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“No. But I am trained in first aid. I’m a wilderness guide.”
The way he said the two things, almost as if they weren’t related, was odd. I watched him as he ran his fingers around the rest of my arm as if looking for any hidden burns he hadn’t seen on the first pass. Even though I knew he’d found the only burn, I let him keep touching me, if only so I could feel connected to another person for a few minutes.
“A wilderness guide? In winter?”
He looked up and I noticed his eyes change from silver to the hidden shades of fog.
“In winter I do odd jobs.”
Would it kill this guy to use more than the barest minimum of words? Was he afraid they cost money and he was on a tight budget?
“What kind of odd jobs?” I pressed.
He shrugged. “I get paid to keep an eye on a couple of vacation rentals on the mountain. There are a few trails I maintain to keep the way clear up to a local weather observation station on the top of the mountain. And then… I guess little things, like chop wood for people and help city folk get their cars out of ditches.”
I couldn’t tell if he was teasing me or not.
“Was I supposed to pay you for that?” I asked as seriously as I could. It wasn’t until I grinned that his face broke out into a smile like the sun, dimples and all. Holy fuck, the man was sexy.
“I’d ask you to bake me some cookies, but I’d be afraid of you burning the cabin to the ground in the process.”
I was still staring at those dimples when I finally shook myself out of my reverie.
“I can’t cook worth shit. No fear of burning down the place when I most likely won’t even turn the oven on all winter. If I can’t fix it in the microwave, I eat it raw.”
An awkward silence descended. Even though his eyes were on me and not my injury, his fingers were running up and down the length of my forearm, stopping just short of the bandage on my wrist. Every pass had my dick responding in my pants. As much as I was enjoying the contact, I knew if he didn’t stop, there’d be no chance in hell of hiding my condition, not in the Tom Ford joggers I was wearing. God, I really needed to get to town to find some clothes that were more suitable for the weather and had the added benefit of not outing my condition to this man every time he was in my presence.
I should have just tugged my arm free, but instead I found myself covering his hand with mine to stop his movement.
Big mistake.
Because sparks flew.
Electricity flared beneath my fingers where they were resting on the back of his hand. Jake dropped his eyes to our hands, and I did the same. My skin was pale against his, and while my fingers were long and slim, his were thick, the pads rough. It was just one of a dozen reminders of how different he and I were.
The whole thing lasted just seconds, but it felt like forever. I was sure I was going to pass out from the lack of oxygen to my brain because I was holding my breath to see what he would do.
What he did was drop my hand like a hot potato. I managed not to react to the stinging pain that shot up my arm. Jake practically stumbled to his feet. “Ah, anyway, I’m going to run over to your place and see if I can get the furnace working and the smoke cleared out. Help yourself to anything. There’s a coffee maker on the counter and water in the fridge.”
Before I could thank him, he’d raced out of his own cabin like he’d forgotten to defuse a bomb in the yard.
I stared after him for a beat, feeling a bit like the recipient of alternating hot and cold water in a cheap-ass shower.
Oh yeah, he was definitely straight. He had the straight-guy-dash going on and everything.
But his absence gave me the prime opportunity to look around. While I knew better than to invade the man’s privacy, my curiosity got the better of me. Plus, I had to find at least something of color to brighten up the front room with. How could he even live like that without wanting to slit his wrists?
The first thing I did was turn off the harsh overhead light in the main room and turn on the two lamps on the side tables. They weren’t much to look at, but they provided the softer, more intimate lighting of a home instead of the brighter light of a store or something. When I flicked on the lamp on the far side of the table, I noticed a tall basket stashed in the corner of the room. Several old quilts lay abandoned in the bottom of the basket, along with what looked like two pillows made out of the exact same leather as the sofa itself.
