Chapter Three

She came to, actually surprised that she was alive. At first she thought that darkness had fallen, but she inched her head upward. The small mink pelt slid off her head. It was still daylight—exactly what time was impossible to pinpoint. The sky was gloomily overcast.

With a sense of dread, she waited for the pain from her leg to penetrate her consciousness, but miraculously it didn’t. Dizzy from the brandy she’d consumed, she eased herself into a sitting position. It took every ounce of strength she had left to lift the furs off her leg. For one horrid moment she thought it might not be hurting because Cooper had amputated it after all.

But when she moved aside the largest caribou pelt, she found that her leg was still intact and bandaged in strips of white cotton. No signs of fresh blood. She was by no means ready to run a marathon, but it felt much better.

Sitting up had exhausted her and she fell back amid the furs, pulling them to her chin. Her skin was hot and dry, but she was chilled. She still had a fever. Maybe she should take more aspirin. But where were they? Cooper would know. He—

Where was Cooper?

Her lethargy vanished and she sprang into a sitting position. Frantically her eyes scanned the clearing. Not a trace. He was gone. His rifle was missing, too. The other one lay on the ground within her reach. The fire still had glowing coals and was giving off heat.

But her protector had deserted her.

Forcibly tamping down hysteria, she reasoned that she was jumping to conclusions. He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t have nursed her so meticulously only to leave her stranded and helpless in the wilderness.

Would he?

Not unless he was an unfeeling bastard.

Hadn’t she decided that was exactly what Cooper Landry was?

No. He was hard. Tough. Cynical, certainly. But not completely lacking in feelings. If he were, he’d have deserted her yesterday.

So where was he?

He’d left a rifle behind. Why? Maybe that was the extent of his human kindness. He’d tended to her wound, done all he could on that score. He’d provided her with the means to protect herself. Maybe now it was every man for himself. Survival of the fittest.

Well, she would die. If not of fever, then of thirst. She had no water. She had no food. She had no shelter to speak of. In just a little while the supply of firewood, which he’d cut and stacked nearby, would be used up. She’d die of exposure if the weather turned even marginally colder.

Like hell she would!

Suddenly she was furious with him for going off and leaving her. She’d show him; she’d show her father. Rusty Carlson was not an easily expendable, spineless wimp.

She threw off the covers and pulled on her ski jacket. For the time being she’d leave off her left boot because the pair of them were still stashed farther down in the pile of furs, too far for her to reach. Besides, if one foot was bare, the other might just as well be, too. And on top of that, putting on her coat had sapped her energy.

Food and water.

Those essentials were necessary. That’s what she had to find first. But where? At best, her surroundings were intimidating. At worst, terrifying. For three hundred and sixty degrees, all she could see was virgin forest. Beyond the nearby trees—some so tall she couldn’t even see the tops of them—there stretched endless miles of more just like them.

Before she could go in search of water, she had to get to her feet. It seemed like an impossible task, but she gritted her teeth with the determination to do it.

When they discovered her body, it wouldn’t be hunkered under a pile of furs!

Reaching out as far as she could, she closed her hand around a stick of firewood and pulled it toward her. Using it as a prop, she came up on her good knee, keeping the injured one straight out in front of her. Then she paused to catch her breath, which was forming clouds of white vapor in front of her face.

Repeatedly she tried to stand up, but failed. She was as weak as a newborn kitten. And light-headed. Damn Cooper Landry! No wonder he’d urged her to drink so much brandy. He’d wanted her to pass out so she wouldn’t know when he sneaked away like the miserable skunk that he was.

Making a Herculean final effort, she put all her weight on her left foot and stood up on it. The earth tilted precariously. Closing her eyes, she clasped her supporting stick of firewood and held on for dear life. When she felt it was safe to reopen her eyes, she did—and let out a thin squeak of astonishment. Cooper was standing on the other side of the clearing.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” he bellowed.

Dropping what he was carrying, including his rifle, he bore down on her like a sorely provoked angel. Catching her under her arms, he kicked the stick of wood out from under her and lowered her back into her sickbed. He packed the covers around her shivering body.

“What the hell were you trying to do?”

“F...find water,” she stuttered through chattering teeth.

His muttered expletive was so vivid it was almost tangible. He laid his open hand on her forehead to gauge her temperature. “You’re so cold, you’re blue. Don’t try another damn stupid stunt like that again, understand? It’s my job to find water. Yours is to stay put. Got that?”

Swearwords continued to pour out of him like the payoff of a slot machine. He turned toward the fire and began stoking it, angrily throwing firewood onto the smoldering coals and fanning them to life. When the fire was blazing, he crossed the clearing and picked up the limp rabbit carcass he’d dropped on the ground. He was also carrying a thermos, one of the things he’d brought with them from the wreckage. Uncapping it, he poured water into the lid and knelt on one knee beside Rusty.

“Here. I’m sure your throat is dry and sore. But don’t drink too much too fast.”

She cupped her hands around his and raised the cup to her parched lips. The water was so cold it hurt her teeth, but she didn’t mind. She took three deep swallows before Cooper withdrew the cup.

“Easy, I said. There’s plenty.”

“You found a source?” She licked drops of water off her lips.

Watching that motion closely, Cooper said, “Yeah. A stream about three hundred yards that way.” He indicated the direction with his head. “Must be a tributary of the Mackenzie.”

She looked at the lifeless carcass lying next to his boot. “Did you shoot the rabbit?”

“Killed it with a rock. I didn’t want to waste any ammo unless I had to. I’ll dress it and put it on to cook. We can...Oh, hell. What’s the matter?”

Rusty, much to her dismay, burst into tears. The sobs racked her entire body. She covered her face with her hands, but even as dehydrated as she was, tears leaked through her fingers.

“Look, it was either him or us,” Cooper said with agitation. “We’ve got to eat. You can’t be so—”

“It’s not the rabbit,” she blubbered.

“Then what? Does your leg hurt?”

“I thought you had de...deserted me. Left me behind beca...cause of my leg. And maybe you should. I’m holding you up. You probably could have wa...walked to safety by now if it weren’t for me and my leg.”

She hiccuped around several attempts to go on. “But my leg really doesn’t make much difference because I’m a washout in situations like this anyway. I loathe the great outdoors and think it’s anything but great. I hate it. Even summer camp never appealed to me. I’m cold. And scared. And guilty for complaining when I’m alive and everybody else is dead.”

She dissolved into another torrent, her shoulders shaking. Cooper let out a long-suffering sigh, several florid curses, and then walked forward on his knees to take her into his arms. He pressed her shoulders between his large hands. Rusty’s initial reaction was to tense up and try to pull away. But he kept his hands there and drew her against him. The promise of comfort was too much for her to resist. She slumped against his broad chest, clutching handfuls of his thick hunting coat.

The clean, fresh essence of pine clung to his clothes and hair—and that appealing, musty smell of damp leaves and fog. In Rusty’s weakened, woozy state, he seemed unnaturally large, as fantastic as the hero in a children’s tale. Powerful. Strong. Fierce but benevolent. Able to slay any dragon.

When one of his capable hands cupped the back of her head, she burrowed her face deeper into the quilted cloth of his coat and luxuriated in the first feeling of security she’d known since the plane went down—even before that, since leaving the hunting lodge and her disappointed father.

Finally the tumult passed. Her tears dried up. There was no excuse for Cooper to go on holding her, so she eased away from him. Embarrassed now, she kept her head down. He seemed reluctant to let her go, but at last his hands slid away.

“Okay now?” he asked gruffly.

“Yes, fine, thank you.” She wiped her moist nose on the back of her hand, as though she did that all the time.

“I’d better get that rabbit ready to cook. Lie back down.”

“I’m tired of lying down.”

“Then turn your head. I want you to be able to eat this and I’m afraid you won’t if you watch me gut it.”

Carrying the rabbit to the edge of the clearing, he laid it on a flat rock and proceeded to dress it. Rusty wisely kept her eyes averted. “That’s what we had our argument over,” she said quietly.

Cooper looked at her over his shoulder. “You and who?”

“My father. He had brought down a ram.” She laughed without humor. “It was a beautiful animal. I felt sorry for it, but I pretended to be ecstatic over the kill. Father hired one of the guides to field-dress it. He wanted to supervise, to make sure the guide didn’t damage the hide.” Blinking tears out of her eyes, she continued. “I couldn’t watch. It made me physically ill. Father—” she paused to draw in a deep breath “—I think I disgusted and disappointed him.”

Cooper was cleaning his hands on a handkerchief he’d soaked with water from the thermos. “Because you couldn’t stomach a field-dressing?”

“Not just that. That capped it off. I proved to be a terrible marksman, but I couldn’t have shot anything if it had walked up and put its nose against the barrel of my rifle. I didn’t like anything about that whole scene.” Softly, she added almost to herself, “I wasn’t as good an outdoorsman as my brother Jeff.”

“Did your father expect you to be?” He had skewered the rabbit on a green twig and was now suspending it over the coals.

“I think he was hoping I would be.”

“Then he’s a fool. You’re not physically equipped to be a hunter.”

His eyes dropped to her chest. And lingered. Heat rushed into her breasts, filling them like mother’s milk, making them heavy and achy. Her nipples drew tight.

The reaction startled Rusty enormously. Instinctively she wanted to cover and press her breasts back to normalcy, but he was still looking at her, so she couldn’t. She didn’t dare move at all. She was afraid that if she did, something terribly fragile would be broken—something that couldn’t be replaced or repaired. Any reckless move would be disastrous and irrevocable. Something dreadful might happen as a result.

It was the first time he had made any sexual reference besides the vulgarities he’d spouted last night. He’d done that only to rile her. She realized that now. But this was something altogether different. This time, he was as much the victim as the perpetrator.

He yanked his eyes back toward the fire and the moment passed. But they didn’t speak to each other for a long time. Rusty closed her eyes and pretended to doze, but she watched him as he busied himself around what was gradually coming to look like a bonafide camp. He sharpened the hatchet on a stone. He checked the roasting rabbit, turning it several times.

He moved with surprising agility for a man his size. She was sure that some women would consider him handsome, particularly now that his chin and jaw were deeply shadowed by a twenty-four-hour beard. The wide, curving mustache was sexy...if one liked facial hair. It sat directly on top of his lower lip, completely obscuring his upper one, making the thought of going in search of it intriguing.

She found herself staring at his mouth as he leaned down and spoke to her. “I...I beg your pardon?”

He looked at her strangely. “Your eyes are glassy. You’re not going delirious again, are you?” He pressed his palm to her forehead.

Impatient with him and herself for her adolescent fantasies, she swatted his hand aside. “No, I feel fine. What did you say?”

“I asked if you were ready to eat.”

“That’s an understatement.”

He assisted her into a sitting position. “This has been cooling for a minute or two. It should be about ready.” He slid the rabbit off the spit and tore off a leg at the joint. He passed it to Rusty. Hesitantly she took it, staring at it dubiously.

“You’re going to eat it if I have to force it down your throat.” He tore off a bite of meat with his strong white teeth. “It’s not half bad. Honest.”

She pinched some of the meat off the bone and put it into her mouth, making herself chew and swallow it quickly. “Not so fast,” he cautioned. “It’ll make you sick.”

She nodded and took another bite. With a little salt, it wouldn’t have been bad at all. “There are some very nice restaurants in Los Angeles that have rabbit on the menu,” she said conversationally. She instinctively reached for a napkin, remembered that she didn’t have one, shrugged, and licked her fingers.

“Is that where you live, Los Angeles?”

“Beverly Hills, actually.”

He studied her in the firelight. “Are you a movie star or something?”

Rusty got the impression that he wouldn’t be impressed if she told him she was a three-time Oscar winner. She doubted if Cooper Landry put much stock in fame. “No, I’m not a movie star. My father owns a real-estate company. It has branches all over southern California. I work for him.”

“Are you any good at it?”

“I’ve been very successful.”

He chewed a mouthful and tossed the cleaned bone into the fire. “Being the boss’s daughter, how could you miss?”

“I work hard, Mr. Landry.” She took umbrage at his sly implication that her father was responsible for the success she had achieved. “I had the highest sales record of the agency last year.”

“Bravo.”

Miffed that he was so obviously unimpressed, she asked snidely, “What do you do?”

He silently offered her another piece of the meat, which she tore into as though she’d been eating fresh, unseasoned roasted rabbit cooked over an open fire every day of her life.

“I ranch,” Cooper replied.

“Cattle?”

“Some. Horses mostly.”

“Where?”

“Rogers Gap.”

“Where’s that?”

“In the Sierra Nevada.”

“Never heard of it.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“Can you make a living at just ranching?”

“I do all right.”

“Is Rogers Gap close to Bishop? Do people ski there?”

“We have a few runs. Serious skiers consider them a real challenge. Personally I think they’re some of the most spectacular on the continent.”

“Then why haven’t I ever heard of this place?”

“We’re a carefully guarded secret and want to remain that way. We don’t advertise.”

“Why?” Her interest was piqued. She never passed up an opportunity to locate new and interesting property for her clients to invest in. “With the right developer handling it, you could make something out of Rogers Gap. If it’s as good for skiing as you say, it could become the next Aspen.”

“God forbid,” he said under his breath. “That’s the point. We don’t want to be put on the map. We don’t want our mountains to be littered with concrete condos or the peaceful community to be overrun by a bunch of pushing, shoving, rude skiers from Beverly Hills who are more interested in modeling their Rodeo Drive duds than preserving our landscape.”

“Does everyone in town hold to this philosophy?”

“Fortunately, yes, or they wouldn’t be living there. We don’t have much going for us except the scenery and the tranquility.”

She tossed her denuded bones into the fire. “You sound like a holdover from the sixties.”

“I am.”

Her eyes were teasing. “Were you a flower child, advocating universal harmony? Did you march for peace and participate in war protests?”

“No,” he replied sharply. Rusty’s goading grin collapsed. “I couldn’t wait to join up. I wanted to go to war. I was too ignorant to realize that I would have to kill people or get killed myself. I hadn’t bargained on getting captured and imprisoned. But I did. After seven months in that stinking hole, I escaped and came home a hero.”

He practically snarled the last sentence. “The guys in that POW camp would have killed each other for a meal like the one you just ate.” His gray eyes looked like glittering knife blades as they sliced toward her. “So I’m not overwhelmed by your Beverly Hills glitz and glamour, Miss Carlson.”

He stood up abruptly. “I’m going for more water. Don’t wander off.”

Don’t wander off, she silently mimicked. All right, he had put her in her place, but she wasn’t going to wear sackcloth and ashes for the rest of her life. Lots of men had fought in Vietnam and returned to lead happy, productive lives. It was Cooper’s own fault if he was maladjusted. He thrived on his own bitterness. That’s what fueled him. He nursed it. He cultivated his quarrel with society because he felt it owed him something.

Maybe it did. But it wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t responsible for whatever misfortune had befallen him. Just because he walked around with a chip on his shoulder the size of Mount Everest didn’t make him a worthier human being than she was.

He returned, but they maintained a hostile silence while she drank her fill of water from the thermos. Just as wordlessly, he assisted her as she hobbled out of the clearing for a few minutes of privacy. When he eased her back down onto the thick pallet, which had become the nucleus of their world, he said, “I need to check your leg. Hold the flashlight for me.”

She watched as he unbound the bandages and pulled them back to reveal a jagged, uneven row of stitches. She stared at it in horror, but he seemed pleased with his handiwork. With his hands around her calf muscles, he raised her leg to inspect it closer. “No signs of new infection. Swelling’s gone down.”

“The scar,” she whispered roughly.

He looked up at her. “There wasn’t much I could do about that.” His lower lip thinned until it was hardly visible beneath his mustache. “Just be glad I didn’t have to cauterize it.”

“I am.”

He sneered. “I’m sure a high-ticket plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills can fix the scar.”

“Do you have to be so obnoxious?”

“Do you have to be so superficial?” He aimed a finger in the direction of the crashed plane. “I’m sure any of those guys we left up there would settle for a scar on their shin.”

He was right, of course; but that didn’t make his criticism any easier for her to swallow. She lapsed into sullen silence. He bathed her leg in peroxide and rebandaged it, then gave her one of the penicillin tablets and two aspirins. She washed them down with water. No more brandy for her, thank you.

Drunkenness, she had discovered, aroused her emotionally and sexually. She didn’t want to think of Cooper Landry as anything but a wretched grouch. He was a short-tempered, surly ogre harboring a grudge against the world. If she didn’t have to rely on him for her survival, she would have nothing to do with him.

She had already settled beneath the pile of furs when he slid in and embraced her as he had the night before.

“How much longer do we have to stay here?” she asked crossly.

“I’m not clairvoyant.”

“I’m not asking you to predict when we’ll be rescued; I was referring to this bed. Can’t you rig up a shelter of some kind? Something we can move around in?”

“The accommodations aren’t to m’lady’s liking?”

She sighed her annoyance. “Oh, never mind.”

After a moment, he said, “There’s a group of boulders near the stream. One side of the largest of them has been eroded out. I think with a little ingenuity and some elbow grease, I could make a lean-to out of it. It won’t be much, but it will be better than this. And closer to the water.”

“I’ll help,” she offered eagerly.

It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate this shelter. It had saved her life last night. But it was disconcerting to sleep this close to him. Since he had taken off his coat as he had the night before, Rusty was keenly aware of his muscled chest against her back. She could therefore assume that he was keenly aware of her body because she wasn’t wearing her coat, either.

She could think of little else as his hand found a comfortable spot midway between her breasts and her waist. He even wedged his knees between hers, elevating her injured leg again. She started to ask him if that was necessary, but since it felt so much better that way, she let it pass without comment.

“Rusty?”

“Hmm?” His warm breath drifted into her ear and caused goose bumps to break out over her arms. She snuggled closer to him.

“Wake up. We’ve got to get up.”

“Get up?” she groaned. “Why? Pull the covers back up. I’m freezing.”

“That’s the point. We’re soaking wet. Your fever broke and you sweated all over both of us. If we don’t get up and dry off, we stand a good chance of getting frostbite.”

She came fully awake and rolled to her back. He was serious. Already he was tossing off the furs. “What do you mean, dry off?”

“Strip and dry off.” He began unbuttoning his flannel shirt.

“Are you crazy? It’s freezing!” Recalcitrantly, she pulled the pelt back over herself. Cooper jerked it off her.

“Take off all your clothes. Now!”

He shrugged off his flannel shirt and draped it over the nearest bush. With one fluid motion, he crossed his arms at his waist and peeled the turtleneck T-shirt over his head. It made his hair stick up funnily, but Rusty didn’t feel like laughing. Laughter—in fact any sound at all— got trapped inside her closed throat. Her first glimpse of the finest chest she’d ever seen rendered her speechless.

Hard as rocks those muscles were. Beautifully sculpted, too, beneath taut skin. His nipples were dark and pebbly from the cold, their areolae shriveled around them. It was all tantalizingly covered with a blanket of crisp hair that swirled and whorled, tipped and tapered beguilingly.

He was so trim she could count every single rib. His stomach was as flat and tight as a drum. She couldn’t see his navel very well. It was deeply nestled in a sexy tuft of hair.

“Get started, Rusty, or I’ll do it for you.”

His threat plucked her out of her trance. Mechanically, she peeled off her sweater. Beneath it she was wearing a cotton turtleneck much like his. She fiddled with the hem while she watched him stand up and work his jeans down his legs. The long johns weren’t the most alluring sight she’d ever seen.

But Cooper Landry unclothed had to be.

In seconds he was standing there, silhouetted against, the dim glow of the fire, stark naked. He was beautifully shaped and generously endowed—so marvelously made that she couldn’t help her gaping stare. He quite literally took her breath away.

He draped the articles of discarded clothing on the bush, then pulled a pair of socks over his hands and ran them over his body, drying it thoroughly—everything— before removing the socks from his hands.

Kneeling, he tore into one of the backpacks looking for underwear. He pulled on a pair of briefs, all with a supreme lack of self-consciousness, much less modesty.

When he turned toward her and noticed that she hadn’t moved, he frowned with irritation. “Come on, Rusty. Hurry up. It’s damn cold out here.”

He reached for her sweater, which, so far, was the only thing she’d taken off. She handed it to him and he hung it up to dry. Holding out his hand for more clothes, he snapped his fingers quickly and repeatedly to hurry her along. “Come on, come on.” Casting one anxious glance up at him, she pulled the T-shirt over her head and passed it to him.

The cold air was a breathtaking shock to her system. Immediately she was chilled and started trembling so violently she couldn’t handle the button on her one-legged trousers.

“Here, let me do that, dammit. Or I’ll be standing out here all night.” Cooper dropped to his knees and straddled her thighs. Impatiently he pushed her hands out of the way so he could unfasten the button and pull down the zipper. With a detached air he eased the trousers down her legs and tossed them haphazardly toward the nearest bush.

But he was brought up short by what he obviously hadn’t expected. A pair of extremely feminine, extremely scanty bikini panties. He’d seen the lace-edged leg, but that was all. For what seemed like an eternity, he stared at them before saying gruffly, “Take them off.”

Rusty shook her head. “No.”

His face became fierce. “Take them off.” Rusty shook her head emphatically. Before she could brace herself for it, he pressed his open hand directly over the triangular scrap of silk and lace. “They’re wet. Take them off.” Their eyes, like their wills, clashed. It was as much the chill in his stare as the chill in the air that prompted Rusty to slide the damp garment down her legs.

“Now dry off.”

He handed her a cotton sock like the ones he’d used. She ran it over her lower body and her legs. Keeping her head bowed, she groped blindly for the underwear Cooper handed her. He hadn’t chosen long johns because they would chafe her injury. She pulled on a pair of panties similar to the ones she’d just taken off and which were now dangling from the lower branches of the bush, fluttering like a victory banner the morning after a fraternity beer bust.

“Now the top.”

Her brassiere was just as frivolous as the panties that matched them. The morning she left the lodge, she had dressed in clothes befitting her return to civilization. After having to wear thermal underwear for several days, she had been good and sick of it.

Leaning forward, she grappled with the hook at her back, but her fingers were so numb from the cold she couldn’t get it to open. Muttering curses, Cooper reached around her and all but ripped the hook from its mooring. The brassiere fell forward. She peeled the straps down her arms, flung it away and faced him defiantly.

Beneath his mustache, his mouth was set in a hard, unyielding line. He paused for only a heartbeat before he began roughly rubbing the cotton sock over her throat, chest, breasts, and stomach. Then, reaching around her again, he blotted the sweat off her back. They were so close that her breath stirred his chest hair. Her lips came perilously close to touching one of his distended nipples. Hers, hard and peaked from the cold, grazed his skin.

He pulled back quickly and angrily dragged a thermal top over her head. While she was working her arms into the sleeves, he ripped the damp fur they’d been lying on off the pallet and replaced it with another one. “It’s not as soft, but it’s dry.”

“It’ll be fine,” Rusty said hoarsely.

Finally they were cocooned again. She didn’t resist when he pulled her close to him. She was shivering uncontrollably and her teeth were chattering. But it wasn’t long before they began to warm up. Their bodies were in chaos because of what their eyes had seen. Erotic impressions lingered in their minds.

Lying in his embrace fully dressed had been unnerving enough. Lying there with him wearing only underwear wreaked havoc on Rusty’s senses. Her fever had broken, but her body was burning like a furnace now.

His bare thighs felt delicious against hers. She liked their hair-smattered texture. Because she was braless, she was sharply aware of his hand resting just beneath her breasts, almost but not quite touching them.

He wasn’t immune to the enforced intimacy. He’d exerted himself by switching out the pelts and changing clothes so quickly, but that wasn’t the only reason he was breathing heavily. His chest swelled and receded against her back rhythmically but rapidly.

And then there was that other inexorable evidence of his arousal.

It prompted her to whisper, “I don’t think I need to... uh...prop my leg on top of yours.”

A low moan vibrated through his chest. “Don’t even talk about it. And for God’s sake, don’t move.” His distress was obvious.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what? You can’t help being beautiful any more than I can help being a man. I guess we’ll just have to tolerate that from each other.”

She honored his request and didn’t move so much as a muscle. She didn’t even reopen her eyes once they were closed. But she did fall asleep with a tiny smile on her lips. Inadvertently, perhaps, but he had told her that he thought she was beautiful.