The Lady and the Lawman (17 page)

He's
taking off all of his clothes!
She hurried to the bed and picked up the blanket, glad for the
distraction, her fingers fumbling in the soft folds. She'd never been
alone with a man like this before. Alone in a room, yes, with
servants nearby. But alone in a storm, in a small, one room shack?
Never.

“
Hand
me one of those, will you?” he asked.

She
turned to hand him the blanket and got more than an eyeful. Grant
stood there, arm outstretched, dressed only in his drawers. His body,
for its sheer size, was lean and hard. His legs were covered in dark
hair that matched his arms, tanned from the outdoors. His hair was
damp, but was starting to curl from the heat of the fire. His chest
was broad and rippled with muscle. And lower, outlined beneath sodden
undergarments was his...his extremely large—

“
Oh!”
She threw the blanket at him and turned her back, but not before she
heard him chuckle. She put a hand up to her forehead, her eyes closed
as she tried to forget the image of a very specific part of his body
burned in her mind. It was the first male form she’d seen
unclothed, and she doubted there was a better specimen, something she
would not soon forget. And his male part! She hadn't seen William
without clothes, only felt him when he'd moved painfully inside of
her. But Grant was big! Something like that could hurt a woman. Then
why did her body protest otherwise? Her nipples tightened even
further beneath her wet shirt and her woman's core pulsed and heated
at the very idea of Grant's very full length.

“
I
apologize for the lack of privacy, but this is the best I can do,
under the circumstances. If we don’t get out of our wet things,
we’ll likely get sick.”

“
I
feel like I already have a fever,” she muttered, now staring at the
weathered wall behind the bed.

“
You
can turn around now.”

She
took a deep breath and slowly turned, her cheeks warm from much more
than embarrassment. The blanket was settled low on his hips and hung
nearly to the floor. Hair on his chest formed into a line that
disappeared beneath the material and lower to....

“
Your
turn.”

CHAPTER
SEVEN

Her
gaze flew to his. “Sheriff, I can’t...you don’t think I’m
going to undress in front of you!”

“
You
don’t have any choice. Besides,”—he cocked his head toward her
transparent blouse—“I've seen most of it anyway.”

Margaret
couldn't come up with a retort for that in her fuming state. It
didn't matter that he'd already had quite a show, but she wasn't
planning on extending the performance.

“
I’m
certainly not going out in the rain to protect your sensibilities,”
he continued, his voice enunciating the last, his eyes roaming once
again down her wet body.

Sensibilities?
She was ready to scream in frustration. “Sheriff, I’m not overly
concerned with my so called sensibilities after the unusual
activities over the past week. However, a little common courtesy
would be appreciated.”

He
nodded his head. “As you wish, Miss Atwater, but I stay inside.”

She
found herself accommodated as he turned around. His broad, tan back
curved into the blanket at his waist. The temptation to run her hands
over his back was mortifying and exciting, all at once. What would
his skin feel like beneath her fingertips? Would it be as hot as she
imagined? Would his muscles be hard and firm? Her skin heated even
further. She wasn't even cold anymore. Shaking her head at her
wayward thoughts, she quickly stripped off her soggy clothes and
wrapped herself in a white sheet from the old bed. She tied it
securely in a knot between her breasts, though unfortunately, her
nipples perked up at the contact with the scratchy material.

“
Thank
you.”

She
held out her clothes for him as he turned around. He looked her over
quickly, then squatted down in front of the stove to lay her things
out to dry. Her half-naked state didn't get so much as an eye twitch
from him. Was she so unappealing that he felt nothing when he looked
upon her? Why was she even upset that he didn't want her? She'd been
fighting him off from the first. The thought warred in her head. She
was attracted to him, desired him in a way she never knew possible
and that bothered her the most. Why couldn't she lust after, because
that's what she felt—lust, his brother Tom?

To
want a man who didn't want her in return only made her feel miserable
inside. What was wrong with her that a man only wanted her for her
money? In Grant's case, not at all?

“
Can
we head to town when the storm clears?” she murmured, her eyes
glued to the ridges of the length of his spine. She couldn't help it.

“
We
could, but we’re pretty far out. It’s almost dark and I can’t
be sure what’s washed out. I don’t want to risk the horses
twisting a leg in the dark.”

How
was she going to spend the night alone with him, confined to a
one-room shack without any clothes? She glanced at the bed and
couldn’t imagine how he’d fit in it, let alone both of them. Both
of them? Of course not. He’d sleep on the floor or something.
Wouldn’t he?

At
a loss of what to do, she sat down in one of the hard, wooden chairs,
pulling it closer to the stove for added warmth, not that she needed
it. It seemed all she needed was Grant, half clad in a blanket, to
keep the chills at bay.

Listening
to the rain pound on the tin roof, she tried to work the tangles from
her wet, scraggly hair with her fingers, deciding she never wanted to
get wet again anytime soon. The tendrils soon lay loose over her
shoulder to dry.

He
moved efficiently about the room, opening a tin and pouring the
contents into a pot on the stove. He opened the door to the cabin and
placed a kettle outside beneath an eave to catch the sluicing
rainwater. Once filled, he shut the door. A current of damp air
circulated around the room, causing goose bumps to rise on her skin.
He placed the kettle on the stove, the drips sizzling from the heat.

Every
time he stirred the contents of the pot, which she now smelled and
recognized as beans, his hip and its scratchy wool wrap brushed her
shoulder. She could feel the heat emanating from his body, mimicking
her own once again. She slid her chair back from the warmth a bit,
hoping to cool her burning cheeks—and other places.

He
handed her a tin plate filled with steaming beans and rustic, metal
silverware. “You must be hungry. It's not much, but it's warm.”
She thanked him and dug into her meager fare, careful not to burn her
tongue. “What do the men do to keep themselves occupied out here?
Do they usually ride alone?”

“
The
men who work for Tom are used to the open spaces and are content on
their own. More than likely they’d rather spend a night here by
themselves than step foot in a big city. Most haven’t,” he said,
digging into his meal with relish. “I’m not quite sure what they
do to pass the time. Some play cards, some probably whittle a piece
of wood. Who knows?”

“
I
think it would be quite lonesome.” She looked around the simple
cabin.

“
Finished?”
He asked, holding out his hand to take her plate.

“
Yes,
thanks.”

He
dunked the empty plate in a bucket of rainwater for a rinse. “There’s
a big difference between being lonely and being alone.”

She
thought about his words. They rang true and hit a nerve very close to
her heart. She'd spent her entire life lonely but never alone,
surrounded as she’d been by nannies and servants. She sighed. “Yes,
I know what you mean.”

He
looked at her pointedly, his dark gaze fixed as if trying to see into
her soul, but she offered nothing else. Some things were meant to be
kept secret. “Do you have brothers and sisters?” he asked.

She
shook her head.

“
Other
family?”

“
No,”
she said, swallowing a surprising lump of self-pity. “My father
passed away two months ago and my mother died when I was quite
young.”

“
I’m
sorry,” he murmured, as he poured two cups of coffee and handed one
to her. He stood, leaning against the wall, watching her. Always
watching, assessing, learning. It was a bit unnerving how it made her
feel...exposed. As if the sheet wrapped around her was as waterlogged
as her shirt had been earlier.

The
heat from the drink seeped into her fingers. Still, she shivered, not
realizing when she'd become chilled. Maybe from the depressing
direction the conversation took.

“
My
relationship with my father was...not great,” she shared. It wasn't
time to delve any deeper into their less than loving father-daughter
bond. “We were never close.” She took a sip of the
hot liquid, f
eeling
it warm her insides. It didn’t do any good to dwell on the past,
especially one so bittersweet. And like he had pointed out, lonely.

“
It
must have been hard being an only child. No one to play and fight
with.”

She
chuckled, although without any humor. “I don’t know any other
way. I did have a nanny who played with me, and then there were the
servants.” She tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. “They were
alway
s
kind.” She
thought about William and all the years she’d known him. Was that
why she never felt attraction toward him? Did she think of him as a
brother? The thought of what William had done to her, a pseudo
brother, was revolting, making her shudder.

He
pushed himself off of the wall and went to the bed. “I think we
should call it a night.”

She
stood, a hand at her chest to ensure the security of the knot on her
sheet. “It seems we’re wearing the bedding.” Oh, God! What a
ridiculous thing to say! Her cheeks flushed. Even with William's
unwelcome and indelicate advances, she’d never let a man touch her
before. Her innocence may have been stolen, but she knew she was
still naïve in the ways of a man and a woman. She'd never, ever
shared a bed with a man.

Mortified,
she crossed both arms over her chest. There was no way she would
separate herself from the sheet unless her clothes were dry. She
turned and looked at the soggy items on the floor near the stove.
Definitely not dry.

He
lifted a squeaky lid on a wooden chest at the foot of the bed. “There
are usually some extra clothes stored in here. Let’s see what we’ve
got.” He dug through for a minute and pulled out a man’s shirt.
“Here, I think you could put this on and consider yourself decent.”
He lifted it to his nose. “Smells clean. Then we can have our
bedding back.”

He
held the shirt out for her to take. “What about the blanket?” She
pointed to his waist.

“
I’m
not naked underneath like you are,” he commented.

She
eyed the blanket, realized where she was staring and darted her gaze
away.

“
I
think I’ll be decent enough for your
sensibilities.”
The side of Grant's mouth ticked up and she knew he was poking fun at
her.

There
was that word again. Sensibilities. Why did he keep thinking she was
so fragile, so prim? She sighed. Because she kept acting that way.
Grabbing the shirt from him, she gave him a pointed look. His smile
widened into a full grin before he turned his back. She quickly
exchanged the bed sheet for the shirt. Grant had been right, it
reached nearly to her knees, but it certainly exposed more than any
man had seen before. Except that night at Croft's.

“
All
right,” she said, tentatively.

He
turned around and looked her up and down. “That should do.” He
cleared his throat as he took the sheet from her and remade the bed.
Once the sheet was spread smooth across the mattress, he undid the
knot at his waist and removed the wool blanket.