Karen Leabo - Twilight Man

He fixed a microwave pizza for dinner, along with another salad made from Hildy’s tasty produce. Still, there was no sign of Faith.

She had probably decided to wait until tomorrow. That meant seventy-five dollars would go into Hoady Fromme’s pocket, money he hardly deserved.

What the hell. Jones could buzz over to the Black Cypress Campgrounds and be back before dark. It looked as if the rain would hold off. He wouldn’t even have to see Faith Kimball if he didn’t want to.

Problem was, he wanted to. Just once more.

Faith allowed herself a huge yawn as she walked back to her campsite from the public showers. Although it wasn’t yet dark, she felt like burrowing into her sleeping bag and hibernating until morning. That was the kind of day she’d had.

Her attempt to rent a boat from the Sinclair Marina had met with failure. Discouraged, she’d ended up hitching a ride back to her campgrounds, then again confronting Hoady. With her patience paper thin, she had threatened to sue him if he tried to keep her deposit. He had finally agreed to give her until tomorrow to return the disabled dinghy— if she would rent another boat from him and retrieve the first one. He was adamant about not going near Jones Larabee’s island himself.

Jones Larabee. Or maybe it was Larabee Jones, depending on whether she believed his word or his monogram. Her encounter with the mysterious loner had been by far the most unsettling event of the whole day.

For a man who had shunned society to live alone in the swamp, he certainly seemed to have enjoyed her company—to a point. Was he a reluctant hermit as well as a reluctant hero? If so, what had driven him to seek a life of isolation? How did he live? Where did he get his money?

You idiot, she thought, berating herself as she reached the small, red dome tent that marked her campsite. Jones could easily be involved in something illegal. Maybe he grew marijuana back there in the swamp. And she was nuts for nursing this curiosity about him. She should just forget about him. Now that she had officially thanked him for saving her life, their business was finished.

Her stomach growled ominously as she unzipped the tent flap. She would cook dinner...but then a roll of distant thunder echoed her stomach’s rumble, changing her mind. She could smell rain in the air. Building a fire to roast hot dogs was out of the question.

She would have to satisfy herself with cheese and crackers in her tent. That decision made, she went to her station wagon and retrieved a few snackables from the cooler. The clouds were moving in quickly, she noticed. The temperature had dropped several degrees in the past few minutes, and the wind had picked up.

She hoped she wasn’t in for a bad storm. Although she knew her tent was sturdy and rainproof, she wouldn’t be able to sleep through a night of loud, blustery thunderstorms. She grabbed her food and scrambled into the tent, then zipped it, making sure all flaps were securely tied down.

She had just changed into her nightshirt and was laying out her modest feast on a paper towel when she thought someone said her name. She tensed and listened, but all she heard was the howl of the strengthening wind.

“Is someone out there?” she called, her heart hammering inside her chest. Although there were other campers around, she felt suddenly vulnerable.

“Faith, it’s Jones Larabee. I wanted to let you know I brought your boat back.”

She broke a fingernail getting the flap unzipped. When she stuck her head out, she found herself looking at his jean-clad knee. At least he was dressed decently, she thought as her gaze traveled upward. But on second thought, he looked just as sexy clothed as he did half-naked. His faded jeans, soft from many washings, clung to his lean thighs and hips with loving familiarity, and his Texas Rangers T-shirt, cut off at the waist, revealed a tanned strip of rock-hard stomach muscles.

“Why?” The single word almost stuck in her dry mouth. “This morning you said it was too much trouble.”

He knelt on one knee, bringing his face close to hers. “I overheard you talking to Hoady, and I didn’t want that skunk keeping your deposit.”

Jones’s change of heart surprised her. But then, he’d made a habit of surprising her from the moment they’d met. “Thank you.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Hoady’s lucky he already went home for the day, or I might have told him what I think of the way he treats his customers.”

The thought made her smile wickedly. “You would have scared the poor man half to death.” Hoady, who was already leery of Jones, would have dissolved into a pool of abject terror if he were actually subjected to another face-to-face meeting with his angry nemesis.

“It’s no more than he deserves, sending a woman out alone into the swamp in that piece of junk he calls a boat. What if you’d gotten lost and the motor had quit in some isolated place where you couldn’t get help? You might have been stuck for days.”

“I had a paddle,” she said, though his concern warmed her.

Lightning flashed, accompanied seconds later by a loud boom. Faith cringed and Jones winced. “Looks like I’d better be on my way,” he said with a wary eye skyward. As he spoke, the first fat drops began to pelt down on them, hitting the tent’s taut nylon with loud splats.

Now it was Faith’s turn to be concerned. The clouds moving in from the southwest were thick and black as cast iron, blanketing the setting sun and bringing on an early dusk.

“You can’t leave now,” she objected. “Even if you don’t get struck by lightning, you’ll get soaked by the rain and you’ll have to navigate in the dark.” She shivered just thinking about how black that swamp would be.

“I can find my way in the dark,” he said. Arguing with him, the sky released a renewed flurry of drops.

“But not when it’s raining buckets,” she insisted. Her hair was getting wet from the downpour. She pulled inside and opened the flap wider. “For heaven’s sake, get in here before you’re soaked through. You can at least wait out the worst of the storm.”

He hesitated. Clearly he felt uncomfortable accepting her hospitality, humble though it was. Then another flash of lightning and a clap of thunder, louder than the last one, seemed to convince him. He dived into the shelter she offered, leaving his feet outside just long enough that he could take off his battered tennis shoes. The moment he zipped up the flap, a torrential rainfall began in earnest.

Big mistake, Faith thought as she tucked her sleeping bag securely around her bare legs. She should never have invited him in. Here in this confined space, Jones’s blatant masculinity was overwhelming. His wide shoulders and long legs seemed to fill the tent, and the scent of him—the smell of damp hair and cotton and clean skin—wrapped its tendrils around her like one of the jungle vines she’d seen in the swamp. The enforced closeness between them was potently arousing and a little scary.

He pulled his long legs under him to sit Indian-style on her extra blanket, then took note of his surroundings. “I’ve interrupted your dinner, I see,” he said, nodding toward her crackers and cheese.

“And quite a feast it is, too. Want some?”

“I’ve already eaten.” He appeared antsy as he looked around for something to occupy his hands. Finally he picked up her portable radio. “Mind if I turn this on?”

“No, go ahead. Maybe we can get a weather report.”

He fiddled with the dial until he found a station with a signal strong enough to be heard over the crackles of static. The news wasn’t good. The line of thunderstorms moving through the area was substantial, expected to bring strong winds and possibly hail. The county was under a tornado watch.