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“I think the baby is eating them.”
He chuckled at that, a reluctant and dry sound deep in his throat.
She unrolled medical gauze around his entire lower body, back to belly, to hold the bandage in place and keep pressure on it. It was amazingly hard not to touch a man while doing that, so she simply surrendered to the circumstances.
A mistake. Every time her hands grazed his skin, his muscles, physical sensation rocked through her. She had never been struck by lightning, thank God, but she was pretty sure it would feel just about like this. She felt a need so naked and demanding it set her teeth on edge. Where had it come from? This sudden need that felt greater than a need for food or water. To be kissed hard and held soft.
Not by this man!
A stranger, with a suspicious wound, and a baby she did not think was his.
The air around him practically tingled with danger, mystery and an aura of exotic worlds she knew nothing about.
She had a lot of questions to ask and she ordered them in her mind as she bent to the task at hand, knowing, even before she asked, that his answers would not satisfy her curiosity, nor lessen the sense of danger vibrating off him in waves that were unmistakably sensuous.
“You’re trussing me up like a mummy,” he complained.
“Since you mention it, where is junior’s mommy?”
“She died. She died when he was born.”
“And you’re his daddy, right?”
A flick of emotion in those complicated eyes. “Right.”
She felt a shiver go up and down her spine as she registered the lie, but she said with absolute calm, “Well, you’re welcome to the cabin. It’s primitive but if it’s fresh air and fishing you’re looking for, you’ll find plenty of both here. I have to move on, but if you need me to leave you anything—”
“You can’t go anywhere tonight. It’s nearly dark.”
It was said pleasantly enough, but she had the uneasy feeling she had just become a prisoner. Still, she had her shotgun outside the door, and her wits.
“That’s probably a good idea,” she said pleasantly. “It wouldn’t be smart to go thrashing around the mountains in the dark. We’ll muddle through tonight, and I’ll go in the morning.”
She cast him a look from under her lashes. She knew these mountain trails, night or day. And besides, there would be a moon.
Ben McKinnon watched his prisoner carefully. Because that was what she was now. He could not risk letting her go and telling anyone she had seen him with the baby. He wondered if she knew it, and suspected she did. Her eyes, gorgeous blue, almost turquoise, sparkled with spirit and intelligence, despite the folksy cobwebs and chimney soot routine.
She was a complication he didn’t need. One he resented. He had not planned on anyone being at the cabin. He needed five days, maybe six, in a place where he could not be found and would not be looked for. Meanwhile, Jack Day, a friend from the Federal Intelligence Agency, would find out who had betrayed him and if the vengeance of Noel East’s political enemies extended to the baby. Back there in the woods, Ben had ditched a high-tech two-way radio that he could check in on later.
Noel East. A humble and courageous man, a single father, who had put his name forward as a candidate in the tiny country of Crescada’s first free elections.
Ben had been assigned to protect him. The immensity of his failure would haunt him into old age.
The baby began to howl, thankfully, bringing him back to the here and now before he saw again in his mind’s eye that strangely peaceful look on Noel’s face, heard again his dying words.
“How can something so small make so much noise?” the woman asked, astounded.
“I’ve been asking myself the same thing for three days,” he said, and saw his mistake register in her face. He’d just said he was the kid’s father, one of those lies he had become adept at telling in the course of his work. Necessary lies. “He’s hungry,” he said, hoping that interpreting the caterwauling would win him back some lost ground.
“Have you got food for him?”
“In the pack.” He sprang up when she moved toward it, intercepting her smoothly. “I’ll get it.”
He seemed to be doing very poorly here. He had failed to allay her suspicions, failed to convince her he was the baby’s father, now she knew there was something in that pack he didn’t want her to see.
“We need to heat this stuff up,” he said, again hoping to impress her with what an expert he was on formula preparation.
“I’ll get some wood and we’ll light the stove.”
As soon as she was out the door, Ben set down the formula. He shut his eyes and pressed a hand against his wound. Hell, he hadn’t hurt like this for a long time. But turpentine and brown sugar?
He limped over to the small window and looked out into the gathering darkness. She was splitting kindling, not heading for the horses. He could hear her whistling, which he thought was probably a ploy to make him think she was more accepting of this situation than she was.
“Would you give it a rest?” he asked the baby.
The baby ignored him.
He was not a man used to being ignored. Or used to babies. And certainly not used to a woman like that. When he’d first seen her on the porch, he’d thought she was a boy. Then she had stretched, and not only shown him some very unboyish curves but her face had come out from under the shadow of the brim of her hat, and her thick dark braid had flopped over her slender shoulder. She was more than lovely. Striking. Stunning.
What was a woman like that doing running a rugged business like this by herself? Hiding, he figured, probably every bit as much as he was. Just from something different.
He was willing to bet, from the suspicion in her eyes, it had been a man.
He resented that unknown man, too. Destroying her trust when he needed a trusting woman most.
Giving her one more glance, he went back to his pack and found a little plastic container of green powder that claimed it became peas when water was added. He dumped some into a dish and added water. Instant pond scum.
The baby stopped crying as soon as he picked him up, a reaction that pleased and horrified him at the same time.
“Open up,” he muttered.
The baby opened his mouth, then closed it firmly just before the spoon made it in. Green stuff dribbled down his little blue outfit.
Ben scowled. The baby pouted. Ben glanced around. He listened. He could still hear the ax biting into wood.
“Okay, okay. Chugga-chugga choo-choo. Here comes the train. Open the tunnel. Open the tunnel!”
The baby laughed, the tunnel opened, the green slime went in, was chewed thoughtfully and swallowed. He held out the spoon again. The baby pouted. The kid wouldn’t eat now without the train routine.
Ben felt he had been through just about the toughest week in his career, first losing Noel East, who had become his friend, and then smuggling this baby, Noel’s child, out of Crescada. And now he had to play choo-choo to get the damn kid to eat? It didn’t seem that life could get much more unfair.
The baby got a look of intense concentration on his face. He turned a most unbecoming shade of purple. A horrible aroma drifted up to Ben’s nostrils.
He conceded his fate; it could get more unfair after all.
Chapter Two
Storm felt perspiration popping out on her forehead.
“Give,” her unexpected guest told her quietly. “You can’t win. You’re going to break your arm trying.”
Storm braced her elbow, closed her eyes, tightened her grip on his hand and pushed with everything she had.
Damn. He was holding her. Toying with her. She suspected he could put her down in a second if he chose.
They were arm wrestling over who was going to look after that diaper. Jake and Evan had been arm wrestling with her since she was a tot. They’d shown her a trick, a way to snap her wrist quickly at the very onset of the match, which gave her pretty even odds against superior strength.
And it often told her a great deal about a man, the way he accepted his defeat or his victory. And she needed to know something about this man.
She had never arm wrestled Dorian. A mistake. She probably could have saved herself a great deal of heartache if she’d used her regular measuring stick of character, instead of pretending to be something she was not. She nearly shuddered at the thought of that bright-red lipstick and thick black mascara that she’d hidden behind.
Still, it seemed to have been a terrible mistake to suggest an arm wrestle to this man, too.
Because when his hand had locked around hers, she had felt the strength in it. A pure strength. And she had felt something else.
Pure sizzle.
Right down to the bottom of her belly.
She’d arm wrestled just about every man in Thunder Lake and never, ever felt that sudden “woomph” deep in her stomach.
She glanced into the clear gray of his eyes and felt it again. A pull to him that was unfathomable given their circumstances, given the fact he thought he could make her stay here, and she planned to prove him wrong.
She told herself, sternly, she only needed to know something of him so she knew what to do once she had left here. Give him a few days with the baby to have his vacation? Or go down that mountain as fast as she could and come back with the law?
The very fact that she did not feel free to leave when she wanted should be telling her exactly what she needed to know.
But her intuition was placing her in a position of inner turmoil. Her intuition looked into the clearness of his eyes and saw, lurking just beneath the cool, still surface, strength of spirit.
The facts spoke of something else. The wound, his presence at her cabin not really explained, the baby most likely not his. He wasn’t even comfortable changing a diaper!
Childishly, she decided how the arm-wrestling match finished would make her decision for her. If he won, she would go down the mountain and forget she had ever seen him or that baby. If she won, she was coming back with Constable Jennings from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
She closed her eyes again, focused all her strength, felt her arm begin to tremble with effort and exertion. And nearly fell off her chair when he suddenly released her hand.
“Hey!” she said, miffed.
His eyes weren’t clear now, but deliberately hooded. “A draw,” he said blandly.
“It was not. I was about to take you.” She knew darn well the exact opposite was true.
“You were about to break your arm.”
“Oh, right.”
“I could see the white line of your bone right through your skin. Trust me. It was a draw.”
He had called the match because he thought he was going to harm her. That told her a reassuring little fact she needed to know. It would seem he wasn’t planning to hurt her. It would seem he was—the word noble flitted through her mind. She gave herself a shake.
She got to her feet abruptly, wiping her hand on her jeans as if she could wipe away the sudden feeling that had engulfed her when she had looked into his eyes.
They were the eyes of a dangerous man. Mysterious. Cool. Calm. And yet she could not help but feel the strength in them was linked to her own future.
He nodded at her. “You’re very strong.”
On the outside. Still, it was a good response. He had won the match, even if he was noble enough not to say so. He was sure of himself. He didn’t need to overpower her to nurture his own self-esteem. And he didn’t rub her face in his superior strength, either.
No surprises there. He oozed that standoffish kind of confidence of a man who walked tall and walked alone.
She spun away from that steady searching look in his eyes and looked at the baby. The aroma wafting off that wee individual was every bit as astonishing as the amount of noise he could make.
Gingerly, she picked up a clean diaper and studied it. “What’s his name?” she asked the man behind her.
And then realized she didn’t know his name either.
“You can call him Rocky. You don’t have to change him. I’ve managed before.”
“A deal’s a deal. And what can I call you?”
Hesitation. “Ben.”
She unfolded the diaper and flipped it trying to figure out which way it went on. What kind of man didn’t even want to tell you his name? Perhaps the arm-wrestle test had failed to reveal his character to her after all.
Really, all she had to remember was one thing.
She was a terrible judge of character when it came to men. Arm wrestling or no.
Suddenly, he was right behind her. He had come on leopard-quiet feet, and so she gasped with soft surprise when he reached around her and took the diaper, laid it out flat on the counter and contemplated it for a moment.
His arm was brushing her shoulder.
She could feel the corded muscles in it, the heat coming off it. He smelled of the forest and of man, and compared to the other smell in the cabin it was pretty heady stuff.
She gritted her teeth.
And reminded herself. His wound was suspicious. She was a terrible judge of men. Whose baby was this, anyway? She moved slightly so that she was out of range of that muscular arm and his masculine potency.
“Like that,” he decided, placing the diaper, and then casually, “And what should I call you?”
“Storm, just like it says on the brochure.”
“Storm.” He repeated it, looking at her as if he was looking deeper, trying to see beyond what his eyes told him. “A nickname?”
“My brothers always called me that.” Her brothers had always said the name accurately reflected her temperament, though she didn’t share that with Ben.
He nodded at that, satisfied she suspected that his own assessment of her character, arrived at in less than fifteen minutes, had just been confirmed.
“Well, Storm, I think the moment of truth has arrived.”
