Up Close and Dangerous (Page 66)

Because there were two of them working, and because Cam had a much better idea what he was doing than Bailey had had that first day, the shelter quickly came together. The angle of the tree where it lay across the large rock created, at the highest point, a space large enough that they could sit up. Cam had positioned the fire so some of the heat would radiate against the rock, and thus into the shelter. Sheltering the fire from the wind was still a problem, so he stacked limbs in a berm on the other side of the fire, building it higher until the flames stopped dancing so wildly.

The end of the job saw them both a little sweaty and a lot dirty. The dirt factor made Bailey’s nose wrinkle, but it was the sweat that was dangerous. Cam sat by the fire while she crawled into their new “home,” complete with the pieces of foam she’d insisted they bring along—at least they were almost weightless—to clean up and dry off as best she could.

When she crawled out, once again bundled in layers and layers of clothing, Cam was carefully placing pinecones around the edges of the fire. “Wow,” she said. “Now the campsite will smell all Christmasy. That’s a touch I hadn’t thought of.”

“Smart-ass. After the cones are roasted, we can eat the nuts out of them. I wish I’d remembered this yesterday.”

“Really? Pine nuts? They really come from pinecones?” Funny how she’d always thought pine nuts were just called that for some unknown reason. Crouching beside the fire, she poked at the cones. Who would have thought? She was ecstatic at the thought of food—warm food, at that. Nuts, any kind of nuts, would go a long way toward easing their hunger.

“They really do. Watch them and don’t let them catch on fire,” Cam instructed as he slid into the shelter. “I’m going to get dried off before this sweat freezes on me.”

She sat down and held her hands toward the fire. After a moment she realized she was listening intently to the sounds Cam made as he undressed and briskly dried off, imagining him naked even though she knew he wasn’t, any more than she had been. Had he listened to her moving around as she removed individual pieces of clothing, and imagined her naked? Or had he been too busy gathering up the pinecones?

Abruptly she realized that their cleaning up could almost be construed as a prelude to sex, as if they had been preparing themselves for each other. She hadn’t been uncomfortable with him at all during the three nights they’d already spent together, but sex hadn’t been on the table then. Now it was. And while sex in itself didn’t make her uncomfortable, the prospect of sex with him was enough to make her nervous and self-conscious.

Maybe she was reading more into the situation than was really there. After all, he was still recovering from a fairly serious head injury. He was a smart man; he knew he shouldn’t overexert himself right now.

Uh-huh, she thought wryly. That’s why he’d been pulling a sled through the snow all day.

On the other hand, he had been pulling a sled all day. He was probably exhausted. Sex was probably the last thing on his mind.

Sure. This was the same man who’d had a hard-on the very first day, when he’d been half-dead, and had sported one several times since then. From what she could tell, sex was the last thing on his mind…before he went to sleep, and it was the first thing on his mind when he woke up.

He’d been very low key, she realized. He hadn’t been pushing her at all. The thing was, he wasn’t a low-key personality. He was calm, but he was decisive and determined. He made up his mind to do something, then he did it come hell or high water. That wasn’t low key.

The question was, did she want to have sex with him? Yes! And no. She was terrified of things going that far between them, but her objection was on a mental and emotional level. On a purely physical level, she wanted his weight on top of her and his hips wedged between her legs. She wanted to feel him inside her.

She had to decide: yes or no? If she said no, he’d stop. She trusted him absolutely on that part.

A smart woman would say no. A cautious woman would say no. Bailey had always been smart and cautious.

Until now. She glanced at the shelter’s entrance, and every instinct in her whispered: yes.

29

CAM HAD ANOTHER IDEA: HE EMPTIED OUT THE METAL first-aid kit again, and filled it with snow, then placed it on the hot coals at the edge of the fire and added a handful of pine needles. The tea was supposed to be nutritious, he said, and something hot to drink would go a long way toward their comfort.

Bailey was so on edge she could barely sit still. Half an hour ago the idea of a hot drink would have had her in raptures, but now she couldn’t wrench her thoughts from the coming night. Automatically she pulled a pinecone apart as he’d shown her, searching for the small, dark nuts; not every individual leaflet of the cone had one. In the first cone she’d found maybe ten or twelve, but they were so small that didn’t amount to much. The good news was, the cones were plentiful. Roasting them, then collecting the nuts, took some time, but it wasn’t as if they had pressing engagements elsewhere.

Finally they had collected enough nuts for both of them to feel as if they’d actually eaten something. To her surprise, even though she ate no more than what she could cup in her palm, she was surprisingly full. They needed more roasting, so the taste wasn’t all that great, but she didn’t care; food was food. She wasn’t at the grub-eating stage yet, but for the first time she knew what it was to be hungry enough that grubs weren’t out of the question.

As the snow in the first-aid box melted, Cam added more until there was enough liquid for both of them to have about a cup. She watched the water take on a pale green tint as the pine needles steeped.