a spider’s web or two?”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“No, ma’am.” But he turned quickly from her and began rummaging in the first-aid kit. When he turned back to her, roll of gauze in hand, the glint of amusement that had leaped in his eyes was gone. It was just as well. When these small traces of personality pushed through his surface remoteness, she saw a man who could be altogether too charming.
“I think it’s wonderful that the native people knew how to use what was around them—weren’t dependent on stores and factories to provide them with something so simple as a diaper,” she informed him.
“You won’t get any argument from me.”
“Good,” she said with great dignity.
“Just as long as you don’t start mixing up the turpentine and brown sugar as a substitute for baby powder.”
She glared at him, reminding herself it was a good thing if he thought she was some kind of backwoods bumpkin. The last thing he would be expecting would be a daring, midnight escape. The last laugh would be hers.
The only part that was too bad was that she wouldn’t have the enjoyment of seeing his face when he woke up in the morning to an empty cabin.
He flashed her a grin that nearly stole the breath out of her lungs and then ignored her as he wrapped the gauze around the waistband of the baby’s diaper, finally tying it in a neat bow in the front. “How’s that for using the resources at hand?”
She tried not to smile, but that ridiculous bow got her. She smiled. And then she laughed.
And so did he.
And she knew three things about him. One, he did not laugh often.
Two. He had removed the clothespin from his nose and she had not. She snatched off the clothespin.
Three. He was a complete novice at changing diapers.
The laughter died in her, and it did in him, too. They regarded each other warily.
“This isn’t your baby, is it?” Stupid to ask. She wanted to lull him into a false sense of security, and yet she needed to know. At least that.
He hesitated, shot her a look out of the corner of his eye. His features were suddenly closed. He carefully folded the baby’s arms back into the sleeves of his sleeper and tucked his legs back inside the fabric.
“No,” he finally said. “He’s not my baby.”
“Then why do you have him?”
“It’s a long story, Storm.” His voice was laced with weariness and remoteness.
She ignored the way she felt when he said her name, his voice deep-timbered, as sexy as the touch of hot hands across the back of her neck.
“I seem to have some time on my hands.” She folded her arms stubbornly over her chest.
“The less you know the better.”
She took in her breath sharply at that, and he watched her narrowly, then looked away, ran a hand through the rich darkness of his hair, sighed and looked back.
“I can tell you this: I’ve been entrusted with his care. I’m not one of those dads you read about in the paper. Or a kidnapper.”
“How long have you had him?”
“A few days.”
“Is his name really Rocky?”
Hesitation. “No.”
She studied him long and hard. He did not flinch under her scrutiny but met her gaze evenly. Still, there was something hooded in his eyes. A place that was hard and cold, that had seen too much.
Sometimes intuition was a curse.
Because beyond all that she thought she saw a man dying of loneliness.
She reminded herself that a woman could die of perpetual stupidity, too.
“What’s his real name?” she asked.
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Won’t.”
“All right. Won’t.”
“And for how long have you been entrusted with his care?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She realized she had better not press him anymore. She did not want to alert him to the fact she could not stay under these circumstances.
Ben discovered he liked looking at her.
Those wide eyes were incredible. He was not sure he had ever seen human eyes so close to turquoise in shade. They tilted up at the corners. She had taken off the hat, and her hair was dark and shiny like a river of braided black silk. Her features were even and pleasing, a faint scattering of freckles over a pert little nose. Her lips were full and sensuous, and he wondered what it would be like to taste them.
And chastised himself for wondering. He had a job to do: to keep that baby safe until some semblance of sanity returned to Crescada, until whoever had murdered the baby’s father, Noel East, was safely in custody, where he could not harm the baby, Rockford. Ben knew his focus had to stay crystal clear, and contemplating the taste of lips would not keep his focus crystal clear.
He forced himself to study her analytically, to figure out if she was going to be an asset or a liability if things went sour.
An asset.
There was strength in her face. Independence. Intelligence.
And she was strong physically, as well.
He had been totally taken by surprise by the power in her arms when she had innocently suggested an arm wrestle. He’d been so taken off guard by the quick and powerful flick of her wrist that had she pressed her advantage she might have taken him before he knew what hit him.
He had better keep that in mind. He needed his guard up or she could take him before he knew what hit him.
The question was, take him where?
A question he really did not want an answer for. At all.
A mystery. She was a mystery. Even her name held some of her mystery, something brewing within her that was elemental and fierce, a force of nature that a man would be foolish to underestimate.
In his experience women who looked like her walked the runways of the world. What was she doing running a string of horses, alone, in this remote and beautiful north country?
Why had she challenged him to an arm wrestle, when she could have gotten him to do anything she wanted, up to and including handling that disgusting diaper all by himself, with a bat of her gorgeous tangled lashes?
One thing his life did not need was any more
