A Babe In The Woods. Cara Colter
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glanced into the clear gray of his eyes and felt it again. A pull to him that was unfathomable given their circumstances, given the fact he thought he could make her stay here, and she planned to prove him wrong.
She told herself, sternly, she only needed to know something of him so she knew what to do once she had left here. Give him a few days with the baby to have his vacation? Or go down that mountain as fast as she could and come back with the law?
The very fact that she did not feel free to leave when she wanted should be telling her exactly what she needed to know.
But her intuition was placing her in a position of inner turmoil. Her intuition looked into the clearness of his eyes and saw, lurking just beneath the cool, still surface, strength of spirit.
The facts spoke of something else. The wound, his presence at her cabin not really explained, the baby most likely not his. He wasn’t even comfortable changing a diaper!
Childishly, she decided how the arm-wrestling match finished would make her decision for her. If he won, she would go down the mountain and forget she had ever seen him or that baby. If she won, she was coming back with Constable Jennings from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
She closed her eyes again, focused all her strength, felt her arm begin to tremble with effort and exertion. And nearly fell off her chair when he suddenly released her hand.
“Hey!” she said, miffed.
His eyes weren’t clear now, but deliberately hooded. “A draw,” he said blandly.
“It was not. I was about to take you.” She knew darn well the exact opposite was true.
“You were about to break your arm.”
“Oh, right.”
“I could see the white line of your bone right through your skin. Trust me. It was a draw.”
He had called the match because he thought he was going to harm her. That told her a reassuring little fact she needed to know. It would seem he wasn’t planning to hurt her. It would seem he was—the word noble flitted through her mind. She gave herself a shake.
She got to her feet abruptly, wiping her hand on her jeans as if she could wipe away the sudden feeling that had engulfed her when she had looked into his eyes.
They were the eyes of a dangerous man. Mysterious. Cool. Calm. And yet she could not help but feel the strength in them was linked to her own future.
He nodded at her. “You’re very strong.”
On the outside. Still, it was a good response. He had won the match, even if he was noble enough not to say so. He was sure of himself. He didn’t need to overpower her to nurture his own self-esteem. And he didn’t rub her face in his superior strength, either.
No surprises there. He oozed that standoffish kind of confidence of a man who walked tall and walked alone.
She spun away from that steady searching look in his eyes and looked at the baby. The aroma wafting off that wee individual was every bit as astonishing as the amount of noise he could make.
Gingerly, she picked up a clean diaper and studied it. “What’s his name?” she asked the man behind her.
And then realized she didn’t know his name either.
“You can call him Rocky. You don’t have to change him. I’ve managed before.”
“A deal’s a deal. And what can I call you?”
Hesitation. “Ben.”
She unfolded the diaper and flipped it trying to figure out which way it went on. What kind of man didn’t even want to tell you his name? Perhaps the arm-wrestle test had failed to reveal his character to her after all.
Really, all she had to remember was one thing.
She was a terrible judge of character when it came to men. Arm wrestling or no.
Suddenly, he was right behind her. He had come on leopard-quiet feet, and so she gasped with soft surprise when he reached around her and took the diaper, laid it out flat on the counter and contemplated it for a moment.
His arm was brushing her shoulder.
She could feel the corded muscles in it, the heat coming off it. He smelled of the forest and of man, and compared to the other smell in the cabin it was pretty heady stuff.
She gritted her teeth.
And reminded herself. His wound was suspicious. She was a terrible judge of men. Whose baby was this, anyway? She moved slightly so that she was out of range of that muscular arm and his masculine potency.
“Like that,” he decided, placing the diaper, and then casually, “And what should I call you?”
“Storm, just like it says on the brochure.”
“Storm.” He repeated it, looking at her as if he was looking deeper, trying to see beyond what his eyes told him. “A nickname?”
“My brothers always called me that.” Her brothers had always said the name accurately reflected her temperament, though she didn’t share that with Ben.
He nodded at that, satisfied she suspected that his own assessment of her character, arrived at in less than fifteen minutes, had just been confirmed.
“Well, Storm, I think the moment of truth has arrived.”
Great. Just spill the beans.
But that wasn’t the truth he was talking about. He scooped the baby off the floor, held him at arm’s length for a moment and then laid him on the counter. “Somehow we’ll figure this out together. Any suggestions for step one?”
Rocky gurgled and smiled, somehow not in the least intimidated by this intimidating man.
“Very helpful,” Ben told the baby, and she detected there might be a sense of humor behind all that steel.
“How about the snaps on the sleeper?” she suggested, trying not to smile, trying to remember her most important step was to get out of here. She could contemplate what step two would be after she had accomplished step one.
“Even better.”
She watched his hands, strong and brown, make short work of the snaps. They were not, she decided, hands accustomed to this kind of work, and yet he was not a man who would do anything hesitantly.
Her own shirt, western-style, had snaps on it.
She ordered her mind not to go there.
Ben stripped off the sleeper with the same let’s-get-the-job-done efficiency. The baby was pink and dimpled all over. He waved his arms and legs, apparently delighting in the little explosions of odor his every vigorous movement caused.
“Have you got any clothes-pegs?” Ben asked.
Her lifestyle often required drying things on an inside line. She found the tin with the clothespins in it and brought it to him.
She had thought he intended to use them as diaper fasteners, and despite her desire not to let him win her over in any way, she burst out laughing when he carefully put one on the end of his nose.
“Want one?” he asked, his voice only marginally less sexy for the nasal twang in it.
“Does it help?”
“Yeah.”
So she nodded and found a clothespin clipped on the end of her nose. She was willing to bet she looked a lot less sexy—not, she realized, that she had looked that sexy to begin with. Not that she even wanted to think about why she might care if she looked sexy or not.
The clothespin helped. It hurt, but it was worth it.
“All right. Flap one, down.” He pulled the plastic tab, and the baby’s right leg sprang free of the diaper. She listened to his voice and heard