by Linda Howard
The lower level was dark with shadows, but enough light came through the two windows above that he could see she was trembling from head to foot. The hard rain had washed away a lot of the mud that had been covering her when he’d found her, but she still looked like hell, her face paper white in the dimness, her dark eyes huge and glassy and rimmed with the bruised look of utter fatigue. She stood there swaying and shaking, watching him without even a flicker of curiosity in her eyes, waiting for whatever he told her to do next.
He slid the heavy saddlebags from his left shoulder and let them drop, then glanced up, considering the different ways he could get her up there, visualizing each one. Piggyback would be easiest on him, but he didn’t think she had enough strength left to hang on, so that was a nonstarter. Putting her in front of him and basically pushing her up would require too much effort on her part, and right now she probably didn’t have the strength to handle that anyway. Only one way was left. He removed his hat and tossed it to the floor beside her saddlebags. “Over my shoulder one more time.”
She didn’t comment. He took in a deep breath and gathered his own strength, then gripped her waist, tossed her into position, and went up the ladder. He took it slow and steady, because he sure as hell didn’t want to drop her on her head. The upper floor was a long flight up—fourteen rungs, to be precise. He had to hold her with his left arm and use his right hand for climbing, at the same time keeping her angled away from the ladder so he wouldn’t bang her ankle.
The last two rungs, and stepping from the ladder onto the ledge of the sleeping platform, were the trickiest parts. He had to shift his balance, and he was reaching down for support rather than gripping something at eye level. He’d gone up that ladder hundreds of times without giving it a single thought, but with Angie on his shoulder he thought about every move, made sure it was the right one, then cautiously executed it. He was too tired to take anything for granted, not even muscle memory.
When he was standing solidly on the sleeping platform, he eased her off his shoulder and held her steady; if he didn’t hang on to her, she’d collapse to the floor. Her knees weren’t steady, and it wasn’t just the ankle, it was sheer exhaustion.
He guided her hand to one of the partition walls. “Hold on for just a minute. Can you do that?”
Silently she nodded.
As swiftly as possible he removed her sodden coat and let it drop to the floor, then unsnapped and unzipped her slicker and tossed it to the side, too. While he was at it, he removed his own slicker and coat. The air inside the cabin wasn’t warm, but they had to get dry before they could get warm.
Stepping inside the sleeping partition where he’d set up his mattress and sleeping bag, he turned on the small propane camp heater he’d brought, and the LED lantern. The too-white light that lit the small space was eerily, uncomfortably similar to lightning, but minus the drama. For a brief second Angie looked a little spooked, then fatigue washed the expression away.
“Okay, let’s get you more comfortable,” he said as he threw the sleeping bag off the mattress so it wouldn’t get wet. Going back to her, he didn’t waste time helping her hop to the bed; he simply picked her up and carried her the short distance, going down on his knee to lay her down, then carefully easing her right foot down. She shuddered, then sighed and closed her eyes.
“Thanks,” she said, slurring the single word.
“I’m going to get our stuff and bring it up here. I’ll be right back.”
This time she didn’t answer. Dare was down the ladder and back up in less than a minute, bringing everything, even Angie’s muddy rifle. After dumping it all on the floor, he pulled the ladder up and laid it on the ledge, making the sleeping platform inaccessible to both man and beast.
Angie hadn’t moved since he’d laid her on the mattress; it looked as if she’d fallen into a deep, instant sleep … one in which she was still shaking and shivering.
He hated to wake her up, but he didn’t have any choice. “Come on, Sleeping Beauty, shake it off,” he said as he pulled out the clothes and provisions he’d need. “We have to get you out of those wet clothes.”
Things were definitely screwed up when he actually wanted to hear her say, “In your dreams, buster. I’d rather die of hypothermia than let you see me naked.”
But she didn’t say that, or anything else. She was either asleep or unconscious.
Shit.
He went through the clothes he’d brought, which didn’t take long. Everything he owned was way too big for her, but it would have to do for now. He hadn’t gone through her saddlebags yet, but even if she had packed a change of clothes they’d likely be damp, at the very least, and who the hell wanted to sleep in jeans, angyway? He grabbed a flannel shirt, a pair of long johns that would be too big but would be warm and comfortable—and easy to get on her—and the first-aid kit. Then he got a pack of wet wipes and sat down on the floor next to the mattress. Food and water would be next, but he wanted her dry and warm first, and he wanted a look at that ankle. He hoped like hell it was just a bad sprain. Sprained they could handle; broken would be a huge pain in the ass to deal with.
“Sit up,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder and shaking her.
Clumsily she knocked his hand aside. “Lea’ me alone,” she mumbled.
“No can do. Come on, sit up. You’re going to die if you don’t get out of those wet clothes. You’re already hypothermic. You won’t get warm until you’re dry. So sit up.” He put brisk command in his voice, as if he were still in the military.
She opened her swollen eyes a little and, like a good little soldier, tried to struggle to a sitting position, only to fall back when her muscles refused to obey.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. I’ll help.” He slipped a hand under her back and very gently eased her up, then grabbed the saddlebags and stuffed them behind her to help prop her upright. As pillows, they sucked, but they were all he had. “Just sit up long enough for me to get you cleaned up and in dry clothes. That’s all you have to do. I’ll handle the rest.”
“ ’kay.”
She clutched the side of the mattress, swaying, but she stayed upright, with her solemn dark gaze fixed on his face. “You can’t look.”
“Bullshit,” he scoffed. “You think I’m going to get you naked and not look?” Maybe he should have promised, but he’d have been lying and they both would have known it. He was a man; of course he was going to look.
“You’ll laugh. I don’t have any boobs.”
She was definitely on the verge of being completely out of it, or she’d never have said something like that. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing, because he figured if he did it would hurt her feelings. He needed her cooperation, not a battle. “That’s okay. I have a little dick.” And this time he lied without compunction.
He watched her brow knit in a frown as she processed that, laboriously forcing her tired and hypothermic brain to work through whatever barriers of modesty and insecurity she had.
Finally she gave a tiny nod, and allowed him to undress her.
He kept his mind out of the gutter, which was tough because that was never a long trip for him, but this time he resolutely refused to let his thoughts go there. She had put her trust in him, and by God he’d honor that. He’d keep his mind on the chore at hand, and the reason for it, and save the lusting for later.
Once she’d given her permission, she seemed to sink back into deep lethargy, not showing any reaction at all as he peeled off her wet clothes, not even when he reached around to unsnap her bra, which wasn’t much of a bra as far as he could tell, really just an extra layer of cloth. The bra wasn’t as soaked as the rest of her clothes, but mud and water had seeped beneath her slicker and shirt and it was damp in places. He tossed it onto the sodden heap with the rest of her clothes.
Dare couldn’t say he’d never imagined Angie naked. He had. Several times. Maybe a hundred or so. But he’d never imagined that the first tim
e he saw her naked would be in these circumstances, or that he’d try really hard to keep his gaze from lingering on her small round breasts and tight nipples. She was wrong; she had boobs, pretty ones that were small and high, and he guessed she wore a bra more because she thought she was supposed to than because she really needed one. He loved tight nipples, but not when they were tight from cold instead of what he was doing to them. He didn’t like that her skin looked almost bloodless, that she could barely sit up, and knowing how helpless she was, how much in danger she was, gave him the strength to keep his mind on what needed to be done and not on what he’d love to be doing.
He checked her for wounds on her upper body, but beyond a variety of scrapes and bruises there wasn’t anything to concern him, no cuts, no punctures. He wiped her down quickly with a wet wipe, starting with her face and moving downward, followed that with a rubdown with the one towel he’d brought along, then slipped her arms into the sleeves of the flannel shirt and buttoned it up.
Once that was done, he eased her down on the mattress and began working her boots off. Cowardly, he removed the left one first, figuring he needed to work up to the tough stuff. He could cut the boot off if he had to, but if her ankle was just sprained she’d need that boot. When he moved to the right foot, he completely unlaced the boot so he could make it as loose as possible, then very gently began easing it off. Angie immediately tensed and uttered a choked cry. “Sorry,” he murmured, working his fingers inside the opening and bracing her ankle as best he could, but there was no way that boot was coming off without her foot and ankle flexing at least a little. She clenched her fists and jaw, her eyes closed tight, and endured.
Finally the boot and sock were off, and he could see the ankle. It was swollen and bluish, but there was no bone poking through the skin, no obvious unnatural position. He didn’t have X-ray vision, so maybe it was sprained or maybe there was a simple fracture. At any rate, the best he could do was cool it, wrap it, and keep her off it for now.
First things first, though. The rest of her clothes had to come off. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her soaked sweatpants and began working them down, dragging her underwear along, too. Again, she flinched when he had to get her foot free, but she didn’t make a sound. Thank God his flannel shirt was so big on her it covered her down to the middle of her thighs, because he could carry his good intentions only so far. As it was, the glimpse he got of dark pubic hair was enough to make his heartbeat jump into second gear. God almighty. How much could he take?
As much as was necessary, that was how much.
Almost growling as he pulled a fresh wet wipe from the pack, he set about cleaning away any mud he saw, then briskly dried her with the towel and got his thermal long johns on her without causing her too much discomfort. She made a low, inarticulate sound of relief at finally having dry clothes on; he gave another involuntary growl, whether of regret or relief that she was covered, he couldn’t have said. Finally he put one of his clean socks on her left foot, leaving the other one bare so he could tend to her ankle.
Okay, he was making progress. Next he towel-dried her hair, which had been partially protected by the hood of the slicker but, like everything else, had gotten soaked anyway. Then he moved on to her hands.
Her hands were a mess, swollen and bruised, her palms almost shredded with cuts. As gently as possible, not wanting to hurt her, he began cleaning them. There was a real danger of infection, because she’d been crawling through mud with open wounds on her hands. After the mud was cleaned away, he tore open an antiseptic pad from the first-aid kit and once again gently but thoroughly wiped the wounds, looking for bits of trash in the cuts. She didn’t say a word, and flinched only once, when he raked a splinter from a cut on the pad of her thumb. Then he smeared antibiotic ointment over all the cuts, wrapped her palms with gauze, and taped the bandages in place.
The ankle was next. He sat on the mattress next to her and lifted her right leg onto his lap, with her foot positioned so he had unencumbered access to it. There wasn’t much he could do: tear open an alcohol wipe and gently lay it across the swollen joint to cool it, then wrap an Ace bandage firmly around her foot and ankle.
Through it all Angie just lay there, too damn quiet, too damn still. He put his hand on her shoulder and shook her a little, until her eyes cracked open. “Are you okay?”
“Cold.” Her eyes closed again. “Sleepy.”
“You have to eat and drink something first, then we’ll get you into the sleeping bag.”
She nodded, but he could tell even that was an effort.
If he hadn’t been up most of the night, and so tired himself he would like nothing better than lying down for a little while, maybe seven or eight hours, he’d have already thought to start heating water on the camp stove he always left up here, so they could each have a cup of hot instant coffee. If nothing else, hell, hot water with some sugar in it would do wonders. In fact, he didn’t want any caffeine, he wanted to sleep, so the sugar water sounded like a damn good idea.
He got the propane camp stove out of the locked storage bin where he kept it, and turned it on. There was a camp percolator, too, for making an entire pot of coffee when he had a hunting party up here, but this time all he did was dump two bottles of water into the percolator and set it on the flame to heat, then opened some packets of sugar and dumped them in, too. Good enough.
While the water was heating, he got some food and shook her awake and made her sit up one more time. She heaved an aggrieved sigh, which he took to be a good sign.
“Feeling any better?”
“A little.” Her voice was still thin with fatigue, she was still shivering, but shivering was a good sign.
“I’m heating some sugar water. It’ll be ready in a few minutes.” He sat down on the mattress beside her, put his arm around her for support and warmth. “Until then, be chewing on this.” He had a couple of power bars, which he opened and tore bite-sized pieces from, feeding her and himself in turn until the bars were gone. They both needed the calories, so their tired bodies would have fuel to burn.
By the time the bars were finished, the sugar water was steaming. He turned off the camp stove, then divided the water into two camp cups, and took them both over to sit beside her again. “Can you hold this?” he asked, holding out a cup to her.
“I think so.” She took the cup and gave a little moan of pleasure as the heat from the metal sank into her cold fingers. Her hands were shaking, but she managed to get the cup to her mouth and sip the hot liquid. Before he settled down himself, he got a couple of aspirin out and handed them to her. She took them without comment, but hell, she wasn’t an idiot, she recognized aspirin. Then he settled down beside her and concentrated on drinking his own sugar water, feeling the warmth spread through him as he stretched his legs out and finally let himself relax a little.
“Thanks,” she said after several minutes of silence and companionable sipping.
“You’re welcome. Sorry it isn’t coffee, but—”
“Not for the water.” Her voice was a little stronger now that she’d eaten, and having something hot to drink was working its magic. “For getting me here. For everything.”
Dare snorted. “What did you expect? That I’d leave you out there on your own?” Thank God she hadn’t yet thought to ask what he’d been doing out at night in such godforsaken weather in the first place.
She looked down at the cup in her hands, concentrated on it. “No, but … you could tell me how stupid I was to get myself into this mess. You could toss me a wet wipe and make me take care of myself. You could …”
“I could be an ass,” he growled.
“Yeah.” The single word wasn’t much more than a breath.
“You’re not stupid. You didn’t get yourself into a mess, you got caught up in someone else’s shit, and you were trying damn hard to get yourself out of it. As far as cleaning you up and all that, if I’d thought you were capable of dressing yourself, I’d have let you do it. B
ut you weren’t, so I took care of it. That’s it. No big deal.” She didn’t have any idea how hard it was for a man to undress and wipe down a woman he had no shot at getting into the sack, and he wasn’t about to enlighten her.
“I think saving my life is a pretty big deal.”
He rubbed his jaw. Put that way, his comment hadn’t been the most graceful one in the world, but what the hell, he’d never known his way around a pretty phrase. He was blunt, his temper burned on a fairly short fuse, and he didn’t have a lot of patience. Throw those three characteristics together, and they didn’t produce a man who had a slick way with words. “I can still be an ass,” he said gruffly. “This good stretch probably won’t last long.”
Unbelievably, a very faint smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. “Probably not,” she agreed.
All right, this was more the Angie he knew, the one who could throw him straight into pure fury faster than anyone else he’d ever met. But he was so glad to see that crappy effort at a smile that he didn’t let her punch any of his buttons. He was feeling relieved on several points: She was still at the end of her rope, but she was rallying. Her ankle might be cracked, but it wasn’t a compound fracture, so taking care of it wasn’t an emergency. They had shelter, they had food and water, they had warmth. Getting here had been hell, but they were going to be all right.
He downed the rest of his water and she did the same. “Let’s both get some rest,” he said as he took the cups and set them aside. There was some mud on the mattress—big surprise there—so he cleaned it away, then arranged the sleeping bag on top of it and helped Angie slide inside it. She gasped in pain when she bumped her ankle, then settled down and pulled the edge of the bag around her, almost covering her head.
“I’m so tired,” she murmured.
“Then go to sleep. I’m going to get into some dry clothes, then stretch out beside you and get some sleep, myself.”
She made a noise in her throat, her eyes drifting shut.
He set about pulling off his own wet clothes. A couple of times he glanced toward Angie to see if she was watching, but she was making like a turtle with that sleeping bag, and all he could see was the top of her head. In any other circumstance, his ego would be bruised. Yeah, right.