Craving a Hero: St. John Sibling Series, book 3 (23 page)

"Maybe," she said, steering the truck into the Grocery Mart parking lot, wondering if she was letting stubbornness influence her choice not to tell Dane he was Angel's father.

They picked out a couple Merlots. But when they got up to the checkout, the girl looked at the bottles then at him, turned red and blurted, "I can't sell wine to you."

Standing in the line behind Dane, Kelly glanced up from the magazine rack as he responded, "Fine. Get whoever can ring it up."

"I-ah." The checker turned away from him and waved the checker from two aisles over to her.

Kelly scanned the headlines of the magazines and newsprint on the racks while the two checkers tried to dissuade Dane from buying the wine. He argued. Kelly took one of the rags from the rack, laid it facedown beside the wine bottles, and instructed the checker to ring up the order for her.

Outside, he said to her, "What the hell was that all about? They'd sell to you but not me?"

Nearing the truck, she handed the rolled up gossip rag to him. He opened it, its giant headlines unrolling before him.

Dane St. John in Rehab?

He looked across the hood of the truck at her. "Are you saying they recognized me and that was the reason why they wouldn't sell me the wine?"

"Yup."

"I thought I was safely hidden away up here," he said, climbing into the passenger seat.

Here was her chance to get rid of him. Just verify that his secret was out and he'd leave.

He'd leave, wouldn't he?

"Nobody here's going to blow your cover," she said, closing her door and keying on the ignition.

"But—"

"The residents of Copper Falls like their gossip magazines," she said, putting the truck in gear and pulling out of the parking space. "But they're also a tight-lipped bunch when it comes to protecting their own."

"And they think of me as one of their own?"

"You're the first movie star ever to come to our little town," she said, checking for traffic before exiting the parking lot. "I guess you could say Copper Falls claims you."

"So no one's going to call one of the rags on me?"

"Nope."

"But, why not sell me wine?"

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Reread that headline, St. John."

He studied the newspaper in his hand. "You saying they believe I'm an alcoholic—that they're refusing to sell me wine is to protect me?"

"You got it," she said, heading down the main thoroughfare.

He snorted. "That explains a few things."

"Like my mother refusing to give you a beer and telling you alcohol didn't mix with Dad's meds?"

"That, and my attempt to buy beer. The cashier told me he couldn't sell beer on Sundays, that it was a county ordinance."

She laughed. He laughed. For a moment it was like old times when there'd been nothing between them but skin.

"I don't have a drinking problem, Kel," he said, his tone turning serious.

"I didn't think you did."

"There's been a lot of crap in the rags suggesting I did."

"I know," she said, turning off the main street toward home. "There was even a picture of you falling over a table."

He grunted. "I picked up an inner ear infection during the African shoot. It went undiagnosed for a while. Resulted in some balance issues. I even lost some weight. Easy fodder for the tabloids."

She caught the swing of his head in her direction. "You believe me, don't you, Kel?"

She was the liar, not him.

"I believe you, Dane."

But, she still faced the problem of hiding Angel's parentage from him, she realized as she pulled into the driveway at home. How long it would take before someone in her close-knit community would let it slip that he was Angel's father. She still didn't know if he'd reject his daughter or claim custody.

He reached for the passenger door. She caught him by the arm, stilled him. He looked at her.

"There is something I want to make clear with you before we go back inside," she said, justifying what she was about to do by reminding herself if he chose the latter, to claim custody of Angel, a lot more people would be hurt than just her.

"What's that?" he asked.

"If you're trying to reconnect with me by endearing yourself to my dad—my family, it won't work. I've moved on and I suggest you do likewise."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Dane sat on the camp couch, his feet on the coffee table in front of the fireplace, staring into the flames. In the week since Kelly had all but told him to stay away from her family, he'd done everything there was to do around the cabin twice over and snow-shoed just about every inch of the surrounding woods. Add in how the wind and snow battered the woods and cabin today, he was stuck inside with nothing to do but build a fire in the fireplace and think.

And all he could think about was it'd been seven days and he hadn't heard a word from her. Maybe she really meant it when she said she'd moved on.

But if that was the case, why the anger? If she really had moved on, why did she still harbor such strong emotions?

This was the one thing he couldn't get past—the one thing that nagged him night and day—that kept his instincts on high alert. If Kelly truly had moved on, she shouldn't be angry—she shouldn't be hurting.

And that was
the
thing, her hurt. Every sense he had told him, behind the anger, she was hurting; and
that
he couldn't bear.

He'd called Tess. Of all his family, his sister-in-law was the one who'd gotten to know Kelly best, the one most likely to know how to handle her. Tess agreed Kelly was hiding something. She had urged him to keep pushing—keep crowding her.

"But how do I push and crowd her when she won't even let me near her?" he'd asked.

"You've got to get her someplace where she can't escape you—can't run away from your questions."

But the days were slipping away and he was no closer to figuring out how to keep her someplace long enough to get some answers. He was beginning to think what he needed was divine intervention.

The grind of a truck in all-wheel drive climbing the grade to the cabin broke him from his commiserating. Hope surged through him before he tempered it with, "It's probably just Andi Johanson come to plow." Though, at the same time, he thought it odd Andi would show up before the storm ended.

Dane rose, crossed the room, and looked out the window at the truck pulling up beside his SUV. It didn't have a plow on it but it did have a DNR emblem on the door. He stepped into his boots, threw on his jacket, and bounded out the door before the truck had even come to a full stop.

He met Kelly as she dropped from the driver's side door, unable to hold back a grin. She, however, wasn't smiling.

"I tried calling you on the bag phone," she said in a tone that hit him with all the force of the gusting storm.

He ducked his head, realizing he hadn't given her his satellite phone number. Hell he hadn't even told her he had a satellite phone.

"I told you to keep it charged," she said in the same unforgiving tone. "You did keep it charged, didn't you?"

He grimaced, which apparently was enough of an answer for her.

"Dammit, Dane." She howled above the roar of the wind. "This storm's going to be a big one. Three more feet of snow predicted. You'll be snowed in for a couple days, if not longer. I was calling to make sure you were stocked up for it."

"Still worrying about me, huh, Bright Eyes?" he ventured.

She slammed the truck door shut, plowed through the five inches of snow that had already accumulated, and folded back her truck's bedcover, revealing bags of supplies. "I had to assume you hadn't thought to stock up for the storm and do it for you."

A storm. Two to three feet of snow. Divine intervention?

Dane raised his face into the falling snow and mouthed,
thank you.

"Here," she said, shoving bags into his arms. "Help me unload so I can get out of here before I'm snowed in, too."

Dane peeked skyward, silently intoning,
help.

"Move it," she snapped when he lagged.

She dumped her load on the kitchen table and turned for the door.

"Kelly, wait."

"I've got no time for waiting around," she said, jabbing a finger in his face. "Turn on your SUV and plug in that bag phone. I want it charged and available to receive calls."

She strode toward the door.

"I've got a satellite phone," he called after her.

She stopped, pivoted, and glared at him. "And you failed to tell me this why?"

"I didn't think you'd call me."

She threw up her hands and turned for the door, ordering over her shoulder, "Write down the number for me while I haul in the last load."

His chance to keep her here at the camp was fast slipping away.

"Think," he ordered himself. "What can I do?"

She banged her way back into the cabin with the remaining satchels of supplies and dropped them on the floor beside the table. "I had the propane tank filled before you came up here so you should have plenty to run the fridge, stove, and lights. I filled a gas can in case you need any for the SUV. I'll leave it outside the door. It'll be fine there or you can haul it into the shed yourself. Got that number for me?"

"I need to find some paper—"

She tore off a corner of a grocery bag and slapped it down on the table in front of him. "Need a pen?" she asked, reaching inside her jacket to her breast pocket.

He took the pen she held out to him and wrote his number on the scrap of grocery bag as he spoke. "We need to talk, Kel."

"We've done all the talking we're going to do," she said, snatching the paper with his number off the table, stuffing it into her pocket, and turning for the door.

"Kel, please." He caught her by the arm.

She glared at his hand on her arm, then at his face. "Let go of me."

"Please, Kel."

She shook her arm free and escaped out the door.

He followed, a wind gust slamming into him. He barely felt it even though his jacket hung open and his head and hands were bare.

"Get back inside before you freeze your ass off," she ordered, yanking open the driver's side door of her truck.

"Don't leave like this, Kel."

She climbed into the truck. He grabbed for the door handle. She locked the door, keyed on the ignition, and backed hard away from him, the light rear-end of her truck fishtailing into a turn that would send her front end first down the road away from him.

So much for divine intervention.

But, between her heated retreat and the snowfall obscuring where the road dropped off, she must have miscalculated. Helplessly, Dane watched as her truck lurched to one side into the ditch.

He raced up to the truck, the driver's side tilted forty-five degrees toward the leaden sky. He wrenched open her door and found her fumbling to release her seatbelt.

"You need to take the pressure off it," he said.

"I know," she shouted back.

"Grab onto me," he said already hauling her close with one arm while reaching around her for the buckle with the other and freeing her.

He set her on the ground, slow to let her go. She flat-handed him in the chest, shoving him off.

"Damn you, Dane. If I hadn't had to come up here…"

As badly as he wanted to keep her at the cabin with him, he had to offer, "Take my SUV."

Her glare could have melted the snowflakes falling between them. "I can't leave my work truck here."

"Then get your tow rigging," he shouted over the howling wind. "We'll hook the truck up to the SUV and I'll pull you out."

"That SUV doesn't have the power to pull the truck out, as badly stuck as it is," she called after him as he hoofed it over to the SUV, determined to play her hero.

And how right she was he realized as he tried to position the SUV downhill of the truck only to go into a skid that turned the SUV sideways across the narrow driveway. The SUV didn't even have power or weight enough to keep itself on the road.

After attempting a few maneuvers to free the vehicle, he climbed out the passenger door and up to where she waited for him, hands on hips.

"Sorry," he said as he strode past her, hands shoved in his pockets, bare head bowed into the wind, the last to hide his smile.

#

"You did that on purpose," she said, slamming the cabin door shut behind her.

He was holding his hands up to the fireplace, an eyebrow raised at her. "And just how did
I
put
you
in the ditch?"

She stomped the snow off her feet, muttering curses and pulling her satellite phone from an inside pocket. She should have called in from her truck radio, even if it meant doing gymnastics to reach it. At least she wouldn't be inside with Dane and his cocked eyebrow.

She called the office first, reporting her situation, and requesting help. But everybody was tied up doing
more important things
what with this storm. Besides, she was reminded, she was due for a pass day…just in case she couldn't get back to civilization by morning. In other words, she was going on the books as taking the rest of the day off…and possibly tomorrow as well.

Her second call was to Moody's Tow Service. But Moody was already swamped with calls to drag people out of ditches; and, besides, she was too far away for him to waste his time coming after her unless it was an emergency. Her third call was to home to tell them she was stuck at the camp and wouldn't be home for the night. Her mother assured Kelly she'd take good care of Angel.

She unzipped her jacket and rattled one of the bags on the table. "Some of this stuff is perishable. You might want to get it in the fridge."

"Yes ma'am," Dane said, looking way too pleased as he strode toward the bags of supplies.

"You should have given me your satellite phone number," she groused, needing to be anywhere but stuck in a cabin with the only man in the world she wanted.

"I know," he said, hefting two gallons of milk into the fridge with one hand. Damn him and his big, strong, skilled hands.

She pivoted away from him, went to the window overlooking the driveway and their two mired vehicles. Andi Johanson lived just a mile away. Her truck might not have the power to pull her buried truck from the ditch. But she should be able to drag the SUV around so it at least pointed down the road instead of across it. If she took it slow, she could handle the slippery track out to the highway. At least she wouldn't be trapped in the cabin with Dane.

She punched in Andi's number and got her answering machine. "Andi. It's Kelly. Call me when you get this," she said and supplied her phone number.

"That eager to get away from me, Bright Eyes?"

The fingers on her free hand balled up and those still holding the receiver tightened on it. Most definitely she was eager to get away from him, not that she was going to admit it to him.

She faced him. "I've got better things to do than sit out a storm out here with you."

He stood beside the fridge, a carton of eggs in his mitt of a hand. Why did she have to keep noticing his hands—remembering how they felt moving over her body?

"Good weather for poaching?" he asked, sounding far too smug.

"There're always fender-benders in this sort of weather. The troopers can use all the help they can get sorting them out. And power outages. Maybe even someone lost out in this."

He sobered, set the eggs on a wire shelf and closed the fridge door, murmuring, "Someone who needs your help more than a dumb ass actor who doesn't know his way around a snowstorm."

"Dammit, Dane. I need to be out there helping."

"Out there, or just anywhere but here with me?"

She paced the length of the cabin away from him. Bad choice as she ended up staring at the double bunks, particularly the lower one where they'd made glorious love. Three strides away from the beds and she was in front of the fireplace. It blasted her with heat, making her want to remove her jacket and hat—to curl up in front of its fire and doze off in the arms of…

She tore the cap from her head and strode to the hooks by the door, grousing, "I told you the wood stove would heat the cabin more efficiently."

"I thought a fire in the fireplace was more romantic," he said, giving her a mischievous half-grin.

#

She paced the cabin like a caged animal. She hadn't found his remark about a romantic fire amusing. So much for ice-breakers. Not a good lead into asking her questions—pushing her for answers.

Mid-afternoon, she climbed into the upper bunk and fell asleep. At least Dane assumed Kelly slept. He couldn't hear anything what with how the wind rattled the rafters and the icy snow pelted the windows. He knew only that he wanted to climb up in that bunk and wrap his body around hers and hold her until her rage drained away.

He thought his frying chicken would bring her down for supper. But it didn't.

Come nightfall, he closed the dampers on the fireplace, added a couple logs to the wood stove and climbed into his own bunk. Sleep was slow to come, though, given how the angry energy she'd brought into the cabin still crackled through the air. It didn't help, either, that she was just one thin mattress beyond his reach.