothing it out and frowning when it came only halfway down his sides. “I’ll get a rope and tie it on you,” she said, giving him a pat before rushing back to her saddle.
She pulled a small coil of rope from one of her bags, then ran back, looped the rope around Snowball’s girth, and tied it securely. “There, that’ll keep most of your heat in,” she said, swiping a large snowflake off her eyelash so she could see to undo Snowball’s bridle strap. She carefully let the bit slip from his mouth, then affectionately rubbed one of his ears. “Go find yourself a sheltered place to sit out the storm,” she said, looking him square in his large brown eye. “I won’t tie you up, so you can graze in the meadow and drink from the brook, but don’t you go wandering off to Tom’s,” she instructed. “I don’t want him knowing I’m up here, and I don’t want him worrying about me, understand?”
Snowball let out a deep-bellied sigh that puffed a cloud of warm moist air toward her. He then closed his eyes without so much as taking a step toward shelter, apparently deciding this was as good a place as any for a nap. Winter turned to Gesader to see to his needs when she suddenly realized what she’d just said to Snowball.
She didn’t want Tom worrying about her, but what about her parents? And Robbie? Come to think of it, she thought with a frown, how come they hadn’t chased after her?
She was going through a terrible crisis here, and her mama and papa had just let her run away. And Robbie. What in curses kind of guardian was he, to let her shoot past him without even trying to stop her? Didn’t they realize how traumatized she was? Didn’t they care?
Winter’s frown turned into a scowl aimed at herself. Of course they cared; they cared enough to give her time and space to think over their news. They realized coddling her wouldn’t make the problem go away, but only make them feel better.
“Oh, Gesader,” she whispered, falling to her knees to hug him. “They must be worried sick about me being out here alone in this storm. I’m the one who hasn’t cared enough to let them know I’m okay.”
She reached in her jacket pocket, pulled out her cell phone, and checked to see what kind of signal she had. Only one bar, but hopefully enough to get through. She pushed the speed-dial for Gù Brath, praying her parents weren’t home as she listened to the phone ring on the other end.
She sighed with relief when the answering machine picked up. “I-I’m just calling to tell you that I’m safe and warm and that I probably won’t be home for a few days. Gesader is with me, and we’ve found shelter, so I don’t want you to worry,” she said before reaching for the END button. She suddenly put the phone back to her mouth. “Oh, and I’m shutting off my cell phone to save the battery, so don’t worry if I don’t answer. Leave a message if you want, and I’ll check my voice mail. I…I love you,” she finished in a whisper, pressing END and then the power button before tucking the phone back in her pocket.
She buried her face in Gesader’s wet fur as unbidden tears suddenly filled her eyes again. “Curses,” she muttered, “I thought I was cried out.”
A warm, rough tongue lapped the side of her face, amplifying how very cold she was. But Winter didn’t care, as this crying business was harder on a body than the weather. Darn it, she had to get herself under control. Wallowing in self-pity never solved anything.
Winter sat up and wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Come on, brat,” she said with herculean determination, getting to her feet. “I’ve got to build a fire and get out of these wet clothes.”
Gesader also stood and shook a gallon of water off his hide, along with a good pound of snow. He padded over to Snowball, startled the dozing horse with a quick lick on his nose, then padded into the cave ahead of Winter.
The first thing Winter did was find the lantern Matt had bought from Rose, then she rummaged around in her saddlebags for the watertight pack of matches she always carried. It took her three matches to light the kerosene lantern, which she then held up to visibly scan the cave, looking for firewood.
For an executive, Matt Gregor was proving to be an excellent mountain man, she decided with a smile, finding a three-to-four day supply of wood stacked against the side wall. Winter set the lantern on the ground in the center of the cave and gathered up an armful of dry logs, promising herself that as soon as the storm was over she would replace what she used. She crouched in front of the cold fire pit by the entrance of the cave and started fashioning a tepee of smaller twigs, slowly building it up with increasingly larger pieces of wood. Finishing just as a cold shiver wracked her body, Winter quickly searched the cave for paper or birch bark to use for starter. She couldn’t find anything, other than a binder of printouts she couldn’t decipher that had Matt’s handwriting all over the pages. She definitely didn’t dare burn that. Her search continued, eventually ending at Matt’s sleeping bag when she spotted the pinewood staff Gesader had dropped there.
She stared at that staff, remembering the surge of energy she’d felt in Daar’s cabin when she’d touched it. “Hmmm.” She looked toward Gesader lying next to the unlit fire pit. “What do you think? Can I light a fire without starter or matches, brat? Robbie and Daar do it all the time.”
Gesader didn’t offer an opinion, but started licking his paws. Winter looked back at the staff. How hard could it be? Surely all she had to do was point the thing at the fire and command the wood to ignite.
She picked up the staff somewhat hesitantly, expecting the maelstrom to attack her again. But there was no light, no flashing rainbow of colors, no roaring in her ears. In fact, nothing more than a gentle tingle traveled through her, but it did warm her up a bit. Somewhat disappointed by the lack of fireworks, Winter scooted back to the pit. She stayed at least three feet away, pointed the staff at the tepee she’d made, and said, “Light my fire!”
A percussion strong enough to shake the entire cliff blasted inside the cave, along with an explosion of energy so powerful it knocked Winter flat to the ground. Gesader jumped to his feet with a startled roar and ran outside with a yelp.
Winter lay on the floor of the suddenly dark cave, blinking in dazed awe. But it wasn’t until she smelled something burning, looked at the fire pit and saw nothing, that she truly became alarmed. “Curses!” she shouted, catching sight of the smoldering pile of blankets. She jumped to her feet, grabbed the blankets, ran to the entrance of the cave, and threw the pile outside. Then she started stomping on them, using her feet to spread them out and kick snow over the smoldering patches.
“Don’t you dare laugh,” she snapped at Gesader, who was sitting ten feet away in the swirling snowstorm, his lips curled up in his snarling panther smile. He sneezed three times in rapid succession and trotted past her back into the cave.
Winter looked down at the wet and dirty blankets. Was that blasted staff di
rectional? Did it have a holding end and a lethal end, or what? Holy hell, Gesader had been running around with the accursed thing in his mouth all day. He could have caught the entire forest on fire!
The wind blew snow down the front of her open collar, and Winter shuddered. Darn it, she had to get warm and dry before she caught a cold. She picked up the blankets with a tired sigh, shaking them out one at a time to make sure the fire was extinguished, then folded them back into a pile. She carried the pile in the cave, but not before taking one last peek at Snowball. He had fallen asleep again, though now he was standing a good twenty feet away behind a large spruce tree.
The first thing Winter did after tossing the blankets back in the corner was hunt up the lantern, which she discovered on its side against the back wall. She thanked her lucky stars it was a safety lantern, and that the flame had blown out rather than exploding kerosene over everything and igniting a real fire. Gesader was again curled into a tight ball by the still-unlit pit, and Winter was back to not having anything to use for starter. She didn’t dare pour kerosene on the wood, knowing how quickly that could get out of control—especially the way her luck was going.
Winter gave another sigh of self-pity and went back outside and started looking for a birch tree she could steal bark from. It took her another ten shivering minutes to return with a fistful of white paperlike bark.
“You could have at least come with me,” she grumbled to Gesader, who growled back at her without even bothering to open his eyes. “And you leave that stick alone before you blow us all to hell,” she said, scowling at the pinewood staff laying near the back wall of the cave where it had landed.
She carefully tucked the birch bark inside the tepee, found her matches, and used up five of them before she was able to get the cold bark to even start smoking. She hunched down and softly blew on the faint embers, sitting up when it finally warmed enough to burst into flames.
She sat on the ground and watched the tiny flames grow, carefully feeding more bark into the slowly expanding fire until she heard the first crackle of solid wood ignite. Gesader immediately stood up, moved closer to the fire, then laid back down again with a deep sigh. Winter got up, and while keeping a guarded eye on the fire, she stripped out of her wet clothes down to her wet long johns. Then she went over to Matt’s duffel bag and pawed through it until she found a set of his long johns. She quickly finished undressing, shedding everything including her bra and panties, and slipped into Matt’s cold but dry long johns. She had to roll the sleeves up about five times, and the legs even more before she could walk without tripping. She found a pair of his thick wool socks and put them on, then slipped into one of his bulky chamois shirts, rolling up its sleeves as she looked down with a laugh at the shirttails hanging below her knees.
“What do you think of my northwoods fashion?” she asked Gesader. “Will I turn many heads?”
Gesader opened one golden eye, then promptly dropped it shut again, apparently more tired than impressed. Winter went over to Matt’s sleeping bag and dragged it and its pad closer to the fire. She unzipped the bag, crawled inside, and zipped it closed all the way up to her nose. Gesader immediately got up, walked around the now brightly burning fire, and plopped down on top of the sleeping bag so that he was tucked against her back.
“Thank you,” she whispered, staring at the fire as she breathed in the odor of wet cat fur…and another smell she’d grown quite fond of lately. It was a smell that made her think of beautiful golden eyes, tasty warm lips, and strong arms holding her secure. Winter’s last sigh of the day ended with a smile as she closed her eyes on a yawn.
Yes, she was quite in love with Matheson Gregor, and neither the magic nor Cùram de Gairn could alter that truth.
Chapter Sixteen
Matt muttered yet another curse as he fought to keep his truck from sliding off the bumpy, snow-covered tote road that wound up the side of his mountain. One more mile, he estimated, before he reached the end of this trip from hell. Not six hours ago he’d been sitting in an office in his Utah factory, about to fire his quality control manager, when an overwhelming need to return to Maine had suddenly stopped him in midsentence. Unable to explain the urgency tightening his gut—to himself much less to his confused but very lucky manager—Matt had simply walked out, gotten into his jet, and headed east at one and a quarter times the speed of sound.
He’d been forced to land at Bangor International Airport instead of Pine Creek because of the weather, since the small mountain airport didn’t have instruments to land a jet in a blinding snowstorm. Then he’d had to rent a car and drive to Pine Creek to pick up his truck. What should have been only a ninety minute ride from Bangor had taken him over two hours, again because of the storm. From Pine Creek he’d been driving over half an hour just to get this far up his mountain, and he still had to leave the truck half a mile from the meadow and hike the rest of the way in the dark through the snowstorm—in his suit and dress shoes, no less!
Dammit to hell. He was almost home and his gut still hadn’t settled down. And though he didn’t understand the exact nature of the urgency pulling at him, he sure as hell knew who was causing it. Winter MacKeage wouldn’t get out of his head. Back in Utah Matt had only known something was terribly wrong: he had felt Winter struggling in confusion, seen her face swollen from tears, sensed her wandering blindly through an emotional void that had thrown her safe little world into a tailspin.
But what Matt still couldn’t wrap his mind around was how quickly and how deeply Winter had gotten under his skin in the first place. He’d known her only two weeks, and she was already driving him mad with worry. How else could he explain walking out of an important meeting, flying recklessly into a snowstorm, or his breaking into a cold sweat at just the thought of her crying? The woman had gotten under his skin without him even noticing, while he had been busy planning and plotting instead of guarding his back.
At least his heart was safely out of her reach, that one vital organ having hardened imperviously a long, long time ago. But dammit, how in hell was he supposed to deal with a fairy princess whose prickly antics made him laugh, who had him determined to shelter her from the harsh realities of life, and who made him want her so badly he’d sell his soul to possess her?
Matt instinctively knew Winter was at his campsite; he could feel she was nearby and physically okay. But instead of growing calmer the closer he got to the cave, the urgency in his gut only increased. He wanted her, no matter how many lectures he’d given himself to leave her alone, no matter that he knew the path she was innocently leading him down ended at damnation’s door.
He had tried. Hell, he’d run off to New York four times in the last two weeks trying to get away from her. But every time he would come racing back as his need for Winter had grown stronger instead of lessening. Yesterday he’d made it all the way to Utah, but he’d barely sat down in his chair this morning before he’d finally realized how futile it was to fight her siren’s call. Hell, just knowing she was upset was luring him home like a moth drawn to a flame—single-mindedly heading him straight toward destruction.
Matt finally brought his truck to a sliding halt in the middle of the road and shut off the engine and the lights. He let his eyes adjust to the darkness, reaching on the seat beside him for the package he’d picked up before leaving Bangor and tucking it in his pocket. He turned up the collar of his suit jacket, opened the door, and finally stepped into the howling storm. The road ran half a mile above the meadow, so with his head lowered and his shoulders hunched against the driving snow, Matt plunged into the woods, ignoring the seven inches of accumulated snow soaking through his dress shoes.
He actually lost his way twice, either from inattention or from unconsciously stalling. But finally, thirty minutes later, Matt stood at the base of the cliff that towered above the meadow, his mind warring with his body as he listened for sounds coming from inside the cave.
Snowball walked up and gently nudged his shoulder, and Matt absent
ly gave him a pat while continuing to watch the narrow entrance. The dark shadow of a large black cat finally appeared, its hackles raised as it emitted a warning growl.
Matt reached in his pocket, pulled out the paper-wrapped packet, and tossed it just a few feet in front of Winter’s pet. With an even more ominous growl, the cat stepped forward, standing with the packet on the ground between them, his lips curled back in a snarl. The cat sneezed and stepped to the side, as if trying to go around the packet, his tail whipping back and forth in agitation.
But in the end, the lure of the catnip was too much for the panther, just as Matt had known it would be. The cat circled the fist-sized packet several times, then lowered his head and rubbed the side of his face over it, pushing it through the snow with a snorted growl that ended with another sneeze.
“I’m as sorry as you are,” Matt whispered when the great beast suddenly pounced on the package, scooping it up in his powerful jaws with a final snarl before bolting into the forest. “Forgive me,” Matt softly petitioned to the retreating cat as it disappeared into the storm.
He turned and faced the cave again, once again torn between going inside or simply disappearing into the forest behind the leopard. It could be that simple; he could just turn and walk away and never be seen again. Winter might miss him; hell, she might even mourn him, but in the end she would be better off. At least her soul would be intact, which was more than he could say for his own if he entered that cave.
But his decision finally came down to one simple promise, given long before his heart had atrophied, when love had led Matt to an act of desperation, when hope hadn’t been a curse. So he stepped forward as he unbuttoned his snow-covered suit jacket, slipping it off his shoulders and letting it fall to the ground as he quietly walked through the entrance.
Only With a Highlander Page 17
