care he pushed her sweater high to feel for broken ribs, pressing gently, sliding the tips of his fingers over her satiny flesh, too aware of the rise of her breasts only inches away, his hand brushing the soft fullness and sending currents of prickly awareness through him. Satisfied nothing was broken, he slipped the sweater down again.
When he finished ministering to her, he pulled up the covers, his gaze traveling up her long legs, pausing a moment on the thick triangle of curls, then drifting higher over the sweater. As he studied her, his body heated until he felt as if he were standing in flames.
He glanced back at the roaring fire. The husky raised his head and looked at his master. “The lady’s very pretty, Fella,” Ben said to the dog, which thumped its tail.
She moaned softly, and Ben stroked her hair away from her face, sitting down beside her. “You’re all right,” he said quietly. “Damned lucky to be alive. If I hadn’t found you—” He paused, his brow furrowing when he remembered the explosion. Even if she had survived the blast, if she had spent the night on the mountain, she might have died from exposure.
“You’re safe and warm and you’re going to be fine. And when the storm ends and you’re well, I’ll take you to Rimrock where you were probably headed.” As he talked to her, he traced his finger down along her jaw, avoiding touching bruises. Now she was warming, the heat of her body beginning to feel normal to his touch. He felt a surge of relief and then told himself he was being idiotic. She was a total stranger who was probably on her way to meet her lover. Ben reminded himself that she didn’t mean anything to him.
He already knew there was no wedding ring on her finger. Annoyed with himself, he shifted his weight. He was having an acute uncustomary reaction to this stranger.
“Maybe I feel like I saved you, so now I should protect you,” he said softly, inhaling the sweet lilac scent that lingered about her.
Ben stood and crossed to the bathroom to look at himself in a full-length mirror. His shoulder was dark with a bruise, a lump swelling across his back. He had a cut on his temple, which he hadn’t felt. He pushed back his thick black hair, and examined the dark skin of his face—a heritage from the long-ago Comanche blood. He stripped away the T-shirt, unbuckled his belt and peeled his jeans from narrow hips, muscles rippling as he pulled off mud-spattered boots. Tossing aside his briefs, he stepped beneath a hot shower and winced when the water hit his injured shoulder.
In minutes when he was dry, dressed in a clean pair of jeans and socks, he walked back to the bed to look down at her.
She stirred, moaned and her eyes flew open. Caught in their green depths, Ben felt an electric jolt as he gazed at her. Her straight reddish brown brows drew together and she sat up, gasping with pain. Her eyes widened and a look of terror filled them.
“I have to go—” she gasped, pushing away covers. “I have to find him.”
Barely hearing her words, Ben sat down beside her and leaned gently against her shoulders, catching her fluttering hands in his. “Shh. You’ve been in a car wreck, and we’re in the storm of the year. You’re safe here.”
“No! I have to go now!” Her agitation increased.
“You’re not going out in this storm. And you can’t stand, either. Your ankle is hurt,” he said forcefully. Holding her, feeling her warm, delicate shoulders beneath his hands, Ben wondered when she would discover she was only half-dressed.
“No! I have to—” she cried, pushing against him, trying to sit up and crying out. She grabbed her side. “Oh!”
“You’re hurt,” he said, his broad chest blocking her. He didn’t want to frighten her or make her think his intentions were bad. For a moment he had to laugh at himself. Since when had he become so damned trustworthy with a beautiful woman? His cynical thought disappeared as he tried to struggle with her without hurting her.
She pushed against him and twisted away suddenly, lunging across the bed. He reached to catch her, scrambling over the bed as she swung her feet down.
“My clothes!” she gasped, giving him an angry look when she stepped off the bed. When she put her weight on her foot, a cry tore from her and she would have fallen, but he caught her, his arm going behind her shoulders, the other arm beneath her warm thighs. He swung her up against his bare chest, leaning forward to place her on the bed again.
She struggled against him. “Be still,” he ordered, and green eyes stared at him defiantly, yet she became quiet.
“I took your slacks off because your leg is cut and bleeding. You can’t walk—”
“Have to go,” she murmured as he covered her and sat beside her, pushing hair away from her face. Sitting up, she waved her hands in a futile protest, determination in her eyes as she stared at him. “Have to find Ben Falcon now—”
Stunned, Ben felt a jolt. He shifted away from her as quickly as if he had discovered a rattler in his bed. His breath went out in a hiss and he stood, his brows becoming thunderclouds while his scowl deepened and all his protectiveness toward her changed to a churning rage.
Two
Ben stared at the woman as she looked around in uncertainty, and then her eyes closed and she lay back on the bed again.
Frowning, he placed his hands on his hips. “Dammit,” he said quietly, thinking how he had brought her here. He should have guessed, yet it had been almost four years since Weston had come after him or sent someone after him. Long enough that Ben thought his father had given up trying to get him home.
Ben wanted Weston’s woman out of his house and his life. For a few minutes, an image of Andrea danced in mind, and the terrible anger he had felt when he had discovered she had been picked by Weston as the perfect match. The first few years after buying the ranch, he’d had damn little time to have even a casual date, and after the stormy relationship of his parents, Ben had no inclination to rush into any lasting commitment, but the last couple of years he found the long, lonely winter nights making him think about going to town and seeking companionship. His gaze slid back to the woman.
Angered, he turned and walked to the window as he tried to gain control of his emotions. Snow swirled and fell against the glass, some sticking in frosty white blotches. Ben’s thoughts drifted back to his childhood, to the abusive father he had clashed with as far back as he could remember.
Weston set impossible demands and Ben was the oldest of two sons, never able to satisfy his father’s demands. Ben rebelled before he was ten years old and from that time on it was war between them, with Weston bullying, threatening, punishing, doing everything in his power to break Ben’s stubborn determination to live his own life. And he thought about Geoff, his younger brother, who had tried to please their father and live up to impossible demands until he’d been killed trying to win a speedboat race sponsored by Falcon Enterprises.
The last time Weston had come after him, Ben had spent six months in a Texas jail for assaulting the hired men sent to force him to go home. Within two hours after arrest, his father had appeared and offered to get him out immediately if he would go to work in the family company. But Ben had refused, preferring jail to life under his father’s impossible demands. He thought of all the people Weston had sent to bring him back—detectives, cops, strong-arm toughs, beautiful women.
Ben’s thoughts shifted and he turned to look at the woman. How much was she going to
