Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
“Smith?” Kenny squawked in disbelief. She truly hadn’t believed he would bother coming for her himself.
She could finally see him clearly, tall, lean, arms folded across his chest as he glowered at her through the settling dust.
“I didn’t think you’d come yourself,” she said, completely unnerved by his appearance. She’d resigned herself to not seeing him again for a long time, if ever, and now here he was. Larger than life, looking pissed off and seriously sexy at the same time.
“I wasn’t about to send Harris to deal with my business by himself.”
His words belatedly alerted her to the fact that he wasn’t alone. Harris Chapman—Smith’s best friend and brother-in-law—was exiting the passenger side of the Land Rover.
The man rounded the front of the vehicle and stood shoulder to shoulder with Smith. The two men, equally tall, both extremely good looking, were a striking pair. And presenting an unmistakably united front.
Smith had brought reinforcements. Kenny wasn’t sure if she was aghast or amused by that realization.
“McKenna.” Harris was wearing reflective sunglasses and didn’t bother to remove them. There was no hint of warmth in the man’s greeting. Just an austere nod.
“Harris.” Kenny mustered up a smile for the man. “Thank you for coming.”
He dipped his chin, still unsmiling. “Smith asked me to.”
“Of course.” They all stood in awkward silence for a few seconds before Kenny took a couple of steps to the side and gestured toward her car. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience. If you could just, um, help me out of this little predicament, I’ll be on my way.”
Smith made a deep growling sound in the back of his throat before closing the distance between them and grabbing hold of her arm unexpectedly.
“Why are you limping?” The question was sharp and shot at her in a raised voice.
Startled by both the urgency in his voice as well as his firm grip on her arm, Kenny stared silently into his eyes for a fraught moment before gathering her scattered senses.
“Oh…my foot. It’s nothing.” The lie was automatic as she defaulted to her usual setting of minimizing what she felt around Smith.
Kenny shut her eyes for a brief moment and shook her head impatiently, irritated with herself.
This entire trip may well be an exercise in futility, but the least she could do was keep the promises she’d made to herself.
One of which was to let people in. To stop pretending that she was capable of handling every single thing in her life by herself.
“That’s not true.” She saw a flicker of shock in his beautiful ice-green eyes at that admission. “I think I broke or sprained my big toe, actually.”
At her words, the surprise in his gaze morphed into something resembling concern.
“What?” he snapped. “How in hell did you do that, Kenna? Did you fall while you were traipsing around the semi-arid landscape looking for a signal?”
“What are you doing?” she asked, when her feet were swept out from under her and her world went spinning as he lifted her into his arms. He ignored her question and—despite the earlier curtness in his voice—handled her with extreme care as he deposited her sideways onto the passenger side of his Land Rover.
He stood next to the door, right in front of her, crowding her a little.
“You can’t walk on that foot. Not until it’s been checked by a doctor.”
“I am a doctor, and I’m sure it just needs rest, an ice pack, some strapping, and a few hours of elevation, and I’ll be good to go.”
She wasn’t so sure about that. With the adrenaline long gone, her toe was starting to give her more than a little discomfort as it throbbed.
“You’re not allowed to self-diagnose, Kenna.”
“I need to get back on the road.”
“You’re not going anywhere tonight. It’ll be dark soon and you look like hell. You’re covered in bug bites, limping, and I don’t know if you realize it, but you’re coated with a thin layer of red mud.”
“My air-conditioning isn’t working. I had to drive with the windows open. I was hot and sweaty and the dust…stuck,” she muttered.
“That would explain the hair,” he said, pursing his lips as he stepped back to do an inventory of her person.
“Ugh, is it that bad?” Kenny asked in horror, combing a self-conscious hand through her untied, shoulder-length hair, and then grimacing when she hit a snarl.
His lips twitched and he lifted a hand to tug something from her hair. He held up the tiny twig he’d retrieved before tossing it aside.
“Suffice to say windblown would be too kind a description for it right now. Anyway, as I was saying, it’s not wise for you to drive anywhere tonight.
You’ll have to stay over. A hot shower, a decent meal, and a good night’s rest and you can fuck off back to your world tomorrow.
After we’ve had that toe checked. You’d be a danger to yourself and everyone else on the road if you got back into your car tonight. ”
“I suppose a night in a hotel won’t do any harm. I’ll leave at dawn.”
“Uh-uh, the doctor’s office only opens at…” Smith stopped speaking when Harris, who’d been checking Kenny’s car while she and Smith were talking, waved to get his notice. “What’s the damage, Harris?”
“It’s stuck in the loose sand.” Kenny refrained from rolling her eyes at that statement of the obvious.
Spotting the problem was a matter of just looking.
That oh-so manly little walk around the vehicle had been entirely unnecessary.
Then again, the man was here to help and she was being a tad ungracious.
“It’s a miracle she made it this far on a two-wheel drive,” Harris said. “This road is mostly sand and loose pebbles.” Harris told him. “We’re going to have to create a ramp of some sort. Maybe let some air out of the tire for increased traction. Shouldn’t be too hard.”
“I’ll be with you in a second,” Smith told his friend before shifting his focus back to Kenny. His eyes roamed over her face once more, lingering in a few places.
Kenny knew she looked a fright and wished he wouldn’t peer quite so closely.
“I think Tina probably has some calamine lotion at her place. You’re going to need it for the bites.”
Speaking of which…
“Those midges were relentless. Why do you and Harris appear to be immune to them?”
“Insect repellent,” he told her with a fleeting grin. Seeing him look so much like the man he’d been when they first met, Kenny’s heart ached. “The midges and mozzies are bastards here this time of year.”
Of course they were. Kenny was so unprepared—in so many ways—for this impromptu trip, it was ridiculous.
“Wait here,” he said, all business now. “It shouldn’t take too long to get your car unstuck. I have cold water in an ice box in the back seat if you’re thirsty.”
He spun away from her and was halfway to her car before stopping and turning his head to pin her with his cool gaze.
“In fact, thirsty or not, have the water anyway. You’re bound to be dehydrated after this crazy stunt.”
Crazy stunt, like Kenny was some attention-seeking teen who’d gone out looking for trouble.
“I stayed hydrated,” she told him, her voice stilted. “I’m not stupid.”
He lifted a supercilious brow at her words, before casting his eyes around the desolate landscape, the message in the pointed gesture crystal clear.
“I followed my GPS’s directions,” she pointed out, offended. “It’s not my fault it led me down this hell road.”
“You shouldn’t have been driving in the first place.” She gasped indignantly at that bit of casual misogyny and he rolled his eyes. “You hate driving, Kenna. That’s hardly a secret. So what the fuck made you tackle a seven-hour drive on an unfamiliar route?”
He planted his hands on his narrow hips and turned fully toward her, still looking unbothered by the sweltering heat.
“In fact, why are out here at all? I don’t want you here.”
Kenny blinked rapidly in an effort to clear the sudden stinging mist from her eyes, and managed to contain the small moan of pain and despair lodged in her throat.
“Don’t worry, Smith, you’ve made that abundantly clear,” she said, her voice wobbling alarmingly.
Don’t you dare cry, McKenna! she admonished herself sternly.
She’d kept the worst of her emotions from this man for the entirety of their marriage.
Her fear of vulnerability shut him out completely.
Letting him see her fall apart now, when it was too late, would likely—quite justifiably—confuse and frustrate him.
He was already watching her with a baffled wariness that told her that he’d probably spotted that sheen of tears.
His hands fell from his hips and he took a small step toward her when Harris’s voice finally drew his regard from her.
“Smith, grab a spade will you?”
“On my way,” Smith replied, and Kenny watched as he retrieved a couple of spades from the back of his car and joined his friend who was standing beside her rental.
The two men stood staring at her sunken back tire, heads bent as they conferred with each other. Harris was pointing and Smith nodded as he decided that his friend’s plan of action was best.
Kenny pulled her legs into the car and shut the door, enjoying the blast of coolness from the functioning air conditioner, while continuing to watch the two men.
Physically, they were evenly matched, tall, lean, clearly fit.
Kenny knew that they used to play tennis together several times a week before Harris moved to Riversend to be with Tina.
Harrison Chapman was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome.
While Smith… Kenny’s gaze was helplessly drawn to her husband.
Smith was ruggedly beautiful. His hair was longer than she’d ever seen it, making the copper highlights in that thick, wavy dark blond mane more obvious than usual.
He was sporting at least three days’ worth of scruff on his strong, square jaw.
The stubble glinted a lighter shade of blond than the hair on his head.