Holding her firmly against his broad, hard chest, he turned to block her from the wind. “You okay?”
She lifted her chin and nodded, surprised to find that his face was several inches above hers. She was tall herself, and it wasn’t often she had to look up at anyone. For a heartbeat, they stared at each other. His eyes really were the most extraordinary color—
“Shoot.” He uttered the sibilant word with such disgust it sounded like an expletive. “What the hell is your husband thinking, letting you run around like this in your condition?”
It wasn’t a question, and Tess knew it. For some reason, she wanted to answer him, however. “I’m not married.” She had just enough presence of mind not to add that if she was, it wouldn’t be to anyone who thought in terms of “letting her” do anything.
“Forget it,” he replied, in what she was starting to recognize as his stock answer in awkward moments. “I’ve got a line running to the truck,” he went on, all business again. “All you need to do is stay close to me and we shouldn’t have any problems. When I turn around, I want you to put your hands under my coat and grab on to the back of my belt. Whatever you do, don’t let go. Understand?”
Tess didn’t need to be told twice. The driving snow stung her face and brought tears to her eyes, while the cold was so bitter it hurt to breathe. “Got it.”
He searched her face. Satisfied with whatever he saw there, he finally gave a curt nod. “Good.”
He turned and picked up her overnight bag as if it weighed nothing, then held his ground as she ran her hands up the backs of his denim-clad thighs and over the hard curve of his small masculine behind. Beneath the heavy coat, his cotton-clad back felt firm and solid. Heat rolled off him like a furnace. She took a half step closer and curled her fingers around his belt:
He set off, adjusting his step to her shorter stride. She held on tight, her universe condensed to the broad back in front of her, and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. It was no mean feat, given the sloping, uneven ground and the clumps of frozen bunchgrass that kept trying to trip her up.
Although the entire trip probably didn’t last much more than a few minutes, to Tess it seemed to take forever. Accustomed to being fit, she’d found the change in her center of gravity in the past few months exasperating. Now, she gritted her teeth, frustrated by her own helplessness as she repeatedly stumbled and slipped. In several instances it was only her rescuer’s iron strength that kept her upright. By the time they reached the truck, her lungs burned, the pain in her back was a solid six, and her face felt frozen.
“You okay?” Jack asked as he tossed her bag into the pickup’s bed before he yanked open the door.
“Sure,” she lied, leaning wearily against the wheel well. Out of breath, she mentally apologized to him for her earlier intolerance.
“Good.”
He’d lost his hat. He looked younger without it. His windblown hair was dark and thick, as glossy as a child’s. For some reason, that bothered her. Before she could decide why, he stepped over and dusted the snow from her head and shoulders with his gloved hands. Then he lifted her up, swung her around and deposited her on the car seat, where he brushed off her pant legs, stripped off her snow-caked boots and tossed them, the rope and the flashlight into the narrow storage area behind the seat. “Scoot over,” he instructed. Stamping his own booted feet, he yanked off his gloves, shrugged out of his coat and climbed in beside her.
Tess slid over to give him more room, steeling herself against the pain squeezing her back. The well-insulated cab seemed hushed after the din outside. It was also pleasantly warm. In contrast, Tess felt chilled to the bone. She began to shiver, her teeth chattering like maracas.
Something that might have been compassion flared briefly in Jack’s pale eyes. He turned up the heater fan, retrieved his coat from the back of the seat and tucked it around her. “That better?”
She nodded, incapable of speech.
That appeared to suit him just fine. Mouth set once again in a grim line, he pulled her shoulder harness around her and buckled it. Then he secured his own, released the brake and put the truck in gear. It rolled forward, fishtailing a little before the tires caught.
Tess pulled his coat tighter around her, burying her face in the soft shearling collar. The distinctive scent of horses and damp leather, familiar from her childhood, tickled her nose. Oddly comforted, she leaned back and closed her eyes.
She wasn’t sure how much time passed, but eventually she began to feel less like a Popsicle and more like a person. She stretched, sighing with pleasure at the stream of hot air from the heater that blew over her stocking toes as she tried to find a position that would alleviate the persistent pain in her back.
She wound up canted sideways, toward her companion. Veiling her gaze with her lashes, she covertly studied him. She had to admit she was a little intimidated by his continuing silence. Her reaction surprised her. She’d grown up around cowboys, and she was no stranger to private, taciturn men.
Jack didn’t seem to be thinking so much as brooding, however. And that tight look on his face was hardly benign. In point of fact, he had the air of an individual who kept to himself not because he preferred his own company, but because he didn’t trust anyone else’s.
And yet...he had come to her rescue. And for all his brusque manner, his hard-fingered hands had been carefully gentle every single time he touched her.
More to the point, what did it matter? Soon they would both go their own ways, never to clap eyes on each other again—
“Didn’t anyone ever teach you it’s rude to stare?” Jack asked abruptly.
Tess started, then forced herself to relax, the willful part of her nature asserting itself. It was one thing to privately confess that she found him intimidating. Letting him know was something else entirely. “You’re right,” she said calmly. “Sorry.”
“You want to explain what you’re doing out here?”
Why, she wondered, did he have to be so abrupt? “Visiting my grandmother.”
“Ah.” He imbued the single syllable with a wealth of disdain. “But instead you got lost.”
“I wasn’t lost. I missed my turn.”
“Right.” He didn’t sound as if he thought much of that, either. “I don’t suppose it occurred to you when the snow started to fall that maybe you were out of your league?”
“I grew up here,” she said patiently. “I know about snow.”
“Huh. Could have fooled me.”
“For your information, the only reason I had a problem was because I slowed down to let you pass, so I could turn around.”
He snorted. “Because you were lost.”
If he was trying to annoy her, he was doing a good job. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“I suppose it’s all right for you to be out in a blizzard?”
That granite face didn’t change. “Damn straight. I’ve got heavy-duty
