was still shaking her. She might as well have been yelling at the caribou for all the effect she was having, she thought furiously, and kicked him hard in the shins. “Let go!”
The toe of her boot connected with bone. He swore again—in English this time—his voice as rough as the granite against which he had flung her. But then, mercifully, he stopped shaking her, although his fingers remained clasped around her shoulders. In all honesty, Nell was just as glad, for she wasn’t sure she could have stood upright.
He took a deep breath and said flatly, “Hell and damnation.”
Nell stayed very still, watching as the light of sanity returned to eyes so dark a blue as to be almost black, feeling the shudder rip through his body as though his frame were her own. Her anger vanished, and with it her terror. Briefly, the man closed his eyes, swallowing hard. His shoulders sagged so that she felt the weight of his hands on her shirt. The weight and the warmth, a warmth that was oddly disturbing.
He was no madman. Of that she was sure. Although she couldn’t have said where that certainty came from.
She said with a lightness that very nearly succeeded, “It seemed a pity that you’d left out a couple of quite effective swearwords. French can be so expressive, can’t it? And I really was about to stand up and speak to you when you fell.”
His eyes flew open, all his anger rekindled. “Goddammit, do you have to remind me?”
“Goddammit, do you have to yell at me?”
“You’re yelling, too!”
“Little wonder,” she snorted.
The sun was slanting across her face, shadowing her cheekbones and her straight nose, dusting her skin with gold. He took another of those deep, shuddering breaths; his eyes were roaming her face as if he had never seen a woman before, as if he was striving to commit each one of her features to memory.
Nell stood very still, shaken by the intimacy of his gaze, feeling as if every secret she had ever held was exposed to him. Then he said quietly, “When I was a kid, we used to pick bunches of blue—eyed grass to give to the teacher. Have you ever seen it? The flowers are like little stars that are blue and purple at the same time. Your eyes remind me of them.”
“Oh,” said Nell, feeling her cheeks grow warm and trying very hard to repress the knowledge that he was easily the most attractive man she’d ever come across.
Although that admirably succinct North American word “hunk” would express her opinion far more accurately.
With an exclamation of self—disgust, the man dropped his hands to his sides, and the mood was shattered. “You saw the caribou from the road, too. That’s why you were hidden.”
She had forgotten about the caribou. Glancing toward the bluff, she whispered, “They’ve gone.” Across her face flitted regret and the memory of that moment of shining happiness.
He said heavily, “I scared them when I fell.”
Her nostrils flared. “I expect you scared them when you jumped me. A starving wolf’s got nothing on you.”
“There aren’t any wolves in Newfoundland.”
“A bear, then,” she said pettishly.
“Bears don’t starve in the summertime.”
There was a gleam of humor deep in his dark eyes. “Hunk” also began to seem a very wishy—washy concept. Devastating? Gorgeous? Sexy? Any or all of the above? Nell said, “It might be nice if you could bring yourself to apologize. I don’t usually expect total strangers to wrap me around a chunk of granite and then shake me out like an old rug.”
“Yeah…”
As he hesitated, Nell saw that any approach to humor had fled from his features. It was interesting that “handsome” wasn’t one of the words she had come up with, she mused. His face was too rough—hewn, too individual for mere handsomeness. Too used, she added thoughtfully. Hard used. Ill—used. And for rather a long time, unless she was mistaken.
He said in a staccato voice, “I—hurt my leg a couple of months ago. I’ve done very little hiking since then. It drives me nuts when I fall down like a two—year—old.”
“Real men don’t trip over rocks?”
“Real men can at least stand on their own two feet!”
Lines of frustration had scored his face from cheek to chin. His mouth was clamped shut. He had a beautiful mouth. Nell said hastily, “Keep going—apologies at some point are supposed to include that ordinary little phrase, ‘I’m sorry.’“
“That’s why I was angry,” he snapped. “I’ve just explained it. What more do you want—a diagram?”
“That may indeed have been why you were so angry,” she snapped right back. “But it doesn’t explain why I’m going to have bruises all over my back tomorrow morning.”
“Are you French?”
“I’m from Holland. Don’t change the subject.”
“You speak English extremely well,” he said suspiciously.
“Hooray for me. Are you with the CIA? Is that why you jumped me? Or do you fancy yourself as the next James Bond?”
“No wolves in Newfoundland and no CIA, either. What the hell would they want with this chunk of rock?”
“So you’re a policeman.”
“I am not. You’re the most persistent and inquisitive female I’ve ever met.”
“Only because you’re avoiding the issue,” Nell returned pleasantly. “Out of interest, do you go around attacking everyone you meet? Or do you just pick on women who are smaller than you?” It was difficult to see exactly how tall he was because of the uneven ground, but he definitely topped her five feet eight by several inches.
He ran his fingers through his hair, thick, wavy hair, worn a little too long and as dark as peat. As dark as the caribou fur, Nell realized with an inward shiver and hurriedly continued her survey. His nose was slightly crooked, he could have done with a shave, and there were frown lines in his forehead that shouldn’t have been there. No wonder she hadn’t considered him merely handsome, Nell thought, and waited for his reply.
As if the words were being pulled from him one by one, he said, “For the past few years, I’ve been in some rough places. The kind of places where you act first and ask questions afterward. You startled me. I didn’t even take time to think.” His smile was more of a grimace.
“So I immobilized you instead.”
“You sure did.”
His eyes narrowed. “You even speak like a Canadian. Are you sure you’re Dutch?”
“I first learned English from a Canadian couple who lived in the village where I grew up,” she said shortly. “I’m still waiting.”
“What for?”
