Danger Becomes You

Despite himself, he was impressed. Not too many women he’d known would be handling the present situation without resorting to tears. He thought of his mother and smiled. And his oldest brother Jake’s wife, Ashley. Now there were two women who stood up to whatever or whoever gave them grief, taking names and kicking butt.

He didn’t know his other two sisters-in-law well enough to put them in the same category, but he had a strong hunch that any woman who would take on Jared and Jude would have to know how to stand her ground.

He went over to his chair and sat down. He’d been reading a biography of General Patton for the past few days. He found the man and his life to be fascinating. The bio had kept his mind off of his present circumstances. For a while, at least.

He needed to come to terms with his military career. He could ask for a discharge, but if he did, what would he do after that? He’d considered himself career military until that last recon mission. Despite the fact he’d been told by his superior officers several times in the hospital that there was nothing he could have done to save the two men’s lives and that the rest of the squad, despite their wounds, survived because of his quick thinking, he had trouble accepting their reassurances. He shouldn’t have lost a single man and he knew it.

“If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll turn in. I was up rather early this morning.” He looked up and saw that Leslie had changed into the sweats he’d given her. She had the pants doubled at the waist and they still puddled around her stockinged feet.

The sweatshirt was a little better. At least it should keep her warm.

Her determined politeness amused him for some reason. Gravely, he nodded his head. “I’ll do my best not to make too much noise so as not to disturb you,” he replied, equally politely. Since the only noise when they weren’t talking was the sound of the wind howling and the occasional pop and sizzle of the wood inside the stove, he expected to get a smile out of her.

Instead she nodded soberly and returned to the other end of the room. He watched as she lifted a flap of the blanket and got into the bed, the blanket falling back into place and effectively concealing her.

He shook his head. You’d think the fact that he could barely get around would have convinced her she had no worries where he was concerned.

He wasn’t certain whether to be flattered or insulted.

Two

“Take cover! Take cover! Ambush! Thompson’s hit. We’ve got to reach him! Noooooooooo!”

Leslie sat straight up in bed, almost hitting her head on the bunk above. What was going on? Who was shouting?

She pulled the blanket back and saw that Jason must be dreaming. She could barely see that he lay on his bed without covers, wearing nothing but his underwear. He moaned and muttered something she couldn’t quite decipher.

Slowly, Leslie released the blanket and lay down once again. What had happened to this man? Was he in the military? She turned over and faced the wall, pulling the covers up to her neck.

The room had cooled off considerably since she’d gone to bed and yet Jason lay bare. Maybe it was just as well that the room was so dark because she had seen more than she should have. The blanket around her bunk was to give him a little privacy, as well.

Leslie shivered. Wondering about the stranger whose cabin she was in kept her from worrying about her own situation. She didn’t dare call Teri to see if those men had returned looking for her. With their access to law enforcement data, it was possible they had already discovered that she had rented a car.

Would they look for any relatives she might visit? If so, it was possible she may have endangered Larry and his family. Those men could already be in Michigan, looking for her.

The thought terrified her.

Eventually, Leslie drifted off to sleep. When she opened her eyes again a faint light in the room testified that morning had arrived. She pulled her arm out of the cover. The air was cold, although she could hear the crackling of the fire in the stove.

She sat up and pushed the blanket aside, surprised to see Jason on the floor near the stove, exercising. From his muttered curses, the movements must be painful and yet he continued to work his leg and, after several minutes, his arm and shoulders.

Leslie suddenly realized she was watching him once again without his knowledge and quickly dropped the blanket. The light from the kerosene lamp on the table had gilded his body, emphasizing the ridge of muscles running down his torso.

She waited until she heard the bathroom door close before she peeked out to make certain he was no longer in the main part of the cabin. When she knew she was alone, she hurriedly changed into her own clothes and folded the ones she’d borrowed and placed them on the pillow.

After warming her hands at the stove, she wandered into the kitchen nook and looked around. She was amazed at all the provisions. He didn’t have much in the refrigerator but there was plenty of food for her to prepare for breakfast.

She quickly made a batch of biscuits, found some packages of dried fruit and nuts as well as oatmeal. While the biscuits cooked, she made oatmeal, adding dried apricots and chopped walnuts.

The table was set and coffee poured when Jason came out of the bathroom. He’d showered and shaved and she found the transformation remarkable, given the way he’d looked when she first arrived. He was younger than she’d guessed.

Once again he wore jeans and today had on a bulky sweater that must have been bought for him by a loved one because it matched the unusual color of his eyes.

He stopped abruptly when he saw the table. She ducked back into the alcove and grabbed the biscuits, quickly placing them on the table before returning to the kitchen.

“What—? You didn’t have to—” He stopped when she returned with the oatmeal.

She smiled at him. “I hope you don’t mind that I made breakfast.”

“Mind?” he said slowly. He absently pulled her chair out for her before he sat. Ah, so he’d been taught manners at some time in his life—sometime before becoming a hermit. “Thank you,” he said.

Neither one said anything during the meal. She replenished his oatmeal, finishing up what she’d made. When she set it in front of him, he looked up at her. “Where did you get the idea of putting stuff in the oatmeal?”

Since he’d wolfed down the first bowl, she didn’t think he was criticizing her. She ate one of the biscuits while he finished off the rest of them. After sipping her coffee, Leslie replied, “That was one of my mother’s ideas. I used to hate oatmeal so she started experimenting with different ingredients to coax me into eating it.”

“Hmm. Where does your mother live?”

What had happened to the curmudgeon of the day before? The lines on his face were still there, especially around his mouth, but at least he was civilly attempting to make conversation.

“She lived in Alabama until she died last spring.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. I bet you were raised in Alabama, weren’t you?”

She frowned. “Yes. Why?”

He nodded. “Because your speech patterns sound like Alabama.”

She tilted her head slightly. “And you know that because…?”

“One of the men in my squad was—” He stopped, shook his head and drank some coffee. The scowl on his face from yesterday returned.

She waited, but he said no more.

His squad. Military. Something bad had obviously happened that he didn’t want to discuss. She could understand. She certainly had no intention of telling him why she’d left Tennessee in such a hurry.

She searched for another topic of conversation. Finally she said, “Are your parents still alive?”

He nodded and stood. He cleared the dishes from his side and carried them to the kitchen. She shrugged and finished clearing the table. When she went around the corner she saw that he was filling the sink with soapy water.

“I can do that,” she said, adding the dishes she’d carried to the stack beside the sink.

“That’s okay,” he said without looking up. “Thanks for breakfast, by the way.”

A clear dismissal.

She turned away with an inaudible sigh and went over to the stove, which was really radiating heat now. After holding her hands out to the warmth for a few minutes, she walked over to the window and looked out.

It was still snowing. Surprise, surprise. Maybe Jason hadn’t been kidding about having snow until March. Surely the wind would let up soon. She watched the blowing snow for a while before turning away.

Now what?

She thought with longing about her belongings in the car. She’d bought several paperbacks and magazines on her way north, thinking she would need them once she reached Larry’s place.

She needed them now.

With her decision made, Leslie grabbed her gloves and put on her coat, pulling the hood forward as far as it would go. Just as she reached for the door, Jason spoke.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

The crabby curmudgeon had returned. Without turning around, she said, “To my car.”

“Why?” he asked baldly.

She counted to ten. Slowly. Still facing the door she said, “Because I need some things out of it.”

She heard his disgusted sigh. “You really love to court danger, don’t you?”

Leslie shook her head. “As a matter of fact, I don’t.” She unlocked the door, opened it, quickly stepped through and slammed it behind her.

She looked around the area in front of her. She had no idea how to get back to the car the same way she came, but the clearing between the trees for his driveway was easy enough to see. She would walk that way until she came to the road, then follow the road until she reached her car.

With her plan complete, Leslie stepped off the porch into snow up to her knees. Great. Just what she needed. However, she had no intention of returning to the cabin without something to read, since it was obvious that her reluctant host didn’t consider conversation with her necessary. She’d keep going if it killed her.

And it might.

Leslie lost track of time as she struggled to move through the snow. She had quickly learned to shuffle her way forward. Her legs were wet and clammy-cold. She clenched her teeth. She refused to go back and admit to Jason that he’d been right. So she continued forward, feeling like an inchworm.

By the time she reached the road, she was panting and she’d actually worked up a sweat, which was weird. The snow on the road wasn’t as thick as the stuff on his driveway, probably because some of it had melted before the road cooled off.

She turned and looked back. The cabin was no longer in sight, but she saw the smoke rising, which encouraged her to believe she’d find her way back as she had yesterday.

The car was covered in snow when she found it still nestled in the ditch. Her winter gloves had been no match for the storm. The wool was soaked. She jerked them off and fumbled for the car keys she’d stuck in her coat pocket.

Leslie went to the trunk and pushed snow away until she found the lock.

It was frozen.

She didn’t know whether to cry or to curse. She would not go back to the cabin without her belongings. With new determination she knelt until her mouth was close to the lock and began to blow on it. Every minute or so she’d jiggle the key before continuing to blow. She finally had to stop because she was getting light-headed and the back of her jaws ached from her efforts.

This time when she jiggled the key, there was a faint crunching sound and the key turned. She put all her muscle into prying open the trunk, feeling like a conqueror when it groaned open.

Not wasting any time, Leslie opened her suitcase, stuffed the various books and magazines scattered in the trunk into the bag, and pulled it out of the car.

She closed the trunk, grabbed her keys and looked around. She could either struggle back up the lane to Jason’s house or she could cut through the trees, where the snow wasn’t nearly as deep. There was no question which way she’d choose.

The way through the trees seemed much longer today than it had the day before, but then, she hadn’t been dragging a suitcase the size of a pup tent at the time. Her mother had always told her she was too stubborn for her own good.

“You got that right, Mom,” she said out loud. Maybe her mother had been there to help get the trunk open, knowing that Leslie wouldn’t give up until it was open or she’d succumbed to the cold. She grinned at the thought.

She and her mom had always been close. Her mother had been pregnant with her when her dad had been killed during a police action in the military twenty-six years ago.

Her mother had never been interested in another man and Leslie had grown up convinced that for every woman there was one particular male who was the right one for her. At the ripe old age of twenty-five, she wasn’t as certain of that as she’d been at ten, though.

Her mother had made her feel very special, telling Leslie that she was so thankful she’d had her. She’d kept her husband’s photos around the house so that Leslie would know who he was. What her mother probably hadn’t considered was how much Leslie grew up despising all things military. She’d been deprived of a father; her mother deprived of a husband. And for what? Some military situation that was so minor in the general scheme of things as to have been long forgotten.

She paused and looked around her. It was darker beneath the trees but there was little underbrush to get in her way. She got a better grip on the handle of her suitcase and continued on, her thoughts going back to her childhood to a time when she wasn’t alone, wasn’t scared and wasn’t half frozen.

She’d been gone for over an hour! Jason was so blasted angry at her that if she did manage to survive her outing, he just might strangle her himself.

He’d been pacing from window to window for the past twenty minutes, propelling himself around the room with the help of his cane. He hated feeling so helpless. Despite his wounded leg, he was much better prepared to survive out in this mess, so why hadn’t he insisted on going himself?

Because he hadn’t really believed she’d be so stupid as to go out there. He figured she’d stand out on the porch for a while, realize how ill equipped she was to make it and come back inside.

He didn’t know how long he’d been reading when he realized she hadn’t returned. With a curse, he’d gotten up and made his way to the door. When he’d opened it, he warmed the air with a blistering attack on her intelligence and her stubbornness. He could follow the trail she’d made until the driveway curved out of sight. The snow helpfully showed him how many times she’d fallen and gotten up, moved a few feet and fallen again.

She deserved to freeze out there. Or so he’d been telling himself for the past hour. Now he was scared. She’d been gone much too long. Like it or not, he was going to be forced to go find her, probably in a snowbank, unconscious.

He took the time to put on his heavy winter gear. He couldn’t use the snowshoes, which further infuriated him. Instead he got his crutches out and hoped like hell he wouldn’t fall while moving through the snow.

Jason had gone about ten feet down the driveway when a movement to his left caught his eye. It was Leslie, creeping along beneath the trees and pulling a humongous suitcase by a strap. Of course the thing tipped over, not for the first time from the looks of it, because the wheels couldn’t work on this kind of terrain. Zombie-like, she stopped, righted it and crept on.

He wanted to shout all his fury at the universe for placing him in this situation. Instead he painstakingly turned and headed toward her.

She didn’t see him until he was right in front of her and when she looked up, she screamed so loud that she startled him, throwing him off balance. If the crutches hadn’t been planted so firmly, he would have toppled over backward.

“What the hell is wrong with you, woman? I came out to see if I could help!”

“You startled me,” she replied, her voice a little hoarse.

“No kidding!” He reached over and lifted the suitcase. “Get into the house.”

“But, I—”

“Go!” he thundered, causing her to jump. She stared at him and her look of terror almost undid him. He opened his mouth, closed it and finally said, “Please go into the house and get warm. I’ll get this the rest of the way.”

She nodded mutely and turned away. He watched her creep through the snow between them and the cabin, fall over, right herself and creep forward until she finally reached the porch. Only then did he hook the handle of the suitcase onto the crutch and hobbled forward.

When his nightmare finally ended and he placed the suitcase on the porch, Jase was exhausted. He’d had to rely on the damaged shoulder and it was telling him about it. His side felt as though he’d just run a 100K marathon and his thigh throbbed with each heartbeat.

His muscles were giving out on him when he finally reached the door. It opened just as he touched the handle and Leslie stared at him, wide-eyed.

“I’ll get it,” she said breathlessly, and pulled the suitcase inside. Then she turned back. “Let me help you—”

“Just get out of my way,” he mumbled, too exhausted to raise his voice.

Once inside, he closed and locked the door and leaned against it, breathing hard, his eyes closed. When he finally opened them, she was standing in front of him, wringing her hands. “I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have gone after me. I was okay.”

He stared at her for a long time. “Sure you were. Your lips are blue and you probably have hypothermia. Get those clothes off and get into the shower. Now.” His voice was quite soft. He didn’t know why she rushed away, dragging her suitcase.

She quickly opened it, throwing books and magazines everywhere, found some clothes and quickly went into the bathroom.

He had to get off his good leg or he wouldn’t be able to get around at all. With painful movements he peeled off his winter garb and slowly made his way to his captain’s chair near the potbellied stove.

He sat and carefully removed his boots before he leaned back in his chair.

What had happened out there? He’d been so blasted worried about her that the relief he’d felt when he’d spotted her had caught him off guard. Just because he didn’t want her here didn’t mean he wanted her to die.

Of course he’d been relieved at finding her determinedly dragging that mule train behind her, but what he’d felt at the time was much more than that.

And he didn’t like it.

Three

Leslie stood underneath the warm water. She was so cold. She hadn’t realized how cold until the water hit her skin. Although the water was barely warm, it hurt everywhere it touched her.

She stood with her eyes closed. Why had she done something so foolish? She had no answer.

She dreaded going back into the room where Jason waited. She’d never seen anyone as angry as he was. She worked for accountants who, by and large, were even-tempered people.

Her job! How could she have forgotten? She’d left without telling anyone, not even her boss. A tear trickled down her cheek. As if her whole life hadn’t been turned upside down, she’d let her boss down.

Not that she could have told him what had happened or when she might be able to come back. The fact was that she might be running for the rest of her life. She’d have to find some kind of work, though, to survive. All her savings were tied up with her employee’s benefit package. Sooner or later, she’d be forced to contact them.

Leslie finally turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. Compared to outside, the bathroom now felt almost toasty warm. Well, maybe not quite, but far better than what she’d felt outside.

Remembering her recent trek reminded her that Jason waited on the other side of the door. She shivered. It was a toss-up whether she was more afraid of freezing to death or of facing Jason’s wrath.

At least she had clean clothes to put on. She’d grabbed the first things she could find. Now she understood why people wore long johns in the winter. Too bad she didn’t have any. Once she got away from here, it would be the first item on her shopping list.

Jase forced his quivering arms to hold him as he went into the kitchen alcove. This was one time when he was going to break down and take the pain medication he’d been given.

He’d been trained to ignore pain and had elected not to take the meds because they made him feel weird, as if he was floating or half awake. At the moment he welcomed the sensation if it meant getting some relief.

After he swallowed them, Jase made more coffee, giving a silent plea for the electricity to return. He’d bought a top-of-the-line machine that could be programmed to make coffee. At the moment, his shaking hands spilled as much coffee as he managed to put into the campfire pot he’d found when he moved in. The old drip pot was better than nothing and he needed something hot. As did Leslie.

She’d turned off the shower several minutes ago but after that he’d heard nothing. He supposed he would hear some noise if she’d passed out and crashed onto the floor.

By the time the coffee was ready, the pain pills had taken the edge off and he managed to fill two cups and carry them to the table without spilling scalding coffee all over himself.

He heard the bathroom door open but he didn’t look her way. “Have some coffee. It will help you get warm.”

She didn’t reply but he was damned if he was going to beg her to look after herself. She meant nothing to him. Less than nothing. Hell, he’d only known her for less than twenty-four hours.

He sipped on his coffee, keeping his eyes on the swirling snow, until she walked to the table and sat down. He glanced up at her and quickly away. She had a little color in her cheeks now and her lips were pinker.

“Thank you for coming out to help me,” she said.

He lifted one shoulder in acknowledgment.

“You were right. I shouldn’t have gone out there until the snow stopped. It was foolish and you have every right to be angry with me.”

His head snapped up and he stared at her. “I’m not angry at you.”

“You gave a great imitation, then.”

“I was scared out of my wits, Leslie. You were gone much too long. I figured I’d find your body lying somewhere in a snowdrift.”

A corner of her mouth lifted. “I couldn’t get the trunk open. The lock had frozen.”

“Then how did you get your bag?”

“I blew on it for what seemed like forever in hopes it would thaw a little.” Before he could comment, she said, “I know. It was a stupid thing to do.”

“Not if it worked.” He settled back into his chair. Other than feeling as though he’d had several beers in quick succession, he felt fine. He glanced at her again. She looked like a baby chick with her fine hair in tufts around her face and neck. When she lifted her cup she saw him staring at her. She paused with her coffee halfway to her mouth and blinked.

She really was a cute kid. “How old are you?” he asked.

“Twenty-five.”

“Really. I figured you to be in your teens.”

“How old are you?”

“Just turned thirty.” He could tell she was surprised. Probably thought he was some old crippled geezer. “How old did you think I was?”

“I didn’t know. I’m not very good at judging people’s ages.”

“Ah.” He waited, but when she didn’t say anything more, he asked, “What do you do for a living?”

She placed her cup on the table, folded her hands around it and asked, “What difference does it make?”

“None whatsoever. Just making conversation.”

“That’s a change,” she muttered, bringing her cup to her mouth and draining it.

“I realize I haven’t been very friendly since you arrived.”

“Gee. You think?”

He shrugged. “Okay, so I’ve been rude. I apologize. So why don’t we start over?” He held out his hand. “Glad to meet you, Leslie O’Brien. I’m Jason Crenshaw from Texas, and a member of the United States Army.”