Cara Colter - A Babe In The Woods

She felt safe in these wild places, connected in some way to the immense creative forces of the universe; looked after. Even now, with something out there, she felt confident. This was her turf, and she could handle whatever came her way.

The only time in her life she hadn’t felt safe was when she had gone to the University of Alberta in Edmonton for two years. Her brothers, surprisingly resolute, had told her it was okay with them if she became a rancher someday, but first they wanted her to know a bigger world. And, truth be told, Storm had felt a strange and tingling eagerness to know a larger world, too.

But the city had been a shock—dodging cars, having to worry about walking alone at night, locking doors.

It was no way to live.

A twig snapped.

She pumped a shell into the shotgun chamber. There were really no places left where a person could be absolutely alone. Hunters and hikers found their way to these isolated spaces. And it didn’t bother her.

Unless they tried to be sneaky about it.

Sneakiness bothered her. A lot. Her intuition had failed her once, back there in Edmonton. When she’d been fooled by a too-handsome face and a smooth way.

She wondered if her brothers would have laughed, seeing their tomboy sister experimenting with makeup. She’d even bought a skirt, ridiculously short, now that she thought about it. Dorian’s eyes widening with appreciation had made that little scrap of material worth its enormous price.

Storm curtly turned the memory off and listened. She told herself to smarten up. It wouldn’t really be fair if she took a shot at some unsuspecting hiker because she detested sneakiness.

The truth was she would have dearly liked to pump a few rounds into the air around Dorian, just to scare the living daylights out of him. Once she’d found out the truth.

Married.

The snake had been married.

If she was alone up here at her mountain retreat, it didn’t matter. And if she wasn’t, it wouldn’t hurt to show she knew how to handle the gun and was not afraid to use it.

Boom! Take that, Dorian.

She shot high, into the air. The sound of the shotgun blast echoed over the quiet clearing. Casually, she pumped another shell into the chamber. At first she thought she had failed to flush out whatever kind of varmint hid in the trees.

And then a thin and reedy wail flowed into the silence left by the blast of the shotgun. Storm’s mouth fell open and she leaped to her feet. She set the shotgun down and raced down the cabin’s crumbling stone steps and across the clearing toward the sound.

Because there was really no mistaking that sound.

Even for a woman like her who refused to even hold one.

There was a baby in those woods.

A man slipped out of the trees before she was halfway across the clearing.

Storm skidded to a halt.

He was an imposing man, maybe two inches over six feet. He was incredibly broad across his shoulders and through his chest, and that broadness narrowed dramatically at his flat belly. His legs were long and lean, the clean line of hard muscle evident through the fabric of heavy denim. His khaki-colored shirt-sleeves were rolled up, revealing a naked length of very powerful forearm. The first few buttons of his shirt were open, showing a tangle of dark, curling chest hair.

He carried himself with confidence, loose-limbed and yet ready. Ready for anything. A man who could deal with the elements, and not just survive but be made stronger by them, even more able to face the challenges of a world as wild and rugged as he was.

Her gaze went to his face. It was a face of raw, rugged and uncompromising strength. His cheekbones were high, his nose straight, his jaw square. He had the faintest hint of a cleft in his chin. He could have been utterly gorgeous if not for a hardness that lingered in the turn of his mouth. His hair was neat and short, but sweat-darkened, and she suspected it was a shade lighter than the dark chocolate it looked to be. His skin had the weathered look of a man who spent a great deal of time outdoors, and the coppery tones of it made the gray of his eyes seem deep and cool, like the gray of icy mountain creeks.

His eyes were watchful, wary and weary.

Beyond weary. The man was exhausted.

Then a movement over his left shoulder drew her gaze from his. She could feel her eyes widen and her mouth drop open.

Peeking over his shoulder was a baby. A baby! With one tuft of shiny black hair sticking straight out from its head, and with black button eyes and fat red cheeks with grimy tear stains running down them.

“Are you alone?” the man asked.

The exhaustion she saw in his eyes was echoed in that voice—a deep voice, raw as silk.

Still, it was not a good question to be asked by a complete stranger. A man who had watched for a long time before he had made his presence known. Who might never have made his presence known if she had not flushed him out with a shotgun blast. The question was not asked out of any kind of friendliness.

“No,” she lied, instinctively, “I’m not alone.”

Some tension leaped in him, coiled along his muscles. A man ready for anything, including a fight. With a baby on his back.

“Who’s with you?” he asked, his eyes scanning the cabin behind her.

“None of your business.”

“Who’s with you?” he asked again, quietly, but with some unmistakable iron in his voice.

“My friend Sam,” she said defiantly. A nice name. Sturdy sounding. Strong. Loyal. Which is why she had given it to the big bay gelding she used for her saddle horse.

“Why didn’t Sam come out when you fired off that shotgun?” he asked. Something in him relaxed. The faintest hint of amusement lit those eyes before the weariness and caution drowned it.

“Why didn’t you?” she snapped back.

“I thought you might shoot me.”

“I still might.”

“You’re not a very neighborly kind of person,” he pointed out, mildly.

“Me and Sam aren’t much used to neighbors.”

“But you’re used to shotguns.” Something, not quite a smile, lifted a corner of that firm mouth. “You and Sam.”

He had obviously figured out Sam was fiction, but she tried again, anyway. “That’s why he didn’t come out. He’s used to me blasting off that old shotgun at varmints.”

The stranger’s smile, thankfully, died before it was ever completely born, and cool eyes scanned her face, then the clearing and then the cabin, before returning to her. “You’re alone,” he decided.

She wanted to insist she wasn’t, but knew it was pointless. She suspected this man’s intuition was as fine-honed as her own was. Maybe more so. Despite the weariness, there was an alertness about him that reminded her of wild animals poised on the edge of danger, getting ready to flee. Or fight.

He’s in trouble, Storm thought, bad trouble.

She wondered why she did not sense imminent danger, then realized that her intuition had been known to let her down in this one critical area. Men.

“Are you lost?” Her eyes drifted to the baby. It was pounding one chubby fist against the man’s shoulder and had another tangled in the dark silk of his hair. A lesser man might have winced or tried to unlock the baby’s determined grip, but his attention remained totally focused on her. As if she might make a dash for that shotgun. People who were lost were usually not quite so on guard.

Still, she wished he was lost. That his presence here was uncomplicated—that he had become separated from his wife on a Sunday hike.

But he did not seem to be the kind of man who would get lost. Or be on a family hike, either. Her eyes went to that telltale finger. No gold band. And no little white line where one might have been a short while ago. She considered herself a quick learner.