Linda Howard - Prey

“In that case, how about a bucket?” he asked prosaically. “There’s one I use for the horses.”

The image that brought to mind made her want to laugh, but her own issues kept her reply solemn. “No, thank you. I’ll manage.”

“Ladies first, then. Let’s get you down the ladder; I can wait.”

She was tempted, but common sense raised its sluggish head. “You go ahead. I’m going to pull off these pants and put on my sweatpants again; no point in getting another pair of pants wet when mine already are.”

He didn’t argue with that logic, just collected her wet and dirty sweatpants and dropped them close by the mattress, where she could easily reach them. After stomping his feet into his boots and pulling on his slicker, he let down the ladder and disappeared from view.

A bucket ?

Alone, Angie let a wan smile curl her lips. She might have taken him up on the proposition, if it hadn’t been for the distasteful prospect of emptying said bucket. If she could have handled it herself, no problem, but she wasn’t letting Dare Callahan handle a personal chore like that for her. Uh-uh.

On the other hand, he had seen her naked boobs-almost all of her, in fact. At any other time she’d have been mortified, not because she was so modest, but because she’d actually told him not to laugh at her boobs because they were little. Maybe when she felt more normal, when she wasn’t still numb from the horror of what had happened last night, followed by the sheer struggle just to survive that had whittled her down to little more than willpower-or stubbornness-all of this would bother her more. Right now, it just didn’t, even though normally she hated betraying any sign of vulnerability. Too much had happened for her to worry about whether or not her boobs were little, or that he’d laugh at her.

But he hadn’t laughed, and somehow she didn’t think he would. He wasn’t what she’d expected. The damn man was nothing short of heroic, and that really bothered her, because it proved that once again her judgment had been faulty. How could she trust anyone, when she couldn’t trust herself?

All of that was a subject for later, though, because already she could feel herself tiring, and she hadn’t even made the trip to the toilet yet. Gathering her strength, she tugged his baggy long thermal underwear off and her cold, wet, dirty sweatpants on, shuddering as the clammy material clung to her legs. The sensation was awful, but she comforted herself with the thought that the situation was temporary. As soon as she got back from the toilet, she could change back into the unlovely but blessedly warm thermals.

Her ankle was a problem. More precisely, the elastic bandage wrapping it was the problem, because she couldn’t get her boot on that foot. The bandage would get wet. The only thing to do was unwrap it, which she set about doing. She winced when she saw her ankle; it was an unsavory black and blue and green, swollen to twice its normal size, and removing the pressure of the bandage made the joint throb like blue blazes.

Nothing she could do about it, though, so she shoved the pain aside and pulled on her left boot. It was wet, too, inside and out, another item to go on her list of things to ignore. Next came her rain slicker, but it, at least, didn’t make her shudder when she came into contact with it. She zipped and snapped, pulled the hood up, and was as ready as she could be, except for the fact that she was on the second-story sleeping platform and she needed to be at the bottom of that long ladder.

“A journey of a thousand miles,” she muttered, and hopped to the ladder.

Actually getting on the ladder was the toughest part. She had to grasp it, sit down, locate a rung with her left foot, then lever herself up and around. Once she was properly situated, she was strong enough to hold herself on the ladder using just her upper body strength while she took another step down with her left foot. The process wasn’t pretty, but it was effective.

It also took an enormous amount of effort when her body hadn’t rebuilt its reserves. Every muscle in her body was trembling, and she was breathing like a bellows; just as she neared the bottom rung, she heard the scrape of a door opening.

“Fucking nipples on ice!”

The hoarse, muted roar would have made her fall off the ladder if it hadn’t been for the telltale noise of the door. Holding tight to the ladder, she peered through the rungs at him, where he was almost completely hidden by the dark shadows at the back of the camp building. The expression made her blink. “I’ve never heard that one before,” she commented faintly. “Innovative.”

Rapidly he strode forward, his expression both disbelieving and furious as he gripped her waist and peeled her off the ladder. He stood her up for a brief second as he switched positions, bending down to hook his left arm under her knees and lift her off the floor, holding her tight against his wet slicker. “You could have broken your damn fool neck!”

“But I didn’t,” she pointed out with impeccable logic, even though she was still gasping for breath. “So I saved both time, and wear and tear on you.” She hooked her left arm around his neck, and felt a ker-THUNK kind of thud in her chest as her heart reacted to how natural it felt to be held like this, to feel free to sling her arms around him.

If anything, he looked even more furious. “I can handle getting you up and down the ladder.”

He was just standing there, instead of taking her outside, and her exertion in getting down the ladder had made the situation more dire. “I wasn’t impugning your manhood,” she said impatiently. “Just handle getting me out to the toilet. Pee now, chew out later.”

Muttering more obscenities under his breath, he strode to the back door. It wasn’t a regular door, but part of the wall itself that had been cut out and hinges installed, and was secured by sliding a two-by-eight into steel brackets. “Hold your hood in place,” he growled. “The wind’s still gusting.”

She grabbed her hood and held it as he turned sideways and maneuvered her through the door. It was like walking under a waterfall. The rain felt like a solid sheet of water, hammering at them. The portable was placed against the back of the building, just a few steps away, but if she hadn’t been wearing a slicker she’d have been drenched in a second. Ducking his head against the onslaught of water, Dare pulled open the toilet door and stood her up inside. “I’ll wait here,” he half-yelled, because the drumming of the rain on the plastic roof of the toilet sounded like, well, actual drumming .

She started to tell him not to be silly, to go back inside, but realized he wasn’t going to budge no matter what she said, so the best thing she could do was not waste time. She took care of business as fast as possible, cleaned her hands with the gel hand sanitizer, then opened the door. He had her swooped up into his arms and back inside the cabin before she could get her bearings.

He put her down so he could secure the heavy door and peel out of his dripping slicker. Balancing on one foot, Angie removed her own slicker, and he hung them over a rail to drip dry. She drew in a breath that was rich with the smell of hay, horse, and feed, which reminded her of her own horses. “The bastard,” she blurted. “He stole all four of my horses. I know he won’t take care of them; he can barely ride.”

“Then maybe he’ll get thrown and break his neck,” Dare said with a calm intent that told her he meant the comment literally.

“I hope so,” she muttered, and she was being just as literal as he was.

“We’ll get your horses back. Mine, too, if the nitwit didn’t run himself to death,” he said as he put his hands on her waist. “Alley oop.” Without pausing, he tossed her onto his shoulder. She grunted as the impact drove out her breath, but didn’t waste time complaining. Instead she grabbed him to steady herself as he began the upward climb; she was more than glad to let him carry her, because she was wiped out, almost back to square one. She was exhausted and cold, but at least she wasn’t soaking wet.