The Care and Feeding of an Alpha Male (8 page)

“No boyfriend,” she admitted, feeling as shy as a schoolgirl.

He grunted, then stared at the sky. “Come on,” he said abruptly, interrupting her thoughts. “Let’s get a move on before the rain comes down again.”

A
lmost there,” Colt told her as they crossed a low, muddy ridge. “In the next valley.”

“I’ll never be so happy to see a roof in my life,” she said cheerfully, her breath coming in short pants.

He bit back his own smile in response. Colt was enjoying her company a little too much for his own good. It wasn’t just that she was sexy and appealing, and that when the rain had started, his shirt had begun to cling to her like a second skin, or the fact that when she bent over, panting, to take a quick breather, that he thought very nasty things about having her bent over.

He…kind of liked her. And he’d be damned if that wasn’t a surprise. Beth Ann’s personality was cheerful and she was hard-working. The hike hadn’t been a fun one—when the rain had returned, so had the mud, and it sucked at their feet at every step. She’d slipped and fallen twice, and he’d helped her back up. But
instead of losing her shit about breaking a nail or whining about being tired, she’d simply given a self-conscious little laugh and cracked jokes about her now heel-less Louboutins.

When she’d asked him to show her which way was north, his curiosity had been piqued and he’d taken her aside for a few minutes to show her how to tell which direction was north when there was no sun and only cloud cover. He’d shown her how to make a compass with a needle and a bit of water. Not that he’d needed it, but she’d wanted to know. She’d seemed interested, and so he’d grudgingly demonstrated as they walked which branches made the best firewood, and how to cut pine bark from a tree to cook. She’d gamely taken a bite and laughed anew when he’d made a bitter face at the sour taste.

“I’m glad it wasn’t just me, then,” she’d exclaimed, and her gleeful delight had made his mouth tug up in a smile.

Dammit. She was supposed to be a spoiled princess. He remembered her in high school, always hanging on the arm of Allan Sunquist, jock and jackass. She’d seemed content back then to be arm candy, and he hadn’t had much of an opinion of her. He thought of her when he’d first come back to town—his first sight of her had nearly knocked him flat. She’d been pretty in high school but she was flat-out amazing as an adult. Her blond hair was always perfectly styled, her clothing born to accentuate a long-legged figure. And she’d also been quick to cast him withering look after withering look that had quickly put his back up. He’d learned to avoid her after that.

Where had that vapid blond belle gone? He couldn’t ask that, of course.

They moved over the ridge and he offered her a hand to slide
down the steep side. She took it, and stepped down after him, her eyes scanning the horizon. “I thought I saw it.”

“You did.” He pointed off into the trees. “About fifty feet that way.”

She gave a fist-pump and grinned at him. “If that thing doesn’t have a roof, I’m going to cry,” she told him, but her face wore a wide smile that made his lips itch to kiss.

“It has a roof,” he told her. “I had to repair it when we moved in.”

“Repair it?” she asked as they hiked forward. “So it’s been here awhile?”

“A long while,” he agreed, pushing past a low-hanging tree branch. “Probably before the emu farm that was here before we bought the place. It’s an old hunter’s cabin, so we don’t use it much, but Brenna likes to keep it stocked in case of client emergency.”

She visibly perked despite the rain trickling down over both of them. “Stocked?”

“Just a couple of MREs and some firewood. Nothing to get excited about.”

“I’m already excited,” she said. “I’ve never had an MRE and I’m already tired of apples.” They’d eaten them along the way, but six apples later, and she was already looking for alternatives.

“We’ll have a fire and I’ll fix you a meal, then,” Colt said. “But you have to ask nicely.”

“I am excellent at pleading my case,” she said in a silky, teasing voice. “I’m sure we can work something out.”

Well damn. He’d just gone instantly hard. Luckily for him, the cabin came into view and she gasped at the sight of it. “We’re here,” he said.

It was also smaller than he’d remembered, he thought critically,
looking at the little thing. The one window was caked with dirt and the old roof sagged on one side.

“I am so thrilled to see that thing right about now,” she said with a laugh. “I can’t wait to make a fire. It’ll be so nice to be warm again. I’m going to have permanent goose bumps at this rate.”

A twinge of guilt fired over him. It was his fault she was out here this weekend, just because he was a petty jackass. He squashed the feeling. “Why don’t you check it out and I’ll start gathering some firewood.”

Maybe if he built her a nice big fire, he’d feel a little better about being a lying dick. Worth a shot.

There was wood in the cabin, but he didn’t want to clean it out the first night they were there, so he went to forage in the woods. When he returned with an armful of wet tinder, he heard an enormous thwack from inside the cabin.

“Beth Ann?” he called out, warningly. “You okay in there?”

She came out a minute later, holding a stick like a club. Her breath came in rapid gasps and her blue eyes were lit up. “I just killed a rat the size of my foot.”

“Probably more like a possum,” he said, amused.

“Oh.” She panted for a moment, then tilted her head at him. “Should we keep it?”

“Keep it?”

She nodded and wiped a hand over her brow, as if killing a creature had been a big effort. “You know, in case we have to eat it.”

“We don’t have to eat it,” he drawled.

But she bristled at that. “We’re surviving, right? You’d make your students eat it, wouldn’t you?”

“First of all,” he said, dumping the armful of wood. “I wouldn’t make my students eat it, because it’s most likely diseased. And second of all, we have MREs and we’re only going to be stuck here for the weekend. You won’t starve.”

Her eyes gleamed with a challenging light and she studied her stick. “You don’t think I can eat it, do you?”

“I don’t think
I
can eat it,” he pointed out. “And I’ve eaten a lot of disgusting things in the name of survival.”

“I could eat it,” she repeated.

He stepped up to her and looked down into her beautiful, clean face. She was just as pretty without a bit of makeup, he decided just then. Especially with that wicked gleam in her eye. “You tryin’ to prove something to me, Beth Ann?”

“I’m tougher than I look,” she said up to him, her gaze assessing. “And if I needed to eat a possum, I’d do it.”

“Of that, I have no doubt,” he drawled. “But I already know you’re tougher than you look. You’ve already proved it.”

Her eyes glittered with the compliment and her smile grew even wider, as if he’d just told her that she was the most beautiful woman on earth. “I could kiss you right about now for saying that,” she said, smiling up at him.

You could,
he thought.

But she didn’t make a move. Just smiled.

Figured. Just girly talk. He gave her one of his lazy, “I don’t give a shit” smiles and turned away. “I’m going to get some more wood.”

Damn. She’d totally blown that moment. She’d been hitting on him hard and he hadn’t even taken her up on it. Had she lost her
mojo? Was she horribly unsexy? Or did Colt find her revolting? Weak? Both? She knew he was extremely disciplined and spent a lot of time in the woods, honing his craft. Was that why he was ignoring her feeble attempts at flirting?

Ugh. She didn’t like to think that he might not respect her or was only tolerating her because he had to. Sure, they had to be together this weekend, but that didn’t mean he had to loathe her company, right?

She didn’t like to dwell on those sorts of things. That wasn’t her style. But if she liked him, she needed to put it out there in the open or else he’d never get the hint.

Still, a little help on his end would not be amiss.

“Stay here. I’ll be back,” he said, without glancing over at her.

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” she said, and rubbed her calves. They’d done enough hiking today. The cabin was set up at a prime location, slightly raised off the ground and thick with grass, which meant less mud. She liked less mud.

As he disappeared back into the woods to get another armful of firewood, she gathered rocks to line the fire pit. She didn’t know much about fires, but the ones in movies had rocks around the edges, right? So she’d do what she could. Her strappy shoes were just about destroyed from the day’s hike anyhow. They’d cut into her feet for hours but she didn’t have any other shoes, so it did no good to complain. Too bad she couldn’t burn them, she thought with a grimace. She did find a water bucket that she put outside to collect rainwater.

After another armful of wood, Colt knelt beside the ring of rocks and began to set up the wood in a tepee fashion. She bent over to watch. He wasn’t really instructing, but even she could
pick up on the basics. He’d taken a handful of tinder out from the supplies in the cabin—she hadn’t known what to make of the bucket of it, but now she was glad that they had it—and stuck it underneath the tepee of wood. Then, he pulled out an oversized pocket knife and flicked out a piece of square metal.

“What’s that?”

“Magnesium. It’s a fire starter.” He took the other side of the knife and shaved the bar on one side, then began to flick the knife against the magnesium, letting it spark repeatedly until the tinder caught, and began to smoke. The entire process had taken minutes.

“Handy,” she commented, impressed. “I should get me one of those.”

He glanced over at her, the hint of a smile tugging at his mouth. “Probably not much use in a beauty salon.”

“You’re right. I’d be much better off arming myself with a curling iron.”

Again that flash of an almost smile. It was encouraging. He nodded at the fire, barely more than a little spark in the middle of all that tepee wood. “Get me a little more tinder from the bucket, if you please.”

She did so, quickly, and commented, “You guys sure have a lot of supplies in there. I thought it wouldn’t be much of anything.”

He grunted. “Grant feels that if we have clients on the land, in case of emergency, we need to have the supplies readily available for them to survive with. Last I checked, there’s even a tackle box. Don’t see why we don’t just put a few cans in there with a can opener and a sign that says ‘Here, eat this.’”

“You don’t approve?”

He shrugged, feeding small twigs to the fire. “Not for me to approve or disapprove. It all boils down to the students. If they’re willing to learn, we can teach them. If not, well…” He shrugged. “We have MREs and a pile of firewood at the ready.”

She sat on her haunches near the fire, watching the smaller bits he fed into the fire take flame and grow. “Yes, but we’re using the supplies, too.”

He flicked a glance over at her. “We’re different.”

Not in a bad way, she hoped. As he leaned forward and fed twigs on the fire, she watched his bare chest flex. His chest was rock hard. A hint of a six pack rippled on his abdomen, and his shoulders were big and lean. Allan had stopped exercising in college and had put on a belly. She hadn’t minded, of course, but all this lean, brawny muscle in front of her made her pulse flutter and she remembered how nice it was to dig her nails into a man’s skin and feel the taut muscle underneath.

All thoughts she kept to herself, of course.

Soon enough, the fire was crackling. Colt dragged two of the larger pieces of wood out and laid them flat, and they served as seats. They curled up near the fire on their logs, and pulled out two of the MREs and a bottle of water to split between the two of them. Colt showed her how to pull the tab on her MRE to heat it. The meal itself was kind of hideous if she stopped and thought about it, but she didn’t, and wolfed it down without complaint, noticing Colt did the same.

“Not the tastiest meal,” he said casually.

“Better than apples,” she said, and leaned over to nudge him with her shoulder teasingly. “Don’t knock it.”

At her casual brushing against him, he stiffened, and she internally winced. Okay, maybe she was striking out. He just wasn’t into her. That was fine, really. They could be friends. Being enemies made hanging out with Miranda and Dane awkward, anyhow.

“So what’s the plan?” she said, putting her hands on her knees and looking over at him.

He squinted at the skies. “It’s probably going to rain again tonight. We’ll stay here, warm up by the fire, and head into the cabin for the evening…once I get rid of your possum.”

She rubbed her arms. “Sounds just fine to me.”

He stood up and headed into the cabin. Well, while he was occupied, she could at least get rid of the shoes that had been paining her so much. For a few hours, anyway. She bent to wiggle one off her foot. The straps were caked with mud and when she pulled it off, she winced with pain, hissing as it felt like part of her skin came with it. Blisters, then. Or she’d rubbed her foot raw. With all that mud on her feet, it was impossible to tell. All she knew was that it hurt.

“Something wrong?” he said, startling her. She turned and looked over her shoulder and he hovered there, frowning down at her.

“Oh…” She turned back to her foot and began to pry the other strappy sandal off. “Just questioning my choice in footwear. They seemed fine when I didn’t have to slog through a foot of mud cross country. I’m going to be feeling this for weeks.”

“Hurts?” he asked.

She nodded.

He moved in front of her and sat on his knees. To her surprise, he reached for her foot and pulled it onto his lap.

She sucked in a breath of surprise at the feel of his strong, callused fingers against her foot, but winced when he grazed one of the raw spots on her foot.

“You tore them up pretty good,” he said with a drawl.

“I didn’t have another pair of feet to walk on,” she said with a laugh, then winced when his fingers swept over her foot and grazed another tender spot.