the miracle as it unfolded.
“Blue…if you don’t get your grubby paws off of me, my knee is going to connect with a part of your anatomy that you, no doubt, highly value, and that I could happily put out of commission for the rest of your natural life.”
His eyes snapped open. He pulled back, blinked, then blinked again. “Huh?”
“Back off, buster,” she gritted out between chattering teeth.
“Oh.” Reality interloped on fantasy with grating finality. “Oh, yeah. I’m…ah, sorry. Can…can you, ah, get up?”
She glared at him. “I could if you’d get off me.”
“Oh. Ah, yeah. Sure.”
He wasn’t quite sure when he’d been reduced to monosyllabic mutterings. Somewhere between here and eternity he’d guess—or between the mention of her knee and his highly valued parts. The look in her eyes warned him that she meant business. Since he had plans for those parts that included both him and her, instinct took over.
With a strength he hadn’t thought was left in him, he sprang to his feet. As an afterthought, he offered her his hand.
She didn’t just ignore it. She made a great show of looking at his outstretched hand, then glaring at him as if to say, “I wouldn’t accept your help if you were the last degenerate on earth.”
She rose to her feet on her own steam. Without a word, she gathered her soaked clothes in her arms and headed up the stone cliff.
Halfway up the slope, she turned back to him. “Hershey, at least, was smart enough to come in out of the rain. If you can muster up a fraction of his intelligence, you cando the same. That is, if you don’t strain something dragging that damn plane to shore.”
While her words were harsh and judgmental, the look in her eyes gave him hope. She may be mad—okay, so she was livid—but she was also concerned about him. Just when he’d thought all was lost. She cared, bless her. She didn’t want to but she did.
Even the glare she leveled at him before she turned and began making her way along the slope didn’t fool him. Katharine Hepburn always gave Spencer Tracy that lookjust before she threw herself into his arms and told the big lug she loved him.
“Everything was so simple yesterday,” Maggie muttered under her breath as she lifted the whistling teakettle off the stove and filled two mugs with boiling water. “I was alone. I was in peace. I was not up at two in the morning with a seventy-pound ball of fur hogging my bed and a two-hundred-twenty-pound drowned rat occupying my shower.”
She tried not to be concerned about Blue while she stood in the kitchen and he stood in the bathroom under a hot shower trying to coax some warmth back into his bones. But he’d been out in the storm a lot longer than she had and she’d felt awful by the time she finally made her way back to the cabin. She’d been cold to the point of brittle, her joints aching, her fingers and toes stinging and her teeth chattering so hard she’d managed to bite her tongue.
A long, hot shower had helped her. So had the fire she’d laid in the little wood stove—as she’d done every night in the event she needed to take the chill off the cabin. She sent a silent prayer of thanks toward whatever power had sent her Abel Greene two months ago. He’d just shown up out of nowhere that day she’d arrived, and in addition to helping her open up the cabin and making some minor repairs to the place, Abel had taken to checking on her at regularintervals and seeing to it that her wood pile was well stocked.
Unlike Blue Hazzard, who had been nothing but a pain, Abel Greene had been a gift. Like Blue, Abel was a big man. Big, uniquely beautiful, and at first meeting imposing. The first time she’d seen him emerge from the woods looking for all the world like an untamed and savage warrior with his long black hair flowing down his back and his silver-eyed wolf dog by his side, she’d almost packed up and headed back to civilization. She’d gotten used to Abel’s
“Blue…if you don’t get your grubby paws off of me, my knee is going to connect with a part of your anatomy that you, no doubt, highly value, and that I could happily put out of commission for the rest of your natural life.”
His eyes snapped open. He pulled back, blinked, then blinked again. “Huh?”
“Back off, buster,” she gritted out between chattering teeth.
“Oh.” Reality interloped on fantasy with grating finality. “Oh, yeah. I’m…ah, sorry. Can…can you, ah, get up?”
She glared at him. “I could if you’d get off me.”
“Oh. Ah, yeah. Sure.”
He wasn’t quite sure when he’d been reduced to monosyllabic mutterings. Somewhere between here and eternity he’d guess—or between the mention of her knee and his highly valued parts. The look in her eyes warned him that she meant business. Since he had plans for those parts that included both him and her, instinct took over.
With a strength he hadn’t thought was left in him, he sprang to his feet. As an afterthought, he offered her his hand.
She didn’t just ignore it. She made a great show of looking at his outstretched hand, then glaring at him as if to say, “I wouldn’t accept your help if you were the last degenerate on earth.”
She rose to her feet on her own steam. Without a word, she gathered her soaked clothes in her arms and headed up the stone cliff.
Halfway up the slope, she turned back to him. “Hershey, at least, was smart enough to come in out of the rain. If you can muster up a fraction of his intelligence, you cando the same. That is, if you don’t strain something dragging that damn plane to shore.”
While her words were harsh and judgmental, the look in her eyes gave him hope. She may be mad—okay, so she was livid—but she was also concerned about him. Just when he’d thought all was lost. She cared, bless her. She didn’t want to but she did.
Even the glare she leveled at him before she turned and began making her way along the slope didn’t fool him. Katharine Hepburn always gave Spencer Tracy that lookjust before she threw herself into his arms and told the big lug she loved him.
“Everything was so simple yesterday,” Maggie muttered under her breath as she lifted the whistling teakettle off the stove and filled two mugs with boiling water. “I was alone. I was in peace. I was not up at two in the morning with a seventy-pound ball of fur hogging my bed and a two-hundred-twenty-pound drowned rat occupying my shower.”
She tried not to be concerned about Blue while she stood in the kitchen and he stood in the bathroom under a hot shower trying to coax some warmth back into his bones. But he’d been out in the storm a lot longer than she had and she’d felt awful by the time she finally made her way back to the cabin. She’d been cold to the point of brittle, her joints aching, her fingers and toes stinging and her teeth chattering so hard she’d managed to bite her tongue.
A long, hot shower had helped her. So had the fire she’d laid in the little wood stove—as she’d done every night in the event she needed to take the chill off the cabin. She sent a silent prayer of thanks toward whatever power had sent her Abel Greene two months ago. He’d just shown up out of nowhere that day she’d arrived, and in addition to helping her open up the cabin and making some minor repairs to the place, Abel had taken to checking on her at regularintervals and seeing to it that her wood pile was well stocked.
Unlike Blue Hazzard, who had been nothing but a pain, Abel Greene had been a gift. Like Blue, Abel was a big man. Big, uniquely beautiful, and at first meeting imposing. The first time she’d seen him emerge from the woods looking for all the world like an untamed and savage warrior with his long black hair flowing down his back and his silver-eyed wolf dog by his side, she’d almost packed up and headed back to civilization. She’d gotten used to Abel’s
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