Chapter Six

“A...bath?” Dorothy couldn’t have said “Oz?” with any more awe and wistfulness.

“A real one. The works. Hot water, soap.” He went to the door, opened it, and came back in rolling a large washtub. “I found this behind the cabin and cleaned it out.”

She didn’t remember feeling this grateful when she opened the present from her father and found her full-length, red fox coat folded amid tissue paper. She clasped her hands beneath her chin. “Oh, Cooper, thank you.”

“Don’t get gushy,” he said querulously. “We’ll get as disgusting as the Gawrylows if we don’t bathe. Not every day, though.”

Rusty didn’t let him spoil her good mood. He didn’t allow people to get even close enough to thank him. Well, that was his problem. He’d done something very thoughtful for her. She had thanked him. Beyond that, what else could she do? He must know how much this meant to her, even if he chose to act like a heel about it now.

She filled several pots and kettles with water from the pump. He carried them to the stove to heat them up, refueling the fire to hurry them along. He then dragged the tub across the wooden floor and placed it directly in front of the fireplace. The metal was icy cold, but in a few minutes the fire would warm it up.

Rusty watched him making all these preparations with expectation, then a growing concern. “What do I do about, uh...”

Saying nothing, expressionless, Cooper unfurled one of the rough muslin bed-sheets he’d boiled and aired that day. The ceiling of the cabin had bare beams. Apparently the Gawrylows had hung meat from it because there were several metal hooks screwed into the dark wood.

Cooper stood on a chair and pushed one of the sharp hooks through a corner of the sheet. Repositioning the chair several times, he soon had the sheet hanging like a curtain behind the tub.

“Thank you,” Rusty said. She was glad to have the sheet there but couldn’t help but notice that with the fireplace behind it, it was translucent. The tub was silhouetted against it. Anybody in the tub would be, too.

Cooper must have noticed that at the same time, because he shifted his eyes away from it and ran his hands nervously up and down his pants legs. “I think the water’s just about ready.”

Rusty assembled her precious cache of toiletries—a bar of scented soap, a small plastic bottle of shampoo, her razor—on the seat of the chair near the tub.

Earlier in the day, she had separated the meager clothing they had left and neatly folded and stacked it on separate shelves, one for her, one for Cooper. She took a fresh pair of long johns and a tank top from her stack now and draped them over the back of the chair.

When everything was ready, she stood awkwardly by while Cooper carefully carried the heavy pots of boiling water across the room and poured them into the tub. Steam rose out of it, but as far as Rusty was concerned it couldn’t be too hot. She had four days’ accumulation of grime and fatigue to soak away. Besides, she was accustomed to spending several minutes each day in her hot tub at home.

“What do I dry with?” she asked.

Cooper tossed her a coarse, dingy towel from the pile of bedding he’d carried in earlier. “I found a couple of these hanging from nails outside the cabin. I boiled them, too. They’ve never known fabric softener, but they’re better than nothing.”

The towel did feel more like sandpaper than terry cloth, but Rusty accepted it without comment.

“There, that should do it,” Cooper said brusquely, emptying the contents of the last kettle into the tub. “Ease into it carefully. Don’t scald yourself.”

“Okay.”

Standing at opposite sides of the tub, they faced each other. Their eyes met through the rising steam. The humidity was already curling Rusty’s hair and making her complexion look dewy and rosy.

Cooper turned his back abruptly and impatiently swatted aside the curtain. It fell back into place. Rusty could hear his stamping, booted footsteps against the uneven flooring. He went outside and slammed the door closed behind him.

She sighed with resignation. He had a sour disposition and that’s all there was to it. And while she was lolling in her first bath in four days, she certainly wasn’t going to dwell on his personality flaws. She wouldn’t let him spoil this for her, no matter how disagreeable he became.

Because she still avoided putting any weight on her leg, it was a challenge to get out of her clothes. When she had managed that, it was an even greater challenge to ease herself into the bathtub. She was finally able to do so by supporting herself on her arms and sitting down slowly, pulling her sore leg in behind her.

It felt more heavenly than she had allowed herself to anticipate. Cooper had been right to caution her; the water was hot, but deliciously so. The corrugated bottom of the tub felt odd against her buttocks and took some getting used to, but before long the luxury of being submerged in hot, soothing water took her mind off that one minor discomfort.

She immersed as much of herself as possible and rested her head against the rim. Her eyes slid closed. She was so relaxed that she didn’t even flinch when she heard Cooper come back inside. She only frowned slightly when a breath of cold air reached her before he shut the door behind him.

Eventually she extended one dripping arm and took the bar of soap off the seat of the chair. She was tempted to lather herself liberally, wantonly, wastefully. But she thought better of it. This bar of soap might have to last a long time. Better not squander it, she decided, as she worked up an adequate lather and soaped herself all over.

Propping her feet one at a time on the rim of the tub, she shaved her legs, carefully maneuvering the razor around Cooper’s stitching. With anguish she realized what an unsightly scar she was going to have but was ashamed of her vanity. She was lucky to be alive. As soon as she got back to Beverly Hills, she would have a plastic surgeon repair Cooper’s well-intentioned, but unattractive, handiwork.

It struck her then that he was being awfully noisy. “Cooper, what are you doing?”

“Making up the beds,” he said, grunting with the effort. “These frames are made of solid oak and weigh a ton.”

“I can’t wait to lie down on one.”

“Don’t expect it to be much better than the ground. There’re no mattresses. Just canvas platforms like cots. But mattresses would have had lice, so it’s just as well.”

Laying aside her razor, she picked up the bottle of shampoo and after dunking her head beneath the water, squeezed out a dollop. The shampoo would have to be rationed even more sparingly than the soap. She worked it through her thick hair, scrubbing ruthlessly from her scalp to the ends. She dunked her head to rinse it, then wrung out as much water as she could.

Laying her head against the tub’s rim again, she fanned her hair out behind her so it could begin to dry. It would drip on the floor, but water was probably the least offensive substance to ever be dripped on it.

Again, her eyes closed as she luxuriated in the warmth of the water, the floral fragrance of shampoo and soap, and the deliciousness of feeling clean again.

Eventually the water began to cool and she knew it was time to get out. Anyway, she doubted that Cooper would go to bed before she did. He must be exhausted after all he’d done since getting up before daybreak that morning. She had no idea what time it was. The crash had stopped both their watches. Time was measured by the sun coming up and going down. The days were short, but today had been long—emotionally as well as physically taxing.

She braced her arms on the rim of the tub and tried to push herself up. To her dismay, her arms collapsed like wet noodles. She had stayed in the hot water too long; her muscles were useless. Several times she tried, but to no avail. Her arms simply wouldn’t support her. She devised other plans, but none of them worked because of her sore leg, which she couldn’t put any weight on.

Finally, growing chilled and knowing that the inevitable couldn’t be postponed indefinitely, she bashfully called his name.

“What?”

His irritable response wasn’t too encouraging, but she had no choice. “I can’t get out.”

After a silence long enough for a telephone pole to stretch out in, he said, “Huh?”

Rusty squeezed her eyes shut and repeated, “I can’t get out of the tub.”

“Get out the same way you got in.”

“I’m too weak from the hot water. My arms won’t hold me up long enough to step out.”

His curses were so scorching, she didn’t know why the bed-sheet curtain didn’t combust. When she heard his approaching footsteps, she crossed her arms over her breasts. Cool air fanned across her wet, bare back as he moved the curtain aside. She stared straight ahead into the fireplace, feeling his eyes on her as he moved toward the tub.

For a long time he just stood there, saying nothing. Rusty’s lungs were almost ready to burst from internal tension by the time he said, “I’ll slide my hands under your arms. Come up on your left leg. Then while I’m holding you up, lift it out of the tub and set it on the floor. Okay?”

His voice was low and of the same texture as the towel he’d given her to use—as rough as sandpaper. “Okay.” She eased her arms slightly away from her body. Even though she’d been expecting it, the first touch of his fingertips against her slippery, wet skin, came as a shock. Not because it felt awful, but because it didn’t.

And it only got better from there. Confident and strong, his hands slid into the notches of her armpits and cupped them supportively. He braced his legs wide apart, almost straddling the tub, and lifted her. She sucked in her breath sharply.

“What’s the matter?”

“My...my underarms are sore,” she told him breathlessly. “Because of the crutches.” He muttered a curse. It was so vile she hoped she hadn’t heard it correctly.

His hands slipped over her wet skin and encased her ribs. “Let’s try it this way. Ready?”

Rusty, according to his instructions, supported herself on her left leg, letting the injured one dangle uselessly as he raised her out of the water.

“Okay so far?” She nodded. “Ready?” She replied in the same soundless way. He took all her weight on his hands as she lifted her left foot over the edge of the tub and set it on the floor.

“Oh!”

“What now?”

He was just about to release her when she made the exclamation and tipped forward slightly. With lightning reflexes, his arm slid around her, clasping her just below her breasts.

“The floor is cold.”

“Christ, don’t scare me like that.”

“Sorry. It was a shock.”

Each was thinking, “You can say that again.”

Rusty groped for the back of the chair to lend her support and hastily clutched the towel to the front of her body. Of course that still left her back naked to his eyes, but she trusted that he was being a gentleman and wasn’t taking advantage.

“All right?”

“Yes.”

His hands moved from her front to her sides, but he didn’t release her entirely. “Sure?”

“Yes,” she answered thickly, “I’m fine.”

He withdrew his hands. Rusty sighed with relief—as it turned out, prematurely.

“What the hell is this?” She gasped when his hand cupped the side of her hip. His thumb made a long, slow sweep across her buttock, sluicing off water. Then the other buttock was similarly examined. “What the devil happened to you? I thought you said he didn’t hurt you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Breathless and dizzy, she turned her head and looked up at him over her shoulder. His brows were pulled together into a deep V and his mustache was curved downward with displeasure.

“You’re black-and-blue.”

Rusty looked over her shoulder and down the length of her back. The first thing that registered with her was that Cooper’s dark hands against her pale flesh made a very sensuous picture. Only when he made another solicitous movement with his thumb did she see the bruises.

“Oh, those. They’re from the ride in the travois.”

His eyes swung up to hers and penetrated her with their heat. He kept his hands against her flesh. His voice was as soft as his touch. “You should have said something.”

She became entranced with the movements of his mustache as his mouth formed words. Perhaps that’s why she whispered, “Would saying something have changed anything?”

A strand of her hair got caught in the stubble on his chin. It connected them like a filament of light. Not that they needed it. Their stare was almost palpable. It lasted forever and wasn’t broken until a log in the fireplace popped loudly. They both jumped guiltily.

Cooper resumed his broody expression and growled. “No. It wouldn’t have changed anything.”

Seconds later the drape fluttered back into place behind him. Rusty was trembling. From the cold, she averred. He had kept her standing here long enough to get chilled. She wrapped the towel around her and dried quickly. The cloth was so coarse it left her skin tingling. It chafed the delicate areas of her body, especially her nipples. When she finished drying, they were abnormally rosy and pointed. Achy. And throbbing. And hot.

“It’s the towel,” she muttered as she pulled on her silk long johns.

“What is it this time?” The cantankerous question came from the other side of the drape.

“What?”

“I heard you say something.”

“I said this towel would make a great scouring pad.”

“It was the best I could come up with.”

“I wasn’t being critical.”

“That’d be a first.”

She muttered something else beneath her breath, making sure he didn’t overhear it this time, since it was an epithet grossly unflattering to his lineage and personality.

Aggravated, she ungracefully pulled the tank top over her head. Her nipples poked darkly against the clinging fabric. The silkiness, which should have felt soothing after the towel, only seemed to irritate them more.

She repacked her toiletries in their carrying case and dropped down into the chair. Bending at the waist, she flipped all her hair forward and rubbed it vigorously with the towel, alternately brushing it. Five minutes later, she flung her head back and her semidried hair settled against her shoulders in russet waves. It wasn’t styled, but it was clean, and that was a definite improvement.

It was when she was replacing her hairbrush in the cosmetic kit that she noticed the condition of her nails. They had been jaggedly broken or torn away. She groaned audibly.

Within a heartbeat, the curtain was thrown back and Cooper was standing there. “What’s the matter? Is it your leg? Is it—”

He broke off when he realized that Rusty wasn’t in any pain. But even if that realization hadn’t shut him up, the sight of her sitting silhouetted against the golden firelight, a halo of wavy cinnamon-colored hair wreathing her head like an aura would have. She was wearing a top that was more alluring than concealing. The shadows of her nipples drew his eyes like magnets. Even now, he could feel the heaviness of her breasts where they had rested on his forearms minutes ago.

His blood turned to molten lava, hot and thick and rampant. It surged toward his sex where it collected and produced the normal, but currently unwanted, reaction. It was painful in its intensity.

And since he couldn’t alleviate it, he released his sexual tension by another means: fury. His face grew dark with menace. His heavy brows, more gold than brown in the firelight, were intimidatingly drawn into a frown over his eyes. Since he couldn’t taste her with his tongue—as he was dying to do—he’d use it to verbally lash her.

“You were groaning over your damn fingernails?” he shouted.

“They’re all chipped and broken,” Rusty yelled back at him.

“Better them than your neck, you little fool.”

“Stop calling me that, Cooper. I’m not a fool.”

“You couldn’t even figure out that those two hillbillies wanted to rape you.”

Her mouth drew up into a sullen pout that only inflamed him further because he wanted to kiss it so badly. His unquenchable desire prompted him to say ugly, hurtful things. “You did all you could to entice them, didn’t you? Sitting near the fire when you know what it does to your eyes and complexion. Brushing your hair until it crackled. You know what that kind of thing does to a man, don’t you? You know it drives him crazy with lust.” Then, realizing that his tirade was as good as a confession, he sneered, “I’m surprised you didn’t come out in that getup last night and flaunt yourself in front of Reuben, the poor jerk.”

Rusty’s eyes smarted with tears. His estimation of her was far lower than she had thought. Not only did he think she was useless, he thought she was no better than a whore.

“I didn’t do anything on purpose. You know that, no matter what you say.” Instinctively, in self-defense, she crossed her arms over her chest.

Suddenly he dropped to his knees in front of her and jerked her arms away. In the same motion, he whipped the lethal knife from its scabbard at his waist. Rusty squealed in fright when he clasped her left hand tightly and raised the glittering blade to it. He made a short, efficient job of paring her nails down even with the tops of her fingers. When he dropped that hand, she looked at it remorsefully.

“That looks awful.”

“Well, I’m the only one here to see them and I don’t give a damn. Give me your other hand.”

She complied. She had no choice. In an arm-wrestling match, she could hardly win against him. And now her breasts were fair game for his condemning gaze again. But when his eyes glanced up from the bizarre manicure he was giving her, they weren’t condemning. Nor were they cold with contempt. They were warm with masculine interest. A lot of interest. So much interest that Rusty’s stomach took another of those elevator rides that never quite took it to the top or the bottom but kept it bobbing up and down somewhere in between.

Cooper took his time trimming the nails on her right hand, as if they needed more care and attention than those on her left. His face was on a level with her chest. In spite of the awful things he’d said to her just moments ago, she wanted to run her fingers through his long, unruly hair.

As she watched his lips, set firmly in a scowl, she couldn’t help but remember how soft they could become in a kiss—how warm and damp—and how marvelous his mustache had felt. If it had felt that good against her upper lip, how good would it feel against other parts of her body? Her neck? Her ear? Her areola—while his lips tugged at her nipple with the gentle fervency of a baby hungry for milk?

He finished cutting her nails and sheathed his knife. But he didn’t release her hand. He held it, staring down at it, then laid it on her thigh, pressing it there with his own hand. Rusty thought her heart would explode from the pressure inside her chest.

He kept his head down, staring at the spot where his hand covered hers high on her thigh. His eyes looked closed from Rusty’s angle. The lashes were thick and crescent shaped. She noticed that they, like his mustache and eyebrows, were tipped with gold. In the summertime his hair would be naturally streaked, bleached from the sun.

“Rusty.”

He said her name. There was a slight creak in his voice, a groaning protest of the raw emotion behind his saying it. Rusty didn’t move, but her heart was beating so fast and wildly that it stirred the silk that wasn’t doing a very adequate job of covering her.

He removed his hand from hers and placed each of his on either side of the chair seat, bracketing her hips. His knuckles pressed into their flaring shape. He remained staring fixedly at her hand, which still lay on her thigh. He looked ready to lower his head and wearily rest his cheek against it, or to bend down and tenderly kiss it, or to nibble on the very fingers he’d just cut the nails from.

If he wanted to, Rusty wouldn’t stop him. She knew that positively. Her body was warm and moist and receptive to the idea. She was ready for whatever happened.

No, she wasn’t.

Because what happened was that Cooper came to his feet hastily. “You’d better get to bed.”

Rusty was stunned by his about-face. The mood had been shattered, the intimacy dispelled. She felt like arguing, but didn’t. What could she say? “Kiss me again, Cooper,” “Touch me”? That would only confirm his low opinion of her.

Feeling rejected, she gathered her belongings, including the pile of dirty clothes she’d left beside the tub, and walked around the curtain. Each of the two beds had been spread with sheets and blankets. A fur pelt had been left at the foot of each. At home her bed was covered in designer sheets and piled with downy pillows, but it had never looked more inviting than this one.

She put her things away and sat down on the bed. In the meantime, Cooper had made several trips outside with buckets of bathwater. When the water level was low enough, he dragged the tub to the door and out onto the porch, then tipped it over the edge and emptied the rest of it. He brought the tub back into the room, replaced it behind the curtain, and from the pump in the sink began filling the pots and kettles again.

“Are you going to take a bath, too?”

“Any objections?”

“No.”

“It’s been a while since I chopped firewood and my back is sore. Besides that, I think I’m beginning to stink.”

“I didn’t notice.”

He looked at her sharply, but when he could see that she was being honest, he came close to smiling. “You will now that you’re clean.”

The kettles had begun to boil. He lifted two of them off the stove and headed toward the tub.

“Do you want me to massage it?” Rusty asked guilelessly.

He stumbled, sloshed boiling water on his legs, and cursed. “What?”

“Massage it?” He gazed at her as though he’d been hit between the eyes with a two-by-four. “Your back.”

“Oh, uh...” His eyes moved over her. The tank top left her throat and shoulders bare, cloaked only with a mass of reddish-brown curls. “No—” he refused curtly “—I told you to go to sleep. We’ve got more work to do tomorrow.” He rudely returned to his task.

Not only was human courtesy impossible for him, he wouldn’t let anybody be nice to him. Well he could rot, for all she cared!

Rusty angrily thrust her feet between the chilly sheets and lay down, but she didn’t close her eyes. Instead she watched Cooper sit down on the edge of his bed and unlace his boots while he was waiting for more water to boil. He tossed his socks onto the pile of dirty clothing she had made and began unbuttoning his shirt. He was wearing only one today because he’d been working so hard outside. He pulled the tails of it from his jeans and took it off.

Rusty sprang to a sitting position. “What happened to you?”

He flung his shirt down onto the pile of clothes to be washed. He didn’t have to ask what she was referring to. If it looked as bad as it felt, the bruise was noticeable even in the dim light.

“My shoulder came into contact with the barrel of Reuben’s rifle. I had to deflect it that way, so my hands would be free to get my own rifle up.”

Rusty winced. The fist-size bruise at the outer edge of his collarbone was black-and-blue and looked extremely painful. “Does it hurt?”

“Like hell.”

“Did you take an aspirin?”

“No. We need to conserve them.”

“But if you’re hurting—”

“You aren’t taking them for the bruises on your butt.” That remark shocked her speechless. But it didn’t last long. After a moment she said stubbornly, “I still think two aspirin would help.”

“I want to save them. You might have fever again.”

“Oh, I see. You don’t have any aspirin to take for your shoulder because I wasted them on my fever.”

“I didn’t say you wasted them. I said, oh—” Then he said a word that described something neither was in the mood to do, a word that should never be spoken aloud in polite company. “Go to sleep, will you?”

Wearing only his jeans, he went to the stove, apparently decided that the water was hot enough even though it wasn’t quite boiling, and emptied it all into the tub.

Rusty had lain back down, but she watched his shadow moving on the curtain as he shucked off his jeans and stepped naked into the tub. Her imagination got the night off because his shadow left nothing up to it, especially in profile.

She heard cursing as he lowered himself into the water. The tub didn’t accommodate him as easily as it had her. How he expected her to go to sleep with all that splashing going on, she didn’t know. He had splashed more water on the floor than was left in the bottom of the tub by the time he stood up to rinse off.

Rusty’s throat went dry as she watched his shadow. He bent at the waist, repeatedly scooping handfuls of water over himself to rinse off the soap. When he stepped out, he dried with masculine carelessness. The only attention he gave his hair was to make one pass over it with the towel, then to comb his fingers through it. He finished by wrapping the towel around his waist.

He went through the laborious procedure of emptying the tub again. After the last trip to the porch, he left the tub outside. Rusty could tell he was shivering when he moved back to the fire and added several logs. Using the chair as his ladder, he took down the screen the same way he’d put it up. He folded the sheet, placed it on one of the several shelves against the wall, and blew out the lantern on the table. The last thing he did before sliding into his bed was yank the towel from around his waist.

During all that time, he never looked at Rusty. She was hurt that he hadn’t even said goodnight. But then, she might not have been able to answer him.

Her mouth was still dry.

Counting sheep didn’t help.

Reciting poetry didn’t help, especially since the only poems he knew by heart were limericks of a licentious nature.

So Cooper lay there on his back, with his hands stacked beneath his head, staring at the ceiling, and wondering when his stiff manhood was going to stop tenting the covers and relax enough to let him fall asleep. He was exhausted. His overexerted muscles cried out for rest. But his sex wasn’t listening.

Unlike the rest of him, it was feeling great. He felt like taps all over, but it felt like reveille: alert and alive and well. Too well.

In desperation, he put one hand beneath the covers. Maybe... He yanked his hand back. Nope. Uh-uh. Don’t do that. Trying to press it down only made the problem worse.

Furious with Rusty for doing this to him, he rolled to his side. Even that movement created unwanted friction. He uttered an involuntary groaning sound, which he hastily turned into a cough.

What could he do? Nothing that wouldn’t be humiliating. So he’d just have to think about something else.

But dammit, he’d tried. For hours, he’d tried. His thoughts eventually meandered back to her.

Her lips: soft.

Her mouth: vulnerable but curious; then hungry, opening to him.

He clenched his teeth, thinking of the way her mouth had closed around his seeking tongue. God, she tasted good. He’d wanted to go on and on, thrusting his tongue inside her, sending it a little farther into her mouth each time, until he decided exactly what it was she tasted like. It would be an impossible task and therefore endless— because she had her own unique taste.

He should have known better than to kiss her—not even for the sake of fooling the old man. Who had been fooling whom? he asked himself derisively. He had kissed her because he’d wanted to and he had known better. He had suspected that one kiss wouldn’t satisfy him and now he knew that for sure.

What the hell? Why was he being so hard on himself? He was sleeplessly randy because she was the only woman around. Yeah, that was it.

Probably. Possibly. Maybe.

But the fact still remained that she had a knockout face. Sexy-as-hell hair. A body that begged to be mated. Breasts that were created for a man’s enjoyment. A cute, squeezable derriere. Thighs that inspired instant arousal. And what lay nestled between them—

No! his mind warned him. Don’t think about that or you’ll have to do what you have miraculously, and with considerable self-discipline, refrained from doing tonight.

All right, that’s enough. Finis. No mas. The end. Stop thinking like a sex-crazed kid at worst and a redneck sexist at best, and go to sleep.

He closed his eyes and concentrated so hard on keeping them closed that at first he thought the whimpering sound that issued from the other bed was his imagination. Then Rusty sprang up out of the covers like a jack-in-the-box. That wasn’t his imagination. Nor was it something he could ignore by playing possum.

“Rusty?”

“What is that?”

Even with no more to light the room than the dying fire, he could see that her eyes were round and huge with fear. He thought she was having a nightmare. “Lie back down. Everything’s okay.”

She was breathing erratically and clutching the covers to her chest. “What is that noise?”

Had he made a noise? Had he failed to camouflage his groans? “Wha—”

But just as he was about to ask, the mourning, wailing sound came again. Rusty covered her ears and bent double. “I can’t stand it,” she cried.

Cooper tossed back the covers on his bed and reached hers in seconds. “Wolves, Rusty. Timber wolves. That’s all. They’re not as close as they sound and they can’t hurt us.”

Gently he unfolded her and eased her back until she was lying down again. But her face was far from restful. Her eyes apprehensively darted around the dark interior of the cabin as though it had been invaded by demons of the night.

“Wolves?”

“They smell the—”

“Bodies.”

“Yes,” he replied with regret.

“Oh, God.” She covered her face with her hands.

“Shh, shh. They can’t get to them because I covered the graves with rocks. They’ll eventually go away. Hush, now, and go to sleep.”

He’d been so miserable with his own problem that he’d paid scant attention to the barking of the pack that lurked in the woods surrounding the cabin. But he could see that Rusty’s fear was genuine. She clasped his hand and drew it up under her chin as a child might hold his teddy bear to help ward off the terrors of a recent nightmare.

“I hate this place,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“I’ve tried to be brave.”

“You have been.”

She shook her head adamantly. “No, I’m a coward. My father saw it. He was the one who suggested that I return home ahead of schedule.”

“Lots of people can’t stand seeing animals killed.”

“I broke down and cried today in front of you. You’ve known all along that I’m useless. I’m no good at this. And I don’t want to be good at it.” Her voice was defiant, incongruous with the tears that washed her cheeks. “You think I’m a terrible person.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, honest.”

“Then why did you accuse me of enticing those men?”

“I was angry.”

“Why?”

Because you entice me, too, and I don’t want to be enticed. He didn’t tell her that. Instead he muttered, “Never mind.”

“I want to go home. Where everything is safe and warm and clean.”

He could argue that the streets of Los Angeles couldn’t always be considered safe, but knew that now wasn’t the time for teasing—even gentle teasing.

It went against his grain to compliment her, but he felt she’d earned it. “You’ve done exceptionally well.”

She lifted watery eyes to his. “No, I haven’t.”

“Far better than I ever expected.”

“Really?” she asked hopefully.

The breathlessness of her voice and the feminine appeal on her face was almost too much for him. “Really. Now, ignore the wolves and go back to sleep.” He pulled his hand from her grasp and turned away. Before he could move, however, another wolf howled. She cried out and reached for him again, throwing herself against him when he turned back to her.

“I don’t care if I am a coward. Hold me, Cooper. Please hold me.”

Reflexively his arms went around her. Like that other time he had held her while she wept, he felt the same sense of helplessness steal over him. It was lunacy to hold her for any reason, but it would be abominably cruel to turn away. So even though it was as much agony as ecstasy, he drew her close and buried his lips in her wealth of hair.

As he spoke them, his words were sincere. He was sorry this had happened to her. He wished they would be rescued. He wanted her to be returned safely home. He was sorry she was frightened. If there was something he could do to get them out of their predicament, he would.

“You’ve done everything possible. But just hold me a minute longer,” she begged.

“I will.”

He continued to hold her. His arms remained around her. But he didn’t move his hands. He didn’t trust himself to rub them over her back and stop with that. He wanted to touch her all over. He wanted to knead her breasts and investigate the warm, soft place between her thighs. Desire made him shiver.

“You’re freezing.” Rusty ran her hands over the goose-flesh on his upper arms.

“I’m fine.”

“Get under the covers.”

“No.”

“Don’t be silly. You’ll catch a cold. What’s the big deal? We’ve slept together for the past three nights. Come on.” She pulled back the covers.

“Uh-uh. I’m going back to my own bed.”

“You said you’d hold me. Please. Just until I fall asleep.”

“But, I’m—”

“Please, Cooper.”

He swore, but slid beneath the covers with her. She cuddled against him, nuzzling her face against the fuzzy security of his chest. Her body became pliant against his. He gritted his teeth.

Seconds after she had relaxed against him, she pushed herself away. “Oh!” she exclaimed softly. “I forgot that you were—”

“Naked. That’s right. But it’s too late now, baby.”