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He stared down at them when he reached the table, then took them with the glass of water beside his plate. “Thanks.” Gingerly he settled himself into his chair.
“You’re welcome.” Rusty knew better than to laugh, but the careful way he was moving was indicative of how severe his hangover was. She poured a cup of strong, black coffee and passed it to him. His hand was shaking as he reached for it. The log-splitting exercise had been self-imposed punishment for his whiskey-drinking binge. She was glad he hadn’t chopped off a toe. Or worse.
“How do you feel?”
Without moving his head, he looked over at her. “My eyelashes h
urt.”
She held back her smile. She also resisted the compulsion to reach across the table and lift the sweaty strands of hair off his forehead. “Can you eat?”
“I think so. I should be able to. I spent what seemed like hours, uh, out back. If the lining of my stomach is still there, it’s all that’s left.”
While he sat with his shoulders hunched and his hands resting carefully on either side of his plate where he’d planted them, she dished up the food. She even cut his ham into bite-size pieces before scooting the plate in front of him. Taking a deep breath, he picked up his fork and took a tentative bite. When he was certain that it was going to stay down, he took another, then another, and was soon eating normally.
“This is good,” he said after several minutes of silence.
“Thank you. Better than oatmeal, for a change.”
“Yeah.”
“I noticed the weather is much warmer.”
Actually, what she had noticed was that the exercise had caused the hair on his chest to curl damply. He’d rebuttoned most of the buttons on his shirt before coming to the table, but it was open far enough for her to get a glimpse of that impressive chest.
“We might get lucky and have a few more days of this before the next storm blows through.”
“That would be nice.”
“Hmm. I could get a lot done around here.”
They’d never had a pointless, polite conversation before. This exchange of meaningless chitchat was more awkward than any of their arguments had been, so both dropped it. In a silence so profound they could hear the water dripping off the eaves outside, they finished their meal and drank their second cups of coffee.
When Rusty stood up to clear the table, Cooper said, “I think the aspirin helped. My headache’s almost gone.”
“I’m glad.”
He cleared his throat loudly and fiddled with the knife and fork he’d laid on his empty plate. “Look, about last night, I, uh, I don’t have an excuse for it.”
She smiled at him with understanding. “If I could have stood the taste of that whiskey, I might have gotten drunk myself. There have been numerous times since the crash when I’ve wanted that kind of escape. You don’t have to apologize.”
Moving back to the table, she reached for his plate. He caught her hand. The gesture, unlike anything else he’d done since she met him, was unsure, hesitant. “I’m trying to apologize to you for the things I said.”
Staring down at the crown of his head, where his hair grew around a boyish swirl, Rusty asked softly, “Did you mean them, Cooper?”
She knew what she was doing. She was inviting him to make love to her. She wanted him to. There was no sense in fooling herself any longer. He appealed to her like no man ever had. And apparently the attraction was mutual.
They would never maintain their sanity if they didn’t satisfy this physical craving. They might live through the winter without becoming lovers, but by spring they would both be raving maniacs. This passionate wanting, unreasonable as it was, could no longer be suppressed.
A relationship between them would be unworkable under ordinary circumstances. Their circumstances were far from ordinary. It simply wasn’t practical to examine whether their life-styles or politics or philosophies were compatible. It didn’t matter. What mattered—very much so—was a basic human need for intimacy with the opposite sex.
Cooper raised his head slowly. “What did you say?”
“I asked if you meant them—the things you said.”
His eyes didn’t even flicker. “Yes. I meant them.”
He was a man of action, not of words. He reached up and curled his fingers around the back of her neck, pulling her head down for his kiss. He made a sound like that of a feasting wild animal as he used his lips to rub hers apart. His tongue went searching inside her mouth. Rusty welcomed it.
