Two Alone (7 page)

"
Strip and dry off." He began u
nbuttoning his flannel shirt.
"
A
re you crazy? It's freezing!" Recalcitra
n
tly, she pulled the pelt
back
over herself. Cooper jerked i
t
of
f
her.

"
T
ake off all your clothes. Now!"
H
e shrugged off his flannel shirt and draped it over the nearest
bu
s
h. With one fluid motion, he crossed his arms at his waist
and
peeled the turtleneck T-shirt over his head. It made his hair
stic
k up funnily, but Rust
y
didn't feel like laughing. Laughter—
in fact
any sound at all—got trapped inside her closed throat
.
Her
first glimpse of the finest chest she'd ever seen rendered her
sp
ee
chle
ss.

H
ard as rocks those muscles were. Beautifully sculpted, too,
beneath
taut skin. His nipples were dark and pebbly from the
c
old, their areolae shriveled around them. It was all tantalizingly
cove
red with a blanket of crisp hair that swirled and whorl
e
d,
t
ipped and tapered beguilingly
.

H
e was so trim she could count every single rib. His stomach
w
as flat and tight as a drum. She couldn't see his navel very
well
. It was deeply ne
stled in a sexy tuft of hair.
"
Get
started, Rusty, or I'll do it for you."

H
is threat plucked her out of
her trance. Mechanically, she pee
led off her sweater. Beneath it she was wearing a cotton tur
tle
neck much like his. She fiddled with the hem while she
watch
ed him stand up and work his jeans down his legs. The
long
j
ohns weren't the most alluring sight she'd ever seen.

But Cooper Landry unclothed had to be.

In seconds he was standing there, silhouetted against the dim glow of the fire, stark naked. He was beautifully shaped and generously endowed—so marv
e
lously made that she couldn't help her gaping stare. He quite literally took her breath away.

He draped the articles of discarded clothing on the bush, then pulled a pair of socks over his hands and ran them over his body, drying it thoroughly—everything—before removing
t
he socks from his hands.

Kneeling, he tore into one of the backpacks looking for underwear. He pulled on a pair of briefs, all with a supreme lack of self-consciousness, much less modesty.

When he turned toward her and noticed that she hadn't moved, he frowned with irritation. "Come on, Rusty. Hurry up. It's damn cold out here."

He reached for her sweater, which, so far, was the only thing she'd taken off. She handed it to him and he hung it up to dry. Holding out his hand for more clothes, he snapped his fingers quickly and repeatedly to hurry her along. "Come on, come on." Casting one anxious glance up at him, she pulled the T-shirt over her head and passed it to him.

The cold air was a breathtaking shock to her system. Immediately she was chilled and started trembling so violently she couldn't handle the button on her one-legged trousers.

"Here, let me do that, dammit. Or I'll be standing out here all night." Cooper dropped to his knees and straddled her thighs. Impatiently he pushed her hands out of the way so he could unfasten the button and p
ul
l down the zipper. With a detached
air he
eased the trousers do
wn her legs and tossed them hap
h
az
ard
l
y toward the nearest bush.

But he was brought up short by what he obviously hadn't
ex
p
ect
ed. A pair of extremely feminine, extremely scanty bikini
pan
ties. He'd seen the lace-edged leg, but that was all.
For
what
seem
ed like an eternity, he stared at them before saying gruffly,
"
T
ake them
o
ff."
Rusty shook her head.
"No."
His
face became fierce. "Take them
off."
Rusty shook her head
emph
a
t
ically. Before she could brace herself
for
it, he pressed his
ope
n hand directly over the triangular scrap of silk and lace.
"
Th
ey're wet.
Take them off." T
heir eyes, like their wills, clashed, It was as much the chill
in
his stare as the chill in the air that prompted Rusty to slide
t
he damp garment down her legs. "Now dry
off."

He
handed her a cotton sock like
t
he ones he'd used. She ran
it
over her lower body and her legs. Keeping her head bowed,
sh
e
groped blindly for the underwear Cooper handed her. He
had
n't chosen long
j
ohns because they
c
ould chafe her injury,
s
he
pulled
on
a pair
of
panties similar to the ones she'd just taken oil and which were now dangling from the lower branches of
the
bush, fluttering like a victory banner the morning after a fra
terni
ty beer bust.
"Now the top."

H
er brassiere was just as f
rivolous as the panties that mat
ched them. The morning she left the lodge, she had dressed in clothes befitting her return to civilization. After having to wear thermal underwear
for
several days, she had been good and sick of it.

Leaning forward, she grappled with the hook at her back, bin her fingers were so numb from the cold she couldn't get
it
open. Muttering curses, Cooper reached around her and all b
ut
ripped the hook from its mooring. The brassiere fell forward. She peeled the straps down her arms, flung it away and faced him defiantly.

Beneath his mustache, his mouth was set in a hard, unyielding line. He paused for only a heartbeat before he began roughly rubbing the cotton sock over her throat, chest, breasts, and stomach. Then, reaching around her again, he blotted the sweat off her back. They were so close that her breath stirred his chest hair. Her lips came perilously close to touching one of his distended nipples. Hers, hard and peaked from the cold, grazed his skin.

He pulled back quickly and angrily dragged a thermal top over her head. While she was working her arms into the sleeves, he ripped the damp fur they'd been lying on off the pallet and replaced it with another one. "It's not as soft, but it's dry."

"It'll be fine," Rusty said hoarsely.

Finally they were cocooned again. She didn't resist when he pulled her close to him. She was shivering uncontrollably and her teeth were chattering. But it wasn't long before they began to warm up. Their bodies were in chaos because of what their eyes had seen. Erotic impressions lingered in their minds.

Lying in his embrace fully dressed had been unnerving
eno
ugh. Lying there with him wearing only underwear wreaked
h
avoc on Rusty's senses. Her fever had broken, but her body was burning like a furnace now.

His bare thighs felt delicious against hers. She liked their
hair-s
mattered texture
. Because she was braless, she was sharpl
y aware
of his hand resting
just
beneath her breasts, almost but
not
quite
touching them.

He
wasn't immune to the enforced intimacy. He'd exerted
hi
msel
f
by switching out the pelts and changing clothes so quickly,
but
that wasn't the
only
reason he was breathing heavily. His chest
swelled
and receded against her back rhythmically but rapidly.

And then there was that other inexorable evidence of his arousal.

It
prompted her to whisper, "I don't think I need to...
uh…
prop my leg on top of yours."

A
l
ow moan vibrated through his chest. "Don't even talk about
it! A
nd for God's sake, don't move." His distress was obvious.

"
I
'm sorry."

"
For
what? You can't help being beautiful any more than I can
't
hel
p
being a man. I guess we'll just have to tolerate that
from
each
other."

S
he
honored his request and didn't move so much as a muscle.
She
didn't even reopen her eyes once they were closed. But she
did fall
asleep with a tiny smile on her lips. Inadvertently, p
er
haps, but he had told her that he thought she was beauti
f
ul.

It made a difference in their relationship.

The forced intimacy of the night before didn't draw them closer together. Rather, it created a schism of uneasiness between them. Their conversation the following morning was stilted. They avoided making eye contact. They dressed with their backs to each other. They moved awkwardly. Their motions were jerky and unsure, like those of invalids who had just regained the use of their limbs.

Taciturn and withdrawn, Cooper whittled her a pair of crutches out of two stout tree branches. Aesthetically, they weren't much to rave about, but Rusty was immensely grateful for them. They allowed her mobility. She would no longer be confined to die bed.

When she thanked him, he only grunted an acknowledgement and stamped off through the underbrush toward the
stream
to get water. By the time he returned, she was accustomed
in
the crutches and was hobbling around the clearing on them.
"
H
ow does your leg feel?"

"
O
kay.
I
cleaned it with peroxide myself and rook another pill.
I
thi
nk
it's going to be okay." She had even managed to dress in
the
one remaining pair of slacks and put her boots on. Enough
of t
he soreness was gone that the a
dditional pressure of clothing did
n'
t
irritate the wound.

T
hey drank from the thermos in turn. That passed for break
fast.
Co
oper said, "I'd better start building that shelter today."

T
hey had awakened to find their cocoon dusted with snow.

T
his t
ime the
fl
akes weren't merely grains; they were real and
ominous
, harbingers of the first winter storm. Both knew how
harsh
the winters in this area could be. It was imperative that
they
have a shelter to use until they were rescued. If they weren't
rescu
ed, a temporary shelter would be of little consequence, but neither wanted to think about that. What can I do to help?" she asked.

Y
ou can cut up that suede jacket into strips." He nodded
toward
a jacket that had belonged to one of the crash victims
and
h
anded her an extra knife, "I'll need plenty of thongs to tie
the
p
o
les
together. While you're doing that, I
’
d better se
e
if we've
got
food
for dinner." She looked at him quizzically. "I set some
snares
yesterday."

She
glanced around her apprehensively. "You won'
t
go far, will
you
?
"

"Not too far." He shouldered his rifle and checked to see
that
he had pocketed a box of ammunition. "I'll be back
before
the fire needs to be refueled. Keep the knife and rifle
handy, though. I haven't seen any bear tracks, but you never know."

Without another word he turned and dissolved into the dense screen of trees. Rusty stood leaning on her crutches, her heart thumping fearfully.

Bears
?

After several moments, she shook off her paralyzing fright. "This is silly," she muttered to herself. "Nothing's going to get me."

She wished she had a radio, a television set, anything to relieve the oppressive silence. It was only occasionally broken by the cracking of
t
wigs and the rustling of leaves as unseen forest animals scurried about on their daily forages. Rusty's eyes searched out these silence-breakers, but they remained hidden and thereby more intimidating. She couldn't put Cooper
’
s mention of bears out of her mind.

"He probably said that on purpose just to frighten me," she said
o
ut loud as she viciously sliced through the tough suede with the knife he'd left behind for her use. It was smaller than
t
he one that constantly rode in the scabbard attached to his belt.

Her stomach growled. She thought about fresh, hot and buttery breakfast croissants, toasted bagels and cream cheese, warmed glazed donuts, pancakes and bacon, ham and eggs. That only made her hungrier. The only thing she could do was to fill her empty stomach with water.

Soon, however, drinking so much water created another problem. She put it off as long as possible, but finally had no choice but to set aside her handiwork. Painstakingly, and without a smidgen of grace or coordination, she stood up and propped her arms on her crutches. Going in
t
he direction opposite to that Cooper had taken, she found a spot in which
in
relieve herself.

As she struggled with her crutches and her clothes, at the same
time
checking for creepy crawli
es
on the ground, she marveled that this was really Rusty Carlson, real-estate princess of Beverly
H
ills, seeking a place in the woods to pee!

H
er friends would never have guessed she could come this far without going stark, staring mad. Her father would never believ
e it
.
But if she lived to tell about it, he would be so proud of her.

She was in the process of refastening her pan
t
s when she h
eard
the nearby movement. Swiveling her head in that direct
ion
, she listened. Nothing.

"Probably just the wind." Her voice sounded unnaturally loud and cheerful. "Or a bird. Or Cooper coming back. If he's -creeping up on me as a joke, I'll never forgive him."

She ignored the next rustling noise, which was louder and
neare
r than the last one, and moved as fast as she could back toward the camp. Determined not to do anything so cowardly
as
to whimper or cry out, she clench
ed her jaw in fear as she stum
bled along over the uneven ground.

All her bravery deserted her when the form materialized from
bet
ween the trunks of two pines and loomed directly in her path.
Her
head snapped up, she looked into the beady eyes, the hairy, leering face, and let out a bloodcurdling scream.

C
ooper
was in a hurry to get back, but he decided to dress
the
two rabbits before he returned. He had told himself that he
wasn’t
in
testing her fortitude when he'd gutted the rabbit where
she could
see it.

Bur lie knew deep down inside that's exactly what he'd been doing. Perversely, he had wanted her to cringe, to retch, to get hysterical, co demonstrate some feminine weakness.

She hadn
't. She'd borne up well. Far bet
ter than he'd expected her to.

He tossed away the entrails and began scraping the insides of the pelts. They would come in handy later. The fur was warm and he could always use it to make Rusty—Rusty. Her again. Couldn't he think of anything else? Did his every single thought have to come full circle back to her? At what point had they become a pair as inseparable as Adam and Eve? Couldn't he think of one without thinking immediately of the other?

He remembered the first thought that had registered when he regained consciousness. Her face, alluringly framed in that tumble of russet curls, had been bending over him, and he'd t bought of the vilest obscenity the marine corps had ever coined and came just short of saying it out loud.

He'd been glad to be alive—-but barely. He had thought he'd he better off dead rather than having to put up with this airhead swathed in expensive fur and sexy perfume. In the wilderness she wouldn
't
stand a marshmallow's chance at a bonfire. He'd figured that before it was over, he'd probably have to kill her to put them both out of their misery.

That was an unsettling and unappetizing thought, but he had been forced to do worse in order
to save his own life in Nam. T
he plane crash had caused him to automatically revert to the law of the jungle, to slip back into the role of survivor.

Rule number one: You either killed or got killed. You stayed alive no matter wha
t it cost. The survival tactics
taught to the
ar
my's special services knew no conscience. You did whatever was necessary to live one more day, one more hour, one more
mi
nute. He had been steeped in that doctrine and had practiced
ii
more times than he wanted to remember—but too many
times
to let him forger.

But the woman had surprised him. That leg injury had caused
her
a great deal of pain, but she hadn't whined about it. She hadn't nagged him about being hungry and thirsty and cold and
sca
r
e
d, although God knew she must have been. She
’
d been a tough li
ttle
nut and she hadn't cracked yet. Unless things got drastically
worse,
he doubted now that she would.

Of course that left him with a whole new set of problems. Few people had ever won his admiration. He didn't want to admire
R
ust
y
Carlson, but found himself doing so.

H
e was also coming to acknowledge that he was stranded in the middle of nowhere with a tempting piece of womanhood,
and
t
hat they might be atone and dependent on each other for
a
long
time.

The demons who had guided his fate were having a huge
lau
gh at his expense this time. They'd run amok many times in
the
past, but this was the clincher. This was the big punch line