Kara Lennox - One Stubborn Texan

She didn’t understand how she could be so angry and aroused at the same time, but there it was.

“I don’t think my ankle’s broken,” she said. “It’s starting to feel a little better.” Whether this was the truth or merely wishful thinking, she didn’t know.

“Good. I’ll go turn on the generator, then bring you a robe.”

It was the coldest shower Sydney had ever taken. It was also the fastest, unless she wanted to turn blue all over and catch pneumonia. The only soap in evidence was a small sliver in the soap dish. She used it gratefully.

When she turned off the water and opened the curtain, she found a towel and a flannel bathrobe hanging on a hook on the back of the door. With the towel in one hand she rubbed herself briskly, supporting herself on a towel bar with the other, still standing on only one leg. Her teeth were chattering as she wrapped the soft, flannel robe around her body.

She washed her underthings in the sink and hung them over a towel bar to dry. Now she could think about sitting down someplace and resting.

When she emerged from the bathroom, Russ raced to her side to help her to the ratty old sofa where she could stretch out and prop up her leg. Her ankle throbbed like nothing she’d ever felt before, and she’d known pain in her life. Though she’d only been five years old when she’d been attacked by the dog, she remembered the excruciating pain of her injuries and the subsequent surgeries as if they’d happened last week.

Though she got queasy at even the thought of entering a hospital, she wondered if she’d made the right decision in refusing the helicopter.

“Would you rather go to bed?” Russ asked.

Now, there was a loaded question. Her body responded as if he’d meant it in a different way. Considering her current opinion of him, her body needed to get with the program. “Um, no, the sofa. I’m not much of a lying-around-in-bed-person.”

“Something tells me you’re not much of a sitting-around-on-the-couch person, either.” He set her down on the sofa, where she immediately stretched out.

“Why do you say that?”

“It didn’t take me long to figure out that you’re one of those people who can’t sit still. Your schedule is always packed and you like to multitask. You work hard…and you play hard, but probably not often enough.”

“Are you a psychic or something?” He’d nailed her. She was always trying to do two or three things at a time, always trying to squeeze one more client in, one more appointment early in the morning or in the evening. These past few months had been doubly hectic, tending to her father and his clients and his financial situation, keeping his house reasonably clean, cooking instead of eating out because her father missed her mom’s cooking, not that Shirley had been any better at it than Sydney, who was an awful cook. She had let her leisure activities, what there were of them, slide because there simply wasn’t time.

Russ laughed. “No, the signs are there for anyone to see. An unnatural attachment to your cell phone and restless hands. You fidget and drum your fingers and look at your watch a lot.”

“Idle hands are the devil’s tools,” she quipped. “I happen to like getting things done.”

He opened an old trunk and pulled out another crocheted afghan in a hideous green and orange zigzag pattern, to go with the granny-square blanket. He settled both blankets over her, then propped her swollen ankle on a pillow. “The blanket smells a little like mothballs, but I noticed you were shivering.”

She wasn’t surprised. The cabin had started to warm up earlier when the sun was shining through the windows. But now that the clouds had moved in, so had the chill.

Russ rubbed his hands together, obviously a bit chilled himself. “I’ll get a fire started in here.”

The fire sounded wonderful. And just a little too cozy. While Russ went outside to get extra wood, Sydney delved into her backpack where she’d stashed her purse and pulled out her pillbox. She always had Tylenol with her. Not that she ever got headaches, but she liked to be prepared for any eventuality. She swallowed a couple of caplets dry and hoped for the best.

What were they going to do stuck here until at least tomorrow? There was no television, no radio, no CD player. The only form of entertainment in evidence was a bookcase full of books. She supposed in a pinch she could wile away the hours by reading. Lord knew she didn’t want to go back anywhere near those boxes of papers in the loft. She’d seen enough of Bert Klausen’s family to last a lifetime.

When Russ returned he had an armload of firewood for the stove. It looked like enough to keep them warm for a while. She watched with interest as he went about the business of building a fire.

“My gosh, what did you do in here?” He scratched his head as he stared into the pile of matches she’d left on top of the logs she’d loaded into the stove.

“What does it look like? I tried to light a fire.”

“You can’t just light logs with a match. You need kindling and starter material-”

“Well, I didn’t know that! How do you do it?”

“You need small sticks first.” He selected a few about the width of his finger and arranged them in a loose pile. “Then you need something to get the fire started. Newspaper will do.” There was, indeed, a stack of yellowed newspapers against the wall near the stove. He took a section, separated the pages and wrinkled one of them up, positioning it strategically in the pile of sticks, then grabbed the box of matches.

When he opened the box, a puzzled look crossed his face. “How many did you use?”

“A bunch.”

“Well, let’s hope I’m better at this than you are, or we’re in for a cold night.”

She didn’t think she could stand another night freezing her butt off. Hmm. Maybe they’d have to snuggle together to conserve body warmth. Oh, hell, where had that thought come from? She was supposed to be mad at him.

He only took one match to do the job. In moments a cheerful blaze was burning inside the stove. Russ began feeding in larger sticks and logs. He watched it, occasionally poking it with a metal stick, until he was satisfied that the thing wasn’t going to fizzle out. Finally he closed the grate.

Manly man makes fire. He was building heat in other places besides the stove. Apparently Sydney’s hormones were not indifferent to the fire-building or the whole rescuing the damsel in distress. What next? Would he go out in the forest and bring home a woolly mammoth? And if he did, would she throw herself at him in a fit of abject feminine adoration? Why did this Daniel Boone stuff make him so appealing?

It was the novelty of it all, she decided. She didn’t know many men in New York who could survive away from Manhattan for longer than a few hours. Some she knew would positively wither away without their daily Starbucks and New York Times crossword puzzle.

Russ sat in the big easy chair across from Sydney. “So what was it like, growing up in New York? Did you have a big family?”

“No, I’m an only. And it wasn’t like I was raised in a skyscraper. We had a little house in Brooklyn-my father still lives there. I went to public school and did all the normal things.”

“I take it you were very close to your parents.”

“In a way. Truthfully, they were always so wrapped up in each other and the business that they never paid that much attention to me, so long as I stayed out of trouble. But I was okay with that. I didn’t want them to dote on me the way my friends’ parents seemed to. I was always off doing my own thing, anyway. If there can be an upside to my mom’s death, it’s that my dad and I have grown closer. I know him better now than I ever have.”