Dare couldn’t say he’d never imagined Angie naked. He had. Several times. Maybe a hundred or so. But he’d never imagined that the first time he saw her naked would be in these circumstances, or that he’d try really hard to keep his gaze from lingering on her small round breasts and tight nipples. She was wrong; she had boobs, pretty ones that were small and high, and he guessed she wore a bra more because she thought she was supposed to than because she really needed one. He loved tight nipples, but not when they were tight from cold instead of what he was doing to them. He didn’t like that her skin looked almost
bloodless, that she could barely sit up, and knowing how helpless she was, how much in danger she was, gave him the strength to keep his mind on what needed to be done and not on what he’d love to be doing.
He checked her for wounds on her upper body, but beyond a variety of scrapes and bruises there wasn’t anything to concern him, no cuts, no punctures. He wiped her down quickly with a wet wipe, starting with her face and moving downward, followed that with a rubdown with the one towel he’d brought along, then slipped her arms into the sleeves of the flannel shirt and buttoned it up.
Once that was done, he eased her down on the mattress and began working her boots off. Cowardly, he removed the left one first, figuring he needed to work up to the tough stuff. He could cut the boot off if he had to, but if her ankle was just sprained she’d need that boot. When he moved to the right foot, he completely unlaced the boot so he could make it as loose as possible, then very gently began easing it off. Angie immediately tensed and uttered a choked cry. “Sorry,” he murmured, working his fingers inside the opening and bracing her ankle as best he could, but there was no way that boot was coming off without her foot and ankle flexing at least a little. She clenched her fists and jaw, her eyes closed tight, and endured.
Finally the boot and sock were off, and he could see the ankle. It was swollen and bluish, but there was no bone poking through the skin, no obvious unnatural position. He didn’t have X-ray vision, so maybe it was sprained or maybe there was a simple fracture. At any rate, the best he could do was cool it, wrap it, and keep her off it for now.
First things first, though. The rest of her clothes had to come off. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her soaked sweatpants and began working them down, dragging her underwear along, too. Again, she flinched when he had to get her foot free,
but she didn’t make a sound. Thank God his flannel shirt was so big on her it covered her down to the middle of her thighs, because he could carry his good intentions only so far. As it was, the glimpse he got of dark pubic hair was enough to make his heartbeat jump into second gear. God almighty. How much could he take?
As much as was necessary, that was how much.
Almost growling as he pulled a fresh wet wipe from the pack, he set about cleaning away any mud he saw, then briskly dried her with the towel and got his thermal long johns on her without causing her too much discomfort. She made a low, inarticulate sound of relief at finally having dry clothes on; he gave another involuntary growl, whether of regret or relief that she was covered, he couldn’t have said. Finally he put one of his clean socks on her left foot, leaving the other one bare so he could tend to her ankle.
Okay, he was making progress. Next he towel-dried her hair, which had been partially protected by the hood of the slicker but, like everything else, had gotten soaked anyway. Then he moved on to her hands.
Her hands were a mess, swollen and bruised, her palms almost shredded with cuts. As gently as possible, not wanting to hurt her, he began cleaning them. There was a real danger of infection, because she’d been crawling through mud with open wounds on her hands. After the mud was cleaned away, he tore open an antiseptic pad from the first-aid kit and once again gently but thoroughly wiped the wounds, looking for bits of trash in the cuts. She didn’t say a word, and flinched only once, when he raked a splinter from a cut on the pad of her thumb. Then he smeared antibiotic ointment over all the cuts, wrapped her palms with gauze, and taped the bandages in place.
The ankle was next. He sat on the mattress next to her and lifted her right leg onto his lap, with her foot positioned so he had unencumbered access to it. There wasn’t much he could do: tear
open an alcohol wipe and gently lay it across the swollen joint to cool it, then wrap an Ace bandage firmly around her foot and ankle.
Through it all Angie just lay there, too damn quiet, too damn still. He put his hand on her shoulder and shook her a little, until her eyes cracked open. “Are you okay?”
“Cold.” Her eyes closed again. “Sleepy.”
“You have to eat and drink something first, then we’ll get you into the sleeping bag.”
She nodded, but he could tell even that was an effort.
If he hadn’t been up most of the night, and so tired himself he would like nothing better than lying down for a little while, maybe seven or eight hours, he’d have already thought to start heating water on the camp stove he always left up here, so they could each have a cup of hot instant coffee. If nothing else, hell, hot water with some sugar in it would do wonders. In fact, he didn’t want any caffeine, he wanted to sleep, so the sugar water sounded like a damn good idea.
He got the propane camp stove out of the locked storage bin where he kept it, and turned it on. There was a camp percolator, too, for making an entire pot of coffee when he had a hunting party up here, but this time all he did was dump two bottles of water into the percolator and set it on the flame to heat, then opened some packets of sugar and dumped them in, too. Good enough.
While the water was heating, he got some food and shook her awake and made her sit up one more time. She heaved an aggrieved sigh, which he took to be a good sign.
“Feeling any better?”
“A little.” Her voice was still thin with fatigue, she was still shivering, but shivering was a good sign.
“I’m heating some sugar water. It’ll be ready in a few minutes.” He sat down on the mattress beside her, put his arm around her
for support and warmth. “Until then, be chewing on this.” He had a couple of power bars, which he opened and tore bite-sized pieces from, feeding her and himself in turn until the bars were gone. They both needed the calories, so their tired bodies would have fuel to burn.
By the time the bars were finished, the sugar water was steaming. He turned off the camp stove, then divided the water into two camp cups, and took them both over to sit beside her again. “Can you hold this?” he asked, holding out a cup to her.
“I think so.” She took the cup and gave a little moan of pleasure as the heat from the metal sank into her cold fingers. Her hands were shaking, but she managed to get the cup to her mouth and sip the hot liquid. Before he settled down himself, he got a couple of aspirin out and handed them to her. She took them without comment, but hell, she wasn’t an idiot, she recognized aspirin. Then he settled down beside her and concentrated on drinking his own sugar water, feeling the warmth spread through him as he stretched his legs out and finally let himself relax a little.
“Thanks,” she said after several minutes of silence and companionable sipping.
“You’re welcome. Sorry it isn’t coffee, but—”
“Not for the water.” Her voice was a little stronger now that she’d eaten, and having something hot to drink was working its magic. “For getting me here. For everything.”
Dare snorted. “What did you expect? That I’d leave you out there on your own?” Thank God she hadn’t yet thought to ask what he’d been doing out at night in such godforsaken weather in the first place.
She looked down at the cup in her hands, concentrated on it. “No, but … you could tell me how stupid I was to get myself into this mess. You could toss me a wet wipe and make me take care of myself. You could …”
“I could be an ass,” he growled.
“Yeah.” The single word wasn’t much more than a breath.
“You’re not stupid. You didn’t get yourself into a mess, you got caught up in someone else’s shit, and you were trying damn hard to get yourself out of it. As far as cleaning you up and all that, if I’d thought you were capable of dressing yourself, I’d have let you do it. But you weren’t, so I took care of it. That’s it. No big deal.” She didn’t have any idea how hard it was for a man to undress and wipe down a woman he had no shot at getting into the sack, and he wasn’t about to enlighten her.
“I think saving my life is a pretty big deal.”
He rubbed his jaw. Put that way, his comment hadn’t been the most graceful one in the world, but what the hell, he’d never known his way around a pretty phrase. He was blunt, his temper burned on a fairly short fuse, and he didn’t have a lot of patience. Throw those three characteristics together, and they didn’t produce a man who had a slick way with words. “I can still be an ass,” he said gruffly. “This good stretch probably won’t last long.”
Unbelievably, a very faint smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. “Probably not,” she agreed.
All right, this was more the Angie he knew, the one who could throw him straight into pure fury faster than anyone else he’d ever met. But he was so glad to see that crappy effort at a smile that he didn’t let her punch any of his buttons. He was feeling relieved on several points: She was still at the end of her rope, but she was rallying. Her ankle might be cracked, but it wasn’t a compound fracture, so taking care of it wasn’t an emergency. They had shelter, they had food and water, they had warmth. Getting here had been hell, but they were going to be all right.
He downed the rest of his water and she did the same. “Let’s both get some rest,” he said as he took the cups and set them aside. There was some mud on the mattress—big surprise there—so he cleaned it away, then arranged the sleeping bag on top of it and helped Angie slide inside it. She gasped in pain when she
bumped her ankle, then settled down and pulled the edge of the bag around her, almost covering her head.
“I’m so tired,” she murmured.
“Then go to sleep. I’m going to get into some dry clothes, then stretch out beside you and get some sleep, myself.”
She made a noise in her throat, her eyes drifting shut.
He set about pulling off his own wet clothes. A couple of times he glanced toward Angie to see if she was watching, but she was making like a turtle with that sleeping bag, and all he could see was the top of her head. In any other circumstance, his ego would be bruised. Yeah, right.
He tried to come up with a plan for tomorrow—well,
today
, since it was morning now, though the rain still drummed on the roof and the day didn’t look a whole lot brighter than it had when they’d first arrived here—but he couldn’t think straight. He was warmer, he’d had something to eat, and now exhaustion was taking over.
He moved the propane camp heater closer to their feet, but not so close that he could accidentally kick it, then turned off the lantern and in the deep shadows stretched out on the mattress beside her. His feet hung off; it was a double-sized mattress, which was damn small by his standards but it was what fit best inside the sleeping stalls, and he usually slept on the diagonal just to give himself a little more length. Sometimes he folded his dirty clothes and placed them on the floor at the bottom of the mattress so he’d have something to rest his feet on, but right now he was too tired to get up and he didn’t give a shit whether his feet hung off or not.
He’d thought he would drop right off to sleep, but he didn’t. Even as tired as he was, he could still feel the burn of adrenaline pumping through his system. The ordeal wasn’t over. They were safe, for now, and relatively comfortable, but this situation wasn’t over by a long shot. There was still a killer out there, and a bear that would have to be hunted down and eliminated. The storm
was over, but heavy rain was still complicating everything. He wouldn’t be walking anywhere until the weather cleared, however long that took.
“Dare.” His name floated into the shadows, just a whisper, as if she thought he might be asleep and didn’t want to wake him if he was.
“What?” he responded. God, if she had to piss, he was going to cry. The portable toilet was behind the cabin, and not only was the rain still pouring down, but he’d have to get her down the ladder, into the toilet, back up the ladder … it boggled the mind. Hell, he’d make her pee in a cup if that was the problem.
She didn’t need anything like that, though. Instead she said, “I can’t get warm. I’m so cold.”
“Do you want some more sugar water to drink?” Everything in him protested at the idea of getting up, but he’d make the effort.
“No. I—” She broke off, was silent for a few moments, then she took a shuddering breath. “Would you get … would you get under the cover with me? You’re so warm, and I’m so cold I hurt.” She sighed, made a sound from deep in her throat that was a cross between a moan and a gasp, and then she said one more word:
“Please.”
As little as ten hours ago, if anyone had even suggested to Angie that she’d ever, under any circumstances, ask Dare Callahan to get in a sleeping bag with her, she’d have thought about seeing if that person could be committed for his or her own safety, because obviously said person was nutty as a fruitcake. But just eight hours ago she’d been peacefully asleep in her own camp, and the night’s hellish events hadn’t yet begun.
A lot of water had gone under the bridge since then, literally as well as figuratively. There had been times when she hadn’t been certain she’d live another minute, but her only option had been to keep pushing, keep trying. Even after Dare had found her the pain and miserable cold had seemed unending; the only difference was that she hadn’t been alone. He’d been there, strong and never-faltering even though she’d known, in the part of her brain that wasn’t preoccupied with the struggle to survive, that the cold and rain and relentless effort were all wearing him down, too.
She had been so terrified that she felt as if some part of her soul had been permanently altered, in a way she couldn’t yet fully
comprehend. She had been smashed down to a tiny portion of herself, all of her resources pulled inward and devoted to survival, and only now could she feel herself begin to unfold again, feel her mind and body trying to resettle into normalcy.