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“I d-d-don’t know. My feet hurt.”
Her face contracted in pain as he clasped his palms harder around her foot, trying to mash warmth into them. He eased his hands.
“I c-c-can’t feel them except for w-w-when I try to w-w-walk and they shoot p-p-pain up into my legs.” She gasped a breath. “They were wet and I am t-t-trying to warm them, but I can’t and I c-c-can’t stand on them without f-f-falling.”
“How did they get wet?”
She nodded downward with her chin to the small dog in her lap, the whole of her body shaking. “The p-p-pup was stuck, half in the m-m-muck of a brook. But I didn’t know it was a b-b-brook until the s-s-snow and leaves and ice g-g-gave way beneath me.”
“Dammit, Vic.”
“I c-c-can’t get my boots back on p-p-properly. I took them off after I fell through and now they’re too c-c-cold and I can’t walk. And I…” Her shoulders heaved in exhausted desperation. The dog whimpered in her lap.
“We’re leaving. Put the dog down.”
Her look snapped up to him. “But it’s just a p-p-puppy. All alone and there’s n-n-nowhere for it to go. I s-s-set it down and waited for it to s-s-scurry off, to find its mother, but it hasn’t m-m-moved from my side.”
The blasted dog looked up at him, looking just as miserable with frozen wet paws as Victoria was with frozen wet feet.
“Leave the dog.” His voice dripped with cold vehemence.
She tore her glare off of him to push his hands away from her foot and she started rubbing her toes again. “I’m n-n-not leaving the dog.”
“Leave. The. Damn. Dog.”
“No.” She screamed the word, her eyes shooting spikes of contempt at him. “Leave. J-j-just leave. I’ll get my own damn f-f-feet working.”
Cursed woman.
What stubborn idiocy was she locked in?
In a fury, he shifted to her side, his arms jutting under her body, and he jerked her up from the ground. The dog and her loose left boot flopped around on her belly as he stalked over to his horse, slamming her sideways onto the saddle.
Before she could protest, he mounted, locking her and the damn dog in his arms, giving her no option to escape him.
His breath seethed, anger emanating from him the entire next six miles to the village.
At least his irate heat was perfect against her chattering body and she’d managed to curl her left foot up under her skirts, pressing it against the upper leather of his boot.
He pulled the horse to a stop in front of a coaching inn. “Wait here.”
He dismounted and looked up at her, the glare he gave her setting her half-open mouth closed.
Spinning away, he stalked into the inn. Found the innkeeper, got a room. Just one because he trusted her not in the slightest at the moment.
He stomped back out to the horse. She hadn’t moved a muscle. Except for the glare storming her blue eyes. He was pretty well convinced she’d worked hard at manifesting that perfect mix of resentment and obstinance glinting in her eyes.
For how hard she was silently chastising him, she fell down into his arms, her body grateful to be carried by him, even if her mind wasn’t.
Up three flights of stairs and he deposited her on the bed in the room he’d rented.
“Get your skirt off—it’s still soaked.”
He turned away from her, going to the fireplace and poking at the wood in the fireplace to nudge the flames higher. This room was well-appointed and bigger than what they had found along the way, but the four-post bed that was situated next to the side wall wouldn’t be easily moved closer to the fireplace to warm her. But he doubted she could sit on one of the hard wooden chairs for long.
Aggravating, stubborn woman.
Rafe turned around to find Victoria lying flat on the bed, trying without success to free the buttons holding the waist of her skirt together with shaking fingers. The oddly colored red-hued puppy with the white streak on its head sat next to her face, licking her cheek as she struggled.
