Just A Little Bit Dangerous Part 4

"After the stunt with the radio, I wouldn't put it past you."

"I may be desperate, but I'm not stupid."

"They're one and the same up here, Blondie. You do something desperate in this weather and it might just kill you."

"That would just set the world on its ear, wouldn't it?"

Jake cut her a look. He didn't like the sound of that. She didn't appear unbalanced or unduly agitated, but he remembered clearly the D.O.C. officer mentioning that she had a history of mental illness. If she decided to get crazy on him and take off, they could both freeze to death and not be found until spring. "I'll be right behind you."

"Suit yourself." Rolling her eyes in exasperation, she stalked over to the rear door and yanked it open. A blast of frigid air sent her back a step.

The outhouse was a doorless, open-air facility that left her gaping for a full thirty seconds before Jake leaned down and told her he would turn his back while she took care of business. She wouldn't even look at him as she stepped through the door and brushed the snow off the seat. Then at her nod, he turned away and tried not to think about how long this storm might last. While she used the facility, Jake spotted the remains of what had once been a woodpile. The wood underneath was dry, but there wasn't much. Maybe enough for two days. Leaving his post, he walked over to the pile and gathered up an armload of wood.

When he straightened, he found her a few feet away, gathering kindling. Surprise and a grudging admiration rippled through him. Okay, so Miss Convict was a trooper. That shouldn't have appealed to him, but it did. He knew what people were like when they were scared. He'd seen his share of panic, even more of tears. This woman could have been the poster girl for calm.

As much as he wanted to deny it, Jake realized he was going to have to be very, very careful in the coming hours. She was getting to him despite his resolve to keep her at a safe distance. And for the first time since Elaine had walked out on him more than two years earlier, he wasn't sure he trusted his own good judgment to keep him on the straight and narrow.

Rather than shout over the wind, he made eye contact with her and pointed toward the door. She nodded, and he followed her. Once inside, he set the wood in front of the fireplace. "I'll build a fire, then I've got to get out of these wet pants. Why don't you see if you can find something suitable to cover that broken pane with?"

"I was just going to suggest that." She started toward the kitchen area where a few pieces of weathered plywood leaned against the sink.

Jake watched her out of the corner of his eye as he stacked the wood and kindling in the hearth. She was still s.h.i.+vering, but he knew a blazing fire would take the damp chill out of the room. It wouldn't be warm by any means, but at least they wouldn't die of hypothermia. For tonight, he figured that was the best they could hope for.

She searched the counter, tossing aside a couple of sc.r.a.p pieces of wood that were either too large or too small to fit over the broken pane. Next, she looked under the sink.

He jumped a foot in the air when she screamed and scrambled back.

"What the h.e.l.l?" Certain she'd uncovered a nest of rattlesnakes, he sprinted over to her, grabbed her arm and tugged her away from the threat. Her laugh stopped him cold. He glanced past her in time to see a chipmunk scurry into a fist-size hole leading to the crawl s.p.a.ce beneath the cabin.

Another laugh erupted. "Didn't mean to scare you, Cowboy, but I'm not the camping type."

"I've noticed." His annoyance died a quick death the instant he realized how close she was. Awareness zinged between them like a stray bullet. In the span of a heartbeat, the situation went from bad to worse. A situation where he was no longer the cool-headed cop in control, but a man with a man's needs-and a man's weaknesses. She was no longer merely his charge, but a woman with violet eyes and soft flesh and secrets that beckoned a man to peel away the layers of her mystery one by one. He saw the realization in her eyes, heard it in the shuddering breath she let out, felt it in the leap of her pulse as it hammered beneath his fingers where he'd grasped her wrist.

He'd been around the block enough times to know this was a very bad idea. But he didn't step away. "You okay?" he asked.

"It was only a chipmunk," she said after a moment.

"I saw that."

"I didn't mean to scare you."

"It was only a mild heart attack. I'll survive."

She choked out a laugh. "You made a joke."

"I guess I did."

"It didn't hurt too bad, did it?" Amus.e.m.e.nt sparked in her eyes, but he clearly saw that she was shaken. He wondered if it was from the scare that chipmunk had given her, or because he was close enough to see the melted snow clinging to her eyelashes. The only question that remained was just how far he was going to let this go before he put a stop to it.

Her face was only a few short inches from his. So close he could feel the heat coming off her. See the endless violet of her eyes, searching his, seeking something elusive, asking a question he had absolutely no desire to answer. Not when the blood was a dull roar in his head and the feel of her was making his heart pound. Not when the scent of her was so keen he could practically taste her flesh.

Jake knew he should pull away, knew he should heed the alarm blaring in the back of his mind, but he didn't.

"Your pupils are dilated," she whispered.

"So are yours." His voice creaked like rusty barbed wire.

"You know what that means...."

"Why don't you tell me?"

"It means you're aroused."

"Really?" He didn't need her to tell him that. Jake felt it loud and clear, like a bomb going off right on top of him. But he also heard the warning bell clanging and the voice of reason screaming for him to stop what he knew would happen next.

She inched closer. "If I didn't know better, I might think you wanted to kiss me."

"Yeah, but you know better, don't you?"

"Do I?" She stood on her tiptoes, leaned toward him until her mouth was less than an inch from his. "I'll bet you're good at it."

The control cost him, but Jake didn't move. Sweat broke out on his back. He heard the echo of his pulse in his ears, the rush of blood through his veins. She closed her eyes, leaned closer.

An instant before contact, Jake stepped back. He wasn't sure who he was angrier with, himself for getting into the situation, or her for compromising herself. But the anger stopped the insanity with an audible snap.

Her eyes widened when he grasped her biceps, whirled her around and shoved her into a rickety chair. "Let's get something straight right now, Blondie."

She stared at him, her breaths coming short and fast. "I thought-"

"You thought wrong," he snapped. "What's the matter with you? Don't you have any self-respect? Don't you have any pride?"

"Don't you dare lecture me about self-respect."

"You need it, sweetheart."

The sudden rush of tears to her eyes took his anger down a notch, filled the s.p.a.ce left in its wake with another emotion he didn't want to deal with. Not when he could still smell her sweet essence, feel the pang of heat in his groin.

"You don't know me," she said. "You don't know what I've been through in the last year-"

"I know what I see. I see a young woman about to give her body away because she thinks she might get something in return."

She managed to look appalled. "I wasn't going to-"

"The h.e.l.l you weren't. I was reading your signals loud and clear, sister." Gritting his teeth against another jolt of anger-this time aimed at himself-Jake turned away and paced to the other side of the room. d.a.m.n, that had been close.

"I wouldn't have done...that," she said after a moment.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Jake laughed humorlessly. "Look, if we're going to be stuck together, I've got one rule."

She leaned back in the chair, blinking back what he hoped to G.o.d weren't tears. "I'm not very good at rules."

"All I want is for you to be straight with me," he said. "That means no games. No lying. No tricks. If you can't tell the truth, then don't say anything. Do you think you can abide by that?"

She pressed her lips together. "I wasn't going to...you know, sleep with you."

"If you weren't going to sleep with me, just what the h.e.l.l did you have in mind?"

"Well...I thought maybe...I thought maybe I could distract you."

"Distract me?" Jake gritted his teeth. "Some other bozo in my position might have taken you up on your offer. Some unscrupulous cop might have wanted more than you were willing to give. Then where would you be?"

"I'd still be in the same predicament I'm in now."

"Yeah? And what's that? Paying your debt to society?"

"Going back to prison for a crime I didn't commit."

"You're going to have to come up with something a little more original than that because I've been in this business a long time, and I've heard every lie in the book."

"You want original?" She stood abruptly, trembling and pale, tears s.h.i.+mmering on ashen skin. "The night before I escaped, somebody tried to kill me. I had two choices. Leave or die. So I left. Is that original enough for you?"

Chapter 4.

Abby told herself the shaking was from the cold, but she knew it wasn't. She wanted to believe the tremors racking her body were because she was scared and desperate and furious that her plan to escape had been foiled. But she knew the knot in her gut and racing pulse had more to do with the way the tall cowboy with the unfriendly eyes and dangerously sensual mouth had looked at her when she'd had her body pressed against his.

Holy cow, she'd almost kissed him! A cop, for G.o.d's sake. A man who was going to do his utmost to ruin any chances she had of saving her life. A man who was apparently hardened and cynical-and not nearly as vulnerable as she'd thought.

The most lethal kind of man there was-at least to a woman in her position.

Abby wasn't above using her feminine charms to get what she wanted. She'd seen the way he looked at her; she'd seen the heat in his eyes, discerned the weakness that made men predictable. Of course, she wouldn't have let things go too far; she had her limits. But she definitely would have gone far enough to get the job done. She wasn't sure what that made her. Desperate perhaps. She could live with that. She'd learned to live with a lot of things in the past year.

Of course, she wouldn't have to compromise herself now that Mr. By-the-Book had thwarted her plans. d.a.m.n him. Maybe she was in a lot more trouble than she'd ever imagined.

Abby realized then that she was going to have to be careful with this man. She'd nearly crossed a line. She'd nearly done something irrevocable. Something that would have made her hate herself. She'd nearly made a mistake that would have cost her another piece of her soul. Worse was the realization that for a crazy instant, she wondered if she might even enjoy it.

Oh, dear G.o.d, maybe she was crazy.

The cowboy stared at her, his thick brows riding low over eyes filled with a cop's skepticism. "Good try, Blondie. You get a gold star for originality, but I'm still not buying it."

She met his gaze levelly. "It's true."

"And I'm the Easter bunny."

"I don't care if you believe me or not."

"Why are you trying so hard to convince me, then?"

"Because you're my last hope."

He took another step back, a predator who'd just been swiped by the nasty claws of a much smaller, but infinitely dangerous prey. "I meant what I said about playing games," he said. "That includes making up stories. You got that?"

"That isn't a story, and I sure as h.e.l.l don't consider my life a game."

"Neither do I."

"Maybe you just don't give a d.a.m.n."

"I give a d.a.m.n-about the law. I've got a job to do. A job that's not always pleasant. You're not making it any easier for either of us."

A gust of wind rattled the door in its frame. Dragging her gaze away from him, Abby looked out the grimy window to the swirl of white beyond. Despair pressed down on her. She felt trapped, like a rabbit caught in a snare with a pack of dogs waiting to tear it to shreds.

"That storm's not going to let up any time soon." His voice caught her gaze. He was watching her, his expression as hard and steely as his eyes. "Let's try to get through this without any more problems, all right?"

"I'm innocent," she said. "I didn't kill anyone. I was framed, and I'm going to prove it. I just need-"

"I don't want to hear it." He raised a hand to silence her. "I'm taking you back and that's the end of it."

Tears burned behind her eyes, but she blinked them back with fierce determination. She would not cry in front of this man. She hadn't cried in front of anyone for a long, long time. She refused to start now. If Abby Nichols had anything at all left, it was pride. Crying never helped much anyway.

Still, she was thankful when he turned away. Some of the tension drained out of her when she didn't have to meet that cold-steel gaze of his. She wasn't going to waste her time trying to convince him of her innocence. Not this hard-headed lawman who saw the world in stark black and white. Her only hope was to gain his trust one inch at a time, then slip away when he wasn't expecting it. If she didn't get a chance-if he didn't give her the chance-she would just have to make one.

"There are a some instant meals in my saddlebag," he said after a moment. "Why don't you pull out a couple, and we'll eat?"

Abby's stomach growled at the mention of food. She hadn't eaten since the previous night, and after a physically grueling day she was starved. Without looking at him, she started toward the saddlebag he'd dropped near the door. Kneeling next to the bag, she opened the leather flap. Four individually packaged meals were stacked neatly, along with a collapsible container of water. She removed two of the meals.

"All you have to do is open the meal," he said from across the room. "There's a chemical inside that heats the food."

She turned to ask him how that worked, but the sight of him standing with his back to her-his b.u.t.t as bare as a baby's-made her gasp in shock. She knew better than to stare, but before she could stop herself, her eyes did a slow, dangerous sweep, covering every well-muscled inch of a body that gave new meaning to the word perfect.

All the blood in her brain did a quick downward spiral. "W-what do you think you're doing?" she cried.

He looked at her over his shoulder as he stepped into a pair of jeans and jerked them up quickly over his hips. "Getting into some dry clothes. Thanks to you, I've spent the past two hours in wet pants."

"I know that, but why are you...why did you..."

"You didn't think I was going to change my pants outside in the blizzard, did you?"

"I didn't think you were going to strip right in front of me!"

"Your back was turned." He faced her, and Abby's mouth went dry. "I didn't think you'd peek."