I’m not counting on it,” she said softly.
They were the last words they spoke to each other that night.
Talbot tried to make himself comfortable, but the adrenaline that had filled him from the moment he’d realized the plane was going down refused to dissipate enough to allow sleep to overtake him.
He could tell Elizabeth was also having trouble winding down. She squirmed and wriggled next to him, but never allowed her shoulder to stop touching his. As time passed, her wriggling slowed, and he knew she had fallen asleep when her head lolled to his shoulder and she slumped fully against him.
His first instinct was to shove her off him. He didn’t want to feel her provocative body warmth against him, didn’t want to smell the faint scent of sweet ripened strawberries that wafted from her hair. But he had to admit her body warmth felt good as the night grew chillier.
He closed his eyes, willing his body to relax, knowing it was possible he would need all his wits, all his energy to face the morning.
If they were lucky, they would either be found by somebody who’d seen the plane go down or discover some small town nearby.
If they were incredibly unlucky, they would find themselves in the middle of a forest with nobody around for miles. And the way their luck seemed to be running, that was what worried him.
What if he couldn’t walk well enough to find help?
He smiled wryly. Of course, as competent as Elizabeth had always been, she could probably construct a litter from tree branches and pull him out of the forest. This was the last conscious thought he had before sleep finally claimed him.
He awoke with the dawn, for a moment completely disoriented. Before he even opened his eyes, his mind worked to orient him. A warm female form was curled up in his arms, and his nose was filled with the scent of strawberries.
As he drew a deep breath, he remembered. The crash…Elizabeth…the forest. His eyes snapped open and he saw that at some point during the night, their bodies had not only sought the soft, leaf-covered ground, but also each other’s.
Her face was turned toward his, and he took the opportunity to study her with the glow of dawn seeping through the trees.
He easily understood why Richard had been so enthralled with her. She was lovely, with sinfully thick lashes and a full, inviting mouth that urged a man to plunder its depths.
Her skin was the color of a barely browned biscuit, with natural peach in either cheek. As he stared at her, his finger itched to caress the skin on her cheek, lightly touch her slightly plump bottom lip. He wanted her. He’d wanted her for years, and in that desire had been his shame.
Richard’s wife. Richard’s woman.
With these disturbing thoughts in mind, he disentangled himself from her and sat up. In doing so, he woke her. She stirred and groaned, then sat up and shoved her lioness-colored hair away from her face.
“Ohmigosh. I feel like somebody beat me up all night,” she said as she stood and stretched, arms overhead.
Talbot frowned, his gaze drawn to her T-shirt, which had crept up to expose a flat, tanned abdomen. Relief flooded him as she put her hands down and the shirt fell back to where it belonged.
He followed her gaze as she looked around their surroundings and felt her horror as she saw the wreckage that now marred the serene forest floor. She crossed her arms and hugged her shoulders, and he guessed it wasn’t the coolness of the morning, but rather the evidence of their close call that caused her to visibly shiver.
“Hard to believe we both walked away, isn’t it?” he said.
She nodded, then turned back to look at him. “How’s your knee?”
“It’ll be all right,” he replied, oddly touched that she’d asked.
“Good, because if a search party doesn’t show up soon, we may have to hike out of here.”
He frowned irritably. He should have known she’d only asked about his knee because she wanted to make sure he didn’t hold her back. “We shouldn’t do anything too soon. It’s just a few minutes after dawn. We’ll stay here with the plane for a couple of hours at least.”
He could tell she didn’t like that idea, that she was ready for action now. And he could guess by the worried frown that marred the smooth skin of her forehead that she was probably thinking of Richard and Andrew.
“They’re probably back at your apartment by now,” he said as he struggled to his feet. “I’m sure Richard returned to Kansas City when you didn’t show up in Twin Oaks last night.” His knee screamed in protest as he attempted to put weight on it. He braced himself against a tree.
“You really think so?” The frown that had wrinkled her brow disappeared, and earnest hope shone from those big blue eyes.
Despite her face and clothes being dirty, her hair tangled and decorated with bits of leaves, she looked beautiful. For a brief moment Talbot wanted to take her in his arms, smell that sweet scent that emanated from her and ease away any of her worries by kissing those luscious lips.
The inexplicable tension in Talbot rose to a new level. “Richard might be a lot of things, but he’s always been a good father,” he said, his voice sounding harsh even to his own ears.
She stared at him, obviously surprised by his outburst. “You must be hungry,” she said. “Richard used to get surly when he was hungry.”
He’d expected her to answer his anger with some of her own. Her response momentarily left his speechless. When the ability to speak returned, he eyed her wryly. “I am hungry,” he agreed. “Maybe you could forage around in the forest and serve us up a nice breakfast of berries and roots.”
She ignored his sarcasm and, instead, eyed what was left of the plane. “If I could find my overnight case—and it survived the fire—I have a bag of corn chips and an apple in it. Surely that would hold us until the search party finds us.”
The anger he’d tried so hard to feel, the anger he needed to feel toward her abandoned him. Her gaze once again went to the wreckage wedged between the two trees. “Do you think my suitcase is still there somewhere?”
“I doubt it. If I was to guess, your case is someplace between here and the first place we hit the trees.” He shoved himself away from the tree. “We can take a look and see what we find.”
She nodded and set off walking at a brisk pace. He stumbled after her, trying to suck up the pain that ripped through his knee with each step. He’d rather suffer than allow her to see any weakness.
They hadn’t gone very far when she turned back to him. She stopped walking and placed her hands on her hips. “Sit down,” she commanded.
“I’m all right,” he protested.
“Yeah, sure. Walking always makes you break out in a sweat.” She strode purposefully to where he stood and placed herself under his arm. “I don’t want you to blame me when you’re permanently crippled because you went chasing after my suitcase,” she said as she led him to a tree.
Reluctantly
