Caro Carson - A Texas Rescue Christmas

“Kind of awkward, isn’t it? But we won’t freeze to death.”

She looked away from his blue eyes to focus on her surroundings. They were hiding in some kind of cocoon, but she could see through the opening. Somehow, he’d magically surrounded them with a log cabin while she’d been sleeping.

“Where are we?”

Gosh, that was such a cowardly question for her to ask. She should have addressed the fact that they were utterly naked, but she went with the log cabin. She was like Mother, after all, ignoring the difficult and unpleasant issues, even if they were more important. When her mother had heard that her latest paramour was already married, she’d pointed to a purse and asked about its designer. Becky was nude and so was this man, but she was asking about location.

“We’re in the old Tate cabin. It was built more than a century ago. Lucky for us, they built them to last back then.”

She could see outside through some of the spaces between the logs. She could feel outside, gusts of damp cold. She burrowed into the sleeping bag, which meant she tucked herself more tightly against his naked body.

“The wind can come right through this cabin,” she said against the warmth of his throat.

“Some of it does. We’d be worse off if we didn’t have these walls. That storm is getting bad outside.”

Well, that was blunt. “How are we going to get back to the ranch?”

“You mean the house? We’re not. We’re going to stay right here, and stay warm.”

“And naked?” There, she’d addressed the elephant in the room. She wasn’t a total coward.

“It’s the best way for us to stay warm.”

Becky cared about being warm more than anything else. “I’m so tired of shivering. It hurts.”

“I imagine it would. Hadn’t thought about it before. Having your muscles clench like that would wear you out. Don’t worry, you’ll stop shivering. You’re no longer unconscious, so that’s an improvement. I’m glad you’re awake.”

His large hands roamed all over her body, as she realized they’d been doing this entire time.

“Are you really glad I’m awake?” she muttered. “Because it seems while I was asleep, you got me naked.”

“Strictly survival, Miss Cargill. When I undress a woman for fun, I like her to be awake and fully participating.”

Undressing for fun. She knew people got naked to have sex, of course, but she’d never considered that the actual taking off of clothes was one of the fun parts. He made it sound worth trying.

“And kissing me? That was strictly survival, too?”

“Your lips were blue.”

The way his gaze dropped to her lips when he said it made her stop shivering for a second. He was a darned good-looking man, in that outdoorsy, cowboy kind of way. And he’d found her. He was her miracle.

“What’s your name?” she asked, watching him as he watched her lips.

“Trey Waterson.”

“Tell me, Trey, are my lips still blue?” It was the single most provocative thing she’d ever said in her life, and she’d said it to a naked man. She bit her lip, wishing the words back.

He drew his palm up her spine and over her shoulder, to rest on her neck. With his thumb, he caressed her jaw as he frowned at her mouth, taking her question seriously.

“They’re more pink, but still too pale.”

He bent his head, and kissed her again, softly, slowly, and without the openmouthed hunger she’d had. It was a lovely kiss, all the same, and she felt rewarded for having been daring.

Then he rested his head next to hers, so they simply looked at one another in the last of the winter twilight. They could have been friends sharing the same pillow, settling in for a long slumber-party chat. The corners of his mouth curved upward in a bit of a smile. “You’re going to make it, you know.”

She was still shivering, but at his words, she realized the waves of shivers were coming and going, their intensity diminishing with each return. Her jaw wasn’t clenched to prevent her teeth from chattering. Her arm was wrapped around his warm body instead of clinging to the bark of a tree.

“Thank you.” How terribly inadequate that sounded. “I mean, thank you for my life. Not ‘thank you’ like you just passed the mashed potatoes. There ought to be a better word to say. Thank you so much, because I really didn’t want to die.”

“I know you didn’t.”

“It was practically suicidal, the way I left. I can see that now, but I wasn’t trying to kill myself, honest.”

“You were just running away. People don’t think real hard when they do that.”

She shivered, and pressed her entire body closer to him for shelter. For protection. She hid her face between his warm neck and the sleeping bag.

His hand swept down her back, firmly over her backside, too, to the back of her thigh. He lifted her thigh just a tiny bit, adjusted the position of her leg. “Can you feel your feet? Your toes?”

She flexed her ankle and tried to wiggle her toes. They didn’t exactly respond with individual wiggles, but she felt them pressing into his calf muscle. “They’re still there. I’ll never take my feet for granted again. You should have seen me out there, clomping around like I had cement boots. It’s so hard to walk when you can’t feel your feet.”

“I wouldn’t have let you stay out there long enough to clomp anywhere.”

She almost smiled at that, remembering how he’d scooped her off her feet before she’d seen him coming. Her shivers subsided, and she moved to be able to see his face once more. Night had come, but their eyes had been adjusting all along, and moonlight poured through the cracks along with the cold air.

“Thank you,” she repeated.

His soothing hand had just traveled over her shoulder. He stopped and squeezed her upper arm. “You don’t have to keep saying that.”

“I need to. I’m so grateful, you can’t imagine.”

With a sigh, he turned a bit so he was laying more on his back. “All right, then. Get it out of your system.”

He looked like he was waiting patiently for something. “Thank you?” she said tentatively.

He nodded, solemn. “You’re welcome, Rebecca.”

She stared at him in the moonlight.

After a minute, he raised an eyebrow. “Is that it? Are we done?”

She gasped, a tiny sound of indignation. “Are you joking about this?”

He started to laugh.

She gave his shoulder a little shove. “If it weren’t for you, I would have died.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” As if that was the end of it, he started maneuvering around in the bag. “I’m going to unzip this for a second—”

“No! I’m not warm enough.”

“Just far enough to get my hand out. You need to drink this water before it freezes solid. Your body is working hard to warm up. It needs water.” He grabbed for a canteen that was in a pile of other stuff, jostling them both. She felt her breasts bounce a little against his arm. She was embarrassed, but he didn’t seem to notice as he brought the canteen back inside and zipped the bag.

“I think we’ll have to sit up so you can drink,” he said. “Ready? One, two, three.”

Of course, they had to move at the same time. One person couldn’t sit up in the sleeping bag if the other was laying down. She tried, but curling up into a sitting position was more than her body was ready to do yet.

“It’s okay. Let’s try that again.” Trey put his arm underneath her and lifted her with him as he sat up.

“Thank you,” she said.

“I knew there were more thank-yous in there. Drink up.”

She felt those blue eyes on her as she chugged, suddenly realizing how terribly thirsty she was. When she finished, he wasn’t looking at her any longer. Instead, he was frowning at the night sky beyond the cracks in the log wall.