“What?” she asked when the strain of his gaze became too great for her to bear.
Joe shook his head as if his thoughts weren’t meant for public disclosure but asked, “Do you want more water before we go?”
“Yes, please.”
He stood and handed her the jar. Again she drank greedily but had to stop when she felt some of the fluid dripping down her chin. It was then, as she dabbed the sleeve of Joe’s shirt across the lower half of her face, that she noticed the groove in the ground near Joe’s feet.
It was a long, deep rut, formed as if he’d been dragging the heel of his boot back and forth in the dirt. From the looks of it, he’d been doing just that and for quite some time. Uneasiness grew heavy in her heart. How long had she been asleep?
“It’s … it’s hard to tell the time without a watch,” she said, looking up at the sky. “Have we been here long?”
“No.”
She glanced in Joe’s direction. He was picking up her pack and gave no indication that anything was amiss. He came to her and placed the blanket full of groceries around her shoulders. It felt heavier than before as her tired body protested the familiar burden being settled onto her back.
“It’s about four-thirty. We’ve made good time.” he said, tying the blanket ends in a tight knot across her chest.
“How long have we been resting?” she asked, feeling at a distinct disadvantage. Intuitively she knew she’d slept more than just a few minutes—much more—and she wanted to be prepared for whatever Mr. Do-No-Wrong had to say about it.
Joe looked up from his task and met her gaze straight on. “Not long,” he said.
The look in his eyes confirmed Leslie’s suspicions. They also told her that the man had no intention of teasing her about it. For a brief moment, there was gentleness and understanding in his expression before he lowered his gaze and moved away.
Leslie found this unexpected burst of kindness disconcerting, but she wasn’t about to refuse it. She smiled at him when he turned back around, her spirits suddenly buoyant. But when she stepped forward to take up her half of the cooler, she immediately wished she hadn’t moved. A sharp, stinging pain set her feet on fire as a cry of agony escaped her.
“What is it?” he asked, alarmed.
Leslie hurt too much to speak. She sat down on the ground and very gingerly removed her shoes. She drew her right foot up into her lap to examine it. It was covered, top and bottom, with large, angry-looking blisters. Some were broken and weeping. Even the air seemed to irritate them and increase the burning pain.
“Oh, geeze,” Joe said, his voice full of sympathy.
Leslie looked up into his face. Between the pain impulses bombarding her brain, her mind took the time to register that he was bent down on one knee to investigate the extent of the damage to her feet and that he was being uncharacteristically solicitous of her condition. It was, however, the worried, caring expression she thought she saw in his eyes that was Leslie’s undoing.
The blisters were the final blow. Her spirit broken and her life at an all-time low, she was hardly aware of the tears that spilled down her cheeks, leaving a trail of wretchedness in the thin layer of dust and grime acquired during her trek.
“I’m a walking disaster,” she said, throwing her hands up in hopelessness. “My whole life is falling down around my ears, and I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t even know why. I’m completely out of control.” She buried her face in her hands and shook her head woefully.
“Oh, no. You’re not going to cry are you? I mean, it can’t be all that bad, can it?”
“It is. And I never cry,” she said, and then she sobbed.
“Yes, well, why don’t you stop whatever it is you’re doing, and we’ll talk. The blisters will heal, and I’ll bet your sister’s wedding went off without a hitch,” Joe said, trying to offer her hope, sounding anxious and uncomfortable.
“And what about you?” she asked, looking up at him tearfully. “How long will it take you to recover from the mess I’ve made of your life? God only knows what I’ll do next. I don’t even want to think about it. Things keep moving from bad to worse all by themselves. Two weeks is a long time. You could end up dead.”
Joe’s demeanor grew stern and his green eyes disapproving. “Oh, spare me, will you? Feeling sorry for poor Leslie isn’t going to make things any better. So stop talking all this garbage and help me think of a way to get you to the cabin before nightfall.”
Smarting from his insensitivity, Leslie didn’t look up when he offered her a clean, neatly folded handkerchief and ordered her to blow her nose. She hadn’t consciously been looking for pity, but she couldn’t help feeling resentful that Joe Bonner hadn’t offered her any. Had a meaner man than Joe Bonner ever been born?
Joe had left Leslie’s side while she composed herself, and he now returned to sit Indian-style on the ground facing her. “That’s better. Now, let me have a good look at them,” he said, holding out his hands.
“Don’t bother yourself on my account. Why don’t you just go?”
“Come on, poor Leslie. Let Uncle Joe look,” he said, mocking her, grinning as if he enjoyed her anger.
Loath to give him more cause to tease her, Leslie thrust her leg out and brought her foot up in front of his face. He patiently and, amazingly enough, gently took hold of her ankle and leg and repositioned them so he could examine her foot.
“Crying and whining are two completely different things, you know,” she stated as the thought occurred to her, and then she reconsidered having said it. She shouldn’t have brought the subject up at all.
“Not in my book they’re not,” he said, focusing his eyes on her lips, causing her stomach to somersault. But when she opened her mouth to debate her point, he beat her to the punch. “But I’ll make an exception this time. Next time, I’ll take my kiss.”
“There won’t be a next time,” she muttered as she watched him grimace at the sight of her battered feet.
“Well see.” Contrary to his words, the careful, tender way he handled her foot led her to believe he had at least an ounce of compassion hidden somewhere. What a strange man he was, she thought. “If it makes you feel any better, more in control again, you can blame these blisters on me. I knew better than to let you walk so far in shoes that didn’t fit your feet properly. I didn’t think ahead this morning, and I’m sorry for that,” he said.
Stunned by his short speech and sincere apology, Leslie didn’t know how to reply.
“I wish we’d kept those pieces we cut off your dress,” he said, leaning over sideways to pull the cooler closer to them. He then crossed his arms and grabbed the sides of his T-shirt, pulling it up over his head. So in awe of the powerful, broad shoulders and the great expanse of smooth, golden-brown skin before her, Leslie was hardly aware that Joe was speaking again. “This isn’t the Red Cross way, I’m sure, but it’s the best we can manage right now. We need to keep these clean and dry, so they’ll heal.”
Suddenly he was ripping his T-shirt.
“What are you doing?” she asked, confused.
“Hopefully I’m going to ease your pain and clean some of the dirt off your feet at the same time.” He dunked a large section of his shirt into the melted ice water at the bottom of the cooler. Dripping wet, he then draped the cloth loosely around her inflamed foot.
Leslie couldn’t stop the sigh of relief that automatically sprang to her lips. “Ahh. That feels wonderful,” she said, her tone euphoric.
Joe smiled and chuckled. “It won’t last long, but we might get them numb enough for you to travel at least some of the way without too much pain.”
Leslie leaned back on her elbows to enjoy her respite while Joe wrapped her other foot the same way. She felt awful that he’d sacrificed the shirt off his back for her feet, but in that unguarded moment of repose, she was very glad he had—and not because of her blisters. His upper torso was a real treat to look at. The rounded mounds of muscle in his arms and shoulders were a fascinating study in human anatomy, Leslie decided, trying to ignore the squirming sensation low in her abdomen. Irrepressibly her eyes followed the dark trail of hair that curled around his nipples and descended downward, disappearing into the band of his jeans. She blinked disappointedly when her journey ended. She’d seen prettier male faces, but without a doubt, she’d never seen a sexier body.
“Would you like your shirt back, or the coat? It’s starting to get cool again,” she said as his near nakedness began to make her feel nervous and uncomfortable.
She could have saved the effort of her offer, because when she looked up into his face, she found his gaze riveted to her breasts. In her relaxed position, the shirt had fallen away and left all there was to see exposed. Quickly she sat up and pulled the shirt tightly around her body.
“What’s this? A double standard? You can look at my chest, but I can’t look at yours?” He tried to look innocent but couldn’t keep his lips from bowing upward.
“Do you want the coat or this damned shirt or not?” she asked, her voice almost a snarl as she felt a hot flush working its way up the sides of her neck.
Joe shook his head. “Thanks, but I’ll let you know when I get cold, and we’ll work something out then.” He paused and laughed. “You know, I don’t think I’ve had to take turns wearing a shirt since I was in college.”
“You went to college?”
“You sound surprised.”
“I am. I mean, I just assumed … What did you study?” she asked with interest.
“Journalism.”
“Journalism. You’re a writer?”
“Yes,” Joe said, sounding perturbed with her continued astonishment.
“What do you write? Have you written anything good?” she asked, choosing her words poorly. She wasn’t trying to insult him, but she was excited to think that she might have read something he’d written.
But Joe’s eyes narrowed, and his posture took on a proud attitude. “Everything I write is good. But if you’re asking if I’ve been published, the answer is yes. Several times in fact. However, if you are wondering if you might have read something of mine, I doubt it. My writing tends to get a little involved.”
“Meaning you don’t think I read anything heavier than first grade primers, right?” she asked, taking up his role as the insulted intellectual.
“So far you’ve done nothing to lead me to think otherwise.”
Leslie gasped in outrage and frantically searched her mind for a scathing rebuttal. But the truth was, she had been doing some pretty idiotic things since she’d met him. Since before she met him, actually. So how could she fight the truth?
Rather than make some inane remark which would only prove his point, she opted to change the subject entirely. Boldly looking him in the eye, giving him permission to think whatever he liked about her, she asked, “Are you ready to go?”
“Yes. But let’s rewrap your feet again first.”
When Joe bent to take her foot in his hands, she pulled away, saying, “I can do it.”
Joe shrugged indifferently and walked away.
Well, Joe Bonner certainly had been right about one thing, Leslie decided as she soaked his T-shirt in the icy water and reapplied the pieces to her aching feet. This definitely was going to be a long two weeks. What irked her was the fact that she couldn’t lay it all at Joe’s door. She had never acted so strangely in all her life. It was as if she were functioning on pure emotion. Illogical, irrational, indefinable emotion. She, Leslie Rothe, reacting emotionally. It was like drowning in a desert, very unnatural.
She was feeling sorry for her sister, Beth, for having spent most of her life in this state of ungovernable moodiness, when Joe’s activities caught her attention. He had placed their packs and the cooler behind a large boulder and was covering them with dirt and tree limbs and anything else he could find.
“Now what are you doing?” she asked.
“Hiding the food and hoping the animals won’t smell it before I come back for it tomorrow,” he said without stopping.
“What animals?”
Joe glanced in her direction but went on with his work. “Little forest creatures. Squirrels mostly.”
“Are there any bears around here that you know of?”
“Nah. They all moved down to the zoo in Denver,” he said facetiously. “But we still have some cute little kitties and some weird looking dogs up here.”
Coyotes and mountain lions. Why hadn’t she thought of them before? Bears, too, probably. Out of her element didn’t exactly describe the way she was feeling. She thought longingly of her nice, safe office. She knew she’d never watch another movie about an extraterrestrial’s first visit to earth without having a great deal of empathy for the alien.
“Is that why you want to get there before dark?” she asked, hoping he’d tell her the animals were never seen in the daylight hours.
“That and the fact that there are no streetlights up here. It gets harder to see where you’re going when the sun goes down.”
“Oh.”
Thinking it better to stay busy rather than dwell on the animals she sensed to be lurking behind nearly everything she looked at, she got to her feet with every intention of helping her companion bury his food. But she didn’t need to take that first step to know that she wouldn’t get far.
Panic and despair filled her once more. They lodged in her throat as she realized the impossibility of her walking anywhere. Just the pressure of standing on her feet was almost more than she could bear. She sat back down dejectedly and turned her attention to Joe.
She could well imagine what he’d say when he discovered she couldn’t walk the rest of the way, but what would he do? Stay and camp out with her until she could travel? Or leave her there for … what had he called it last night? Buzzard bait?
She was in the process of wishing she’d been nicer to him, when Joe walked over and held out a hand to help her up. She moved to take it, but at the last minute withdrew her hand.
“It’s no use. I can’t,” she said, defeated.
“You can’t what?”
“I can’t walk. I’ll never make it to your cabin, and I can’t blame you for wanting to leave me here, but I think I should warn you that if you do, I’m going to haunt you until the day you die.” She finished her impassioned speech on a note of conviction, hoping that she’d impressed him with her supernatural powers.