As they walked, Miranda began to identify the sounds around her: an owl, the rustle of leaves, the wind, a coyote howling in the distance. Except for the night sounds, the woods were very quiet. Just the two of them trudging steadily toward the ranch and safety.
The cramps in her legs resumed, and she gritted her teeth to bear the pain. Her attention was so focused on her cramped legs that she didn’t realize he’d stopped until she walked into his back.
“Oh,” she muttered in a startled voice as she struggled to keep from falling. She flung her hand out and caught a branch. It snapped in her hand.
The hermit whirled around and steadied her, then immediately pulled his hands free when she had her balance. Maybe he didn’t like women, she mused. Or maybe he just didn’t like her.
The questions triggered so many other questions in her head. She found she was becoming very curious about him. What was his name? What kind of life had he left behind? Was there a wife? A family?
“Damn,” he said, staring at the broken branch on the ground.
“What?” she asked, not understanding the implications.
“You broke a branch. It’ll be a dead giveaway that someone’s been through here,” he explained.
“Oh, no,” she cried, and felt as if she’d committed a crime. Maybe in a way she had. Her carelessness could alert Spikes to their whereabouts. She wanted to hide the branch, maybe leave a false trail, but his words stopped her.
“We don’t have time to worry about it.”
“But shouldn’t we do something?” she asked.
“No. They’ll probably assume it was broken by an animal—especially if we just leave it here. We have other problems.”
She held her breath and waited for his next words.
“We have to find shelter,” he said, glancing toward the sky.
She followed his gaze and found that all the stars had disappeared. The sky was black. Very black.
Still not grasping the full meaning of this, she asked, “Shelter? Why?”
“There’s a storm coming.”
“How can you tell?”
“I can smell it, and the sky has changed drastically in the past fifteen minutes.”
“I see,” she murmured, thinking that he and the elements were probably best friends. Her eyes searched the barren darkness. “But where can we find shelter in these woods?”
She felt him watching her, and she knew his expression without even seeing his face. It was dark and steely-eyed, telling her she’d used up her quota of questions for the day.
His instructions. She’d forgotten about them, but it was normal to be curious. She started to apologize because she’d never make it home without his help. But then she closed her mouth. A few questions wouldn’t kill him, she thought defiantly. He didn’t have to be so stiff and unrelenting.
She was glad when he turned his attention to the matter of finding shelter. “There’s a small cave not far from here. I think we can make it before the storm hits.”
She frowned beneath the masklike cap. Did he say cave? Weren’t there bats in caves? Should she ask? No, she answered herself. He wouldn’t appreciate her nervousness. But she wasn’t used to roughing it in the outdoors. She was accustomed to central air and heat and every possible luxury. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to tolerate what lay ahead.
The pain in her legs changed her opinion about entering this cave. She hoped it wasn’t far. At least it would be a place to rest her weary body. Yes, that was the how she’d think about the cave.
Suddenly dawn crept through the turbulent clouds, dimly lighting the woods in a yellow glow. The night faded behind them, and morning beckoned with a tempestuous hand. The hermit stopped by a thicket on the side of a hill. He laid down his rifle and reached with both hands to pull back some branches. “Go ahead,” he said. “Climb through, but be careful. Don’t break any of these branches.”
She looked at him, annoyed by that critical tone of his voice, but her emotions shifted as she glanced back at the hole he’d provided. This was too much like the room he’d rescued her from. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t go through that misery again. Her first instinct was to turn and run, but she knew perfectly well that wasn’t wise. She’d be lost within minutes and the buzzards would have her body for dessert. If Spikes didn’t find her first.
Biting her lip, she tried to still her fears. Lightning snaked across the sky.
“Come on, we haven’t got all day,” he said impatiently.
Bandit darted through the hole. She took a deep breath, counted to ten and followed. The muscles in her legs tightened in protest and she fell to the dirt floor of the small cave. Dust and the smell of dog filled her nostrils. All reason left her as a large rat ran past her. She screamed, covering her eyes. Bandit caught the rat in a heartbeat and killed it. She waited for bats to swoop around her, but all she heard was the crunching of bones as Bandit started to eat the rat.
“Oh,” she moaned in disgust, feeling as though she was going to be sick.
The hermit loomed over her. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, unable to speak.
The hermit glanced at Bandit eating the rat. “Have some manners, boy. Take your supper to the other end.”
Was that laughter in his voice? No, it couldn’t be. This man never laughed.
He squatted down at the entrance, right beside her prone body. “You have to move farther in,” he told her.
The knots in her legs were so tight and painful, she couldn’t have moved if her life depended on it. “I need a minute,” she said in a pained voice.
“Why?” he snapped. “We’re going to get soaking wet if we stay here. The rat’s gone. It can’t hurt you.”
“I…can’t move,” she finally admitted.
“Why not? If—”
“My legs are cramped up, okay?” she shouted. “Now leave me alone and let me deal with my own misery.”
He swore under his breath and stepped over her, bending because the cave was too low for him to stand upright. He reached under her armpits and pulled her farther inside.
He knelt at her feet and took off her sneakers. Shock rippled through Miranda as he touched her, but she was too weak and exhausted to say anything. His big hands began to gently massage the calf of one leg, then the other. She sighed with pure pleasure.
Heavens, his hands felt so good. Each touch, each stroke, eased away the pain. This man would never hurt anyone; she was positive of that. Why was everyone afraid of him? She wasn’t anymore, and somehow she felt she never would be again.
God, he’d forgotten how good it felt to touch a woman. Even through the jeans, her flesh was soft yet supple, and—
He had to stop. He couldn’t keep touching her. Removing his backpack, he leaned against the other wall just as it started to rain outside. “Better?” he asked, and his heart pounded against his chest with emotions he hadn’t experienced in years.
“Yes, much,” she replied. “Thank you.”
“You should have said something. I wouldn’t have pushed you so hard.”
“I think you enjoyed pushing me hard,” she remarked with a touch of humor as she removed the wool cap.
Blond hair tumbled around her shoulders. He found he couldn’t tear his eyes away, and that surprised him. For the first time he really saw her. She was very beautiful with creamy flawless skin, a straight dainty nose and a perfectly shaped mouth. Her silver-blond