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She licked her lips, took a few deep breaths, and mustered the energy to say, “What?”
He did his own deep breathing, gathered himself, managed to heave his weight up onto his elbows. He wobbled a little, but the expression in his heavy-lidded eyes was fiercely satisfied. “I said, ‘This is serious.’ Us.” He cupped her face in his rough palms, kissed her mouth. “I love you. I have from the first. I think you love me, too, if you’ll stop doubting yourself and just go with your gut.”
Angie opened her mouth to deny it, panic already blooming, but at the last minute she caught herself. She had to stop being such a coward; if Dare could hang himself out emotionally like that, she could at least have the courage and honor to tell him the truth. “I think so, too,” she finally managed to say, her heartbeat double-timing at the risk she was taking, but as soon as the words were out of her mouth she felt a massive sense of relief, a lightening inside, as if she’d dropped a burden she hadn’t even realized she was carrying.
“What did you say?” He tilted his head at her. “I didn’t hear you.”
Of course he heard her, unless he’d gone deaf in the past five seconds. She put her hands over his and raised her gaze to his. “Yes, you did. I thought: How could I possibly love anyone in such a short length of time? The same goes for you, too.”
“Two years? That isn’t such a short length of time?”
“You can’t love someone you don’t know,” she chided.
“I knew you were the one. Drove me bunny-boiling nuts every time you looked at me like I was a pile of horse shit you’d stepped in. This thing with buying your place was one last effort to work things out between us, because that was the only way I could think of to keep you here.”
She was silent, thinking that she very likely wouldn’t have listened to the deal he’d offered; she would have taken the money and left, started over somewhere else, probably near Missoula. If circumstances hadn’t intervened and given them this time together, she would have missed this. Suddenly she identified the feeling she had inside, that sense of lightening; it was happiness.
He kissed her, his mouth tender. This big, rough man had been nothing but tender with her from the moment he’d found her crawling down the mountainside in a torrential rain. He’d laid himself on the line for her, in more ways than one. Angie could have lain there with his softening penis nestled inside her for the rest of the night, loving that link, the mingling of their bodies, but with a sigh of repletion he gently disengaged their bodies and sat up. There were practical matters to attend to, but once they’d cleaned up Dare turned out the lantern and once more they snuggled close together under the sleeping bag. This time, however, they were both naked, and Angie’s head was nestled on his shoulder, her hand resting on his chest.
She smiled in the darkness. “It is a magic dick,” she teased, hoping she could get a laugh out of him.
“No magic involved. It’s just angles and self-control, honey, angles and self-control. But you can think I have a magic dick as long as you want to.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
The morning dawned bright and cold. Angie woke to sunshine filtering around the edges of the curtain, feeling warm and relaxed, her bones like butter. They had slept, woke to make love again, then slept some more. Sometime during the night she had turned on her side and he had curled around her the way they’d slept before, as if he could cocoon her in warmth and safety. Despite being naked, despite the colder temperatures, she’d either been completely comfortable or so relaxed and tired from truly wonderful sex that she’d slept like a baby anyway.
In the strange way that Dare was so attuned to her, she could feel him wake up, even though she hadn’t moved a muscle to disturb him. His breathing changed, and the subtle tension of awareness changed the way his arm felt, draped around her. This time, though, his hand cupped her breast, instead of resting on her stomach. His thumb moved, lightly flicking over her nipple and sending sparks of sensation cascading down her nerve endings.
“I like waking up with you,” he rasped sleepily, his morning voice rough and strained, as if he had a case of laryngitis. His morning erection prodded at her, and he tightened his arm. “Want to satisfy one of my fantasies?”
“No, I want to pee and have a cup of coffee.” She turned her head to give him a narrow-eyed gimlet look. “Your fantasy can wait.”
He surveyed her don’t-mess-with-me face. “You’re not a morning person, are you?” The question was obviously rhetorical. “If peeing and coffee always take precedence over sex, I won’t ever get to satisfy that particular fantasy.”
“If it involves sex before we do anything else, no.” But she found herself smiling, because the way he’d phrased his complaint made it plain he was expecting to wake up beside her for … always? That was the word he’d used: always.
“Always” was kind of a definite thing, but she didn’t let herself dwell on it. They were together, in a way she’d never imagined was even remotely likely, and that was enough for now. When they were back in the real world and this situation had been dealt with, that would be the time to start thinking about what might be in the future.
She had more immediate things on her plate, one of which was the fact that she was stark naked, and regardless of what they’d don
e during the night or that he’d made love to her with the lantern on, she still felt awkward about getting out from under the protection of the sleeping bag and getting dressed in front of him.
She was mulling over the different ways she might handle this when he simply tossed the sleeping bag aside and got up. She yelped, grabbed the edge of the sleeping bag and pulled it up to her shoulders, but not entirely from modesty. The temperature had dropped a lot during the night; when the cold air hit her bare skin, she began to think about getting dressed completely under the cover. “Aren’t you cold?”
“It’s chilly,” he agreed as he stepped into a pair of underwear, then grabbed his jeans and pulled them on. When he had a T-shirt on and a flannel shirt over that, he stopped to turn on the heater. “Just get your clothes on as fast as possible, and get it over with, so you can get the coffee started. The faster you move, the sooner we’ll have coffee.”
“Where’s my shirt?” She looked around for the flannel shirt she’d been wearing the night before, and found it stuffed halfway under the privacy curtain. Quickly she pulled it on, and only then did she emerge from beneath the sleeping bag to finish dressing. He opened three bottles of water and poured them into the percolator, then Angie quickly measured the coffee into the basket. With coffee brewing and water heating for more hot oatmeal, he carried her down the ladder, because that was faster than waiting to see if she could get a sock and boot on her right foot, and outside.
There was a heavy frost coating everything, sparkling like diamonds in the sunlight, and ice edged every hollow and dip in the ground where water remained. Her breath fogged in front of her face, even when she was inside the portable toilet, which made it imperative that she be as fast as possible. Her bare foot was freezing. But the sky was clear, not a cloud anywhere, so the temperatures would probably be moderate; the last weather report she’d listened to seemed so long ago, she couldn’t remember if the cold front coming in behind the thunderstorms was supposed to be really cold or more moderate. By himself, Dare could probably push on all the way back to Lattimore’s, but her ankle would force them to a slower pace and they might have to find shelter for the night. They’d need heat, food, water, the sleeping bag … Long accustomed to making supply lists, her brain automatically settled into preparation mode.
After they were finished and Dare had lugged her back up the ladder, for what she hoped was the last time, Angie sat on the mattress and unwrapped her ankle. The coffee hadn’t finished perking, damn it; while she waited for that was as good a time as any to see where they stood for the day.
Critically she examined her foot. The bruising was still there, beginning to morph into green and yellow shades, but most of the swelling was gone. Her toes were normal. While there was still some puffiness on the outside of her ankle, she thought she’d be able to get a sock on, at least. Whether or not she’d be able to flex her foot enough to get her boot on was the big question.
Silently she picked up the thick sock and began working it onto her foot. It went up and over her ankle without a problem. Step number one, accomplished.
Dare sat down across from her and gently lifted her foot onto his lap, then picked up the elastic bandage. “You’ll need this for extra support, but I’ll wrap it so it isn’t as thick around your ankle.” He swiftly rolled the bandage up, then began wrapping it around her foot and ankle, unrolling as he went. Once it was secured, he stretched out to snag her boot, and silently offered it to her.
