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She probably hadn’t had a clue, he thought now.
Just as she didn’t have a clue about the rest of it. About his feelings for her. And he intended for it to stay that way.
Resisting the urge to speed up just a little, Joe slowly drove the Jeep up to the rickety cabin that had once been home to an entire family.
Silently breathing a sigh of relief, he pulled up the hand brake as he turned off the engine.
Mona, he noticed, hadn’t undone her seat belt. “Something wrong?” he asked her.
“Is it safe?” she asked, eyeing the cabin uncertainly. There’d been ghost stories about the cabin when she’d been growing up. She didn’t believe those for a minute, but the cabin did look as if it was about to blow away in the next big gust of wind.
Joe knew that the cabin wasn’t as structurally sound as some of the newer buildings in town, but he really didn’t expect it to fall down around them—unless one of the termites sneezed, he thought, suppressing a smile.
“It’s standing and it’s dry inside,” he pointed out. “Or reasonably so,” he added, figuring that time had been hard on the roof and there had to be places where it would leak. “Right now, that’s all that matters.” Unbuckling his seat belt, he glanced at her, waiting. “Now are you coming, or are you planning on spending the night in the Jeep?”
The latter idea thrilled her even less than spending the night in the rickety cabin. With a sigh, Mona pressed the button and undid her seat belt.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she muttered.
Opening the passenger door, Mona got out. As she stoically battled her way to the cabin’s front door, she suddenly shrieked as the cold rain whipped about her face and body, drenching her for a second time in a matter of moments and stealing her breath away, as well.
The next moment, a strong arm tightened around her waist and pulled her the rest of the way to the cabin.
Joe pushed the door open for her. The cabin hadn’t had a working lock on it for most of the twenty years it had been empty.
“I can walk,” Mona protested as he all but propelled her into the cabin.
“You’re welcome,” he replied after putting his shoulder to the door and pushing it closed again, despite the fact that the rain seemed to have other ideas.
Steadying herself, Mona scanned the area to get her bearings. The interior of the front room looked particularly dreary, like an old prom dress that had been kept in the closet years too long. The roof, she noted, was leaking in several different spots.
“So much for staying dry,” Mona muttered under her breath as she moved aside after a large splotch of rain had hit her on her forehead.
Rubbing his hands together to warm them, Joe gave her an amused look. “You just have to make sure you don’t stand under any of the holes in the roof.”
“Brilliant as always.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “Did you figure that out all by yourself?”
Joe’s expression remained stoic and gave nothing away. He deflected the sarcasm with a mild observation as he pointed out, “I’m not the one getting rained on.”
Mona struggled with her temper. He wasn’t the reason she was in this mood. She’d planned on surprising Rick with her early arrival. He thought she was coming in a couple of weeks, just in time for his wedding. She had sped things up on her end, taking her license exam earlier rather than later, so that she could come and lend a hand in the preparations. Her almost-sister-in-law was six months pregnant and most likely not up to the rigors involved in preparing for a wedding.
Mona knew that a lot of the town was probably willing to pitch in and help, especially Miss Joan who ran the diner and knew everyone’s business. But Rick was her only brother, her only family, and she wanted very much to be part of all this. Wanted, she supposed, to be assured that even after the wedding, she would still be a part of his life.
It was all well and good for her to go gallivanting out of town for long spates of time as long as she knew that Rick would be there when she got back. But the thought that he might not be, that he could go off and have a life that didn’t directly include her rattled Mona to her very core.
Changing the subject in her attempt to get back on a more even keel, Mona frowned. She zigzagged across the small room and looked around at her surroundings in the limited light. There was hardly any furniture and what did exist was falling apart.
“Can you imagine living here?” she asked Joe, marveling at the poor quality of life the last inhabitants of the cabin must have had.
“I’ve seen worse,” Joe replied matter-of-factly.
Mona bit her tongue. She could have kicked herself. For a moment, she’d forgotten that he’d spent his early years living on the reservation where poverty and deprivation had been a vivid part of everyday life, not just for Joe, but for everyone there. More than likely, she realized, he’d grown up in a place like this.
She hadn’t meant to insult him.
Mona pressed her lips together as she turned to look at him. An apology hovered on her tongue.
“Joe, I didn’t mean—”
He didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to glimpse the pity he was certain would come into her eyes, accompanying whatever words would ease her conscience. He wasn’t proud of his background, but he wasn’t ashamed if it, either. It was what it was. And what it was now was behind him.
Joe waved his hand, dismissing what she was about to say. “Forget it.”
Turning his back to her, he focused his attention on the fireplace. Specifically, on making it useful. Squatting down, he angled his head to try to look up the chimney.
Curious, Mona came up behind him. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to see if the chimney’s blocked. Last thing you want, if I get a fire going, is to have smoke filling this room.” He leaned in a little farther. “Damn,” he uttered sharply, pulling back.
Mona moved quickly to get out of his way. “Is it blocked?” she guessed.
“No,” he muttered almost grudgingly, “the chimney’s clear.”
“Okay, I’ll bite,” she said gamely. “Why are you cursing?”
Disgusted, he rose to his feet for a moment. “Because I wasn’t expecting to be hit with big fat raindrops.” The last one had been a direct hit into his eye.
Mona laughed. “Especially dirty ones,” she observed. He looked at her quizzically. With a flourish, Mona pulled a handkerchief out of the back pocket of her jeans. “Hold still,” she ordered.
“Why?” he asked suspiciously. Mona was nothing if not unpredictable. Added to that she had a wicked sense of humor.
“Because I can’t hit a moving target,” she deadpanned, then said seriously, “Because I want to wipe the dirt off your face.” Doing so in gentle strokes, she shook her head. “God, but you’ve gotten to be really distrusting since I was last home.”
“No, I haven’t,” he protested.
Saying that, he took the handkerchief from her and wiped his own face. He told himself it was in the interest of efficiency and that reacting to the way she stroked his face with the handkerchief had nothing to do with it. Some lies, he argued, were necessary, even if they were transparent.
“I never trusted you in the first place.” He raised his chin a little, presenting his face for Mona’s scrutiny. “Did I get it all?”
“Why ask me?” she asked innocently. “After all, I could be lying.”
“True,” he agreed, “but seeing as how you’re the only one around this cabin besides me who talks, I have no choice. You’ll have to do.”
“You look fine,” she told him, playfully running her index finger down his cheek. “You got it all, Deputy Lone Wolf.”
He held out the handkerchief to her. “Thanks.” When she took it from him, Joe turned his attention back to the fireplace and getting a fire going. There was kindling beside the stone fireplace. It didn’t appear to be that old. Someone had obviously been here and used the fireplace since the last owner had vacated the premises. He shifted several pieces, positioning them in the hearth.
Mona went over to the lone window that faced the front of the house and looked out. The rain seemed to be coming down even harder, if that was possible. She shivered slightly, not so much from the cold as from the feeling of isolation.
“Think this’ll last all night?” she asked Joe, still staring out the window.
He hefted another log, putting it on top of the others. “That’s what they say.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. Turning away from the window, she addressed her words to his back. “You mean, we have to stay here until morning?”
Joe fished a book of matches out of his front pocket. He didn’t smoke anymore, hadn’t for years now, but he still liked to have a book of matches in his possession. You never knew when they might come in handy—like now. He had no patience with the old ways when it came to making fire, even though, when push came to shove, he was good at it.
“Unless you want to risk being caught in a flash flood the way we almost were back there.”
She sighed, moving about restlessly. The cabin was sinking into darkness and although she’d grown up in Forever, this setup was disquieting.
“Not exactly the way I pictured spending my first night back home,” she told him.
“You mean, stranded and hungry?” he guessed.
“For openers,” she agreed. Mona ran her hand along her extremely flat abdomen. It had been rumbling for a while now.
He crossed to her. It might have been her imagination, but Joe seemed somehow taller to her in this cabin.
“When did you eat last?” he wanted to know.
“This morning. I skipped lunch to get an early start driving down to Forever.” It had seemed like a good idea at the time. She hadn’t bothered to listen to the weather forecast. She wished she had now. “I figured I’d be in time to grab a late lunch at Miss Joan’s,” she added. Miss Joan, the owner of the diner, had been a fixture around Forever for as long as she could remember.
Arms wrapped around her to ward off the chill, Mona glanced around the cabin’s main room again. “Doesn’t look as if there’s been food around here for a good long while.”
“Except for maybe the four-footed kind,” Joe interjected as the sound of something small and swift was heard rustling toward the rear of the room. A rat?
“I’ll pass, thanks,” she muttered. She wasn’t that hungry yet, Mona thought. She preferred meals that didn’t deliver themselves.
“You sure?” Joe asked, a hint of a grin on his lips. “I hear that squirrels and possums taste just like—”
“Chicken, yes, I’ve heard the same myth,” she said, cutting him off. “I’ll let you know if I get that hungry. I’m not there yet.” And hopefully never would be, she added silently.
He looked mildly amused. “Suit yourself.”
“What, you’re willing to eat a squirrel?” she challenged. He couldn’t be serious, she thought. Joe knew better than that. “They’re full of diseases. You won’t have any idea what you’re swallowing,” she insisted.
“Yeah, I will,” he said.
Was he just trying to bait her? And then she realized that Joe was walking toward the door. He couldn’t be going out—or could he? “Where are you going?” she wanted to know.
“To my Jeep to get the dinner I was bringing home from Miss Joan’s.”
“You had food all this time and you let me go on about the rodents?” she demanded.
“Never known anyone to be able to stop you once you got wound up,” he pointed out. “I figured I’d just wait it out, like the storm. Be right back,” he told her. He opened the door only as much as he had to in order to slip out.
He heard her muttering a few choice words aimed in his direction before the wind carried them away.
Making his way to the Jeep, Joe smiled to himself. Yup, same old Mona. There was a comfort in that.
Chapter Three
Wind and rain accompanied Joe’s reentry into the cabin several minutes later. Mona was quick to throw her weight against the door in order to shut it again.
“Took you long enough,” she commented, hoping to divert his attention from the fact that she had been right next to the door, waiting for his return. Her concern had nothing to do with hunger. But there was no way she was about to admit that.
“I’ll move faster next time.” Opening his jacket, he took out the prize and placed it on the rickety kitchen table. The next moment, he shed the jacket and spread it out in front of the fireplace. With any luck, it would be dry by morning.
“Any sign of the storm breaking up?” she asked hopefully. She really wanted to be in town before nightfall.
Joe shook his head. “If anything, it’s getting worse,” he told her.
Frowning, Mona glanced at the food he’d braved the elements to bring in.
“This is all that you eat?” she asked incredulously. The only thing on the table was a roast-beef sandwich, perched on a bed of wax paper.
“I wasn’t planning on having to share it with anyone,” Joe said a little defensively.
“Share?” she repeated. “It’s not big enough for one person, let alone two.” The man was six-two with a far better than average build. Didn’t that take some kind of decent fuel to maintain? “Don’t you get hungry?”
Wide, strong shoulders rose and then fell carelessly beneath his deputy’s shirt. The material strained against his biceps.
“Not really,” he answered. “Eating’s never been a big deal for me.”
It wasn’t exactly a new revelation. Thinking back, she knew that no one could ever accuse Joe of consuming too much. He’s always had the build of a rock-hard athlete without so much as an ounce of fat to spare. It was the reason that so many girls drooled over him. Or at least one of the reasons, she amended. The fact that he had brooding good looks didn’t exactly hurt.
Joe didn’t sit down at the table. Instead, he pushed the sandwich toward her. “You can have most of it if you like. I’m not really hungry.”
Well, she was. While tempted to take him at his word, Mona didn’t really believe him. He was just being Joe and that entailed being quietly noble. She wasn’t about to take advantage of that. Hungry or not, it didn’t seem fair. “When did you last eat?” she asked him, repeating the question that Joe had put to her less than a few minutes ago.
He didn’t even bother trying to remember, shrugging off the question. “I don’t know.” He made a vague gesture with his hand. “I don’t live by a clock when it comes to food. I eat when I’m hungry, I don’t when I’m not.”
“We’ll split it,” she declared, her tone saying that she wasn’t about to take no for an answer and she was done discussing it. Gingerly sitting down on one of the two chairs, Mona picked up the half closest to her.
Joe ignored the finality in her tone. “You just said that there wasn’t even enough for one person,” he reminded her. Was he trying to pick a fight? Mona forced a fake smile to her lips. “And now I’m saying that we’re splitting it. Seems to me if you can listen to me say one thing, you can listen to me say the other.”
He laughed shortly and picked up the half closest to him. “It’s been dull without you here.”
She took a bite and savored it before commenting on his statement. Miss Joan’s food was plain, but it could always be counted on to be delicious. “I don’t think my brother would agree, what with finding first a baby, then the baby’s aunt on his doorstep.”
“Technically, the baby’s aunt turned up on the diner’s doorstep,” Joe corrected just before he took his first bite of the sandwich.
Mona looked at him. She’d known that. Rick had given her all the details—after she’d pressed him for them—when he called to tell her he was getting married. For the purpose of narrative, she’d exaggerated. She should have known better around Joe.
“I forgot what a real stickler for details you could be.”
“Gotta pay attention to the facts,” he pointed out mildly. “Without the facts, your story can turn into someone else’s.”
