From Kiss to Queen (4 page)

Mark had always scoffed at the notion of the men in his family so abruptly falling prey to passion's magic, but there was no denying his attraction to this volatile, independent, bossy woman in his arms. No, Jane would not join the past women of his life as a fleeting passion. In fact, fate had likely taken that choice away from him this afternoon.

Jane Abbot wasn't going to like it, but she had sealed
her own fate when she'd sealed her lips to his and saved his life. She was now in as much danger from the men in the second plane as he was. Mark knew they would have noted her license plate before they'd blown up her car, and by morning they would know Jane's identity. And he didn't doubt they'd retaliate against her for her role in depriving them of their goal today.

So Mark fell asleep without questioning his feelings for Jane. His only thought was how he was going to hold on to the dynamic little wood-sprite long enough to keep her safe.

He'd have to hold her tightly, of course, and very, very carefully.

J
ane stirred to the oddest sensation. Her chest felt warm and tingling and her heart was racing, her back was pressed against a blast furnace, and her nose felt so cold it was numb. Every muscle in her body ached, and she had an overwhelming urge to sneeze.

Which she did, bringing her completely awake.

Which made her remember.

Which made her gasp at the realization that a good amount of her discomfort was being caused by the large, rather possessive
male
hand covering her left breast. During the night, Mark-with-no-last-name had somehow managed to sneak his hand under her shirt.

Jane's racing heart skipped several beats. Was he awake? Was he aware of where his hand was? Was that her nipple she felt pushing through her bra against his
palm? And why did she want to wiggle her backside more firmly into his lap?

No, the real question was would Katy believe her when Jane told her best friend—okay, her only
real
friend—that she had spent an entire night sleeping in the arms of a man? And that instead of giving the guy a black eye for copping a feel, she'd just lain there like some sex-starved hussy hoping he didn't wake up anytime soon so she could savor it?

Naw; she'd never even get to that part, because Katy would be too busy laughing her head off after Jane told her the guy had actually kissed her, and that she'd just gotten up the nerve to kiss him back when he'd suddenly stopped. Darn. If she had her cell phone, she could have taken a picture of Mark when he was in the front of the canoe today to prove she wasn't lying. It would only be of his back, but at least Katy couldn't say she'd made him up.

Oh, wait; maybe she could sneak a picture of him using Silas' cell phone when they got to Twelve Mile Camp. Yeah, and Silas could back up her story. Well, not the part about them sleeping together, because she sure as heck wasn't telling that gossiping old rooster she'd—

Jane sneezed again.

The hand on her breast gently tightened and started to knead.

Jane closed her eyes as she felt the heat of a thousand suns rush to her cheeks. Holy heaven, was the man even aware of what he was doing?

“Good morning,” Mark gruffly whispered.

Darn, he was awake. And his hand was still moving, still making her heart race.

“Ah . . . good morning,” she whispered back. Afraid her heart might actually explode, Jane slapped a hand to her chest to still his actions—then sneezed again.

Mark sat up slightly behind her. He did move his hand, though, but only to slide it between her breasts and pull her tighter against him. “Are you sick?” he asked with soft concern.

“Could . . . um, could you move your hand please?”

He chuckled, his chest vibrating her back as his searing palm pressed against her belly and pulled her even closer. “Sorry,” he apologized, an unrepentant lilt in his voice. “Instinct, I guess.”

“Instinct, or . . . habit?”

He patted her belly then withdrew his hand altogether. “I don't make a habit of sleeping curled around beautiful women with frost on their noses,” he offered by way of answer.

Picturing him curled around beautiful women, Jane suddenly gasped. “Are you married?”

“No. Are you sick?” he repeated.

“No,” she said on a sniffle and rubbed her nose—which her blush had apparently thawed to the point that it had started running. “I'm not sick,” she continued as she nonchalantly rolled away and sat up, then made herself busy by folding the thin Mylar blanket they'd used for cover.

She squeaked again when Mark pulled her back, facing him, and pressed her nose against his throat.
He
gasped then, and Jane sneezed again—although this time she was pretty sure it was because his chest hair was tickling her nose.

“You are sick.”

“It's probably just an allergy,” she lied, not about to admit she'd been too shy the day before to get out of her wet clothes quickly enough.

“What are you allergic to?”

Your soft, nice-smelling chest hair,
Jane wanted to shout. “The woods,” she said instead, tugging against his hold. He let her go, but then stopped her from scrambling away by trapping her with his eyes.

They looked better this morning. Clearer. Brighter. Actually, they looked positively gorgeous; a stark, molten gold, keen and intelligent and . . . narrowed in suspicion.

“Your face is red. You've caught a cold.”

I'm blushing, you oaf.
But Jane decided being sick was less embarrassing than admitting her hormones were on the verge of rioting. Heaven help her, the man she'd pulled from the lake was beautiful.

Okay, she may have noticed that fact yesterday, but she'd been determined to ignore it. She couldn't now. He was sitting right in front of her, and she couldn't help but notice his hair was sticking out in a tangle of mahogany waves, brushing the collar of his unbuttoned shirt and falling over his forehead just short of his gorgeous eyes. His jaw was slightly shaded with whiskers, which only accentuated his sculpted features. And his mouth? The one that had kissed her last night? It was wide and sensual and . . . appeared set with determination.

“You're a stubborn woman, Jane Abbot.”

“It's how I survive. And it's my business if I want to be stubborn.”

“You'll probably die of pneumonia before I get you back to civilization,” he muttered, standing up.

He
got
her
to civilization? This was her rescue operation, not his.
She
was saving
him
.

Apparently now that he had his sight back, the man intended to take charge. Well, she'd see how close he got them to civilization without her help. He might be big and strong, but he didn't have a clue where they were going.

And she'd let him in on that little secret just as soon as she stopped gawking.

“I would like a few minutes to myself,” she finally managed to say. “And since you seem so capable all of a sudden, why don't you go find us some water.” Jane tilted her head, intrigued by the little twitch that came into his cheek.

“I'll find us water,” he whispered, sounding more threatening than agreeable. “Have the fire built back up by the time I return.”

“Yes, sir,” Jane snapped, her cheeks red again for a completely different reason.
Oh! Ordering her around like he was king of the forest or something.

With his cheek still twitching, Mark grabbed the canteen and stormed out of the camp. Jane scrambled to find her brace and put it on over her sock inside her dry but stiff boot, pulled down her pant leg, then checked to make sure the comfortable old brace was hidden. She'd been wearing one since before she'd learned to walk, and considered it a welcome old friend that allowed her mobility and a degree of confidence.

She hadn't been born with a bad ankle, but the nuns at Saint Xavier's had told her she'd come to them with the injury. Since then she'd had several operations and many
fittings of braces. No one knew how her ankle had become crushed; only that she'd had the injury when they'd found her—not three days old, it had been determined—on the steps of the hospital in Abbot, Maine. No one knew who her parents were, either. And twenty-seven years later, the sources of her injury and parentage were still unknown.

Jane no longer cared. She was contented with her life and making the best of what she
did
have. The only thing she craved was a family. And until a month ago, it was the one thing she was afraid she might never get. That is, until she'd suddenly realized she could have a family of her own—an actual blood tie—if she were to have a baby. She could be a mother.

And finally be
somebody
.

By the age of twenty-three Jane had figured out she probably wouldn't ever be a wife, only to have that lesson drilled home again last month by a groping, drunken lout who'd offered to set her up in a cabin of her own in the woods as his mistress. That's when, despite Sister Roberta's adamant cautions about what happens to immoral women, Jane had seriously started thinking about having a baby out of wedlock. Because honestly? She'd willingly spend
eternity
in purgatory in exchange for having a family of her own right here on Earth.

And she didn't really need a husband for that to happen—just some sperm.

But how was she supposed to get the ingredients for motherhood when
sober
men were turned off by her limp and lack of sensuous beauty? Like Mr.-No-Last-Name Mark; sharing a bed and waking up to find himself holding her breast hadn't done a thing for his libido, apparently.
He'd just calmly pulled his hand out of her shirt like it was a common, everyday mistake and focused on her illness instead. And when he'd kissed her last night, his hormones hadn't even sparked, much less run away with him. Heck, he'd told her to go to sleep.

Okay, maybe she wouldn't tell Katy about their sleeping together, because she really didn't want her friend—who happened to be a tall goddess with shining gray eyes and the body of a swimsuit model—to give her
another
lecture about getting over the silly notion that she was nobody.

“You didn't start the fire back up,” Mr. Dead Libido said from behind her. “You really are sick, aren't you? Your face is flushed and you haven't even finished dressing. You only have one boot on,” he added, giving her that intense, golden look again. He set down the canteen and stirred the dying embers of their fire. “Just sit still and I'll fix us something to eat. Do you have any aspirin in your pack?”

“Yes,” she croaked, reaching for her other boot just as she sneezed again—making her finally admit she was sick. Okay; maybe her melancholy was from having a cold and not from having shared a bed with a gorgeous man who, like most sober men, didn't see her as a woman.

And with that quiet capitulation, Jane lost complete control of her rescue operation. As soon as she dug out the aspirin, Mark procured her backpack and its contents, cooked soup and hot chocolate, then dismantled their camp right before her disbelieving eyes. He let out the straps on her pack to fit his wide shoulders, hefted her shotgun in one hand and held out his other hand for her to take—their roles of yesterday unquestionably reversed.

“Which way?” he asked once she was standing, albeit bewildered and stuffy-headed.

“Ah . . . north,” she whispered, fighting back another sneeze. Jane thought she should tell him everything now, since she didn't know what condition she might be in later. Heck, she was liable to lead them in circles. “Follow this ridge until you see a good-sized stream on the left. Then follow it downstream to the lake. The canoe should be where the stream enters the lake.”

With a smug grin that said he was fully in charge, Mark started along the ridge, his hand securely holding hers. Now that the man could see well enough, he had no trouble covering the rough terrain with his long, powerful legs, but he matched his pace to hers, and even helped her over steep places by simply grabbing her around the waist and lifting her up.

And every time she sneezed he turned and frowned at her, and every time she stopped to blow her nose, his eyes silently scolded.

When they reached the lake and found the canoe, Mark tossed her in the front and took over the stern. “If you don't feel well enough to paddle, just rest,” he offered with obvious concern and another frown. “Tell me which way to the outlet, and I'll take it from here.”

Beginning to really simmer now, whether from fever or building anger, Jane pointed to the other end of the lake, then closed her eyes and decided to let him do all the work, if that's what the bossy man wanted. She was sick, he was arrogant, and maybe paddling a canoe for seventeen miles would take some of that cockiness out of him.

Within minutes she was fast asleep.

*   *   *

M
ark watched the flushed, sick, angry woman sleeping in the bow. She hadn't liked relinquishing control this morning, and he guessed that if she hadn't been feeling poorly they'd still be back at camp slugging it out over their respective roles in this odyssey.

Jane Abbot was a capable, independent creature who appeared too stubborn for her own good. He wondered where her family was. He also wondered why some intelligent man hadn't put a ring on her finger and bound her to a home.

But then, for all he knew some man had. Maybe she hadn't liked the situation and had left. Then again, maybe she was simply too independent for marriage. Mark certainly couldn't picture Jane as a complaisant wife to some domineering husband.

But she'd been totally flustered this morning to find his hand on her breast. And a nice, plump breast it was, he remembered warmly. He'd given her an excuse for her red face by blaming it on her illness, and she'd jumped at the offer. Jane had been disconcerted by his touch, which led him to believe she'd never been anyone's wife.