Not waiting for her reply, he turned and left her on the truck seat. Blossom watched his dark figure walk onto the shallow porch of the cabin, then disappear through a door. Moments later the dim glow of a light appeared in a single window on the front of the structure.
Apparently the man actually intended to spend the night here, she concluded. And since they were so far back in the boondocks that a bloodhound couldn’t find them, he wasn’t the least bit concerned about her taking flight.
Damn the man, if he hadn’t thrown her cell phone away, she could have used it now. But that was mostly her own fault. She should have sat tight and waited for a better opportunity to attempt to dial 911. Instead, she’d panicked and tried to carry out the plan right in front of him. Stupid, Blossom. Real stupid!
With a weary sigh, she flopped over sideways on the seat and closed her eyes. She could sleep here in the truck seat if she had to, she thought. In a couple of hours, the night air would begin to cool. With the windows rolled down she wouldn’t melt in her own sweat. But right behind that encouraging thought came the realization that the mosquitoes would make a feast of her. Just the thought had her rubbing her legs and arms in anticipation of the itchy pain.
Pushing herself upright, she gnawed fretfully at her bottom lip while staring at the cabin. Was there water and a bathroom inside? she wondered. Food and a place to lie down? If there was and he was enjoying those luxuries without her, she’d make him suffer.
Quickly, before she lost her nerve, she grabbed her purse and climbed out of the truck. Carefully choosing her steps over the rough ground, she stopped now and then to glance around her. There were no lights connected with other human inhabitants, no sounds except for a choir of frogs and katydids and the occasional call of a whippoorwill. She’d never been in such an isolated place in her life.
When Blossom finally gathered the nerve to open the door and step inside the cabin, Larkin was standing with his back to her at a crude counter made of wooden crates. He didn’t bother to acknowledge her presence with words or even throw a glance her way, and Blossom realized that he’d been expecting her, as though he’d known what she would do long before she knew herself. The idea was unsettling. Even more so than being stranded here alone with the man.
“There’s a bathroom on the back porch to the right,” he said. “It’s supplied with gravity-flow water. I’m sure you’ll want to use it before we eat.”
Relieved by this bit of good news, Blossom scurried across the room and out a narrow screen door. As he’d stated, there was a tiny bathroom built on one end of the porch, complete with sink, shower closet, towels, washcloths and bar soap with the tangy scent of pine.
After using the basic facilities, she washed her face and hands, then brushed her hair and secured it into a ponytail with a rubber band she found in the bottom of her purse. Blossom didn’t bother fishing out her compact. She didn’t need a mirror to tell her she looked awful, but in this bizarre situation, comfort was more important than her appearance.
Back inside the cabin, she found Larkin scraping the contents of a large can into a black iron skillet. She watched as he placed it on a narrow cookstove with four gas burners, then touched a lighted match to the burner beneath the skillet.
“What is that?” she asked, inclining her head toward the heating food. “It looks like someone has already eaten it.”
“Hash. It might not be gourmet food, but it will keep you from going hungry.”
He stirred the blob with a wooden spoon, and as Blossom continued to watch him, she got the impression that he knew his way around a kitchen, even one as rustic as this.
The idea quickly spawned more questions in her mind, and she realized for the first time since the two of them had spun away from the clinic that she’d been so busy worrying about him having harmful intentions toward her that she hadn’t stopped to consider his personal identity.
“You seem pretty good at handling that spoon. Do you know how to cook things from scratch instead of emptying a can?”
“When it’s necessary.”
“Is that often?”
He turned away from the stove and began to fill a graniteware coffeepot with water. “Whenever I want to eat something other than fast or frozen food.”
“So—you don’t have a wife who cooks for you.”
“No wife. And even if I did have one, that doesn’t necessarily mean she’d want to cook for me.” He glanced at her as he spooned coffee grounds straight into the water. “Are you good in the kitchen?”
She had the naughty urge to tell him she was good anywhere. But she quickly bit back the words, shocked at her own brazen thoughts. Those bullets whizzing past her head must have done something to her. She wasn’t behaving like herself tonight. Especially when she looked at Larkin.
“Not really. I manage to do canned soup or sandwiches.”
His lips twisted into a mocking line. “Somehow it doesn’t surprise me that you’re not the domestic sort.”
His barb shouldn’t bother her. After all, she’d never cared about winning a Martha Stewart contest. She had other things on her mind, like getting the scoop on an adulterous city official before some other television station or newspaper caught wind of it. But for some ridiculous reason, Larkin’s remark had left her feeling properly insulted.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t the domestic sort,” she corrected him. “I just don’t know much about cooking. There was never anyone around to teach me.”
She was twenty-one, he knew that much. He’d also managed to garner other information about her. Such as the fact that she had no siblings. He’d learned she did have parents, but neither lived in Austin. Yet those were only outward facts about the woman. He knew nothing of who she was on the inside. Or why she’d been searching for a man called Luke Maitland.
“What about your mother?” He plopped the lid down on the coffeepot, then turned and placed it on the burner alongside the heating hash. “Or did your family have a hired cook?”
In spite of herself, Blossom let out a caustic laugh. “Hardly. We weren’t poor, but hired help of that sort was beyond our means. Although Mother would have loved it. She hated everything about domesticity.”
He turned and, for the first time since she’d entered the cabin, allowed himself a leisurely look at her. She’d swept her long hair up into a ponytail on the crown of her head. The exposure of her dainty ears and long, lovely neck made her look absurdly young. Even vulnerable. An adjective he’d never expected to associate with Blossom Woodward.
“In other words, you didn’t drag up a chair to the kitchen counter to stand in and watch while she baked cookies.”
To his surprise she didn’t come back at him with a flip retort. In fact, he was sure he saw a dark flash of regret in her eyes just before she glanced away from him.
“Not all little girls are lucky enough to have a mother like that,” she said, then after a moment she slanted a pointed glance back at him. “What about you?”
Nothing registered on his face as he shifted back to the hash. Picking up the wooden spoon, he pushed it slowly through the warming food. “My mother is dead now.
