Page 3 of In Bed with the Rancher

She slipped and he stepped close to put his arm around her as she grabbed him. “Thanks. I’m glad that wasn’t your cut shoulder,” she said, holding her hat on her head as she looked up at him.

As they steadied, he gripped a tree branch with one hand while he held her close with the other, her hip pressed against him. She gazed at him. Wind battered them and a sheet of cold rain swept over them, but she barely noticed it. Even with his injuries, he was strong, holding her tightly while his body heat warmed her side where they were pressed together.

As she gazed into his brown eyes, another sizzle made her forget rain, cold, danger—everything else except his strong arm holding her, his warm body against hers and those eyes that captured and held her gaze. Dark brown eyes that changed her world. When she saw the slightest narrowing of his eyes, she knew he felt something, too. She figured this primitive urge they both had was stirred by the danger from the storm. As if to confirm her thoughts, another big tree snapped and cracked, toppling to the ground.

“Let’s get out of here,” she shouted with a deliberate effort to break the spell. His arm tightened around her waist and, together, grabbing nearby limbs, they climbed the remaining way to the road. She pointed to her pickup. “You wait here and I’ll come get you.”

With a shake of his head, he took her arm and started toward her pickup. “Let’s go.”

When they reached her vehicle, he released her. As soon as they both were inside, she retrieved a first-aid kit from the back seat and handed him a thick gauze pad.

“Hold this against your shoulder. You’re still losing blood.”

He took the pad from her and placed it over the jagged cut on his shoulder. As he did, he reached out to remove her hat and toss it into the back, then he turned to take a long, slow look at her that made her forget she was cold and rain-soaked. All she knew was that his attention was on her and she couldn’t get her breath.

“When I opened my eyes, you looked like an angel with your blond hair and blue eyes, but I don’t think angels wear cowboy hats.”

His voice was deep and he sat close while his dark brown eyes made her heart race. He had raked thick, wet black hair away from his face, but a few wavy locks had already slipped free to fall on his forehead. Regardless of his injuries and tattered, wet clothes, she felt another puzzling moment of heated, physical awareness. How could she feel intense awareness for a total stranger, and in these abominable circumstances?

She made an effort to break the eye contact and get her mind back on their situation, which grew more hazardous by the minute.

She cleared her throat and dug out her phone. “I’ll try to get info on the roads,” she said with a breathlessness that she hoped he didn’t notice. She focused on her phone for a moment and then shook her head and dropped her phone into a pocket of her jacket when she got no reception.

“My cabin is big, well-stocked and comfortable,” she said, starting the pickup and driving back the way she had come. “We’ll have to double back for a few miles to get there. If this downpour continues a lot longer, we may be stuck at my place until the storm is gone and water recedes. It’s remote and isolated out here. As you can see, there’s no cell-phone reception. No TV reception, either, so I don’t even have a TV at the cabin.”

“How many miles to your cabin?”

“About ten. There’s a road I can take and it’s on higher ground. It’s a back road the ranchers put in across private property, but it gives about five of us a way around the low places when we have these torrential downpours. There are two bad things about the road—it’s gravel and we have one creek to cross,” she said as they continued on.

“A gravel road is okay. I remember a narrow road and a sign—‘Keep Off. Private Property.’”

“That’s it.” She glanced at him because she noticed he was shifting and patting his pockets as he talked. “Is something wrong?”

Frowning, he looked at her. “I don’t have my wallet. I must have lost it rolling down the hill. We can’t go searching for it now,” he said.

“No, we can’t.”

“No telling where my pickup has gone.”

“There’s no finding that now, either,” she said, concentrating on her driving in the downpour. Thunder was loud and lightning lit up the area. “We need to get to my cabin before we’re cut off from any shelter. There aren’t many people who live out here.”

“So I noticed.”

“Yes, and it’s not a good place to be in a storm like this. From here to the gravel road will take about five more minutes and then it’ll be even slower traveling. We have one more bridge to cross.” Her brow creased as a thought occurred to her. “If we can’t get across that, I don’t think we can get back to Persimmon. I’m sure the old bridge to Persimmon is under water by now.” She shrugged it off. “Not to worry. If we can cross that last bridge, my cabin is on high ground. It’s never flooded.”

As she squinted through the rain-soaked windshield, she told him, “The road we’re on is such a back road, it’s seldom used even by those of us who live in this area. I have a close neighbor and we could go to his house, but he’s nearer to the creek and that’s probably already like a raging river. I wouldn’t feel safe in his house in this storm.”

She glanced at him. “How are you feeling?”

“My head is pounding, my shoulder still hurts and I’m thoroughly soaked. Otherwise, fair to middlin’, I’d say. Thank you again for stopping to pick me up.”

“Sure.”

He didn’t say anything else and she thought he might be tired of conversation and hurting. “Don’t go to sleep in case you have a concussion.”

“I don’t think staying awake will be a problem,” he remarked dryly and she wondered how much pain he was in. Or perhaps he was worrying about having lost his wallet and his pickup, which she suspected was downstream somewhere filled with water or smashed on rocks.

“I don’t have my phone, either,” he said.

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