some inventive scrambling to just survive. She’d always been her mom’s daughter in the kitchen, besides. So she started out with a bald can of potato soup she found in a basement pantry, then found kitchen tools and the spices in boxes in the dining room, then raided the depths of the fridge, finally came through with some bacon crumbs and a beautiful hunk of cheddar.
The chives and pepper weren’t as fresh as she’d like, but a decent soup was still coming together. If she could just get rid of her unwanted invalid, she might even be able to relax.
“Yes, George, I hear that wind outside. And I can’t even see for the snow. But that’s why you guys have snow machines, isn’t it? To be able to rescue people in all conditions? No, I’m not exaggerating! At the very least, he needs some X-rays. And some antibiotics or medicine like that—oh, for Pete’s sake.” She stared in disbelief at the cell phone. “No, I won’t go out with you when this is all over, you…you cretinous canard! Des clous!”
The French insults didn’t even dent his attitude. George just laughed. The sheriff! The one person in town who was supposed to rescue you no matter what the problem!
When it came down to it, the law had never done her a lick of good.
The soup was finally ready. She wrapped a spoon in a napkin, flicked off the kitchen light and carried her steaming bowl into the living room. The fire was popping-hot now. She’d have to wake up in the night to make sure it was fed—otherwise it’d go out, and suck all their warmth out the chimney. But for now, the cherry and apple logs smelled as soothing as an old-fashioned Christmas.
She ignored the shrieking wind, as easily as she ignored the long, blanket-covered lump on the couch. Darn it, she’d earned this meal. And she was actually getting woozy-headed from exhaustion and jet lag and too many hours without something in her stomach. Quickly she settled in the giant recliner—obviously Mr. Cunningham’s favorite chair, judging from the hunting magazines stacked next to it—and reached for the spoon.
A sexy voice—a pitiful, weak, vulnerable but nevertheless sexy voice—piped up from the deep shadows of the couch. “Could I have just a little of that?”
“No.”
A moment passed, and then the voice piped up again, this time adding a desperate, ingratiating tone on top of the weak and pitiful. “It smells really good. In fact, it smells fantastic.”
“Tough. You’re not getting any food.”
When he responded with silence again this time, she had to relent. “Look. I’m not eating in front of you to be mean. There’s nowhere to sit in the kitchen and I’m beat and this is the only other room that’s really warm. Honestly, though, it’s just not a good idea for you to have food after a head bump. You could throw up.”
Like any other guy who’d made it to first base, he immediately tried for second. “I won’t. I promise I won’t.”
“So you say. But the sheriff said I was to make sure you stayed awake, check your pupils every couple of hours and not give you any food until tomorrow morning.” She scooped up more soup, still not looking at him. She still remembered the ka-boom of her heartbeat when she half carried the big lug into the living room. Then she’d had to suffer through a whole bunch more intimate body contact in the process of settling him on the couch and tucked him in again.
That was her whole problem with men. They looked at her a certain way, she caved. He was one of them, she could sense it, smell it, taste it. For right now at least he was hurt. How much damage could a guy do when he was hurt? Particularly when she refused to look at him. She wasn’t volunteering for any more of those ka-booms.
“Please,” he begged charmingly.
She plunked down her soup, growled a four letter word in total disgust, then marched into the kitchen to spoon out another bowl. A small bowl. She brought it back with a scowl. “You get two spoonfuls. No more.”
“Okay.”
“You keep that down, then we’ll talk. But I don’t want to hear any whining or bribes.”
“No whining. No bribes. Got it,” he promised her.
Yeah. That big baritone promising not to whine was like a bear promising not to roar, but she slid the ottoman over and sat down with the bowl. “Don’t try sitting. Just lean up a little bit.”
“I think there’s a slim chance I could feed myself.”
“I think there’s a big chance you’ll eat the whole bowl. That’s the point. I’m controlling this.”
“Ah. A bossy, controlling woman, are you?”
“No. A scared woman. If you die or get hurt any worse, I’m going to be stuck with you until this blizzard is over.” She lifted the spoonful, and he obediently opened his mouth, his eyes on hers. Again she told herself he was hurt, for Pete’s sake. But how the hell could an injured guy have so much devilment in those eyes?
“Are we going to sleep together in here?”
She sighed, then plugged his mouth with another spoonful. “When I’m hurt,” she said pointedly, “I usually make an extra point of being nice to the people who are stuck taking care of me.”
“Well, if you won’t sleep with me, would you consider taking a shower with me? Because I’ve got sawdust itches from my neck to my toes. My hands are full of grit. I just want to clean up.”
“No showers. No baths. What if you fell?” But when she fed him another spoonful, she had to consider the thought. “It could be a good idea to make sure there isn’t any dust or debris near that head wound, though.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. And I couldn’t fall if you took the shower with me. Maybe if we got around to formally introducing ourselves? I’m Teague Larson—”
“I know. The sheriff told me. And I’m Daisy Campbell. You can either call me Daisy—or Battle-Ax—but either way, no shower. I’ll try to cook up some way to get your hands clean. If we still have water and power tomorrow, maybe we can talk about a shower for you then. But tonight we’re doing what the sheriff said for a concussion.”
“I don’t have a concussion.”
“You knocked yourself out. You could very well have a concussion,” she corrected him.
“I knocked myself out because I was an idiot, took a chance I shouldn’t have taken. But my head’s too hard to dent, trust me, or ask anyone who knows me. In the meantime, I don’t suppose there’s any more soup? Or any real food somewhere?”
“The kitchen’s a complete disaster—which you should know, since you’re the one who tore it up. I was lucky to find the soup and a pot to put it in. You’re not getting any meat or heavy foods, anyway, so don’t waste your breath looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
She fed him one more spoonful of soup, then ignored those soulful eyes and carted the dishes into the downstairs bathroom. Without running water in the kitchen, she was stuck doing dishes in the bitsy bathroom sink—but that was the end of the chores. She could still do a dozen more things to prepare for a loss of power, but they just weren’t going to happen. She was two seconds away from caving.
