Gray, Ginna (7 page)

Answering with a glare, Lauren climbed to her feet and staggered
over to the door.

By the time the wood and the enormous pile of spruce brush were
inside and more wood was added to the fire, the stew was ready. Bob Halloran's
utensil packet consisted of two deep-dish aluminum camp plates that could
double as bowls, two sets of lightweight forks and spoons and one large
stirring spoon. Sam pulled the pot farther from the fire and dipped up stew
into each plate, then handed Lauren one without a word.

They ate without speaking or even looking at each other. To her
amazement, the thick broth actually contained chunks of meat, potatoes and
other vegetables and tasted quite good. Better, in fact, than anything she'd
managed to put together in her own kitchen so far. Of course, she was so
famished, old shoe leather would probably have tasted delicious.

They polished off the pot of stew, each eating several helpings.
When they were done Sam dumped his plate and spoon into the empty pot.

"Okay, now let's take care of that cut."

Lauren's hand automatically went to her forehead. "What do
you mean? I've already cleaned it."

"Yeah, well, you'd never know it by looking." He took a
sterile gauze pad from the first-aid kit and dipped it in warm water and gently
swabbed the wound. When he began to scrub the rest of her face Lauren tried to
pull away.

"What are you doing?"

"Be still. You've got blood smeared all over your face."

"Oh." She closed her eyes and bore his ministrations
stoically, but his nearness made her nerves jump. He was too close. His breath
feathered over her cheek, moist and warm. The sharp, fresh scent of the
outdoors clung to him and mingled with the scent of male. His hands felt rough
and cold against her face.

He applied an ointment to the cut and covered it with a bandage.
"There. That's better," he said, snapping the first-aid kit shut.
Lauren opened her eyes and a relieved sigh escaped her as she watched him climb
to his feet and move away.

"Do you think you can manage to wash up while I make a shrub
mattress?"

Annoyance rippled through Lauren at his tone, but she tilted her
chin and replied with a cool, "Of course."

She had no idea how she was supposed to accomplish the task with
no sink, no dishwashing soap, no scrubber and only a skillet full of warm
water, but she wasn't about to admit that to this man. He was scornful enough
of her as it was without giving him more ammunition.

Gamely she picked up one of the plates and started to plunge it
into the skillet.

"No! Not that way!" Sam barked, making her jump. He
snatched the plate out of her hand and dumped it back into the stew pot, then
hefted the skillet and poured a scant amount of water over the soiled plates.
"Haven't you ever gone camping before?" he demanded, his voice hard
with impatience.

"No. I haven't."

"Big surprise. Look, the object is to do everything as simply
and efficiently as possible. You conserve water and don't make extra work for
yourself. The skillet is clean and contains a supply of clean water that we may
need later. The stew pot has to be washed anyway so you scrub everything out in
it. It's just simple logic," he tacked on in a tone that said even a moron
ought to be able to reason that out.

"Scrub? With what, exactly, am I suppose to scrub?"

Wordlessly Sam broke a twiggy shoot about four inches long off a
bare clump of brush and handed it to her. "When you get them as clean as
you can, take them outside and scrub them with snow to finish the job," he
ordered and turned his attention to the pile of short spruce limbs.

Only anger and mortification kept Lauren from falling asleep on
her feet. She wanted to believe that Agent Rawlins knew that and was being
deliberately derisive to keep her stirred up and awake. That's what she wanted
to believe, but deep down, she suspected it was dislike, not thoughtfulness
that had prompted his comments.

While she scrubbed the pot and plates and utensils with vigorous
anger, Sam returned their supplies to the backpack, then went to work with the
spruce scrub. When Lauren had finished scrubbing the dishes she picked up
everything and headed for the door.

"Wait a minute. Where do you think you're going?"

She stopped and cast a disgruntled look over her shoulder as he
stood up and walked toward her. "You told me to scrub these out in the
snow."

"Yeah, but first you tie on the safety line." He picked
up one end of the rope that he'd left coiled on the floor beside the door. One
end was tied to the door handle. With deft movements, Sam tied it around
Lauren's left wrist. "This is so you don't get lost out in that
blow."

"I really don't think this is necessary. I'm just going to
step outside the door to finish cleaning the pots."

"Yeah, well, while you're out there..." He paused, his
mouth twisting in a sardonic half smile. "You might as well use the
'ladies' room' again. That means going out away from the cabin. You can follow
the rope back."

He turned and went back to the pile of brush. "As soon as I
finish here we'll be turning in for the night."

Since she craved sleep even more than she had food, that was the
most welcome news she'd heard all day. Lauren glanced behind him at the spot a
couple of feet from the fire, where he'd been busily laying out rows of
overlapping spruce boughs in roughly the shape of a twin-bed mattress.
"Good. I'm more than ready for that."

While Sam held open the door, she darted outside into the teeth of
the storm. The cold slapped her in the face like a giant icy hand and the wind
almost knocked her down. Lauren put her head down and quickly went to work.

When she returned Sam was working on the last row of branches.
Lauren had taken the time to pack the pot and plates high with snow. The last
thing she wanted was to have to brave that storm for more snow again tonight.

Sam glanced up as she pushed the door open a crack and squeezed
inside, carrying the pot and plates stacked one on top of the other and
balanced against the front of her body, but he made no comment. She bumped the
door back into place with her bottom, edged across the room as though she were
walking a tightrope and placed the three containers close to the fire. She
turned to find Sam spreading the silvery sheet over the mattress of spruce
branches. When he lay the sleeping bag on top of that, she frowned.

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like? I'm getting the bed ready."

"But you've put the sleeping bag on top of the mattress.
Where are you going to sleep?"

Sam straightened and looked at her. "In the sleeping bag. The
same as you."

"Wha-aat?
You're out of your mind if
you think I'm going to sleep with you."

"You don't have a choice. Neither of us does. We have one
wool blanket, one space blanket and one sleeping bag between us and a fire
that's barely putting out enough heat for us to survive. Hell, you could hang
meat over in the corner right now and it would freeze solid in a few
minutes."

"That may be, but—"

"Listen, why don't you just drop the virtuous maiden act,
okay? Given who and what you are, it's a little ludicrous, don't you
think?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded huffily.
Surely he couldn't know about her and Collin? There hadn't been enough time for
him to dig that deep into her past relationships. Or relationship, she should say,
since Collin had been her one and only lover.

Sam ignored the question. "Trust me, it isn't necessary.
Lady, you could strip naked and beg and I still wouldn't be interested in you
that way."

Lauren stared at him, quivering with so many conflicting emotions
she was speechless. Anger, resentment and insult were uppermost, but at the
same time she experienced a wave of relief so great her knees almost buckled.

She was trapped on this mountain in a raging blizzard for God knew
how long, alone with a harsh, tough-as-nails man whom she barely knew. She was
totally at his mercy, because without him she would surely die. If he were to
turn sexually aggressive she could not possibly fend him off. They both knew
that.

Under the circumstances, she knew she ought to be happy that he
apparently found her repulsive.

And she was. Of course she was.

Still...he didn't have to be so blunt about it. She'd never
thought of herself as the type to drive men mad with lust, but until now no one
had ever treated her as though she were a troll. It was insulting.

"So don't just stand there looking like an offended
virgin," Sam growled. "I'm tired, and I want to get some shut-eye, so
get a move on. Take off your boots and crawl in."

Knowing he was right and that she was apparently safe from any
sort of sexual advances did not make the arrangement any more acceptable, but
Lauren was simply too exhausted to argue. She was ready to drop. If it meant
getting some sleep, at that moment she would have cuddled up with Freddy
Krueger.

Refusing to look at Sam, she unlaced her boots, tugged them off
and slipped into the sleeping bag. She scooted over as far as she could,
shifted a bit to find a comfortable position and with a sigh, closed her eyes.
By the second breath, sleep had pulled her under.

Sam stared down at her. She lay curled on her side, facing the
fire, her cheek cradled on her stacked hands, her face slack in utter surrender
to her body's demand for rest.

The flames cast shifting patterns over her elegant features,
throwing some into deep shadows and highlighting others with a golden glow, but
even that could not disguise her exhausted pallor. The bandage on her forehead
stood out in sharp contrast to her skin.

Her lashes lay against her cheeks like thick fans and loose
tendrils of auburn hair curled around her face. Her luscious lips, bare of any
trace of lipstick, were slightly parted. Between them he could see the edge of
her teeth and the tip of her pink tongue. She looked utterly innocent and
vulnerable.

Sam's mouth twisted. Which just proved that old saying that looks
were deceiving, he thought and headed for the door.

A few minutes later he returned from answering nature's call one
last time and found that Lauren had still not moved so much as a muscle. Her
breathing was so slow and shallow he could barely make out the steady rise and
fall of her chest.

Stepping around her, Sam hunkered down in front of the fire and
stoked it with more wood. When the blaze was burning bright he unlaced his
knee-high, fur-lined moccasins and tugged them off, then pulled out the felt
liners that provided extra insulation and set them before the fire to dry out
thoroughly.

To take full advantage of the meager warmth, he had placed the
sleeping bag in front of the hearth and the supply of wood, close enough to
both that he could reach over Lauren and toss more branches onto the fire
throughout the night without leaving the bed. She might not appreciate that
convenience, but he sure as hell did.

He skirted back around her, slipped into the sleeping bag from the
other side and zipped it up. Turning onto his side, facing the fire and
Lauren's back, Sam looped his arm around her waist and settled his body to
hers, tucking his knees against the backs of hers and pulling her into the
curve of his torso. Small and slender, she fit perfectly, her head tucked
beneath his chin, her rump snug against his manhood, her body flush against his
all the way from the top of her head down to her sock feet resting against his
shins.

Sam shifted his head as a silky tendril of hair tickled his nose.
With every breath its clean smell invaded his nostrils, a mix of subtle floral
shampoo and sweet, clean woman.

Gradually her body heat began to reach him, seeping through the
layers of clothing they both wore. Even through all that bulk, her womanly
curves were apparent, and to his annoyance his body responded in the way any
healthy heterosexual man's would.

Sam ground his teeth. Never mind that she wasn't one of Carlo's
usual silicone-enhanced bimbos, she was still most likely the mobster's latest
lay, and he had no business getting hot and bothered over her.

The lecture didn't help. Not one bit.

Not that Lauren seemed to mind. She was sleeping so soundly she
didn't so much as twitch.

Sam gave a small, ironic snort. Hell, if anything, he should have
been the one to complain about the sleeping arrangement, not her. God knew, if
he'd had any other choice he would have taken it. Despite his body's mindless
hormonal response, he didn't crave to be anywhere near this woman. As far as he
was concerned, she was a job. Nothing more.

Though he was nowhere near as sleep-deprived as Lauren, it had
been nineteen or twenty hours since Harvey Weiss had rousted him out of bed in
the wee hours of the morning. Still, he could not sleep. Lying perfectly still,
Sam stared at the fire, his mind worrying over their predicament.

He had to get her off this mountain alive and into a safe house,
and he had to do it quickly. It wasn't going to be easy, particularly not with
a pampered female with no outdoor skills. Or any practical skills at all, for
that matter. Except maybe in the bedroom.