Up Close and Dangerous (21 page)

She stood it for about three seconds. “A plain case of testosterone poisoning, if I’ve ever seen one,” she commented.

His head was partially turned away, but she saw his cheek crease as he grinned. “Are you talking to me?”

“No, I’m talking to this tree, with about the same result.”

“I’m okay. If I can get a fire started, I’ll get warm then.”

Some imp of Satan whispered to her and she said, “Well, if you’re
sure
.”

“I’m sure.”

“Because I thought I might warm your hands the same way I warmed your feet, but since you’re okay—never mind.”

Her words hung in the frozen air. Part of her wondered if she’d lost her mind, but she couldn’t unsay them, so she tried her best to look casual.

He went very still, then slowly backed out, straightened, and turned to face her. “Maybe I spoke too soon. My hands really hurt.”

“Then you’d better hurry with that fire,” she said cheerfully, and made a shooing motion with her hands. “Chop-chop!”

He gave her an “I’m going to get you” look, then reached back into the plane’s innards. The angle at which it was resting made reaching anything awkward, and the trees were in the way. Finally he said, “Okay. Now let’s cut some wire. We need to have everything ready before I try this, because if there is any juice there may not be much, and one try may be all we get.”

“What do we need to do?”

“First, we fix a place as sheltered from the wind as we can manage, and make a fire ring with rocks. Then we find some dry wood to use as kindling. Probably some of the smaller pieces you stuck into the shelter to fill in gaps will have dried a little by now. I doubt we’ll find anything any drier. If you’ll do that, I’ll start scraping some inside bark from these trees.”

The wind was a problem; it swirled through the mountains, meaning there really wasn’t a sheltered area. Finally, frustrated, she opened up her suitcases and stood them on end, lining them up and making a rough hook shape in front of their shelter. It was an imperfect solution, at best, because the suitcases couldn’t be so close to the fire that
they
caught on fire, so they afforded only partial protection from the swirling wind.

She cleared snow out of the enclosed area, then Cam used the screwdriver from the tool kit to drive into the frozen earth, over and over, breaking it up. He used the claw of the hammer to dig out the loosened dirt. The fire pit was only a few inches deep when he hit rock, but it would have to do.

There was a plethora of loose rocks for lining the bed of the pit. Cam gathered them while Bailey looked for dry wood. As he’d predicted, the driest that she found came from their shelter. Every time she pulled a stick from its place, she blocked the space that was left with a new branch she broke from a tree. They still had to sleep in that shelter one more night, so she wanted it as snug as possible.

Using his knife, Cam peeled a section of outer bark from one of the trees, then scraped the inner bark until he had a double handful of what looked like the makings of a bird’s nest. Carefully he laid out the fire with the scraped bark and some rolled-up pieces of paper torn from her notebook, the kindling on top of that, then some bigger pieces of wood on top of the kindling. “It’s green wood so it isn’t going to burn all that hot, but the good news is it won’t burn fast, either,” he said. If they could get it to burn at all, she thought, but left that unsaid.

If the battery worked, they had to have some means of getting the flame from the plane to the waiting fire pit. The wind was unceasing, which meant he couldn’t just roll up a sheet of paper, catch it on fire, and walk it over to the pit. Bailey emptied all their first-aid supplies from the olive drab metal box and gave it to him. Using the handy screwdriver again, he punched holes in one end of the box, lined the bottom with some of the dirt from where he’d dug the fire pit, then stripped some of the needles from one of the evergreen trees and put them on top of the dirt. He rolled up another sheet of paper, then cut off a strip of gauze and loosely stuffed that inside the roll of paper.

Bailey watched silently. They had stopped talking during the past half hour, because the preparations were simply too important. Having a fire was too important. She felt almost giddy at the thought.

All that was left was the wire. He completely stripped the insulation from a short piece, then bared both ends of two much longer pieces. Then he quickly connected one end of each of the longer pieces to the short piece, twisting the bright copper wires together.

They approached the plane side by side. She held the box, he had the wiring.

“If this works, when the paper ignites, close the lid and take the box to the fire,” he instructed. “I’ll have to unhook the wires from the battery so we don’t waste any of the power; we might have to do this again. Rolling the paper up will slow down the burn, you’ll have plenty of time to get it to the fire. Go ahead and start the fire.”

She nodded. Her heart was pounding so hard she felt almost sick.
Please work
, she prayed silently. They needed this so much.

She stood beside him, holding one of the insulated wires positioned so the uninsulated wire was touching the tip of the roll of paper. Cam had to actually wedge himself between one of the trees and the wreckage, a foot or so off the ground, so he could reach the battery with both hands and connect the long wires, one to the positive terminal and one to the negative. When he was finished he remained in position, his sharp eyes trained on the first-aid box in Bailey’s hands.

She tried not to shake as she held the naked wire to the paper. “How long will it take?”

“Give it a few minutes.”

She felt as if they gave it an hour. Time crawled as they stared in an agony of anticipation at the paper, waiting to see a wisp of smoke, a scorch mark, praying for something to happen.

“Please, please, please,” she chanted under her breath. Nothing was happening. She closed her eyes because she couldn’t bear to watch any longer. Maybe if she didn’t watch the paper would start smoking. It was a childish hope, a silly thought, as if her watching would prevent it from happening.

“Bailey!” Cam’s voice was sharp.

Startled, she opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was the thin, delicate twirl of smoke, as transparent as a mirage. It snaked upward almost hesitantly, to be snatched by the wind. Gingerly she shifted her position just a little, bringing the box closer to the protection of her body.

A brown scorch mark began growing on the paper, spread to the piece of gauze tucked inside. A bright, tiny flame began licking at the gauze. The edges of the paper caught, began to curl.

“Go,” said Cam, and she carefully closed the lid so it was almost shut, then wheeled and hurried to the fire pit. Kneeling beside the squat pyramid of kindling, paper, and wood, she gingerly opened the box, trying as best she could to shield the fragile flame. The roll of paper was half consumed.

Carefully she eased the roll out of the box, inserting the burning end into the nest of scraped bark and paper in the center of the stack.

With a spark, the lovely little flame whooshed brighter and higher, leaping to engage the paper, and then the bark. As she watched, the small sticks of kindling began to smoke, then glow as the flame caught.

She began laughing, so beside herself with delight she thought she might cry, too. She turned to see Cam striding toward her, a wide grin on his face. With a whoop of joy, she jumped up and ran to him, throwing herself into his arms. He caught her, lifting her off the ground and giving her a little whirl.

“It worked!” she half shrieked, clutching those broad shoulders and wrapping her legs around his hips for support.

He didn’t say anything. His hands gripped her butt, pulled her tightly against him. A rock hard erection pushed urgently into the softness and heat between her legs. Startled, she looked up, her laughter dying in mid-note. She saw his vivid gray eyes, glittering with heat and hunger, and then he kissed her.

22

H
IS LIPS WERE COLD, BUT THERE WAS HEAT IN THE KISS,
a compelling hunger and expertise that drew an immediate response from her. The usual alarm sounded deep in her brain, but somehow it was less urgent, and for the first time in a long, long time, maybe forever, she ignored it. Instead she coiled her arms around his neck and kissed him back, parting her lips at the insistence of his and allowing the smaller penetration of his tongue to entice her to play.

A confusing mixture of guilt and pleasure filled her. She hadn’t meant to precipitate this, hadn’t meant to go down this road, yet now that she was on it she wanted to stay.

She should take her legs from around his hips, she knew, and withdraw to a less blatantly sexual footing, but she didn’t. Feeling the strength of his response was exciting, and the beckoning pleasure of what awaited her, if she just relaxed and let go, was a siren song of temptation. Even beyond that, and underlying it, was the simple pleasure of being held, the very human need for physical contact. She had been starved for so very long and suddenly she couldn’t deny herself any longer.

She had slept in his arms, and he in hers, for two nights now, and though their physical closeness had been a necessity to share their body heat and stay alive, knowing that didn’t lessen the elemental trust and sense of connection formed during those long, dark hours. She’d never had that before, never wanted it. The best way to safeguard her emotions was to keep people at a distance, to rely only on herself; she’d learned that in lessons both early and hard.

Yet here he was, close and strong and warm, and she didn’t want to let him go.

He was the one who broke off the kiss, lifting his mouth and looking down at her with a heavy-lidded gaze. The bruises under his eyes and the scrapes on his face should have diminished the potency of that look, but somehow didn’t. Hot intent burned there, promised more. His hands still gripped her bottom, still moved her against his swollen penis in a slow rhythm that made her heart pound and her breath come in gasps. Then the corners of his mouth kicked up in a rueful smile. “I hate to break this up,” he drawled, “but I’m about to fall down.”

She stared blankly at him for a second, then realization dawned. “Oh, damn it! I forgot! I’m sorry—” As she spoke she hastily unwrapped her legs from his waist and slid to the ground, her face turning hot from sheer mortification. How could she have forgotten how weakened he was? Just yesterday he’d barely been able to move around under his own steam!

He staggered a little and she quickly jammed her shoulder under his arm, grasping him around the waist to steady him. “I can’t believe I forgot,” she mumbled as she helped him toward the fire.

“Personally, I’m glad you did. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but what little blood’s left in me went south and I got light-headed for a minute.” He winked at her as she helped him sit down in front of the fire. The only thing to sit on was the trash bag of clothes they used to close the entrance to the shelter, but they were using her clothes for everything else, so why not a seat?

“God, that feels good,” he groaned, holding his hands out to the flame, and with a start Bailey looked around.

She’d forgotten about the fire, too. How could she? Excitement over the fire was what had sent her running to him in the first place. But as soon as he’d kissed her,
zap,
everything else in her mind had vaporized. What if the flame had started flickering out, what if she’d needed to adjust the position of the suitcases to block the wind? This fire was precious; she should have been watching it, tending it, not jumping into Cam Justice’s arms and riding him like a rodeo bronc.

“I am
such
a numskull!” she muttered, watching the smoke spiral upward before being dissipated by the wind. The greener limbs had begun to sullenly burn and the smoke was heavy, far heavier than it would have been with a really good campfire, but miraculous for all that. “I should have been watching the fire.”

“But we wouldn’t have had as much fun,” he pointed out. “Stop beating yourself up. You aren’t responsible for the world.”

“Maybe not, but if this fire had gone out, neither of us would have been a happy camper.” Standing as close as she dared, she cautiously held her hands out. She could feel the heat of the fire on her face and it felt so good she almost moaned. People took things for granted, like heat, and food, and water. She didn’t think she would ever again travel without a pack of waterproof matches in her luggage, as well as a few other necessities she could think of, like a satellite phone. And long, insulated underwear. And a few dozen packages of field rations.

“We’d have lived. We’ve lived without one for two days. This just makes us a little more comfortable.”

Physically, maybe, but it was a huge boost to her morale, which had suffered some major blows already today, and it was just midmorning.

“Although,” he continued reflectively, “I wish I’d remembered about the battery before now.”

“Why? Neither of us was capable of doing anything about it,” she pointed out. “You were too injured to move, and I was too sick.”

“If I’d known what the payoff was for starting a fire, I’d have dragged my naked body through the snow to get to that battery.”

Bailey burst out laughing. The ridiculousness of that image was just too much to resist—not the naked part, because she thought he’d be damn fine to look at, judging from the parts she’d already seen, but anyone being willing to drag themselves naked through snow for a kiss.

He reached out and hooked his fingers in her waistband, dragged her backward. “Sit down,” he instructed. “We need to have a talk.”

There was an iron note of command in his voice. Bailey lifted her eyebrows at him. “Is that tone of voice supposed to make me click my heels and salute?”

“It worked on the men under my command.”

“Of which I’m not one,” she pointed out.

“Thank God. If you were, there are regulations against some plans I have involving you. Do you want to hear about them or not? If you do, sit down.”