Leftover Love (15 page)

His gaze bore into her while he hurriedly shrugged out of his coat and peeled off his shirt. He used it to partially rub dry her wet hair and stimulate the circulation in her face and hands. His hat was pushed onto her head, an odd thing to do, she thought at the time. Without regard for her
jacket or its buttons, he began to rip it open and push it off of her. The jacket was already turning stiff.

Violent shivers began to rack her body and set her teeth to chattering. As soon as her coat was off, Creed wrapped her in his large jacket and lifted her bodily into the cradle of his arms. Layne kept thinking how cold he must be without his jacket, and only his insulated undershirt to protect him. The jacket didn’t seem to be doing her much good, since it brought no sensation of warmth.

Everything was hazy to her. She was conscious, yet she wasn’t. His hat sat down around her ears, its brim shutting out the sight of his face. Layne knew she was being carried somewhere because she remembered that he had picked her up, but all that registered in her mind was how terribly cold she was.

The world around her seemed gray with specks of white floating in it. There was an almost dreamlike quality about it and she wondered if she was dead. But that couldn’t be, because Creed was here. She wanted so desperately to be warm again that she almost cried.

There was a loud wrenching sound, and she was jostled in his arms. An inarticulate murmur of fear came from her, certain they were back on the pond and the ice was giving way. Suddenly she could see Creed’s face and the puffs of steam coming from his mouth. She was moving away from him. It seemed to confirm her terror that she was falling through the ice again, and her eyes wildly appealed to him not to let her go.

“It’s okay, honey.” His husky voice was riddled with the sound of his heavy breathing. “You’re safe now.”

A second later Layne realized she was propped on the seat of a pickup truck. It was true; she was going to be all right. Her eyes fluttered shut with relief. When she opened them to look at the man who had saved her, Creed was
bending down, doing something with her legs. But her body felt so wooden that all sensation was dulled until it was almost nonexistent.

A boot thumped on the floorboards of the truck, followed by a second, plus a double pair of wet socks. She was conscious of her foot being shaken, and guessed that Creed was trying to stimulate the circulation by rubbing them, but it was difficult to feel anything. Her nerve ends were too cold to transmit any sensation of her skin being touched.

The jacket was a constraining cocoon around her. Creed straightened and swung her legs inside the truck, then shut the door. Her eyes watched him walk around to the driver’s side, briskly rubbing his bare hands and hunching his wide shoulders. There was a stiff, cold look to his features when he climbed behind the wheel.

The motor kicked over with the first turn of the ignition switch. His reddened fingers reached over to the panel and switched the heater fan to its highest notch. His brown glance ran to her shivering form.

“It’ll be warm in here soon,” he promised and pulled her across the seat to mold her to his side.

An arm stayed tightly around her, hugging her close, while he used one hand to shift the truck into gear and hold on to the steering wheel. Her head lolled on the rounded hollow of his hard shoulder and bounced against it as the truck leaped forward, speeding as fast as the rough terrain would allow.

A thousand needle fires seemed to burn her face, the first painful knowledge that sensation was beginning to return to her. Hot air started blowing out of the floor vent, but it only made her bare feet hurt. She continued to shiver uncontrollably.

“Creed, I’m so cold.” Her voice was a thready sound, helplessly appealing to him to make her warm.

“I know, baby. I know,” the velvety texture of his rough voice crooned soothingly to her. “It won’t be long now. Just hang on.”

But the miles seemed to go on forever. Layne didn’t know where they were or how far they had to go. Her body throbbed all over with the cold. Yet there was some hope because she could feel the hot air blowing from the heater vents. There was just too little of it to warm her freezing wet skin. Her body vibrated in its attempt to generate its own warmth, but the cold seemed to penetrate all the way to the bone.

“I thought I was going to die.” Her voice wavered on a near sob. The terror of the incident was coming back so fresh that Layne had to talk about it to puncture the bubble of new panic inside. “I was so frightened, Creed.” It took all her control to give the faint impression of rational calm.

“Don’t think about it,” he ordered as his arm tightened fiercely around her. “You’re with me now.” He turned his head, dodging the low hat brim to press his mouth to the corner of her eye in a brief, reassuring kiss.

“It happened so fast,” Layne murmured in a shuddering recollection. “I spotted a stray cow on the other side of the pond. I decided to … take a shortcut across it instead of … going all the way around. I forgot … all about how much thawing had occurred. The ice … started cracking when my horse was out in the middle of it. He spooked and reared … I lost my balance. I—” She remembered the stunning shock of the icy water, and the words to describe it froze in her throat.

“Sssh. It’s over now.” Creed seemed to know exactly why she shuddered so violently. “We’re almost at the house.”

The seconds seemed like minutes before she heard the grinding of brake shoes and felt the truck slow to a stop. Creed dragged her bundled form sideways out of the driver’s
door and hefted her into his arms. The sudden blast of cold air sent more shivers racking through her body and chattering her teeth.

With long, sweeping strides, he carried her up the porch steps and propped open the storm door with his shoulder. He kicked the inner door open with his foot and swung inside with his burden.

“Mattie!” His rough voice lifted to send his urgent call through the empty rooms. “Mattie!”

He paused long enough to push the door shut with his foot, then headed for the stairs. He practically ran up the steps, with Layne joggling in his arms. All she could think about were the thick, warm quilts on her bed. But Creed carried her into the bathroom instead and stood her upright beside the tub.

His hands supported her while his gaze bore into her. “Can you stand up by yourself?”

Her legs felt so wooden that she wasn’t sure. “I … think so,” Layne said with a shivering nod.

His keen gaze lingered on her a second after he took his hands away to assure himself that she had sufficient control of her limbs to do it. But she was standing, if somewhat unsteadily. Turning, Creed bent over the tub, closed the drain stopper, and turned on the water faucets to fill the tub. After the water temperature had been adjusted, he straightened and unwrapped his jacket from around her and took off the hat.

“Start getting out of those wet clothes.” There was a flick of a gaze over the length of her body before he turned to hook his jacket over the doorknob with his hat.

With benumbed fingers, Layne tried to do as she was told, but she was shaking so badly that her cold-stiffened hands couldn’t seem to manage this simplest function. She sent a helpless glance at Creed.

“I can’t,” she murmured. “I’m so cold—”

No further explanation was necessary as he moved back to her. “I’ll help you.” With no hesitation, he began to unfasten the front button of her flannel shirt.

Layne was much too cold to feel any awkwardness at being undressed by him. She only wanted to get out of her wet and clinging clothes, which seemed to be freezing against her skin. There was a matter-of-fact deftness in the touch of his hands, impersonal and swift in their stripping of her blouse.

It was a struggle to pull the insulated and long-sleeved undershirt over her head. Layne helped him as much as she could, sitting down on the closed lid of the toilet seat while he tugged off her jeans and longjohns. Her bra and panties were the last to go. By then she was shivering so violently, her bare skin a mass of raised flesh, that she wasn’t conscious of her nakedness.

Again Creed picked her up and she huddled against him. Her arms were crossed tightly around her stomach, trying to hold on to the little warmth she possessed. The texture of his clothes seemed abrasive against her bare skin. He started to lower her into the tub.

The instant her feet touched the hot bathwater, a moaning gasp of pain was wrenched from her throat. All that heat hurt so bad that Layne didn’t think she could stand it. Her fingers curled into the wafflelike weave of Creed’s insulated undershirt.

“No. Please,” she protested with twisting agony, but Creed continued to lower her into the water, getting himself wet in the process.

The painful submersion didn’t end until she was lying against the curved back of the tub and the water was lapping around her neck. Only then did the needle-sharp stinging finally ease and the torture of suddenly being
engulfed in so much warmth finally subside. Her body throbbed with feeling that had been so long denied it. She was unquestionably alive and tingling all over. She opened her eyes to look gratefully at Creed as he stood by the tub, drying his hands on a towel.

“You be all right?” A thick eyebrow lifted in inquiry. At her affirmative nod, a near smile touched his mouth.

As he started for the door Layne remembered something she’d learned once. “There’s no truth … in that old wives’ tale about a person catching cold from getting wet.” It was a way of assuring him that she wasn’t in danger of contracting pneumonia from her dunking in the icy pond.

Creed paused at the door. “I wasn’t worried about you catching cold,” he said. “My fear was hypothermia. A severe drop in body temperature has been known to kill people.” Her eyes rounded at the stark realization that even after being saved from drowning she had still been in danger. Creed pointed a blunt finger at her. “Stay in that tub for a while and soak in that heat.”

As he walked into the hallway, taking his hat and jacket with him, Layne shuddered—this time in a delayed reaction to the closeness of her call instead of the cold. She sunk a little deeper into the warm bathwater until it was up to her chin and closed her eyes, absorbing the sensation of heat that surrounded her body.

How long she lay in the tub, Layne couldn’t say. She was vaguely conscious of the sounds of Creed moving about the house. Once she heard voices, but mostly she was aware of the life returning to her limbs and the stiffness ebbing away.

The water temperature was just becoming tepid when she heard the approach of Creed’s footsteps. He entered the bathroom with barely a glance in her direction, carrying her long terrycloth robe and her hair dryer. Turning, he
removed a large bath towel from the rack on the wall, then faced the tub, shaking out the towel to its full size.

“You’d better get out of the water before your skin shrivels up like a prune,” Creed advised blandly.

Layne hesitated. It was a little late for a show of modesty when he’d been the one to undress her, but she was suddenly self-conscious about her nudity even though he had seen her naked body before. Keeping her gaze lowered so he couldn’t see the hint of embarrassment in her eyes, she climbed out of the tub and stepped into the oversized towel, which he immediately wrapped around her.

Decently covered, she was able to slide a look at him, but his expression was closed. Once the towel was securely wrapped around her, Layne expected him to leave. Instead Creed used the excess fold of the towel to begin briskly rubbing her shoulders dry.

“I can manage.” She awkwardly attempted to assure him that she was capable of drying herself off.

“It’s important to stimulate your circulation.” Creed sounded so downright impersonal that it seemed prudish to argue with him.

But Layne could have told him that his mere presence was having a very stimulating effect on her system. Since he didn’t seem to notice her faint agitation, she tried not to draw his attention to it. But she could feel the heat rising in her neck as his large hands rubbed the towel over her breasts and stomach.

Once Creed paused briefly to toss her another towel for her wet hair, then transferred his attention to the water trickling down her shoulder blades. She quickly realized that Creed didn’t regard any part of her body as sacred territory as he roughly massaged her buttocks and inner thighs with the thick towel. In all honesty, it was more sensually exhilarating than it was embarrassing.

Her pulse was beating very rapidly when he finished and held out the robe to help her into it. Layne slipped an arm into the sleeve, then allowed the towel to slide onto the bath mat and hooked her right arm into the other sleeve. She crisscrossed the front of the robe and tied a knot in the sash belt to hold it in place.

Creed lifted the length of her damp hair out from under the collar. “You’d better dry it before you come downstairs.”

“I will,” she said huskily and turned to him. He stood for a minute gazing back at her, a dark and disturbing light in his eyes, the mask of indifference gone. “I don’t think I’ve thanked you yet for saving me.”

“It isn’t necessary.” His answer was almost curt as his jaw tightened. Despite that brief flash of grimness, he lifted a hand to brush a damp tendril of hair behind her ear. “It’s a miracle you didn’t get any frostbite.”

“I know.”

His chest lifted on a deep breath that he was slow to release. He seemed to be struggling with some inner battle. Layne wasn’t sure who won when he turned on his heel and headed for the door.

“You’d better dry that wet head of yours before you get chilled again,” he advised over his shoulder as he walked out of the bathroom.

It was already toweled damp-dry so it didn’t take her blow-dryer long to finish the job. Her thick mane of chestnut hair glistened like silk when she descended the stairs into the living room. Creed walked in from the kitchen just as she entered the room.

Layne faltered for an instant, feeling a sensual impact at the sight of the broad, flat muscles of his naked chest. He was no longer wearing that insulated top. She vaguely remembered that he’d gotten it wet, and she could attest to
the fact that there was nothing more uncomfortable than wearing wet garments.