endearing only moments ago? He was making fun of her. “Go on,” she said, pushing at his knee. His jeans were wet from being out in the snow.
After one last exasperated glance at her over his shoulder, Sam went to the supply closet and dug around amid the welter of old brooms, battered skis and bent buckets until he produced a mop.
“Too bad there’s no electricity in the cabin. A vacuum cleaner would come in handy for these feathers.”
“D’you know how to use that?” Kerry said thickly as he began to wield the mop.
Sam paused and indulged in an amused chuckle. “My first job at my Dad’s airport was janitor,” he said.
“Oh,” she said, but she couldn’t help recalling the time she and Doug had flown into that very airport and visited Sam in his plush office, where he was ensconced behind an enormous mahogany desk while he fielded telephone calls from all over the world. Afterward they’d glided in Sam’s Mercedes sedan to his elegant house in exclusive Turn Again by the Sea. The house was an architectural marvel overlooking an arm of Cook Inlet, where his houseman served them a gourmet’s dinner of grilled Alaskan King salmon and wild rice sauted with roasted pine nuts.
It was hard to reconcile that image of Sam with the slightly rakish and unshaven man who was so vigorously mopping the wide planks of the cabin floor and stirring up drying feathers. She watched him through half-closed eyes as he worked, admiring in spite of herself the swift power of his movements and his attention to the task. When he had finished mopping and stowed the mop in the closet, he said, “That’s about the best I can do, so now I’m going to shuck these wet clothes. Close your eyes.”
One thing about Sam Harbeck—he certainly knew how to get a girl’s attention. Kerry roused herself to object, pushing herself to a half-sitting position and regarding Sam with what she hoped would pass for outrage.
“You could step out to the shed to change,” she pointed out. “Or go up in the loft.” Those were the only two possibilities for privacy. The cabin consisted of only one twelve by eighteen-foot room with a loft built above the kitchen section.
“I’m not going anywhere. The shed is too cold and the loft ceiling is only five feet high and slanted, which would require that I change clothes in a crouch.”
“What’s wrong with changing clothes in a crouch?” Kerry said for the sake of getting an argument going.
“Since I’m over six feet tall, I’d end up with a crick in my neck or worse. It’s your choice. You can watch me as I expose my shivering male body to your eyes—or not. I’ll leave it up to you.” Sam was maddeningly arrogant, but that was nothing new.
The worst thing was that Kerry couldn’t think of anything at all to say in response. She caught only a glimpse of that devil-may-care grin of Sam’s as he turned and reached into his pack to withdraw neatly folded jeans. As if to underscore his own outrageousness, he tossed a pair of black male briefs to the floor where they lay in all their skimpy glory.
“I don’t want to see anything shivering or naked,” Kerry blurted with all the conviction she could muster at the moment, and Sam laughed when he saw where she was looking.
“I thought so. Don’t worry, I’ll sound the all clear when I’m decent.” He was already unbuttoning his shirt.
Kerry closed her eyes, tight. She heard the clomp of Sam’s boots as they fell to the floor followed by the whisper of sodden jeans against flesh and the dull muffled thud as they fell. Telltale sounds reported that Sam was pawing through his pack; he tossed some things onto the floor, humming to himself.
“I could have sworn I stuck a wool flannel shirt in here,” Sam mused. More digging. More humming. At last Kerry couldn’t stand it anymore and opened her eyes to a slit so that she could peer from beneath her eyelashes for a peek.
He stood in the middle of the cabin facing her, light from the kerosene lamp playing over his well-muscled body. She’d never considered Sam Harbeck good-looking; he was too rawboned and rugged for her taste. But it was all she could do not to gasp at the magnificence of his commanding physique.
His shoulders were broader than she’d remembered. Not that she ever had reason to think about them, but if she had, she’d have assumed that they’d be average. They weren’t. And their width emphasized a tapering torso thickly furred with springy black hair all the way down past his navel to a taut, rock-hard abdomen. And below that…
She closed her eyes again, and fast. Generally speaking, she wasn’t the least bit interested in men’s anatomies, and certainly not in Sam Harbeck’s. Yet the image of that stray lock of black hair falling over his forehead, the lamplight shading the hollows and curves of his utterly masculine body, seemed burned upon the inside of her eyelids. The shape of him, the details of him, wouldn’t go away.
Sam’s fresh clothes weren’t the only thing that was dry; her mouth might run a close second. She swallowed hard, but didn’t dare peek. Her memory of the way he’d looked was bad enough.
“Mission accomplished,” Sam said after what seemed like an eternity. “I’m ready to stand inspection.”
She didn’t look. She didn’t want to encounter those keen blue eyes, sharp as daggers. She didn’t want him to discover in her own eyes what she was afraid he’d detect. She’d never liked Sam, and she wouldn’t give him anything he could use against her.
“I’m really very tired,” she said, which was true.
“You might as well go ahead and relax. I’m going to pitch a couple more logs into the stove and nab some chow.”
“Mmm,” Kerry replied, hoping she sounded sleepy. She needed time to figure out Sam’s motive for being here, and yet she could hardly think. Not only was she still in pain, but she knew now that she shouldn’t have looked at him undressed. Doug had been dead for over a year, and she tried not to dwell on how much she missed the sexual aspect of marriage. Seeing Sam had made her think about it again, and life was hard enough without lingering on thoughts about all she didn’t have.
Sam, by this time, had discovered the pot of goulash and was stirring it on the stove. He seemed at home in a kitchen and found dishes, flatware and mugs without having to ask where they were. Of course he’d be comfortable here, she thought. Sam and Doug had come here many times together, usually for their ridiculous once-a-year, no-women-allowed male bonding experience.
Kerry had never figured out why, the whole time they’d been married, Doug had felt that he had to leave her behind while he disappeared into the wilderness every year to squander a whole week’s precious vacation. She’d always thought it was so he could grow a beard and refuse to take a bath for seven days but, even so, she still didn’t understand how beard stubble and the lack of bathing promoted male friendship.
She opened her eyes and saw that the pot on the stove was steaming alarmingly. “Careful, or you’ll burn that goulash,” she warned.
“Nah,” Sam said, not seeming to notice her waspish tone. He slid the pot from the burner and ladled the hot meat and noodles onto two plates.
“I didn’t say I want any,” she told him.
“Doesn’t matter. You’ve got to eat. If you don’t feel like sitting at the table, I’ll bring this over to the couch, and you can eat there.”
“With
