"I...didn"t."
"I guess that"s why you"re blushing."
"I"m not blushing." The heat in her cheeks didn"t even come close to a blush; it was more like a forest fire.
"Whatever you say."
His jeans were well-worn and hugged his lean hips like a pair of snakeskin gloves. His heavy flannel shirt hung open, revealing a muscled chest covered with a sprinkling of black hair that arrowed down to his waistband and disappeared. Abby swallowed hard and tried not to notice that he hadn"t bothered with the top b.u.t.ton of those jeans.
Oh, my.
Scooping his wet jeans and long johns off the floor, he started toward her. "What"s your name, anyway?" he asked.
"M-my name?"
"Or do you prefer Blondie? That"s fine by me. A lot of convicts go by aliases."
"Don"t call me a convict," she snapped.
He shrugged. "Just making conversation."
"My name is Abby. Abby Nichols."
"I"m Jake."
Jake. The name fit him, she realized. Almost as well as those jeans.
"It looks like we might be stuck here together for a while, Abby. I figured we ought to be on a first-name basis."
She stepped back and watched him hang the jeans and long johns he"d been wearing neatly above the stone hearth.
"How are those meals coming?" he asked.
She looked down at the two unopened containers in her hand. At some point in the last five minutes her appet.i.te had vanished. Maybe about the time when she"d looked over and seen... Mercy, she didn"t want to think about what she"d seen. "I wasn"t sure how to...activate the heat."
Coming up beside her, he took one of the meals and proceeded to tear off the foil label. "Like this. See?"
He moved with the self-a.s.surance of a man who was comfortable with himself and didn"t necessarily give a d.a.m.n what the rest of the world thought. Abby watched, fascinated by his hands as the steaming food came into view.
"I hope you like chicken and broccoli." He handed one of the containers to her. "I"m partial to beef myself."
"I"d eat nails if they were cooked and warm." Abby took her food to the hearth.
He walked over to the saddlebag, removed two plastic forks and two containers of water, then met her at the hearth. "The floor"s cold. You can sit on the bedroll if you want." He handed her water in a collapsible cup.
Abby accepted it and drank deeply. Slipping off the duster, she unrolled the bedroll-an insulated sleeping bag-then settled onto it with her legs crossed. Jake did the same and soon they were forking chicken chunks and broccoli from their instant meals.
They ate in silence, the only sound coming from the raging wind outside, the patter of driving snow against the windows and the occasional crackling of wood as the fire consumed it.
The chicken was surprisingly good, and Abby savored every bite with the fervor of a woman who didn"t know when or where she"d get her next meal. She was going to need her strength in the coming days. As long as she stayed calm and kept her head, she could still get out of this. Jake Madigan might be an armed lawman, but he wasn"t the kind of man who could shoot a woman in the back if she took off on him. All she needed was the opportunity and a little luck.
The warmth from the fire was relaxing her. Abby snuggled deeper into the sleeping bag and drifted. Her tummy was full. She could feel her cold-stiffened muscles beginning to unwind. Her hands no longer ached. She could feel her feet again. Sleepiness was starting to descend like a lavender mist clouding her brain one micro-droplet at a time.
She was aware of Jake moving around the cabin. She heard the door open. Felt the draft of cold air against her face. The clanging of metal against metal.
She opened her eyes to find him kneeling at the hearth, setting a large, scarred kettle over the embers. He looked at her intently, then turned back to the kettle. "I"m melting snow so we can wash up," he said.
Sitting up, she looked around. The windows were dark now, the interior of the cabin illuminated only by the fire. Outside, the wind howled like an angry banshee. Abby could still hear the snow blasting against the gla.s.s on the north side. Jake had taken their empty food containers into the kitchen. She must have fallen asleep.
"What time is it?" she asked.
"You got somewhere to go?"
"No, I"m just wondering."
"A little after seven."
Early evening. It felt like the middle of the night. With the storm waging all-out war on the cabin, it seemed as if they were the only two people on earth. The thought should have disturbed her, but it didn"t. In fact, as she sat on the bedroll and looked around the cabin, a strange and comforting warmth encompa.s.sed her. The storm might be an inconvenience, but it would buy her some time. Besides, she"d much rather be stuck in this cabin than in a prison cell. At least here there was the hope of escape.
The water in the kettle was steaming. Abby watched Jake use one of his leather gloves to take it from the fire and carry it to the kitchen where he dumped the hot water into a larger pail of snow. She swallowed hard when he turned his back to her and proceeded to strip off his shirt.
Broad shoulders rounded with muscle came into view as he draped the shirt neatly over the back of a chair. The faded jeans he wore rode low on his narrow hips. Jeans that left no doubt about Jake Madigan"s masculinity. Abby tried not to stare, but she couldn"t tear her eyes away from him. The man was built like Adonis. The fire cast yellow light over the room, turning his skin to bronze, his muscled shoulders and back to a sculpted work of art. His biceps flexed as he leaned forward and splashed water onto his face. His wet skin glistened when he dipped a small rag into the water and brought it to his neck and chest, then lower.
Abby turned abruptly away and stared into the hearth, watching the flames leap over the dry wood. Her face felt hot. But she knew it had nothing to do with the fire, and everything to do with the man. She could hear the water splashing on the other side of the room, but for the effect he was having on her body, he may as well have been right next to her.
"I can warm you some water if you want it."
She jumped at the sound of his voice. He"d come up behind her. Still sitting on the floor in front of the fire, Abby had to crane her neck straight up to look at him. She tried not to look at his chest or that thatch of dark hair covering it. Oh, Lord, she wished he"d put his shirt back on.
"Um, well...yes. I"d...like that."
What was wrong with her voice?
Without speaking, he went back to the kitchen area and jerked on his shirt, then slipped into his duster. Taking both the kettle and the pail, he went out the door.
Abby"s heart rate quickened. While the thought of washing up with warm water sounded heavenly, she had no idea how she would manage it with Jake around. He might be comfortable strutting around half naked, but she wasn"t.
He came back through the door with a gust of wind and a swirl of snow. She watched as he set the kettle over the fire, then set the larger pail half full of snow back on the rickety table in the kitchen area.
"The water ought to be boiling in a few minutes," he said. "I found a couple of clean towels you can use."
"Thank you." Rising, she looked frantically around the cabin. It was small and spa.r.s.e and offered absolutely no privacy.
The water in the kettle began to steam. Abby stared at it, then risked a look at Jake. "I can"t bathe with you in here," she said in her most reasonable voice.
He cut her a look that was half annoyed, half incredulous. "I"ll turn my back."
"I"m afraid that won"t do. I just...can"t...with you in here."
"Oh, for crying out loud."
"Would you mind terribly waiting outside for a couple of minutes? I mean, it"s not like I"m going to take off in this weather."
"Lady, it"s snowing like crazy with subzero wind chills. I don"t feel like getting hypothermic just so you take a d.a.m.n bath."
She looked longingly at the water. "Please, just give me five minutes of privacy." Her gaze traveled to the fire. "We"re low on firewood. Maybe you could take a few minutes and find some more."
Heaving a sigh of annoyance, Jake walked to the hearth and removed the kettle from the fire. In the kitchen area, he dumped it over the melting snow. Steam rose into the chill air. He looked at Abby through the cloud.
"I"m going to check on the stock," he growled. "You"ve got five minutes." He looked at his watch. "Make it quick," he said, and walked out, slamming the door in his wake.
Abby stripped in two seconds flat, draping the jumpsuit over the table. She dipped the rag into the water and brought it to her face. The warmth felt wonderful against her skin after being out in the cold all day. She soaped up the rag and scrubbed her face and hands. She closed her eyes and the water sluiced over her, rejuvenating her, making her feel clean and warm and almost human again. She wasn"t sure how much time had pa.s.sed-she didn"t have a watch-but after a short while, she used the threadbare towel Jake had given her and quickly dried herself. She hated to put the prison-issue jumpsuit back on, but knew she didn"t have a choice. She"d stepped into the jumpsuit and had it pulled up to her waist when the door swung open.
The sight of her bare back stopped Jake cold, like a ship that had run headlong into an iceberg. He felt the impact echo through his body, a paralyzing shock that went from his head all the way down to his very cold toes.
Only he definitely wasn"t cold anymore.
The woman had one h.e.l.l of a nice back.
Water glistened on silky flesh that was golden in the flickering light of the fire. Her shoulders were slender and fragile. Her narrow rib cage tapered to a waist so small he could almost span it with his hands....
He felt as if he"d been hit right between the eyes with a two-by-four. For a full thirty seconds he stood perfectly still, knocked senseless, knowing he should be doing anything but admiring that pretty back. But for the life of him he couldn"t bring himself to tear his eyes away.
Vaguely he was aware of the wind at his back, the sting of cold on his cheeks, the dampness of snow in his hair. He knew he should shut the door to conserve heat from the fire, but some inner warning told him he didn"t want to be shut up in the cabin with this lovely creature. He knew enough about women to realize this one was a truckload of trouble. He knew enough about himself to know he was standing right in the path of that truck, that it was barreling toward him at a death-defying speed, and he was about to be plowed over.
What a way to go.
"If it"s not too much trouble, do you think you could close that door?" she snapped. "It"s getting a little drafty in here." Glaring at him over her shoulder, clearly annoyed and discomfited, Abby fought her arms into the sleeves of her jumpsuit. "Sometime today, if you don"t mind."
Even though her back was to him, Jake averted his eyes. But not before the image of her bare back had been branded onto his brain. Soft, glistening skin that curved in all the right places. Wet curls clinging to the graceful arch of her neck. The smell of woman and soap and her own unique scent filling the air like some exotic perfume.
Oh, boy.
Giving himself a hard mental shake, Jake turned away from her and slammed the door. Gripping the k.n.o.b, he took a deep breath, tried to get a handle on the quick slice of heat low in his belly. He knew better than to let the heat get to him. Not over a female inmate, for G.o.d"s sake. He was a professional and took his job very seriously. He was courting serious problems by letting the sight of her turn him into a stuttering schoolboy with a bad case of hormones.
Refusing to acknowledge the power of his reaction, he stomped ice from his boots, brushed the snow from his duster onto the floor and tried to find something to look at that didn"t make his mouth go dry, his pulse pound.
"Lady, I suggest you get yourself decent p.r.o.nto, because I"m not going back outside." He"d tried to make his voice firm, but a peculiar hoa.r.s.eness undermined his efforts.
"You agreed to five minutes."
"I gave you ten."
"I suppose cops aren"t known for their ability to count."
That should have ticked him off, but it didn"t. He was too busy recovering from an overwhelming bout of l.u.s.t to care if she"d just insulted him.
"At least we know how to stay out of jail," he grumbled. A pang of disappointment rippled through him when she yanked the jumpsuit over her shoulders.
"You look like the Abominable Snowman," she said after a moment.
"In case you hadn"t noticed, it"s snowing outside."
"Ha, ha. Very funny." Zipping the jumpsuit up to her chin, she turned to face him. "Are the horses all right?"
"One horse. One mule."
"Whatever."
"I tossed them some compressed alfalfa and moved them to a more protected area out of the wind. But it"s d.a.m.n cold out there."
"The storm"s a bad one, isn"t it?"
Jake nodded, glanced out the window. He"d seen white-out conditions before. But he"d never seen anything this bad. The snow was coming down at a furious pace, the wind sending it sideways and whipping it into drifts high enough to swallow a sixteen-hand horse. It had taken him a full ten minutes to move Brandywine and Rebel Yell just five feet. Visibility was down to zero, and he"d had to feel his way back to the door. He hadn"t expected to walk in to find himself face-to-face with the most beautiful bare back he"d ever laid eyes on.
He wasn"t going to think about her back. d.a.m.n it, he wasn"t. But his mind refused to cooperate by conjuring up images of wet, fragrant skin....
A trickle of sweat dampened the back of his neck. It might be cold outside, but things were definitely heating up in the cabin.
Jake didn"t like the idea of keeping close quarters with this woman. He sure as h.e.l.l didn"t like the idea of things getting too cozy between them. He was a professional, not some amateurish rookie. He understood boundaries. He respected them, abided by them. This woman had a way of muddling those boundaries. He knew he was skating awful close to the edge. He"d be wise to remember she was his prisoner. An escaped convict, for G.o.d"s sake. A murderer who"d already tried to use her body to undermine his discipline....
Jake didn"t want to think about her body. Not now. Not ever.
Thanks to another blonde with big baby blues and a tale that had made his heart bleed, he"d become immune to lying beauties.
Elaine had shown him what could happen to a man who listened to his heart, to a man who let himself get blinded by l.u.s.t. Jake hated thinking of himself as vulnerable. He was an officer of the law. A man who made decisions based on logic and experience. A man who came to those decisions through slow and cautious deliberation.
Three years ago Jake had been neither cautious nor deliberate when he"d invited a woman he barely knew into his home. He"d acted like some love-sick teenager crazed with hormones and short on common sense. As a cop, that he"d been so gullible shamed him. As a man, the experience had scarred him for life. Right now, those scars were aching with remembrance and warning him not to make the same mistake twice.
Shaking thoughts of the past from his mind, angry that he would think of Elaine now, he slapped the rest of the snow from his duster and started toward the fire to warm himself. His hands were half frozen. His face was numb. He was almost to the hearth when his left boot came down on something mushy and slick. Before he could look down, both feet slipped out from under him as though someone had pulled out the rug.
What the- He landed on his back hard enough to drive every last bit of oxygen from his lungs.
"Oh my gosh! Jake! Are you all right?"
Vaguely, he was aware of Abby kneeling next to him. He would have cursed if he"d had the breath. But he didn"t. He barely had enough wind to groan, but he managed. Barely.
"Are you hurt?" she asked.
He opened his eyes, found himself staring into a bottomless violet gaze that would have taken his breath if he"d had any to spare. "Get...away," he growled.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"What the h.e.l.l did you put on that floor?"
"N-nothing."
"Or maybe you"re trying to kill me."