real desperation.
He felt exactly the same way. Although he was damned if he was going to tell her that. He’d already made enough of a fool of himself, no point in adding to it. “Are you warm enough?” he asked curtly.
“Yes. Thank you.”
He flicked off the flashlight and lowered his body onto a couch that was at least eight inches too short for him. He didn’t care what the weather was doing, he was out of here once it was daylight. And he wasn’t taking Joanna Strassen with him.
Daylight was chinking through the dark brown curtains when Joanna woke up. She lay still for a moment, totally disoriented, wondering why her head hurt and why the wind was howling so ferociously that the house creaked under its onslaught. Then it all came flooding back. Her disastrous and ill-thought-out attempt at reconciliation with Dieter and Maria. Her precipitate departure yesterday afternoon and the way the car had slid so gracefully and inevitably into the telephone pole. Her return to consciousness in this room, the waves of dizziness and pain, the gradual realization that she was back in the one place in the world she’d hoped never to see again.
And then there was her rescuer.
It wasn’t chance that she’d left him to the last. Had she ever laid eyes on a man so magnetic, so masculine, so self-assured? So guarded, so reluctant to trust her? Why couldn’t she have been rescued by a country farmer in a three-ton truck, with a plump, friendly wife and a kitchen smelling of borscht and freshly baked bread?
Cal was his name. And that was all she knew about him.
Except for the inescapable fact that his two brief kisses had melted the very bones of her body.
She had to get out of here. Soon. Sooner. Soonest.
Cautiously Joanna sat up. In the dim light, she could see Cal stretched out on the couch, his feet dangling over the edge, his neck stuck at an awkward angle. A blanket half covered his long body. He was still sound asleep.
He’d saved her life. If he hadn’t come along, she’d have frozen to death.
She shivered, knowing that in spite of all the unhappiness of her marriage, and the acute pain of the last few months, she was deeply glad to be alive. So she had much to thank him for, this dark-haired stranger with eyes as gray and depthless as a winter sea.
If only he didn’t share Dieter and Maria’s opinion of her character. Which was, to put it mildly, rock-bottom. Why that should hurt her so badly, she didn’t understand. He was a stranger, chance-met and soon to be forgotten. So why should it matter what he thought of her?
Not liking her own thoughts, Joanna got up as quietly as she could, parted the curtains and peered outside. Her heart sank. All she could see was the driven whiteness of snow; all she could hear was the howl of the wind. It was worse than yesterday, she thought numbly. But she had to leave. She had to.
From behind her Cal said with a lack of emotion that infuriated her, “Looks like we’ll be stuck here today, too.”
She whirled, frightened that she hadn’t heard him get up, let alone cross the room. He was standing altogether too close, his crumpled shirt unbuttoned from throat to navel, his cords creased from sleeping in them. The sheen on his tousled hair reminded her of mahogany; her mother had left her a beautiful little mahogany end table. Then he yawned, and the corded muscles of his belly tightened; all his muscles were truly impressive, she thought wildly.
“I’m leaving here this morning,” she spat. “You can do what you like.”
“And how are you going to leave?” he said mockingly. “Your car’s wedged to a telephone pole three miles down the road, and I’m not driving you anywhere, not in this.” He lifted one brow. “Unless you think Dieter will lend you his car?”
So angry she could barely talk, she seethed, “I will not stay one more hour in a house where everyone—including you—thinks I’m a cold-blooded, immoral bitch!”
“I’m not—”
As if he hadn’t spoken, she swept on, “I made the biggest mistake in my life—apart from marrying Gustave, that is—to fly out here with belongings of his I thought his parents should have. To believe that now he was dead, maybe we could somehow make peace. I sure go to the top of the class for naiveté.”
“Naive isn’t exactly the word I’d use for you.”
“But you know nothing about me, Mr. Cal whatever-your-name-is. Only what you’ve been told. You’re the one who’s naive. You believe Dieter and Maria, who thought the universe revolved around Gustave. And you believe Franz, who hero-worshiped him and made one heck of a lot of money out of him into the bargain. Three cheers for you.”
She was being very childish, she thought in a sudden wave of exhilaration. And it felt extremely good. She added peevishly, “What is your last name? And what are you doing here? You don’t look the type to be a friend of the Strassens.”
“Cal Freeman,” Cal said, and watched her closely.
Her brow furrowed. “The name’s familiar…but we’ve never met, I’d have remembered you.”
“I’m a mountaineer.”
She paled. “That’s where I’ve heard your name—Franz was telling us once about the team you took up Everest.”
“Franz gave me Gustave’s climbing gear to bring to the Strassens.”
She clutched the bedpost, her voice ragged. “Did you know Gustave?”
“No. But I’d heard of him, of course. I was sorry to hear he’d died.”
“Play with fire,” she said unsteadily, “and sooner or later you get burned.”
The words were out before he could prevent them. “You being the fire?”
She raised her chin. “No, Cal. The mountains. The mountains that I grew to hate because they destroyed any chance I might have had of happiness.”
“So you think all mountaineers are irresponsible dare-devils?”
“You’re darn right I do.”
He tapped himself on the chest. “Not this one.”
Her eyes seemed to have glued themselves to the taut skin over his breastbone, with its tangle of dark hair. “Then you’re the exception that proves the rule,” she said, and couldn’t have disguised the bitterness in her tone.
“Gustave was a mountaineer when you met him.”
“And I was nineteen. Young enough to find both him and the mountains romantic.”
It was an entirely plausible reply. Feeling frustrated and unsure of himself, Cal ventured, “You were jealous of the mountains?”
“I suppose I was,” she said wearily. “Are you married, Cal? Does your wife hate it when the mountains take you away from her?”
Years ago, whenever Cal used to go on an expedition, Suzanne would fly to Paris and indulge in an orgy of shopping. He’d sometimes thought it would have suited Suzanne very well to have been left a wealthy widow; she’d have had the fun of spending his money without the bother of a relationship with a real, flesh-and-blood man. “That’s none of your business,” he said tersely.
“I beg your pardon,” Joanna retorted. “So you can ask questions but I can’t?”
Cal said impatiently, “I’m not spending the entire day trading insults with you.”
“No, you’re not. You’re moving into the other part of the house, where you can spend the day with Dieter and Maria.” With a flick of malice, Joanna added, “Have a good one.”
Curiosity overcoming everything else, Cal asked, “Has this house always been so bleak and bare?”
“Ever since I’ve been coming here.”