Holding the keys in his hands made all the difference. Things were back on track. He was in charge of his own fate again, and by God, nothing was going to get in his way.
The bear roused. After it had fed all it wanted, sated and tired, it had taken shelter from the storm under a giant deadfall that had partially blocked the wind and rain and slept through the rest of the night.
It had fed well the past few days. Early in the evening, before the storm, it had gone back to its previous kill to finish eating, and picked up the fresh scent trail of another human. He followed it to a place that was rich with odors, that of big animals mingled with more of the humans. Then the smell of fresh blood had all but exploded in his nose and he hadn’t been able to wait, the prey was there, the meat still hot and fresh, the blood still flowing. This prey hadn’t even run; catching it was much easier than before.
Now the bear had rested, and for now it was content to stay in its shelter, curled up and content. He heard some noises, but the weather and his own well-fed state gave him no incentive to investigate. There were a couple of interesting smells, but in his content,
sleepy state they weren’t strong enough, enticing enough, to pull him back out into the rain.
He had scratched some debris over the uneaten remains, and when his stomach was no longer full he would go back to his kill.
The scent would still be there.
Angie jerked awake from a deep sleep, sharp pain shooting through her ankle. She must have made a sound, because the big hand resting on her stomach gave her a comforting pat.
“Ankle bothering you?” The mutter, in Dare’s gravelly voice, came from just behind her ear. He sounded as if he were barely awake.
“Just when I move it,” she answered groggily. Her head was so filled with fog she could barely form the words. Her body was still heavy with fatigue, her muscles like noodles. She managed to crack her eyes open a slit; the small space was gloomy with dark gray shadows. She knew where she was, but she didn’t know when she was. Was it twilight? Dawn? Had they slept around the clock?
“How long have we been asleep?” she asked on a sigh, her eyes already closing as she nestled deeper into the delicious warmth.
“Couple of hours.”
“ ’Zat all?”
He grunted. There was an upheaval behind her and chilly air rushed under the sleeping bag, making her hunch her shoulders
as he sat up. Frowning, she cranked her eyelids open just enough to see what he was doing as he sat up and turned off the small propane heater. Oh, okay. They were warm now, so they should save the fuel.
Her eyelids drifted shut again, closed out the dim light. It was still raining, hard, but now that she was dry and warm the effect was soporific. Dare lay down behind her again, sliding up close and tight, his heavy arm resuming its place draped over her waist. It was almost like sitting in his lap. She snuggled even closer against him, wiggling her butt to find the most comfortable spot, and went back to sleep.
She surfaced again with a sharp “Ouch!” when she banged her foot against his. Still not fully awake, she struggled to a sitting position and sat there, owlishly blinking her eyes, looking around but not really seeing their surroundings. With a groan, Dare rolled onto his back, letting his arm fall over his face to block out the light.
Angie closed her eyes and leaned against her upraised left knee. The pain in her ankle had already subsided, leaving her with no imperative to do anything except sit there, caught in a sticky web of inertia. She would have glared at the offending joint, but that took too much effort, so she just sat there, grumpy and half asleep. “You awake?” she whispered after a few seconds, when Dare hadn’t moved again. If he wasn’t she didn’t want to disturb him, but if he was … well, she didn’t know why she was asking.
“After you punched me? Yeah, I’m awake,” he growled.
She thought about that, wondering if she should be indignant at being falsely accused, but again unable to muster the energy. “I didn’t punch you.” Maybe. She was pretty sure she hadn’t. She turned her head, still resting it against her knee, and opened her eyes a little. “But I might have kicked you, because it hurt my ankle.”
“You punched me.”
Even as sleepy as she was, as punch-drunk, she was still capable of logic. “How? You were behind me. I can’t punch backward.”
“When you sat up.” He moved his arm just enough for one half-opened eye to glower at her. “You punched me in the stomach.”
They glared at each other, sleepy and irritable. She could feel herself weaving. Heaving a sigh, she closed her eyes again while she thought about what he’d said. “Not a punch,” she finally insisted, having fumbled her way through her cloudy memories and making a decision. “That was my elbow, not my fist.”
“My stomach appreciates the difference. Go back to sleep.”
“What time is it now?”
He looked at his watch. “About half an hour after the last time you asked.”
This wasn’t good. If she woke up every time she moved her foot, she wasn’t going to get much rest at all.
He heaved his own sigh. “Okay, let’s try this.” He flipped the sleeping bag to the side. “Lie down on your back.”
“Hey!” She reached for the sleeping bag, protesting as the chilly air reached her.
“I’ll cover us up again. Damn it, would you just lie down?” He didn’t wait for compliance, just kind of sandwiched her in his arms and laid her back. Then he hooked his right arm under her knees, lifted her legs, and he shifted into the spoon position around her before draping her legs over his thighs. “How’s that?”
It was actually very comfortable, at least for now. “Good,” she muttered.
He stretched to reach the edge of the sleeping bag, and pulled it around them again, making sure the fabric wasn’t tight around her feet. A deep sigh eased from his chest as he settled down, not an impatient sigh but one of relaxation; he curled his left arm under his head, and went back to sleep like a stone dropping into dark water.
The moment, the situation, etched itself on her brain. Carefully (DOT)
she turned her head just enough that was she able to see his face. This close to him, even in the dim light, she could see every thick, dark lash, the details of his strong facial bone structure, the small scar across the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t a pretty man, by any means, but he was definitely a
man
. As angry as she’d been at him, as much as she’d resented the way he’d siphoned off so much of her business just by being
him
, she had also never been immune to him. If he was anywhere in the vicinity, she was acutely aware of his exact location, the rough, scratchy timbre of his voice; the powerful, restrained grace of his movements. It was as if her skin was a compass to his magnetic north, and she’d hated that weakness in herself.
Angie lay awake for a few minutes—a very few—listening to the rain and the heavy, rhythmic sound of Dare’s breathing. She was in the one place she’d never thought she would be—in bed with him, in his arms—and it felt so natural she wasn’t certain she really
was
awake.
She needed to think, but … later.
He woke her by gently lifting her legs off his. “What’re you doing?” she muttered fretfully, because she’d managed to get some decent sleep in that position. She should be sleeping like a dead person, but instead they seemed to be destined for one to wake the other every little while.
“Gotta go.” He sat up and scrubbed both hands over his face, his bristly growth of beard sounding like sandpaper on his rough palms.
“Go
where
? It’s still pouring down.” More asleep than awake, she gave him a look that managed to be both befuddled and grumpy.
“Not ‘go where,’ just go. As in, piss. How about you?”
Oh, God. Angie groaned. “I wish you hadn’t mentioned it.” But he had, and now she knew she wouldn’t be able to go back to
sleep until that problem had been taken care of. She turned her wrist to see what time it was, but was too groggy to focus her eyes. “I can’t see my watch,” she muttered, letting her arm fall back to the mattress. For all she knew, her watch wasn’t working anyway, after being exposed to all that rain and mud. “What time is it?” As soon as she asked, she wondered what difference the time made.
“Almost noon.”
Well, no wonder she needed to go. She pondered the situation for a moment longer, as dread and resignation grew. She struggled to sit up, braced herself on one arm as she tried to psych herself up to leave the warm cocoon of the sleeping bag. Hoping against hope, she said, “Please tell me this place has a flush toilet.”
He snorted. Okay, that was answer enough.
“Portable toilet?” At least then she wouldn’t be squatting behind a bush somewhere. She tried not to think of the effort involved, with a sprained ankle that wouldn’t support her weight.
“Out back.”
Whew! That still meant putting on boots, slicker, getting down the ladder, and going out in the rain, hopping on her one good foot, but it was worlds better than that bush she’d been thinking about.
“I can maybe find something for you to pee in,” he said, but sounded doubtful. “Think you could hit a bottle?”
“I think I could hit a portable toilet,” she growled. “What do you think I am, a precision pisser? Women don’t practice things like that.”
His mouth quirked, a movement that made the small scar in his cheek look even more like a dimple. She had the feeling that anyone else would have laughed out loud, but Dare didn’t strike her as a man who laughed very much. She wondered if he ever had, if he’d been more open when he was growing up, and his transition to an ill-tempered, closed-in man had happened during his years in the military.
Hard on that thought came the realization that she herself
had done exactly that. When she was younger she’d laughed more, been more outgoing, then she’d let embarrassment and self-doubt shut her down for a while, make her pull back from people. Once those walls were up, though, staying behind them was easier than letting herself be exposed and vulnerable. Reaching out to her friends again had taken an effort, but she was so glad she’d done it. Was that what had happened to him? He’d gotten caught behind his own walls?
“In that case, how about a bucket?” he asked prosaically. “There’s one I use for the horses.”
The image that brought to mind made
her
want to laugh, but her own issues kept her reply solemn. “No, thank you. I’ll manage.”
“Ladies first, then. Let’s get you down the ladder; I can wait.”
She was tempted, but common sense raised its sluggish head. “You go ahead. I’m going to pull off these pants and put on my sweatpants again; no point in getting another pair of pants wet when mine already are.”
He didn’t argue with that logic, just collected her wet and dirty sweatpants and dropped them close by the mattress, where she could easily reach them. After stomping his feet into his boots and pulling on his slicker, he let down the ladder and disappeared from view.
A
bucket
?
Alone, Angie let a wan smile curl her lips. She might have taken him up on the proposition, if it hadn’t been for the distasteful prospect of emptying said bucket. If she could have handled it herself, no problem, but she wasn’t letting Dare Callahan handle a personal chore like that for her. Uh-uh.
On the other hand, he
had
seen her naked boobs—almost all of her, in fact. At any other time she’d have been mortified, not because she was so modest, but because she’d actually told him not to laugh at her boobs because they were little. Maybe when she felt more normal, when she wasn’t still numb from the horror of what had happened last night, followed by the sheer struggle
just to survive that had whittled her down to little more than willpower—or stubbornness—all of this would bother her more. Right now, it just didn’t, even though normally she hated betraying any sign of vulnerability. Too much had happened for her to worry about whether or not her boobs were little, or that he’d laugh at her.
But he hadn’t laughed, and somehow she didn’t think he would. He wasn’t what she’d expected. The damn man was nothing short of heroic, and that really bothered her, because it proved that once again her judgment had been faulty. How could she trust anyone, when she couldn’t trust herself?
All of that was a subject for later, though, because already she could feel herself tiring, and she hadn’t even made the trip to the toilet yet. Gathering her strength, she tugged his baggy long thermal underwear off and her cold, wet, dirty sweatpants on, shuddering as the clammy material clung to her legs. The sensation was awful, but she comforted herself with the thought that the situation was temporary. As soon as she got back from the toilet, she could change back into the unlovely but blessedly warm thermals.
Her ankle was a problem. More precisely, the elastic bandage wrapping it was the problem, because she couldn’t get her boot on that foot. The bandage would get wet. The only thing to do was unwrap it, which she set about doing. She winced when she saw her ankle; it was an unsavory black and blue and green, swollen to twice its normal size, and removing the pressure of the bandage made the joint throb like blue blazes.
Nothing she could do about it, though, so she shoved the pain aside and pulled on her left boot. It was wet, too, inside and out, another item to go on her list of things to ignore. Next came her rain slicker, but it, at least, didn’t make her shudder when she came into contact with it. She zipped and snapped, pulled the hood up, and was as ready as she could be, except for the fact that she was on the second-story sleeping platform and she needed to be at the bottom of that long ladder.
“A journey of a thousand miles,” she muttered, and hopped to the ladder.
Actually getting on the ladder was the toughest part. She had to grasp it, sit down, locate a rung with her left foot, then lever herself up and around. Once she was properly situated, she was strong enough to hold herself on the ladder using just her upper body strength while she took another step down with her left foot. The process wasn’t pretty, but it was effective.