Page 18 of Undoing His Innocent Enemy (Hot Winter Escapes)

Cara glanced up from her breakfast to find her irate host standing over her. She’d seen him marching past the kitchen earlier to head to his workshop.

Guilt wrapped around her throat, making it hard for her to swallow down the spoonful of berries and yoghurt he’d caught her eating.

Accusation and anger shone in his eyes, turning the pale blue to a fierce steel.

‘I—I didn’t...’

She hadn’t followed him intentionally. She’d read his curt note that morning, informing her they would leave at first light tomorrow—and also understood what he hadn’t said, that he expected her to remain invisible until then.

She’d bristled at the commanding tone, but had been determined to control the reckless thoughts from last night—when she’d seriously contemplated acting on the passion that flared between them.

Because that was madness.

But when the storm had died, the shimmering white had beckoned her out into the quiet wilderness. She hadn’t been able to resist the urge to get dressed in the clothing she’d found washed and folded in the laundry room off the garage.

She had ventured out to explore the land, on the pretext of figuring out if any of it was familiar. Maybe they weren’t that far from the national forest where she’d left the snowmobile? After all, she’d been delirious the evening he’d brought her here, maybe the ride hadn’t been as long as she’d assumed. But nothing had looked remotely familiar—the mountain gorge behind the house and the thick forest beyond a far cry from the frozen boreal forest of the tundra where she’d been tracking the lynx.

Changing tack, and mindful of not straying too far from the house, she’d been doubling back through the spruce and birch trees when she had spotted his tracks on the north side of the building. Without questioning the impulse, she’d followed his large footprints in the newly fallen snow until she had seen him through the trees busy sawing a hole in the icy lake beside a small wooden cabin.

She’d watched him work, becoming aware of what he was doing—because she had heard of the Finnish tradition of ice swimming in the resort in Saariselkä. She’d never tried it herself. But still she’d been fascinated by the methodical way he used the old-fashioned hand tools. The strength in his arms and shoulders—even visible beneath the heavy clothing—had drawn her to him as he’d finished creating the swimming hole. She’d been spellbound. And then he’d disappeared into the cabin. And come out a few minutes later virtually naked.

It was only then, as her pulse rate rocketed and the awareness in her gut flared like a firework, that she had acknowledged what she’d really been waiting to see—like the worst kind of voyeur.

His pale skin had been pink from the heat, the steam rising off those broad shoulders and long legs. Her gaze had devoured the defined ridges of his six-pack, the line of hair that tapered down from the light fleece that covered his pecs through washboard abs. As he’d stood at the ladder for several seconds, stretching and flexing before climbing in, she’d became fascinated by the way the damp shorts moulded to his backside framing a truly magnificent set of glutes.

He seemed immune to the cold, which was beginning to make her fingers numb and her eyelashes freeze in six layers of clothing, after standing still for too long spying on him.

The fervent wish that she’d had her camera equipment had consumed her. She would have loved to capture him on film as he lowered his body into the lake, his tall, broad frame somehow at one with the frozen beauty of his surroundings.

But once he’d been immersed to his neck in the freezing water, a rush of panic and fear had all but crippled her as she had waited what felt like several eternities for him to climb out again.

Wasn’t it dangerous to swim alone, out here in the wilderness, miles from anywhere? Did he do this often? How could he be so reckless with his personal safety?

The fear and indignation returned in a rush as he stood over her now, thankfully masking her guilt and quelling the blush that threatened to incinerate her.

‘I wasn’t spying on you...’

Or not much, she told herself staunchly.

‘I was making sure you didn’t die.’

The dark frown became catastrophic. ‘What?’

‘You were ice swimming alone. That’s dangerous. Even I know that and I’m not even Finnish, I’m Irish,’ she added, warming to her theme as she began to babble. ‘I’ve been living in Lapland for over six months. And I happen to know it’s not safe to ice swim without back-up. If you’d had a pulmonary oedema while you were in there you could have become disorientated and there would have been no one to pull you out. I was just being your back-up.’

Getting an eyeful of his impressive physique and the way his bare body pulsed with vitality in the bright Arctic daylight had been a coincidental fringe benefit.

‘My safety is not your concern,’ he said, his firm lips pursing into a thin line, that steel-blue gaze going a little squinty with frustration.

Join the club, fella.

‘Of course it is. You saved my life,’ she said, becoming exasperated now with his rampant individualism. ‘I owe you.’

‘You owe me nothing.’ He planted his palms on the table, and leaned over her, no doubt to intimidate her with that arctic glare, but she could see the awareness in his gaze as it swept over her face and dipped towards her breasts, which were moulded against the thin thermal undershirt she’d stripped down to after rushing back to the house. Something cracked open inside her, something raw and passionate. And the fierce feeling of connection—which she had been trying to deny ever since he had first appeared out of the storm like an avenging angel—careered through her body.

‘There is nothing I need from you,’ he added, his tone brittle with determination. ‘Nothing I need from anyone.’

But she knew it wasn’t entirely true, when his gaze swept over her again—and she saw the fierce hunger he couldn’t hide.

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