Chapter Three
T he cabin was one of the worst Colt had ever stayed in, and that was saying a lot when he’d slept with his head in the mud between military skirmishes.
He hauled in two armfuls of split wood and stacked it next to the stove. Aspen had found several more candles and lit up the space enough for him to see it was worse than he imagined.
From the corner of his eye, he threw her a glance. He didn’t know her well, but he’d have to say her silence spoke volumes. Even he had enough of a heart to see how disappointed she was in the place.
While he got a fire going in the stove, Aspen carried her bag into the bedroom. When she emerged wearing thick gray sweats, his gut did something weird.
It tightened.
She was a beautiful woman, and she’d worn that green dress well. But something about Aspen looking undone had his body more awake than it had been in a long time.
“Good thing you’ve got something warm to wear to bed. This place has a lot of drafts.”
“It also has a pantry full of expired food.”
He cocked a brow at her. “Gotta be something in there that’s fit to eat.”
She waved a hand. “I’m not that hungry. I can wait.”
He nodded and returned to arranging logs in the open door of the woodstove. After he got the fire going and some heat rolling out of the old iron, he addressed the next problem: their sleeping arrangements.
When he stepped up to the open bedroom door, his gaze fell over the old bed.
“I’ll take the floor.”
Aspen stood behind him, peering in at the bed with the same reservations he had about sleeping with a stranger.
He disliked people. He preferred to be alone, and there was a good reason for that. His nightmares of war weren’t something that went away. Sleeping in the barn was his way of keeping his family from waking up to his screams at night.
Maybe he should have told Aspen he’d sleep in the truck. But the idea of leaving a woman alone in a cabin rubbed him wrong.
“Sure you don’t want something to eat before bed?” he asked her.
“Let’s just end this day already. I’ve been up for ages.”
He had too, but he was used to it. Seeing bruises of tiredness under each of her eyes pushed him into action. He returned to the front to check the lock and make sure that the woodstove wasn’t going to catch the place on fire with them inside.
Satisfied, he returned to the bedroom.
His gut did that weird thing again.
Clenched.
Aspen had set a candle on a rickety wood table next to the bed. She was huddled under the covers, with the shabby blanket pulled up to her chin. And she was shivering.
Dammit.
His inner protector couldn’t let that go on for long. He climbed into bed fully clothed and stretched out on his back, shifting his body close to Aspen, just short of touching, in hopes that she could share some of his body heat.
Before long, he heard her breathing change, relaxing into a slow, easy rhythm. This was typically the hour when most people replayed their day, thinking about work, family or going over worries. It took him all of a week of being a SEAL before Colt realized he wasn’t built like everyone else.
He blanked his mind and fell into what he hoped was a dreamless sleep.
As soon as his eyes popped open, he knew where he was, what time of day…and was well aware of a small, curvy woman plastered against his side.
Aspen.
Not moving a muscle, he let his senses take over. From one deep breath, he picked up the sweet scent of her perfume, its notes enhanced by her body heat. Thanks to him.
Oh hell. Now he was extremely aware of his not-so-small problem…of waking up with morning wood.
His stiff cock was mere inches from a female. She was pretty. No ring was on her finger, and if there were, it would be a fat diamond worth three months’ salary.
And his cock surged with plans of giving this old bed a run for its money.
He had to put those thoughts out of his head.
Focusing on anything but his erection, he studied the low ceiling, water-stained and strung with old cobwebs.
It wasn’t a nightmare—this place was even worse in the daylight.
A laugh rumbled through his chest.
The princess was not going to be impressed.
Speaking of princess, Aspen jolted awake. At the same time, she grew aware that she was curled up against him and rolled away.
She scrubbed a hand over her face. “What’s funny?”
Damn, that husky quality of her voice wasn’t shutting down his hard-on. If anything, it encouraged the situation.
“This is a coyote ugly place.”
“What does that mean?”
“Coyotes will chew off a limb if they’re caught in a trap. It means you’d chew off your arm to leave.”
She groaned, rolled onto her face and didn’t move again.
He stifled another laugh at her response and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
The place was chilly. The fire had gone out during the night. In the front of the cabin, he changed out of his wedding clothes—finally. Then he went outside for another load of wood and set about relighting the fire.
When he finished, Aspen still hadn’t emerged from the bedroom. “What’s for breakfast?” she called to him.
He moved over to the tiny kitchen that looked like the first wagon train brought the materials to build it.
The pantry consisted of a space between two rickety old cupboards with three shelves stacked with a few cans of food.
Crouching before the shelves, he began sifting through the cans, sorting them into expired and not expired.
“Well, Aspen. Good news, there are three cans of food that aren’t expired,” he called to her. “We’ve got beets.”
Her subdued moan reached his ears, making him shake with a silent laugh.
“Lima beans.”
“What the hell do we do with lima beans? Eat them out of the can?”
He didn’t know what it was about a prim and proper woman like Aspen cussing, but it amused the hell out of him. His grin stretched wider.
“Corned beef,” he went on.
“ Oh god. What even is that?”
“And I have granola bars in the truck.”
She popped into the open doorway, dark curls mussed and as disheveled as if she’d just been carried to that bed and thoroughly loved.
Dammit, and he just got his erection to go down.
Her green eyes and the faint roses of sleep in her cheeks were the best thing this cabin had to offer. “Granola bars sound great.”
He pushed to his feet and left the cabin to retrieve the food and a couple of the bottles of water he always stashed in the truck. In the mountains, a man was prepared for any eventuality. That could mean anything from a hunting accident to a flat tire. Having a few basics on hand meant life or death.
He came back inside and set the food on the old wood table. One of the spindle legs had been replaced by a two-by-four post. Angling his head, he eyeballed it. “Vintage furniture.”
“Don’t remind me.” She snatched up a granola bar and tore into it. In three bites, she had polished it off and reached for a second. Seemed she didn’t want the corned beef.
“So this place won’t make the travel portfolio.”
As if restored by the food, she gave him a small shake of her head rather than biting his off. “I’m looking for hidden gems. Things off the beaten path. Some of my clients like privacy and elite retreats, not resorts. And yacht vacations aren’t the same now that the whales are sinking them.”
His brows shot up. “I heard about that.”
She tipped her head to the side like an interested bird. “You don’t seem like the kind of man who follows current news.”
“I was a Navy SEAL. Anything that goes on in the water interests me.”
She straightened, her gaze cutting from his face to his shoulders and down over his chest. If she kept eyeing him like that, he was never going to make his cock un-swell.
He had to put some distance between him and the woman who made gray sweats look sexy and irresistible.
He turned for the door. “I’m going outside to have a look around.”
* * * * *
The water was barely warm. The metal edges of the horse trough were freezing if Aspen even bumped into it.
What must have passed for steam in the days of pioneers wisped up from the water that barely covered her thighs but was making her curls frizz. Her knees jutted upward, even her shorter legs too long to fit in the small tub. She still couldn’t believe she’d gotten brave enough—or desperate enough—to heat water over the stove and take a bath.
After the endlessly long day she had yesterday, getting up early and flying to Wyoming to hand-deliver that portfolio, followed by one roadblock after another, she deserved hot water.
If only it were hot.
She closed her eyes and sucked in a breath of the light lemon-scented body wash she’d picked up last time she was in France. What she wouldn’t give right now to be back there, staying in luxury accommodations and visiting farmer’s markets.
Instead, she was stuck in a lukewarm bath, trying to quickly scrub herself clean before Colt returned from whatever he was doing outside.
She pictured him standing under that water hose they claimed was an “outdoor shower.” All six-foot-two or three of raw, muscular Navy SEAL power, scrubbing himself down with cold water in the wilderness.
A tight string in her lower belly tugged, and she clamped her thighs together in response.
She needed to stop thinking about Colt Malone. He was broody, and she disliked broody men.
One problem—did broody men ever laugh? He’d laughed about their situation—several times. The deep sound had raked over her senses and left her wondering just how he looked when he let go and smiled. That sound had urged her out of her depression nap and to the bedroom door to catch the sight before it faded away. Only she’d seen him squatting in front of the pantry shelf and got too distracted by the hard planes of his thighs in those jeans.
Did she have time to heat more water? She cast a glance at the wood pile. That stove really devoured wood. Only one stick remained.
She’d just have to finish her bath.
She glanced around. Oh damn. She was in such a hurry to get the bath started before Colt returned that she never grabbed a towel.
She weighed her options—run naked to the bedroom and hurry into her clothes, or search for a towel.
The door blew inward, announcing Colt’s return and severing all possibility of leaving the tub.
She drew her knees up against her chest. She was very self-conscious about her body—especially her breasts—and the last thing she wanted was Colt seeing her naked.
He kicked the door shut and turned for the woodstove. He froze when he saw her. “You’re taking a bath.”
She gulped. “Yes. And it’s cold. Can I get more wood?”
He twisted, presenting her with his back. “There is no more wood. Someone took it all.”
“What? Who?”
“I don’t know. The owner of the cabin? A neighbor? Last night I grabbed some that was stacked on the side of the cabin. I saw a larger stack sitting out back, but it’s gone.”
“I see. Um…could you hand me a towel?”
His big machine of a body jerked forward in a hasty stride. He reached into a cupboard and pulled out a thin towel. Without turning around, he tossed it to her. It slipped to the floor, which forced her to lean over the freezing side. She banded one arm across her bare breasts to save them from being seen, and from the biting cold, and grabbed the towel.
Colt still stood in the middle of the room, his back to her, giving her a chance to soak in the long line of his spine. He wore a canvas coat, but she knew from dancing with him at the wedding that his body was layered with muscle.
Then there was his carved backside.
“We need a plan, Aspen. There’s no more wood here. Even if we wanted to stay, we can’t heat the place. We have to leave.”
“Um…can you go back outside while I…”
“Absolutely.” In two strides, he reached the door and whipped it open. A blast of frigid air blew over her wet body before he slammed it shut.
She stood, dripping, and wrapped the flimsy towel around her body. Shivering, she returned to the bedroom. She could throw on the gray sweats again, but she wasn’t really one of those women who dressed down. Her career required that she always looked ready to take on the world on a billionaire’s budget, and she stuck to that uniform.
Though she didn’t come from money, she had come into a tidy inheritance—the hard way. First when she lost her mom, then by losing a dear friend.
She rubbed the towel over her goose bumps, but they refused to smooth out. She dug through her bag and located a pair of winter white pants that conformed to her body and added a pale blue cashmere sweater to the ensemble. After unearthing white hiking boots from the bottom of her bag, she sat on the edge of the bed to put them on.
Even the feel of the mattress beneath her made her mind whirl back to her night spent on it—with Colt. A flush burned in her cheeks. She couldn’t believe she had the guts to share a bed with a stranger. It was so out of character for her.
Not to mention waking up with her body glued to his big, steely hard one.
But god, he was toasty warm, and she could use some of that body heat now.
Still shivering, she tossed everything she owned into her bag and zipped it up, praying she wasn’t bringing home any unwanted travel companions. The cabin was surely too cold for vermin to live, so she was probably safe.
When she carried the bag to the front, she found Colt standing right outside. He gave her a once-over, his gaze lingering on her legs in the fitted pants made for the ski slopes and drinks afterward in the lodge. Then he dropped his stare to her boots.
“White?”
“Do you have something against white?”
He shook his head and muttered something about city girls. Then he held out a hand to her.
She stared down at it. Broad palm, long fingers with small, hard bumps of callus in all the spots you’d expect of a working man’s hand.
She glanced up at him.
“Your bag, princess.”
Her mouth popped open in outrage at what he just called her.
Instead of handing him the bag, she decided to show him that she was no princess.
With a flick of her curls, she gave him a direct look. “I’ll carry my own luggage.”
There it was again—that twitch of his hard lips.
“Suit yourself.” He stepped aside, allowing her to pass by him to reach the truck. She heard the cabin door shut…and something that sounded like a low, soft whistle that carried on the breeze.
Why was she imagining that Colt was staring at her as she walked away with that same deep, hazy expression that slid into his dark gray eyes when he looked at her curve-skimming pants?