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Not behavior worthy of her uniform.

She didn't want to remember that night from eight years ago, much less talk about it. But somehow Josh slipped past her defenses, pushed her buttons, pushed her until the words had spilled free.

Apparently she hadn't kept him in the dark after all. A mortifying thought. She wasn't totally inexperienced. She knew enough to realize Josh was good in bed. Really good. Generous and sexy.

She just wished she could fully benefit, that they both could.

He deserved an explanation. But why did it have to be now? Although something about this stark, ends-of-the-earth landscape echoed the rawness inside her.

Josh's silence left her fidgeting until finally she blurted, "He didn't assault me sexually, if that's what you're thinking. You can relax."

"Relax?" He shook his head slowly, still not moving otherwise. "I don't think so."

What was he thinking? She forced words up her throat, each one scraping like icy shards. "He was...be yond upset. But somehow I still didn't see the first punch coming—"

A rustling sounded from behind her, and how she welcomed the distraction as a chance to gather her thoughts. Her instincts kicked in, and survival thoughts took over.

Josh's head jerked up. He shoved past and ahead of her, predictably protecting. Rather than argue, she decided to watch his back. The man needed it whether he realized it or not.

She dipped her hand inside her parka to pull her flare gun from her survival vest. Steps stealthy, they dodged larger drifts, minimizing the crunching of snow as much as possible.

Her heart pounded in her ears, pumped in her chest so hard surely her jacket must be pulsing. Branches swayed and crackled ahead.

"Down," Josh ordered in a whisper.

She dropped to her stomach beside him. Birch boughs swept wide. She tensed, hand gripping the gun.

The ground trembled under her.

Caribou raced into sight.

She exhaled a gust of relief. The small herd loped past, kicking up a cloud of dusty snow behind them.

Tension seeped from her. Rolling to her side, she steadied her heart and studied her husband.

Oops, not the best way to steady her heart, but still she couldn't help but stare at him to reassure herself he was whole and not seconds away from meeting some illegal miner's rifle. "Josh? Are you okay?"

"Look." He pointed to the gaping tunnel formed by broken branches.

Dragging her eyes from him, she looked ahead, squinting. Slowly, the fragmented landscape came into focus to showcase a small clearing.

And shelter.

A rusty metal Quonset hut filled the area, apparently abandoned. Leaving her with no other excuses to avoid the rest of her discussion with her husband.

Josh rechecked his newly fashioned lock on the door inside the Quonset hut. Not exactly the Hilton in Hawaii, but more welcome.

He wedged a piece of wood against the door, which was pounded by battering winds and sheeting ice that picked up force and speed with each passing minute. He'd managed the best he could with security and was fast running out of tasks to keep his mind off Alicia behind him preparing to wash. Taking off her ice-caked clothing and draping it over fishing wire strung across the lone room.

Focus on survival, not the sound of rustling clothes and water trickling into a metal basin.

Padding along the wood floor in his bare feet, he surveyed the twenty-by-ten-foot metal shelter, which looked more like half a rusty metal cylinder dropped onto the ground. But it blocked the howling snowstorm kicking back up full force. The single door also made guarding their backs from intruders a helluva lot easier, not that anyone would be coming their way until the renewed blizzard passed.

The woodstove already snapped with a fire, cranking the temp inside up to a balmy fifty degrees while melting a second basin tub of ice. The open grate allowed the flames to cast a low haze of light through the room, along with dwindling sun through the thick Plexiglas window in the door. They would be able to conserve their flashlight batteries.

Luckily law enforcement and other government agencies kept such buildings stocked with rudimentary survival supplies, a routine part of the state budget. Rarely were the places looted. There wasn't much to take, anyway, just a small box of dehydrated foods, a couple of aluminum washtubs, a woodstove welded to the floor with stacks of wood beside.

And four sleeping-bag bedrolls.

He'd think about the bed part later.

The fishing line swayed under the weight of the drying winter gear, his parka and snow pants as well as hers, creating a makeshift curtain to conceal Alicia while she washed.

Except it didn't block all of her from view.

Her feet shuffled in a semicircle—in toe socks patterned with reindeer sporting neon noses. The festive garb seemed out of synch with the stark setting and yet so...her. Somehow that view of her tempted him as much as if the curtain vanished.

Exhaustion swamped him. He must be near dead on his feet, otherwise he wouldn't be standing around gawking at her socks.

Nothing left to do but strip down, too. Survival first. Clothes damp from snow and sweat were killers out here. He peeled off his flight suit, socks, thermal shirt and pants. Washed, shaved. Dumped in more buckets of ice to melt. And still Alicia hadn't come out.

What was taking her so long? Damn, but he hated not knowing what to say to her. He scooped his hands through the lukewarm water, splashing up on his face and over his head until he saturated his close-cropped hair and admitted to himself he'd delayed thinking as long as he could.

Finally, he let his mind settle on what she'd told him. She didn't still love the other guy after all. The bastard had hurt her. How much, Josh couldn't even let himself think about yet or he would go crazy from inaction.

Why the hell hadn't he considered it before? The reason for her reticence made perfect sense. He wanted to pound his head against the wall for his own idiocy.

He watched her reindeer socks shuffle until he couldn't wait any longer to do something for her.

"Are you all right back there?" he asked, for now and the past.

"Yeah." Her voice drifted over the line, husky from so long in the stark elements. Please God, not from crying. "Just trying to balance everything until I finish up."

Too easily memories of helping her bathe in the past came to mind. They'd lucked into a joint TDY, staying in a bed-and-breakfast with an incredible spa tub. She'd been so slick and hot and all over him.

He hadn't misread her desire, damn it.

The line of dripping green survival gear rippled from her movement, her feet padding to the end. His gut knotted. She stepped into view. He forced his eyes to stay locked on her pale face, the dim light of the fire throwing a candlelight glow all around her.

A sheepish smile played with her lips as she pointed to her matching bra and panties that he would not, would
not
look at.

"Red-plaid underwear. Flannel," she declared. Her toes wiggled in her Rudolph socks, a safer place to keep his gaze. "Mystery solved. Nothing near as sexy as a thong."

He disagreed.

So much for keeping his eyes on her face. Holiday plaid stretched across her generous breasts, dog tags dangling. The sports-bra style covered much while leaving nothing to the imagination. He didn't need to look further. Her every curve, the dip of her waist, slight flare of her hips stayed imprinted in his photographic memory. His hands remembered well the contrasting feel of her soft breasts and toned muscles.

And damn it, but he was starting to become aroused. Starting? Hell, he was already there, and no way to hide it.

Way to be sensitive, dumb ass.

Wincing, he turned away to stoke the fire, the one in the woodstove, since the one in his boxers was roaring just fine. "Damn, hon, I'm sorry. You're just so—"

"Josh, please don't go getting all weirded out on me about this." Her feet whispered across the floor, closer, until the heat of her seared his back without their skin even touching. "I'm the same person I was four weeks ago when you walked through our bedroom naked with pretty much the same action going on then as now."

"Roger. No getting weirded out." He turned, an inch of crackling air between them. "And I'm not. I just don't know how you need me to react."

"I need you to be honest."

He wanted to note that honesty from her might have been helpful over the past months, but that didn't seem wise. He stuffed down residual anger at her, himself, and most of all at the bastard who'd hurt her.

"We have to talk about what you told me."

"I know we do, and we will. Soon. I promise. It's just not easy." The confident brace of her bare shoulders faltered. "I've never told anyone before."

No one? In eight years?

His momentary flash of victory over being the one she'd told faded as he realized how high walls eight years in the making would be. Unease dripped over him like the water plopping from their clothes onto the cracked wood floor.

He stared down, no answers scrolled on the planks. But he did discover a distraction to buy time until he could figure out what to do next. "Let me see your feet."

"Huh?" Confusion puckered her brow even as she grinned. "You're one sick puppy, Rose-Bud."

"I need to check your feet for frostbite."

"Oh, how are yours?"

He lifted his bare feet one at a time. "Doing well. I may have some skin peel off, but I'm not going to lose any toes."

In front of the woodstove, he unfurled the sleeping bags and unzipped them. He draped one for padding and insulation on the floor. He zipped two together to make a double bed—she would just have to live with that because sharing body heat was practical. Then he draped the final open bag over top, musty but clean.

And too inviting. He stepped back. "Now, sit."

"Yes, sir." Shooting him a half salute, she dropped onto the dark green beddings and rolled off her socks.

He crouched on his haunches in front of her. Sitting with her on their bedroll seemed to be crossing a boundary best left in place until after they talked more. He lifted her left foot, grazing his thumbs along the tender instep to check circulation.

Goose bumps prickled over her very bare skin.

His gaze jerked up to hers. She was watching him. Intently. Aware. Her breasts rose faster. Only shrieking wind and groaning metal rivets filled the silence between them.

He returned his focus to her feet, safer territory. Sort of. He rifled through his survival vest in search of the salve for blisters. He shuffled aside the magnifying glass, two pressure bandages, an eye patch, fishing hooks, until he found Band-Aids and the tube of disinfectant.

After tending one foot, he lowered it and lifted the other, careful to keep his touch firm this time. "I'm sorry you won't get to call your family on Christmas Eve morning."

"That's pretty much the least of our worries right now."

Okay, that caught his attention. Until he realized she meant whoever set up that mini-mining operation and not the fact that he could barely keep his hands off her. "We're okay for the next few hours at least until the storm lets up again. I added an extra wedge in the door while you were bathing. The flare guns are loaded. That's the most we can do for now."

She forked her fingers through sweaty locks swirled into loose curls around her face. "What a way to spend the holidays. Maybe I should start singing again or something. There were these two people in my sister's squadron who got stuck in the desert for Christmas Eve. They put together a whole survivalist celebration with a scrub-brush tree and cactus-slice cider."

Her story told him more than perhaps she intended. She wanted easy. Normal. Not weirded out. He could do normal, funny. For her, he would do damned near anything. "Is that a hint for me to hump my butt back outside and start gathering up pinecones to rig decorations?"

"Hey, we could string them over the stove with snare wire, like a garland."

He laughed. She didn't. His humor faded. "You are joking, right?"

She blinked back at him. Already his skin chilled over just the thought of tramping outside again. Had she gone unhinged from the stress? But shit, if she wanted pinecones then he'd get them. He started to push up from the floor. A wicked smile split her face. "Gotcha." His laugh burst free, tangled with hers. "Yeah, you sure did."

In more ways than one. Laughter faded. He needed distance to make it through the night. He tugged out two packs of dried apples and tossed one to her. "It's about the closest I can come to apple cider."

"It's great. Thanks."

Silently they tore open the packets and reconstituted them with melted ice. He ate, trying not to watch her fingers scoop out the sweet fruit and suck the syrup off her fingers. Ah, hell.

What was it about this woman that grabbed hold of him and wouldn't let go? A woman who didn't need a damned thing from him and would only be open about her feelings when pressed to the wall. A woman with pain in her past he didn't have a clue how to heal.

Failure didn't sit well with him. "What was it you were having trouble with behind the screen?"

"Oh, um, I wanted to wash my hair." She set aside her empty fruit packet. "Ridiculous vanity, but I still feel gross. Probably silly to risk catching a cold."

Well, hell. There was something he could do for her after all. He may not be able to address her deeper wounds, but he could damn well wash her hair. And right now he needed action. He needed to feel like a man taking care of his wife.

A sexist thought? Probably. Especially considering his warrior wife could protect herself. But hey, he'd keep the words to himself. "Why not go for it? There's enough melted ice. It's warm in here. Storm's going to last through the night. You'll be well dry by morning."

She chewed her bottom lip but didn't say no.

Two long strides took him to the clothesline. He ducked behind to retrieve the extra metal washtub and place it in front of her. "You can lean over this. I'll pour the water from the other one over your head. No big deal."