it seemed best to concentrate on something—anything—else.
Ruthlessly reining in his libido, he focused on the sound of her voice, her accent. She didn’t have much of one, just enough to broaden the sound of her vowels. It was more the pattern of her speech that told him she wasn’t a native—which could easily explain why she hadn’t heard of the movie nearly every kid in America had seen by the time he was six years old.
“I take it you’re not from here.”
“No,” she admitted, putting his very logical mind at ease. “I’m from Ohio.”
Emily had no idea why her response made the big stranger frown. With the swiftness of the lightning arcing above them, the dark slashes of his eyebrows bolted over his pewter-gray eyes. His lean, chiseled features sharpened. The dark expression intensified the sense of command surrounding him, an aura she imagined to be possessed by men like kings and warriors in the library books she devoured. Or like the powerful men who stole women’s hearts on Mrs. Clancy’s soap operas. But she really didn’t care that she confused him. All she cared about was that Anna was safe—and that his deep voice held the power to distract her from thoughts of what would have happened had he not come along.
Shaking deep inside, she glanced from the little red polo player embroidered above the pocket of his navy-blue shirt to her baby, soothing Anna’s fussing by rubbing her back. If not for this Justin Sloan, she never would have been able to get inside the cellar with the wind blowing so hard. While she’d struggled with the door, the wind would surely have blown her little girl away, sucked Anna up as he said the wind had done with Dorothy and her dog. It might have blown her away, too, or caused her to be injured so she couldn’t help her child.
The thoughts drew a shudder to the surface. They were too close to the nightmares she battled every day. Only this time her fears had nearly become reality.
But nothing had happened, she reminded herself. They were safe. For now. Safe and protected by this man who had come out of nowhere and was using his own, very solid body to shield them both.
He must have felt her trembling. His big broad hand slipped along her shoulder, drawing her closer. She sought that contact willingly, too overwhelmed by what she felt at that moment to do anything else. She knew there would be damage to face. She knew that very soon she would have to start rebuilding with whatever nature had left her. But for now, for these precious seconds, she wasn’t having to cope all alone.
The need to absorb that feeling was so acute that it bordered on physical pain. She didn’t know if it was right or wrong to want something so badly. She just knew that she was desperate for what she felt just then. He made her feel secure—and security was something she hadn’t felt in a very long time. The desire to stay in the safe haven of his arms was the strongest yearning she’d experienced since long before her husband had died.
The thought of leaving that shelter was unbearable. But she wasn’t given a choice. She was keenly aware of how solid his body felt, how strong. She was also aware of the tension tightening his muscles and a tingling warmth where her breast and hip crushed his side.
In the pale light, she looked up to find his glance fixed on her mouth.
Her heart gave an odd little lurch an instant before he jerked his attention to the baby nuzzling the fabric covering her breast. The tension she’d felt in his body seemed to settle in hers when he looked up and met her eyes.
Suddenly looking as if he could use more space, he eased back far enough to break contact without leaving her vulnerable and nodded toward Anna.
“Is she okay?”
The question had Emily easing her hold as she tucked her head to see her daughter’s sweet little face. In the pale-gray light, she saw Anna give a great, toothless yawn and scrunch her nose to show her displeasure with the position. She much preferred her head on her mom’s shoulder to having it tucked under her chin.
“She’s fine,” Emily assured him, compromising by shifting her little girl up a bit.
“You’re lucky she is.”
“I know,” she whispered. “If it hadn’t been for you—”
“I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about what you were doing.”
At a loss, she blinked at the hard line of his jaw. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you obviously knew this was coming, but you were out there trying to save plants instead of getting her inside where it was safe.” His intent gray eyes glittered like quicksilver as they swept her face, reproach melding with disbelief. “Why’d you have her out there, anyway? What would you have done if you’d been hurt yourself?”
His low voice rumbled through her, stiffening her shoulders at his demands, pulling up her chin at the accusation behind them. Not a single day went by that she wasn’t conscious of the fact that she alone was responsible for the welfare of her precious daughter. Everything she did, the backbreaking hours of digging in the fields while Anna slept protected in the shade or cuddled against her in a tummy sling, the planting, the weeding, the canning, the housecleaning for the Clancys—all of it was done with her child in mind.
Moments ago, he’d made her feel protected. Now, he’d jerked away the shield of numbness that had kept her from looking too closely at the enormity of her situation—and left her feeling even more exposed.
“I had her out there because I always keep her with me. She’s safer than she would be alone in the house. And those plants are my livelihood,” she informed him, totally unfamiliar with the sense of challenge he evoked. “I already lost one planting this year to frost. I was trying to save this one because I can’t afford to lose another.”
She swallowed hard. She’d probably lost the planting, anyway. Profoundly aware of the sudden quiet, torn between gratitude for what he’d done and resentment at his implications, she figured she’d best get started saving what she could.
She glanced up, avoiding Justin’s suddenly guarded expression. “The wind has died.”
He didn’t acknowledge her deliberately diverting observation. He didn’t push to know what she’d have done had she been hurt, either. He simply watched the resignation wash through her pale features as she shifted the infant to her shoulder and smoothed the little white T-shirt over her back.
Turning to the foliage and smashed boxes, he jammed his hands on his hips and heaved a sigh. He was out of his element here. He knew nothing of relying on the land for a living. He knew even less about kids—except it seemed to him that something so tiny should be inside in a crib-thing in a nursery or something. What he had known, though, was that he’d been far too conscious of the surprising fullness of her breast, the gentle curve of her hip. Since he’d already been wondering what she’d been using for brains, he’d figured it wiser to focus on that.
He just hadn’t intended to sound so abrupt about it.
Feeling his conscience kicked hard, he frowned at the large limb blocking the steeply pitched stairs.
She slipped from behind him. “At least the steps aren’t broken.”
“Spoken like a true optimist.”
“I’m trying to be,” she murmured, glancing uneasily toward the light filtering through the leaves.
She
