A Babe In The Woods

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She looked awkward with the baby, and yet her face softened with tenderness when she looked at him.

And for a blinding moment a renegade yearning shot out from under the steel trap of Ben’s hard-earned control—a yearning to walk away from this life of loneliness and be a part of a circle of love.

It occurred to him he’d given Storm his real name, evidence that his thinking was already being clouded by her presence, by that restlessness within himself that had made him take the job with Rocky’s father on pure whimsy, instead of reason. He’d liked the man. And look where that had gotten him. He should know by now that forming attachments was something he should guard against.

Cursing inwardly, he turned away from her and the baby and went outside.

He listened. The forest was dark and silent. He listened inside himself. His heart told him he had not been followed. And that he was in danger of a different kind.

A kind he had never faced before, and was not trained to defend against.

Storm spooned the green stuff into Rocky, who slurped it back with relish. He waved his hands wildly in the air in between bites.

Ben had gone outside. She was glad. His presence did things to her. Made her aware of something deep, dark and dangerous inside herself.

Something that had never been tapped or touched.

Not even by her infatuation with Dorian.

The baby finished eating, and she dampened a cloth and wiped his face. She took him and rested his head against her shoulder and rocked him, and he went to sleep almost instantly. She liked the puddled warmth of him in her arms. Only after he had started to feel heavy did she lay him carefully back on the sleeping bag on the floor.

The night was turning chilly as it would do in the mountains in the spring, and even in the summer.

Ben came back in, the load of firewood he carried effortlessly showing the corded muscles of his arms to distinct advantage. “It’s cold out,” he said briefly.

He put down the wood carefully, so as not to wake the baby, then went and gazed down at him for a moment, unaware of how his hard features softened with momentary tenderness.

And certainly unaware of what that softening of those features did to her.

Filled her with something.

Yearning.

“I guess we should eat,” she said abruptly. “I’ve got plenty of grub in my pack boxes. I’ll go get them.”

She didn’t know if he accompanied her out of a sense of chivalry or because he was guarding her, but they went together to where she had left the pack boxes by the corral. He went unhesitatingly and held out his hand to her old horse.

“That’s Sam,” she said, disarmed by the look on his face. What was it? Wistfulness?

He turned and gave her a look, the wistfulness replaced by a look of dry amusement. “So this is Sam.”

She shrugged, watching how he stroked the horse’s forehead, scratched along his mane. “You like horses,” she said. “You’ve been around them a bit, too.”

“We used to raise quarter horses when I was a kid. I grew up on a ranch in Wyoming.”

“I should have known.”

“What?”

“Cowboy. You can take off the boots and the hats, and you can put years between you and the range, but it’s still there.”

“What’s still there?”

She was sorry she had blurted out the thought, sorrier still he was pursuing it into her private thoughts about him. “Arrogance,” she said. But she thought mystique, strength, self-reliance. The way they held themselves. The pride in their eyes.

A slight frown creased his forehead. “You’re an expert on cowboys?”

“I was raised by two of them.”

“I should have known.”

“What?”

“Cowgirl.”

“And you’re an expert on cowgirls?”

“No. We were pretty isolated where we were. I don’t know the first thing about cowgirls. But if I had to pick one to put on a poster, I’d pick you.”

“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not.”

“I think it is.”

“Why would you pick me?” She knew she was treading a fine line here between getting his guard down and letting hers down.

“Because you look like you could rope and ride as easily and effortlessly as most women could sew a button on a shirt.”

“Sew a button on a shirt? Are your views of women that archaic?”

“Beautiful but slightly prickly,” he went on, as if she hadn’t interrupted.

“I am not.” She meant beautiful.

“Believe me prickly is not nearly as deep a character flaw as arrogance.”

“That’s true.”

“You look like you could shoot a bear without blinking—”

“I did so blink. My eyes were shut tight when I pulled the trigger.”

He laughed, a good sound, rich and deep, a sound that could chase away a good cowgirl’s suspicions. And make her trust someone who had not proven he could be trusted.

“How old were you when you left the ranch?” she asked him.

“Sixteen.” The remoteness snapped back into place, but not before she caught a glimpse of regret.

“You miss it.” She thought of her time in Edmonton, where not a day had gone by when she didn’t miss her brothers’ laughter, the warm breath of her horse and being able to walk outside to a space so big you could never fill it, and air so clean and crisp it was like inhaling champagne.

He shrugged, invulnerable. “I suppose. Parts of it.”

A note in his voice told her things of him. That he was a long way from the boy who had grown up on a ranch in Wyoming and that he would do anything to find his way back to that kind of simplicity.

Was that how he had found his way here?

No. There was nothing simple about him being here. With a baby who was not his.

“So,” she said casually, “what did you do after you left the ranch?”

He came out of the corral, his face completely closed now, hefted the pack boxes, one in each hand, and went back toward the cabin. “This and that,” he said. “Saw the world. You know.”

But she didn’t. And she knew he would not tell her anything further. In this little two-step they were doing to see who could get whose guard down further, she suspected she had just lost round one. She was determined to keep her mouth shut and her eyes open.

Supper was ready in short order. He took over completely, managing the cranky stove like an old hand. Canned stew and biscuits, coffee, strong and hot, and tinned peaches afterward.

“You’re used to doing this,” she commented.

“Cooking?” he asked.

“Making do. Roughing it.”

“This isn’t what I would call roughing it,” he said, and then looked like he regretted saying it, as if it was a crime to reveal even the tiniest little things about himself to her.