The Gift-Wrapped Groom (13 page)

“And that, Dr. Baranov, is an opinion I wish you'd keep to yourself. Growing Christmas trees is Amy and Lee Wachsmith's livelihood and joy. How could you have said what you did to them?”

Nicholas folded his arms across his chest. “They asked me what I thought of their Christmas tree farm. I simply told them it was a foolish waste of time and wood. This is the truth.”

“As though only you know what is and isn't truth!”

Nicholas clearly heard her anger. Still, she was not nearly as angry as he. Because he was not angry at Noel, the Wachsmiths or the ugly, silly Christmas tree that Noel had wasted so much time choosing.

He was angry at himself for his lack of self-restraint. It had taken so little—the mere brush of her hand against his chest—and he had sought any excuse to touch her, to cool the fire in his hands. The snow wash had simply been the first thing to come to mind.

He could have shown her how to use the snow to rub the dirt off her skin and clothes. He had only insisted on doing it himself because of how good it felt to touch her, even through the snow, even through her clothes. He had even used her being ticklish as an excuse to touch her further. And with each small inch he claimed up her thigh, up her chest—

He shook now as he remembered the burning heat in his hand, so eager to touch her breast. How the control that was his life had begun to slip so quickly that moment when he looked into the excited, curious, warm glow in her eyes staring up at him.

“Look, Nicholas. I think we'd better get a few things straight.”

Her sharp tone irritated him. Good. From now on, he would let everything she did or said irritate him. It would be his defense against this heat for her.

“Christmas is very special to me. I know you don't understand the season or approve of its celebrations. But I'd appreciate your keeping your bah humbug attitude to yourself from now on.”

“I do not understand what this bah humbug is.”

“Amazing how well you project what you don't understand.”

“So, you will not describe this bah humbug.”

“Bah humbug means you're projecting a negative attitude about Christmas. And infecting others with that negativity. People don't want to hear you disapprove of what is special to them.”

“You are saying I should lie?”

“Oh, what's the use. I'm obviously wasting my breath. If you won't even make an attempt to... What the—”

Nicholas saw the headlights sweeping around the bend toward them at the same moment that Noel yanked the wheel sharply to the right in a desperate attempt to avoid a head-on collision.

Only there was no road to the right.

N
oel opened her eyes and was immediately filled with the strangest sensation of being trapped and gently rocked within a glass snow globe. She blinked several times before she realized that the snow-globe impression came from the white flakes falling past the truck's headlights.

The rocking feeling clearly came from the buffeting the truck was taking in the brisk winter wind. But the feeling of entrapment—now, that was a bit more complicated to unravel, until she realized her head lay on a solid chest and a pair of warm arms encircled her waist.

“Noel? Can you hear me?”

She'd know that bearlike growl anywhere, even this soft and close to her ear.

Her mind quickly replayed a mental image of the headlights of the oncoming truck swerving into her lane. Now she remembered yanking the wheel. Going off the road. She gave a little start within those warm, strong arms.

“We crashed, didn't we?”

“Yes.”

“You're all right?”

“I am fine, Noel.”

Her head twisted around. “Mistletoe—”

“He is all right also.”

“Where? I don't see—”

“Under my arm on the seat.”

A small whimper came from the direction he'd indicated.

Her head twisted with new alarm. “But why—”

“I have been trying to keep him from jumping on you and possibly injuring you further. He seemed rather intent on it.”

Noel felt a sharp pain shooting through her neck, no doubt caused by her twisting movement. “Ow.”

“You are hurt.”

She tried moving her head again, this time a bit more slowly. She could feel Nicholas lying partially beneath and behind her on the cab's seat. She couldn't quite see him, but his strength and warmth were unmistakable.

“No, I'm not hurt. Not really.”

“You expressed pain.”

“Just moved my neck too quickly, I think.”

“Noel, to think is not good enough. I must know. You have been unconscious several minutes.”

“I have?”

“Please move your arms.”

Noel obediently lifted each in turn. “See? They're fine.”

“Now your legs. Slowly, please.”

She looked down and noticed for the first time that the driver's door was open and her legs dangled halfway out into the snowy night. If Nicholas's arms were not holding her so securely, she probably would have already slipped out. She raised each leg slowly in turn. They responded with no reluctance or twinge of discomfort.

“Everything's operational. You'd best let me go so I can get up.”

“No, Noel. You must not try to get up.”

His voice did not differ in tone from its normal deep cadence, but there was something in his quick response that put her instantly on alert. She tried to straighten. He held her in place. Her alarm grew. “Nicholas, what's wrong?”

“The truck went down a hill. We're on a ledge beneath the road. The truck's front end is hanging off this ledge. Only the heavy load of wood in the back is keeping the truck from falling into the deep ravine below.”

His words whirled and formed into terrible pictures in Noel's mind.
Truck...hanging off the ledge? Falling into the deep ravine below?

Reflexively, Noel snatched her legs inside the truck. Her sudden movement set the truck's cab shaking. Eerily. Frighteningly. She gulped. “Dear heaven.”

“You are afraid?”

“I passed afraid several seconds ago. I'm closing in on petrified.”

His arms tightened around her as the truck rocked beneath them. “Noel, we will be all right. I have turned the ignition off and put the gear in reverse. But we must get out of the cab.”

“How?”

“Carefully. Our weight in the cab is now balanced. We must not shift it to one side or the other too quickly. The fulcrum—”

“Fulcrum?”

“The support point that keeps the truck in its position on the ledge must not be upset. You must get out on the driver's side and I on the passenger's side. We must leave together to try to keep the weight balanced. Do you understand?”

“Yes, but then what? There's nothing to get out onto.”

“We will each move backward until we can stand on the ledge.”

“What about Mistletoe?”

“We cannot help him if we do not survive. He must remain here.”

“No. If I leave, I know he'll try to follow me. He'll fall to his death. I must carry him.”

“Noel, you cannot—”

“Then I'll stay here. With him. You go.”

Nicholas exhaled heavily in her ear.

“You are a most arbitrary and stubborn woman.”

“So I keep hearing. Go, Nicholas. Get help. We'll wait.”

“No, I do not know where to get this help even if we had the time. I will carry the dog. Buttoned inside my coat. Now, come. Take several deep breaths with me. Then we will start.”

She listened to the intake of his breath, matched it, then slowly let it out as he did. Twice more he repeated the deep breaths. Twice more she followed. And each time, new confidence poured through her.

“Now, Noel, slowly, I will release you. As I ease over to the passenger door, you must ease over to the driver's door.”

Noel found herself feeling decidedly less brave as those warm arms unwrapped from around her. Slowly, she slipped away. Noel watched Nicholas in the dim light reflecting off the falling snow outside as he gently tucked Mistletoe into his coat and buttoned him inside with just the little dog's face peeking out. He called to her.

“Do not step out. Do not look down. Try to anchor your body before you reach back. Find a handhold. Pull yourself backward until your feet are secure on the ledge. I will match your movements. You understand?”

His voice was calm, confident. She felt that calmness and confidence reaching out to her. “Yes. I understand.”

Noel crawled to the end of the seat. She grabbed hold of the frame inside the door with her left hand, anchoring her left boot in back of the driver's seat. The first thing she felt as she eased slowly around the frame was the icy wind and snow stinging against her face.

The truck shook in the wind. She swung out and grabbed for the back of the cab section with her right hand. Her fingers slipped across the slick surface. She couldn't get a handhold. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the front wheel a foot beyond the snowy ledge, hanging over nothing but a black abyss.

Suddenly, the truck's cab lurched like a teeter-totter, swinging downward, toward the bottomless blackness below. Noel wrapped herself around the back edge of the driver's seat and hung on for dear life, appreciating as never before how dear that life really was.

It seemed like an eternity before the cab stopped rocking. A dreadful, dizzying eternity.

Noel opened her eyes, not even realizing she had closed them. She was appalled to see that the front wheel was now a foot lower than the white ledge. The cab had shifted its position downward. If it shifted anymore, the weight of the logs in the back would no longer be what kept it from going over; it would be what sent it plummeting into the deep ravine.

Noel's stomach flopped queasily. She clung desperately to the cab's seat, closing her eyes against the white whirl of dizziness that threatened to engulf her.

His voice came to her from the other side of the cab. “You can do this, Noel.”

A small half laugh of hysteria preceded her words. “And how do you know I can do this?”

“Because you
must
do this.”

There was something underlying the way he'd said those simple words that Noel had never heard before. It was the sound of survival, pure and simple. And it was the most compelling sound that she had ever heard.

Noel took a deep breath, then let it out. She had no time to be sick, no time for this fear. Nicholas was right. She could do this because she must do this. She concentrated, the blood beating in her ears drowning out even the sound of the wind.

She eased out a bit from her hand and footholds within the cab. She peered out into the blinding snow, trying to see the ends of the stacked wood that Nicholas had securely roped and tied in the truck bed. If she could get a good grip on that wood, she could pull herself back.

She stretched out, reaching for it. Her right hand grasped a log. It was too unsteady. It rolled beneath her touch.

Noel took a deep breath. Her muscles had begun to ache from her awkward position, shaking with the tension in her hands, arms and legs. She stretched out farther, grasping at another log. Her fingers clasped a branch, then the trunk of a sturdy tree—the Christmas tree! It had been lashed tightly. She wrapped her hand around it. It held firm beneath her grasp.

It was now...or maybe never.

She took a deep breath, let go of her handhold inside the cab, swung herself sideways, grabbed the pine tree with her left hand, and with all her strength, pulled her body sideways. For one awful second, there was the sensation of nothing below her. And then blessedly, wonderfully, the feel of the snowy ledge against her legs.

She let go of her handhold and fell onto the ledge, her heart racing, her breath labored, her hands scraped, her legs wobbly. But triumphant. She had done it.

“Noel?”

She lifted her head, trying to make him out in the darkness. She couldn't see Nicholas, but she could feel his warm arm encircle her, bringing her to her feet. Once there, Noel let out a long sigh and fell against him, wrapping her arms around the solid warm reality of him, burying her head against his chest.

“We made it,” she breathed.

For a moment, one wonderful moment, she felt his arms come around her and he held her to him. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to remain within that steel embrace against that strong male frame.

But abruptly he stepped back, held her away from his warmth, then removed even his hands from her arms. And the cold, icy air whipped through her clothes, chilling her body.

Mistletoe nudged her leg and let out an impatient bark. Noel dropped to her knees with tears in her eyes and hugged her little dog, so happy to know he was safe, to feel his warm, affectionate tongue on her cheek.

When she rose, she saw Nicholas had gone to the back of the truck and had grabbed for the excess rope beneath some logs.

“What are you doing?”

“We must try to save the truck. Stay here.” And then he disappeared into the night.

She couldn't see in the blackness. The only light in these dark woods was coming from the truck's headlights, now pointing into the abyss, with its taillights barely visible. She could feel the icy wind. And the slushy snow beneath her boots and against her face. And the cold withdrawal of that one too-brief moment of warmth they had shared.

This was such a confounding, confusing man. Did he feel nothing?

She waited at the back of the truck where he'd left her, wrapping the hood of her jacket tightly around her face, putting her back to the wind and blowing snow, stomping her feet, digging her gloves out of her pockets and slipping her chilly hands inside their fleece lining. She picked Mistletoe up and held him in her arms, for both the warmth and comfort she so badly needed.

The sun had set nearly an hour before and the temperature in the mountains dropped considerably with the nightfall. That, combined with the wind-chill factor, meant it was probably already below zero.

Nicholas was right, of course. They had to try to save the truck. They were miles from anywhere. No transportation meant spending the night up here. And the odds of surviving without shelter in this cold were decidedly against them.

When he reappeared beside her a moment later, she jumped, so silent had been his approach. He handed her the ends of two ropes.

“These ropes are tied to the bottom frame of the truck and the thick bases of two trees sitting up on the rise.”

Noel frowned. “But these ropes will surely break if the truck falls.”

“Yes. But if the truck does not fall, they should keep it steady while I get the tools from the cab and the winch from off the front bumper.”

Noel had never appreciated the expression “struck dumb” until this moment when she was hit by the impact of what Nicholas proposed. It took several very long seconds for her mind to regroup.

“While you do
what?
Wait a minute. You can't—”

By then, Noel might as well have saved her breath. She was already just talking to the wind. Nicholas was gone.

Noel felt a shot of ice slithering down her spine. Nicholas was going to climb back on that truck. Into its cab. And then—dear heaven, she did not want to picture this—out onto the front bumper of that truck swinging over the black abyss, ready at any second to fall into it. And from that position, he was somehow going to disconnect and bring back the winch.

It was so damn unthinkable. So damn heart-stopping. So damn crazy. So damn brave.

Noel tried desperately not to notice how the lights from the truck still careened eerily into the ravine as the wind racked against it. The ropes did not seem to be steadying it at all.

She deliberately looked away, hugged Mistletoe to her, shut her eyes tightly and told herself that he could not die. That he would not die. That nobody that crazy and brave should be allowed to die. And she kept repeating those words over and over until her mind was frozen with them.

“Noel?”

She jumped in astounding, disbelieving surprise to find him again so suddenly beside her in the black night, his warmth a steady block against the cold, snowy wind. She could feel herself shaking again, this time not from the deadly chill of fear but from the thawing warmth of relief.

She felt the small poke against her arm.

“Please take this flashlight from the tool kit.”

Great. Here she was hardly breathing with relief and here he was all business. She set Mistletoe down to take the flashlight and flipped its switch.