muscle of his chest against her cheek. His large hands were splayed over her back, and suddenly Holly wasn’t certain who was holding who up. “You all right now?”
“Fine.” His breath skimmed the top of her head. “Just fine.”
“Well, okay, then I suppose we should—”
The office door opened at that moment and Dr. Eaton—“Doc” to the people of Twin Pines—walked into the room. He was the only doctor in town, a youthful version of St. Nick without the beard: sparkling blue eyes under round wired spectacles, rosy cheeks, thick white hair he wore pulled back into a ponytail. The man even had a jolly laugh. When he glanced up from the file in his hands and took in the sight of Holly embracing his most recent patient, he raised one bushy eyebrow.
“Well,” Doc said as he moved into the room, “looks like someone’s feeling better.”
Not certain if the doctor was referring to her or his patient, Holly shoved away from Guy. He gave a grunt of pain at the sudden movement, then gripped the edge of the table to steady himself.
“He insists on getting up and dressed,” she explained quickly. A little too quickly. She shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “Maybe he’ll listen to you, Doc.”
“If you couldn’t convince him, I can’t imagine he’d listen to an old geezer like me.” Doc smiled at Guy. “How’s that head of yours feeling?”
“Like my bungee cord snapped.” Guy scooted back up on the table.
Dr. Eaton chuckled. “You’re a lucky man, Mr. Blackwolf. Very few men survive a plane crash with little more than a few stitches in their head and a couple of bruised ribs.” He pulled a slender, silver flashlight out of his white coat pocket and turned it on. “’Course, tomorrow you’re also going to be ten different shades of black and blue. Look at the light here, please, and follow with your eyes only.”
While Dr. Eaton examined Guy, Holly stood back, hands still shoved into her back pockets. She told herself to keep her eyes on the table in the corner where Doc kept clear glass containers of cotton balls and swabs and latex gloves. But her gaze kept drifting to a pair of bare legs that dangled over the edge of the table.
How could a woman ignore such blatant masculinity? She’d seen her share of male legs before; she was hardly a blushing teenager. But Blackwolf’s legs were extraordinary. Long and powerful, thighs and calves defined by well-honed muscles, a lightning bolt-shaped scar that ran upward from his right knee and disappeared under the gown he wore. And while the doctor tested the pilot’s reflexes, Holly found herself wondering just how far up his thigh the scar continued and what sort of injury had caused it.
And as her gaze swept down again, she also wondered—just for a moment—what that light sprinkling of coarse, dark hair might feel like against her own smooth legs. She chided herself at such a thought, but for heaven’s sake, what harm did a little wondering ever do? He had nice feet, too, she noted. Large, with straight, smooth toes and clipped nails.
“Holly?”
“What?” The single word came out as a guilty squeak. Her heart jumped, and she jerked her gaze up at the sound of her name. Both Blackwolf and Doc were staring at her. She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”
“I asked if you’d mind calling Russ over at the lodge. Mr. Blackwolf will need a room where he can rest a few days before he heads back to Seattle and both rooms here at clinic are already occupied.”
“Oh, sure.”
She closed the door behind her on her way to the outer office, but not before she caught a glimpse of Blackwolf shrugging out of his gown so the doctor could check his ribs. At the brief sight of the pilot’s broad, muscled chest—complete with the same coarse, dark hair as she’d seen on his legs—Holly’s pulse skipped.
No question about it, Holly thought as she picked up the phone and punched buttons. Guy Blackwolf was one fine specimen of a man.
She spoke to Russ at the lodge, Ned at the Hardware Store, Clay at the sheriff’s office, then Quincy at the auto repair shop and Mitch Walker, who owned a small construction company just outside of Twin Pines.
No luck.
With a sigh, Holly stared at the closed examination room door.”
Like it or not, saving Guy Blackwolf had made him her responsibility.
Two
How in the world was a five-foot-eight, one-hundred-twenty-pound woman supposed to get an injured, six-foot-three, two-hundred-pound, solid-muscled man up twenty steps of stairs?
Slowly, Holly decided as she parked her car behind her store. Through the light mist of rain enveloping her windshield, she frowned at the steep redwood planks leading to her apartment.
“Here we are.” She shut off her car’s engine and looked at her passenger. He had a bandage over the stitches on his temple, and his right eye looked as if it had waltzed into an angry logger’s fist. He looked wounded, ruggedly handsome and just a touch dangerous. “Think you can make it up those stairs?”
He glanced at the steps. “Piece of cake.”
“Right.” She slid out of the driver’s seat, thankful that the earlier downpour had settled into a heavy drizzle. She came around the car, frowned when she saw he’d already opened the door and stepped out before she could reach him. She sucked in a breath when his knees started to buckle, watched as he grasped the edge of the door to steady himself.
“Maybe I should go get some help,” she said warily.
He shook his head. “Just give me a second. I’m fine.”
He wasn’t fine at all, she thought, though she had to admit he looked extremely fine in the clothes she’d brought him. The jeans were snug around his lean hips, the blue flannel shirt cut across his broad shoulders as if it had been tailor-made for him. She’d brought him boots, as well, but they’d been too small, so he’d had to wear the same ones he’d had on when she’d pulled him out of the plane and into the lake.
And now, with no place else for him to go, she was bringing him home.
Resigned to her fate, she slipped an arm around his waist, felt the heat of his body against hers. “You ready?”
He nodded, draped an arm around her shoulders. “You really don’t have to do this, you know. There’s got to be a bed or sofa somewhere in this town I can crash on for a couple of days.”
“Like I told you back at Doc’s office, the lodge is full of tourists in for the fishing season and the storm stranded a group of backpackers from Anchorage.” She paused at the foot of the stairs, shifted her weight. “At the moment, there isn’t an empty bed in town. Here we go. Let’s take it slow and easy, one step at a time.”
They made it halfway up the steps when she felt him sway slightly. She’d never be able to hold him if he went down. They’d both end up in a pile at the bottom of the stairs. She almost wished she had accepted Doc’s offer to help.
“Don’t you dare quit on me when the going gets tough.” She tightened her hold and shoved him toward the next step. “There’s
