Page 13 of A Rugged Beauty
She wrinkled her nose. "You have brown eyes, too."
One corner of his mouth tipped. "I could simply go with Beautiful."
Heat suffused her cheeks and she ducked her head. Thankfully, her stomach gurgled, breaking the awkward silence growing between them.
His brows drew together in concern. She glanced at the weapon on his hip. "Can you hunt?"
He followed her gaze and his hand reflexively came to rest on the gun before he dropped it. "Not well, not with a revolver like this." His forehead wrinkled. "I don't know how I know it, only that I do. And there's limited ammunition. Better to save it."
Save it for what? Perhaps to alert someone, if anyone got within hearing distance?
"I've got an idea I'd like to try in the morning," he said. "There are plenty of fish in that river. Are you very attached to your apron?"
Now she was sure she was the one wearing a look of confusion. What did the two have to do with each other?
He looked slightly chagrined in the flickering firelight. "I was thinking if I cut thin strips from the ties, I could make a fishing line. Maybe carve a quick fishhook."
Fish for breakfast.
Her stomach made an audible agreement. She reached behind her to untie the apron.
There was something intimate about removing the simple outer garment. When her gaze flicked up to his, she saw his stare skitter away.
“Here." She extended it to him.
He took it from her with a nod of thanks. "I'll try to leave it so it can be repaired..."
"Maybe we can use it for a flag—surely there’ll be someone to wave down tomorrow."
He nodded, but she felt a fissure of unease as his eyes traveled around their crude campsite.
What if no one came for them?
Three
Hunger drovethe man from where he slept fitfully on the ground between the fire and the woman's shelter. Before he left their rough camp, he stirred up the coals and added twigs and then two larger logs to the fire. He intended to bring back breakfast and the fish would taste better cooked.
He glimpsed the woman's face as he straightened from the fire, her features slack in sleep. Her beauty hit him all over again, trapping his breath in his chest.
Beautiful.He’d called her that last night. When he had, there’d been almost a… hesitation in the air between them. He didn’t know what it meant.
He worked to keep his steps quiet among the decayed leaves underfoot, avoided twigs that would crack under his boots. Out in the open, the ground was dry and parched, with cracks snaking through the yellowing grass. How long had it been since it had rained?
At the river's edge, he slipped a shaking hand into his pocket to remove the slender wooden fishhook he'd whittled last night by the fire. He'd carefully separated a narrow strip of fabric from the woman’s apron. He'd taken two strips and knotted themtogether to make it twice as long. Now he affixed the hook onto the end with a strong knot.
He was keenly aware that his body, and the woman's too, were in desperate need of sustenance. Still weak after being sick, after the energy lost from swimming in the river, surviving the rapids and cold water.
An echo of gnawing hunger swamped him. Not from his body right now, but something from the past. He forced the feeling back, walking in the growing morning sunlight until he found just the spot he wanted—a bend in the river that made for a deeper pool of slow water and sheltered by the roots of a tree that had grown up on the bank, only to find the soil beneath it slowly being washed away.
That's where the man dropped his hook.
There should be bait on his hook, sense told him. But he had none.
He waited, the apron-string line tugging against the gentle flow of water. Eventually he became aware of movement farther down the bank, then the swish of the woman's dress against the tall grasses as she approached slowly.
Sunlight glinted off the water, sending golden beams skittering across her skin. He felt a pull inside, almost enough to draw him toward her. Only the feel of the line in his hands, the hunger in his belly, kept him where he was.
Something tugged on the line.
