Two Alone (15 page)

For some inexplicable reason, her terror had manifested itself in desire. Cooper had responded. Then she had. Thank heaven he'd come to his senses before something drastic had happened.

Rusty only wished that she had been the one to come to her senses first. He might erroneously think that she'd wanted
him
—when in fact, what she had wanted was
someone.
He was just the only one around. And if he thought anything else, he was sorely mistaken.

Imitating him by making her bed—never let it be said that he was a superior survivor—she went to the sink and pumped enough water to bathe her face and brush her teeth. She dressed in the same pair of slacks she'd worn yesterday—air conditioning provided by Jack
t
he Ripper, she thought peevishly—but put on a fresh flannel shirt. She brushed her hair and tied it back
w
ith a shoelace. It was when she was pulling on her socks that he realized she had been moving about without the aid of her
c
rutch
e
s. There was very little soreness left in her leg. They might not be pretty, but Cooper's stitches had worked to heal
he
r injury.

Not wanting to feel any kindness toward him, she moved to the stove and fed short sticks of firewood into it. She filled a
cat
tle with water and spooned coffee into it, sadly thinking about the automatic coffee maker with the built-in digital timer that she had in her kitchen at home.

Forcibly tamping down a wave of homesickness, she began making a breakfast of oatmeal. Reading the directions on the side of the cylindrical box that she'd found among the food supplies, she was glad to discover that oatmeal didn't require any
c
ooking skills beyond boiling water and pouring in the correct portion of oats.

Unfortunately her guess was off a trifle. Cooper came stamping in and without preamble demanded, "Have you got breakfast ready yet?"

None coo charitably, she answered, "Yes. Sit down."

She wanted to serve him a steaming bowl of creamy oatmeal like the ones in the commercials on TV. Instead, when she lifted the lid on the pot, she gazed down into a gooey mess about the color and consistency of setting concrete, except lumpier.

Dismayed, but determined not to show it, she squared her shoulders and dug out two spoonfuls. When she dumped them into the tin bowls, they landed in the bottom of them like lead. She carried the bowls to the table, set them on the rough wood plank with forceful disdain, and took her chair across from him.

"Coffee?" he said.

She bit her lip in consternation, but got up, poured their coffee and returned to the table without saying a single word. She let her body language convey her dislike for his lord-of-the-manor attitude.

He scooped up a bite of die oatmeal and weighed it in his spoon, eyeing her skeptically. Silen
tl
y, she challenged him
t
o say anything derogatory about her oatmeal. He put the bite in his mouth,

As though instructing him on what to do with it once it was there, Rusty took a bite of hers. She almost spat it out immediately. Instead, knowing he was watching her with his eagle eyes, she chewed it. It seemed to expand instead of get smaller. Finall
y
she had no recourse but to swallow it
t
o get rid of it. Her stomach must have thought she was eating golf balls. She swilled down a scalding gulp of coffee.

Cooper's spoon clattered against his bowl. "Is this the best you can do?"

Rusty wan
t
ed to come back with, ""Was last night the best
you
could do?" But she reasoned that aiming such an insult at a man's lovemaking abilities might be justifiable grounds for homicide,
s
o
she judiciously said,
"
I
don't cook that much at home."

"Too busy flitting from one expensive, fancy res
t
aurant to another, I guess." "Yes."

Maki
ng a terrible face, he forced down another swallow of the
fo
ul stuff. "This isn't that presalted, presweetened oatmeal that
com
es in the cute little packages with teddy bears and bunnies tin them; this is the real stuff. Add salt to the water next time. Use only about half as much oatmeal, and then sprinkle sugar over it. But not too much. We've got to ration our supplies."

"I
f you know so much about cooking. Scoutmaster, why don't
y
ou do it?" she asked sweetly.

He shoved his bowl aside and propped his forearms on the table. "Because I've got to do the hunting and fishing and firewood cutting. But, now that I think about it, cooking is a whole lot easier. Want to swap? Or do you plan to make me do
all
the work while you lounge around and watch your fingernails grow back?"

In a flash and a scraping sound of wood on wood, Rusty was Out of her chair and leaning across the table. "I don't mind doing my share e>f the work and you know it. What
1
do
mind
is
having my best efforts criticized by you."

"If this is any indication of your best efforts, we'll be dead of starvation inside a week."

"I'll learn to do better," she shouted. "It can't be soon enough for me." "Oh!"

She spun away and when she did, the flannel shirt, which she'd left unbuttoned, flared open. Cooper's arm shot out and grabbed her arm.

"What's that?" Reaching inside the open shirt, he pulled down the strap of her tank top.

Rusty followed the direction of his gaze down to the slight discoloration on the upper curve of her breast. She looked at the round bruise, then lifted her eyes up to his. "That's where you...kissed..." Unable to go on, she made a helpless gesture with her hands. "Last night," she added huskily.

Cooper snatched his hand back, as guilty as Adam when caught sampling the forbidden fruit.
Rusty
could feel the blush rising in her neck. It spread as evenly and thoroughly as his eyes were moving over her. He no
t
iced the rosy abrasions that his whiskered jaw had made around her mouth and against her face and throat. He grimaced with regret and raised his hand to his chin. When he rubbed it, the scratching noise filled the silence.

"
S
orry.

"It's okay."

"Does it...do they hurt?" "Not really."

"Did it, you know, when...?"

She shook her head. "I didn't notice then."

They quickly glanced away from each other. He moved to the window. It was drizzling outside. Occasionally a pellet of slee
t
would ping against the glass.

"I guess I should explain about last night," he said in a low, deep voice.

"No. No explanation is necessary, really."

"I don't want you to think I'm impotent or anything like that."

"I know you're not impotent."

His head snapped around and their gazes locked. "I don't
guess
I could keep it a secret that I was ready and able." Rusty swallowed with difficulty and lowered her head. "No."

"That leaves willing." She kept her head bowed. "Well, aren't you even curious as to why I didn't go through with it?" he asked after a lengthy moment.

"
I
didn't say I wasn't curious. I only said that you didn't have to explain, We're strangers, after all. We owe each other no explanations."

"But you wondered." He poin
t
ed an accusing finger at her. "Don't deny that you wondered why I didn't finish it."

"I assumed that there is someone back home. A woman." "No woman," he barked. At her shocked expression, he
sm
iled crookedly. "No man, either."

She laughed uneasily. "That never occurred to me." The injection of humor didn't las
t. His smile inverted itself int
o a frown. "I don't make sexual commitments."

Her chin went up a notch. "I don'
t
remember asking for one." "You didn't have to. If we... If I... With just the two of us here,
f
or God knows how long, tha
t
's what it would amount to. We're already dependent on each other for everything else. We don't need in make the situation any more complicated than it already is."

"I couldn't agree with you more," she said breezily. She had never taken rejection very well, but neither had she ever let her hurt feelings show, "I lost my head last night. I was frightened. More exhausted than
1
realized. You were there, you did the humane thing and rendered comfort. As a result, things got ou
t
of hand.
"
T
hat's all t
he
re
was to
it."

The lines running down either side of his mouth pulled in tighter. "Exactly. If
we
'd met anywhere else, we wouldn't have looked at each other twice."

"Hardly," she said, forcing a laugh. "You wouldn't exactly fit in with my cosmopolitan crowd. You'd stick out like a sore thumb."

"And you in your fancy clothes would be laughed off my mountain."

"So, fine," she said testily.

"
Fine.
"

"It's settled."

"Right."

"We've got no problem."

One might wonder, then, why they were facing each other like pugilists squaring off. The air was redolent with animosity. They'd reached an agreement. They'd figuratively signed a peace treaty. But by all appearances they were still at war.

Cooper was the first to turn away and he did so with an angry jerk of his shoulders. He pulled on his coat and picked up his rifle. "I'm going to see what the stream has to offer in the way of fish."

"Are you planning to shoot them?" She nodded at his rifle.

He
frowned at her sarcasm. "I rigged up a tro
t
line while you were languishing in bed this morning." He didn't give her time to offer a rebuttal before he added, "I also started a fire under that caldron outside. Do the laundry."

Rusty followed his gaze down to the tall pile of dirty clothes and looked at it with unconcealed astonishment. When she-turned back to him, the spot he
’
d been standing in was empty. She hurried to the door as quickly as her limp would allow.

"I was going to do the laundry without you telling me to," she shouted at his retreating back. If he heard her, he gave
no
indication of it.

Cursing, Rusty slammed the door shut. She cleared the table.
It
took her almost half an hour to scrub clean the pot shed cooked the oatmeal in. Next time she would remember
t
o pour hot water in it as soon as she'd spooned the oatmeal out.

She then attacked their pile
of
dirty clothes with
a
vengeance. By the time he came back, she wanted to be finished with
t
he chore she'd been summarily assigned. It was mandatory that she prove to him that last night's breakdown was a fluke.

After putting
on
her coa
t
, she carried the first load of clothes outside and dropped it into the caldron. Previously, she had thought that such black iron pots suspended over smoldering
coals
existed only in movies. She used a smooth stick to swish the
c
lothes around. When they were as clean as she thought they'd
get,
she lifted them out of the water with
th
e slick and tossed them
into
a basket that Cooper had washed out the day before.

By the time she'd finished washing all the clothes using this archaic method, her arms were rubbery with fa
t
igue. And by the
nine
she had wrung them out and hung them up to dry
on
the wire tha
t
stretched from the corner of the house to the
nearest
tr
ee
,
her arms felt as if they were about to fall off. Not only that.
H
er
wet hands were nearly frozen, as was her nose, which dripped
c
onstantly. Her leg, too, had begun to ache again.

A rewarding sense of accomplishment helped relieve some of
her
miseries. She took comfort in the thought of having done
her
job well. Once again inside the cabin, she warmed her hands
by
the
fire. When circulation returned to them, she tugged off her boots and wearily climbed onto her bed. I
f
anyone deserved a nap before dinner, it was she.