Barbara McCauley - Fortune's Secret Daughter

She hurried to her hall cupboard and grabbed a handful of towels, then came back into the living room and tossed one at him as she bent down and reached for his boots. “We’ve got to get your clothes off and get you in bed.”

“So I did die.” Smiling, he laid his head back and closed his eyes. “And this is heaven. Ouch!”

His eyes flew open again when she yanked his wet boot off. “Or maybe not,” he said, frowning. She smiled sweetly and turned her attention to his other foot.

“Dry your hair, Blackwolf.” She pulled on his second boot, but it clung stubbornly. She pulled harder and finally it came free with a sucking pop. “And take off that shirt.”

“I’m kinda shy. Maybe if you took yours off first, I’d feel more comfortable.”

Holly arched a brow at him as she glanced up. The glint in his pale gray eyes was mischievous, but his face was pasty-white, his voice heavy with exhaustion.

“Blackwolf…” she warned.

“Can’t blame a guy for trying,” he muttered and reached for the towel she’d tossed at him.

She was torn between laughing at him or scowling. She doubted he had enough strength to make it to the bed, let alone pursue any lustful fantasies. And it was just about time for the pain medication Doc had given him to kick in, as well. If she didn’t get him to bed soon, he’d be out cold on her sofa.

She watched his feeble attempts to unbutton his shirt, then finally brushed his hands aside. “Let me.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re bossy?” he complained, but settled back on the sofa while her fingers quickly moved down the front of his shirt.

“All the time.” Gently she tugged his shirt from the waistband of his jeans and slid the garment off, resisted the urge to press her fingers to the angry red welt that slashed across his broad chest. She held out a hand to him. “Up you go.”

He took her hand, but instead of rising, he tugged her down next to him. The amusement was gone from his eyes now. “You’ve already gone above and beyond, Holly,” he said quietly. “I’ll just crash here on your couch until the morning.”

“The last time you crashed, Mr. Blackwolf, I had to drag you out of a smoking plane.” His hand was large, his palm callused and rough. The strength that radiated from him surprised her, as did the heat spreading up her arm into her body. She ignored that heat and concentrated instead on the task at hand, which was getting him to bed.

“You have a mild concussion and bruised ribs.” She leveled a stern, schoolteacher’s gaze at him. “By tomorrow you’re going to have aches and pains in places you didn’t know you could have aches and pains. You need a bed to sleep in, with a real mattress and lots of quiet. If you sleep out here, you’ll be in my way. I’m up early for work, and I don’t want to have to worry about waking you up.”

Still holding his hand, she stood. “Now are you going to get in my bed or do I have to get rough?”

“To think I used to fantasize a girl would say that to me,” he said wistfully.

On a grimace he rose and once again she slipped an arm around his waist and guided him to the bedroom. He leaned against her, all hard muscle and warm skin, and in spite of herself, she felt her pulse rush at the contact.

“Sit here.” She pulled the white down comforter covering her bed out of the way and helped him sit on the edge of the mattress.

He glanced from the pink floral pillows on her bed to the square mauve throw rug on the hardwood floor. A white wicker chair in the corner held an assortment of antique porcelain dolls and one overstuffed, battered-looking bear. “Nice teddy.”

Shaking her head, she moved to the window. At this time of year it never really got dark and blinds were necessary to separate day from night. “The bathroom’s at the end of the hall. I’ll put out a razor and toothbrush for you to use when you’re ready. Towels are in the hall cupboard and—”

When she turned back to look at him, she forgot what she was going to say. Even in the semidarkness, the sight of him sitting on the edge of her bed, his chest and feet bare, his dark hair damp and rumpled, was so personal, so…intimate, she quite literally lost her breath.

“And what?”

“And…as soon as you’re feeling strong enough to shower, you can help yourself to shampoo and soap,” she finished, though she didn’t think that was what she’d started to say. She moved to her dresser and busied herself in the top drawer, pulled out clothes she’d need later and in the morning.

“By the way,” he said as he slipped under the covers. “Do I have to worry about some guy named Moose or Bear walking in here and misunderstanding why some strange man is sleeping in your bed?”

“If you’re asking if I have a jealous boyfriend—” she rooted through her underwear drawer “—the answer is no.”

The fact was, she’d never even had a man in her bedroom before, unless she counted Lester, the seventy-year-old carpenter who’d replaced the window opposite the bed with a gothic leaded glass window she’d found from a demolished Orthodox Russian church in Sitka. And Keegan Bodine. He’d delivered and set up the cherrywood headboard she’d bought from Auntie M’s Antiques and Ammunition on Third and Main. Keegan was an outback guide in Twin Pines, thirty-two, single, good-looking. But he was just a friend. A good friend but nothing more.

Alaska was full of men like Keegan. Rugged, healthy, robust men looking for a woman. One day Holly assumed she’d find the right one and settle down, but for now, she preferred to keep her relationships simple and she wasn’t looking for love. Not the one-night kind or the permanent kind. At this moment, she loved her life just as it was: busy and full and no complications.

“What about you?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at him. Once again, the sight of his long body stretched out in her bed made her breath catch. She quickly looked away.

“I definitely don’t have a boyfriend,” he said with a yawn. “Or any other entanglements, either.”

She heard the heavy sound of his breathing and quietly crept toward the door. Entanglements. A strange, but appropriate word, she thought, and paused by the doorway to watch the steady rise and fall of his chest. Let herself wonder for just a moment what those honed muscles would feel like under her fingers, what that body would feel like—

“Hey, Holly?”

She jumped at the husky, sleep-heavy sound of his voice. Guilt warmed her cheeks.

“He warned me you were difficult.” His words were slurred, barely intelligible. “He didn’t warn me you were so damn sexy.”

He rolled away from her then and this time she was certain he was out.

He warned me you were difficult?

Who had warned him? Doc? Or maybe Quincy had said that to Guy when he’d called over to the garage and asked about his plane. But that didn’t really make sense, either, she thought, shaking her head. Maybe it was just the drugs and exhaustion talking and his comment was nothing more than gibberish.

That was probably it, she decided as she quietly closed the bedroom door behind her. Difficult, my foot. She frowned. She wasn’t difficult. At least, not unreasonably.

She paused, stared at the closed bedroom door.

He didn’t warn me you were so damn sexy.

Those words made her blood warm. More gibberish? she wondered. Or had he meant it?

More than likely, he said that to all the women. And no doubt, with this man, there was a long line of swooning females.

Sexy? Her?

She looked at her jeans and boots, the turtleneck she wore. He certainly hadn’t been referring to her clothes. Her hair was a mess from her dive in the lake, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. So what could he possibly think was sexy about her?