A Certain Kind of Hero (4 page)

“Who says that?” Gideon asked.

Peter shrugged. “I don't know. Some of the guys whose families have lake cabins and stuff.”

“What
they
say and what's true are often two different things. Our people have never endangered the fish, and we don't ever intend to.”

Now it was time, welcome or not, for Gideon to lay that friendly hand on Peter's shoulder again. The boy did, indeed, need him.

“I think your mother's right. It's time you did a little fishing with your uncle Gideon.”

G
ideon had taken her fishing only once before. They'd had a good time together—the
best
of times. And the worst, as well. As she pulled on a comfortable pair of khaki slacks, Raina remembered how the day had begun all those years ago with an admonishment from her roommate, Paula, to “dress warm.”

She had bundled up in her down-filled jacket and her insulated boots. The snow pants she'd borrowed were so thickly padded that she could barely bend her knees as she climbed into Gideon's battered green pickup. Lifting her onto the blanket-covered seat was like tossing an armload of satin pillows onto an army cot, he'd teased.

Oh, she remembered that deep, rich chuckle close to her ear. She couldn't have worn enough layers to protect her from the quick shiver that exciting sound had sent shimmying from the side of her neck to the tips of her toes. Gideon had always had a way with shivers, a way that continually challenged her
to anticipate his next move. It had been a talent too titillating, too unpredictable.

It had scared her silly.

And silly was the way she remembered behaving when she'd ventured reluctantly onto the frozen lake. The glare from the distant winter sun had nearly snow-blinded her. Despite Gideon's assurances that the ice was well over a foot thick, she hadn't been able to forget that it wasn't all ice. That there was still water down there somewhere. Deep, cold, breath-stealing water that would swallow her up if her foot found a patch of thin ice….

 

“It could happen,” Raina insisted. She tested her footing and found that, sure enough, ice was ice, and it was slippery. “I've read about shifting currents, treacherous weak spots.”

“I've got a treacherous weak spot, darlin'.” He was unloading fishing gear from his pickup, but he managed to shift the tackle box and cooler to one arm so he could steady her with the other. “Deep down in my heart, and I think it's got your name on it.”

“What a line.” She laughed as she slipped her arm around his waist. “So corny it's actually sweet,” she quipped, playfully bumping hips with him as they slip-slid toward the little fishing shack he'd said belonged to a friend of his.

“Mmm. Sweet corn makes a good side dish, don't you think?”

“What's the main dish?”

“You are.”

She looked up, feigning surprise.

He dropped a quick kiss on her pouty mouth. “Come on, now, you should've seen that one coming.”

“I did. I decided to accommodate you, since you're the host.”

“Guide,” he corrected. “The man who's gonna show you the way, sweetheart.”

“The way to…?”

“Heaven.” He gave a sly wink as he shoved a key into the padlock on the door. “Or supper. Take your pick.”

She was tempted to tell him that she really wanted heaven. Might as well admit it right off the bat. Everything about him said sexy. The way he walked, the way he laughed, the way he wore his jeans, everything. The trouble was, Raina was wary of heights. She believed in working her way up, testing all the footholds along the way. Meanwhile, she wanted a third choice. She liked the word
maybe.
Maybe later, in a few weeks or months, after they'd shared lots of suppers and made commitments, maybe
then
…. Heaven sounded awfully good to her.

With Gideon, nothing came easily, not even a simple supper. He did make ice fishing look simple, even with a spear, which required a larger hole than the icehouse would allow. So he dazzled her with his skill several yards away from the house, and then they took his catch inside. She was surprised to find that the little house actually had chairs and a card table inside. There was a small heater, and Gideon had brought a camp stove for cooking. Once he'd gotten the appliances going, he squatted next to a hole that had been drilled in the middle of the floor and began chipping away at the ice that had formed since the last time the icehouse had been used.

“What's that for?” Raina asked. “Don't we have enough?”

“No appreciation for the sport,” he complained to the hole in the ice. “This is our excuse for being out here. Otherwise we look pretty stupid, sitting out here in the middle of a frozen lake.” He grinned up at her, his hands braced on his knees as he prepared to stand. “Officially, it's your line that's going
down here. I'm giving you the chance to catch the big one, darlin', so you can brag to your friends.”

“A hook at the end of a line is my best chance,” she agreed. “Obviously I'll never have your talent for spearing.”

“It takes practice. Either that or you have to be born to it.” He stood, ducking to avoid bumping his head on the low roof. His baiting smile loomed over her. “As you've probably heard, some of us just naturally come complete with the necessary equipment.”

“You might find this hard to believe,” she said, returning a coy smile, “but some of
us
are perfectly content to let you carry that particular burden around with you constantly.”

He chuckled appreciatively as he rummaged through his tackle box, and she figured she was racking up points for her side. He handed her several pieces of tackle.

“Ah, yes.” She looked them over, ostensibly weighing them in her hands. “The hook, line and sinker are so much less cumbersome.”

“Maybe.” Going about the business of setting a line, he sank into an ice-fisherman's crouch. “But I'll bet you're gonna ask me to bait yours for you.”

She returned the bits of tackle he'd given her, with a prim “If you insist.” She didn't know what to do with the stuff, anyway. She unzipped her jacket.

“Here, I'll trade you.”

It surprised her when he produced a pint of whiskey from his box of supplies, sampled it, then extended it her way. “Help yourself. Warm yourself up inside.”

“I'm fine, thanks.” She wasn't sure what bothered her about it. Maybe it was just the idea of nipping from a bottle, or the fact that she'd felt as though she were on a roll with her clever repartee and suddenly he'd suggested a different kind
of fun. The kind that made her nervous. “A little too warm, in fact.”

“Nice and cozy, isn't it?”

He didn't seem to notice the change in her tone. Which was fine. She didn't want him to. She wasn't a kid anymore, and he surely wasn't. In fact, she found it hard to imagine that he ever had been.

He took another drink, then pointed with the bottle toward the hole. “Your job is to watch that line. I'll fry up the first course while you catch the second.” Again he offered the whiskey. “Maybe
you
haven't heard, but this is part of the fun of ice fishing.”

“I don't know how you can drink it straight like that,” she said, shaking the bottle off with a grimace.

“Your trusty guide will show you how.” He took a longer sip this time. “Easy as sin, once you get past the initial burn.”

“With sin, the burn comes later, doesn't it?”

“When I find out, I'll give you a holler.” His naughty grin was enticing. “All it takes is one belt to chase the chill.”

“I'm not cold.” In answer to that grin of his, her indulgent smile probably looked prudish. “Neither are you.”

“No, but I'm sinful.” And it didn't bother him one bit. Neither did her prudishness. He favored her with another of his charming winks. “And you're not quite sure whether it turns you on or scares the hell out of you.”

Rather than admit to both, she stood silent, and he went about his cooking. She was more interested in watching Gideon than watching the fishing line. His broad shoulders seemed to fill one whole side of the ice shack. His size dwarfed the little camp stove over which he happily busied himself cooking their meal. The truth was that every move he made turned her on, even the occasional nip he took from the bottle. He probably didn't realize that in high school she'd
had a reputation for being somewhat aloof. She glanced at the hole in the ice and smiled to herself. The term “cold fish” had been bandied about, actually. Not that it mattered, since she'd dated only boys she could count on to be, well, almost as scrupulous in their behavior as she was.

All right, the truth was that the boys with the
un
scrupulous reputations never asked her out. Not that they hadn't flirted with her once in a while, and not that she hadn't occasionally flirted back. But going out with her would have been a waste of a precious Friday night with the family car.

Apparently her reputation hadn't preceded her when she'd come to Pine Lake. The thought almost made her laugh out loud, and the joke was on her, for imagining a locker-room network that extended this far. It was time to grow up, she told herself. Time to stop playing games. Time to try a different kind of…

“You've got a bite there, daydreamer.”

“What?”

Arms folded over his chest, Gideon stood there grinning down at her. “If you weren't afraid to touch the thing, you'd have felt it.”

“What thing?”

“The
long
thing—” the look in his eyes grew deliciously devilish “—that I dropped in the hole for you, sweetheart.” He chuckled. “Your hook, line and sinker.”

“Oh.” She reached for the line. “What should I do? Pull on it?”

“Too late now. You lost him. You scared him away with that word
pull.
” He sucked air through his teeth, as if the word pained him. “Use a light touch, honey. Jigging works better.” He turned back to his cooking, clucking his tongue in mock disgust. “Remember that when he gives you another chance.”

In the end they had to make do with his catch, which made the freshest-tasting fish dinner Raina had ever eaten. She took off her snow pants and used them for a chair cushion, and she and Gideon played cards and listened to country music on the radio. Gideon got a little tight and played the ham, crooning along with every tune while he slapped his cards on the folding table with a flourish and beat her three hands of whist out of five.

Then he pulled her onto his lap and started in with some playful kissing. Together they quickly heated up the icehouse. Before she knew what was happening she was straddling him, and he was holding her hips steady while he rocked himself in her cradle, pushed her jacket aside, opened her shirt and suckled her breast until she moaned with exquisite pleasure.

“Pretty as an angel,” he muttered, then nuzzled her hair aside from her ear and whispered, “but are you willing to give the devil his due?”

“What devil?”

“You're sittin' on his lap, honey.”

“I doubt that.” She combed his long, thick hair back from his temples with her fingers. His hair was as black and as beautiful as a raven's wing. “I'll buy ‘sinner,' but not ‘devil.'”

“Sold,” he said softly as he unsnapped her jeans. “To the lady with the shiny halo.”

“No, I'm not…no.” Her zipper was halfway down before she stayed his hand with hers. But he turned her hand and pressed it against his own zipper and let her feel the hard bulge straining beneath it.

“You wanna pull on something, pull on my belt buckle, okay?” He slipped his hand inside her jeans, and the zipper gave the rest of the way. He tucked his thumb over the top of
her panties. “Do this to me,” he entreated, his breath warm against her neck.

“Gideon, we can't. Not now.” She tipped her head back and gulped cool air. The plywood ceiling seemed so close. “Not…here.”

“Not here and now?” His hand stirred at her waist. His low voice sounded somehow menacing. “Or not you and me?”

She slid her hand away from his lap and put her arms over his shoulders. Her pulse was racing so wildly, she wasn't sure she could achieve her indulgent, goddess-of-good-sense smile, but she gave it a shot.

“Have you drunk enough to make you forget that the floor is made of ice here?”

“No.” The heated look he gave her was far from contrite. “I'm not drunk.”

“I didn't say you were.” She wanted him to kiss her. Just kiss her, and maybe… “Gideon, don't look at me like that. It scares me.”

“I want to make love to you.” He tightened his hand at her waist, and the heat in his eyes made her mouth go dry. “Why would that scare you?”

“If you could see the look in your eyes…”

“I'm hungry for you, Raina.”

“It's more than that.”

There was a predatory gleam in his eyes, and she suspected the whiskey was responsible for that. She liked having control, and this man threatened to take that from her. He made her scare herself. He made her want to let go, just for a moment. And something told her that a moment would be all it would take. He belonged to the wilderness and the wildlife. And Raina's world was much too tame for him.

“I could make it much more.” He nuzzled the promise into
the valley between her breasts and made her catch her breath. “I could make you hungry for me.”

He already had, but she wouldn't indulge herself. Not with icy water lapping at a hole in a floor of ice in a rickety shack in the middle of a frozen lake in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Lord!

Her hands trembled as she pushed against him. “Please don't do this, Gideon.”

She slid off his lap awkwardly. His hand shot out, but only to keep her from stumbling into the hole in the ice. “Watch your step, little girl.”

“I'm not a little girl.”

“My mistake,” he muttered, eyeing the breasts that were only partially curtained by her open shirt.

“But I'm certainly not…” Not what? She felt foolish. He was fully dressed. She was the one totally disheveled, panting, on the verge of screaming and moaning at the same time.

“Check your other line, honey.” He nodded toward the hole in the ice. “The name of the game is catch and release.”

“I'm not playing a game,” she said.