Last Chance Llama Ranch (34 page)

T
he beast attacked at dusk.

Merry had huddled as close to the alpacas as mama would allow, but the cold still had her in its grip, and the wet snow had dampened everything from her boots to her mittens. Her lips, she was sure, were probably blue, though the darkness would have made it impossible to tell even if she'd cared to find out for sure. Her eyes were drifting closed in any case. She'd dragged in some evergreen branches that hadn't been
too
wet, and scrabbled together some pine needles and other leaves from the floor of the mine shaft, but there was barely enough greenery to insulate her from the heat-stealing ground, let alone burrow under, unless she wanted to go out foraging in the woods for more.

Her shivers weren't as bad as they'd been earlier, and somewhere in the back of her mind Merry knew she ought to be worried about that, but right now she was too busy reenacting
The Empire Strikes Back
.

She was Luke Skywalker, investigating a suspicious probe that had crashed into the ice planet Hoth. The snow was endless, and the fate of the galaxy rested on her shoulders, but she was so tired…slipping in and out of consciousness in the snow.…

And then the ice monster reared up before her.

The windbreak blew apart in a flurry of exploding snow, and a huge, hairy creature lumbered into the mine shaft.

Merry screamed, or tried to scream, but her throat was so cold she could only squawk. Her torpor vanished in a puff of terrified adrenaline, and she leapt to her feet, fumbling a branch into her freezing-cold hands, trying with all her worth to whack the snow-covered Sasquatch.

“Quit it!” yelled the yeti. “Merry.
Merry!
Calm down, it's me, Sam.”

Merry flailed about for another minute, the fading light and the wild hair in her eyes not helping matters. She squinted, pushing her hat back from her forehead. “
Sam?
” she croaked.

“Yeah, it's me, Wookiee.” He stripped off his gloves with his teeth, and a second later, warm hands were cupping her face, turning it so he could see her in the waning light. She gasped at the contrast of his hot palms against her cold cheeks. “Jesus, you're whiter than milk.”

And my eyes won't seem to focus
, Merry thought.
Maybe they're frozen too.
Because, right now, Sam Cassidy looked every bit the dashing romantic hero. Dressed in a long shearling coat and a wide-brimmed leather hat, bandana shrouding half his wind-chapped face, he was the ultimate mountain man. Merry wobbled on her feet.

“Hey! You're wearing shoes,” she observed. A dopey smile crept across her face.

“Of course I'm wearing shoes,” said Sam, as if this was in no way remarkable. “There's two feet of snow out there.”

“Bah,” she said. “
That
? That's barely a dusting. You should see the gnar pow in Portillo this time of year.” She tried to snap her fingers, but they wouldn't cooperate.

Sam took her hands into his own, and started to chafe the blood back into them. “Christ, you're frozen half to death. What were you thinking, running out into a snowstorm without a coat?”

“I
had
a coat. Well, a sweater anyway,” she amended.

“Then why the hell aren't you wearing it?”

“Because
he
is.”

Sam followed her gaze, squinting further into the mine shaft. His eyes widened at the sight of the tiny cria cuddled into its customized outerwear. He left her for a moment, just long enough to ascertain that mama and baby were okay. “Well, if that doesn't beat all,” he murmured, shaking his head. A grudging grin tugged at his rough-hewn features. He returned to her side, shrugging off his coat and draping it around Merry's shoulders. Even tall as she was, the garment hung generously about her narrower frame.

Thank the gods, it was
warm
. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she chattered. Her knees seemed unable to take the added weight of the sheepskin, and they buckled, sending her into a sprawl on the cold ground.

Sam followed her down, kneeling at her side. “Don't thank me yet,” he told her, running his hands up and down her legs to chafe some life into them. “When I saw the note you left Dolly, I ran out here like some greenhorn without grabbing anything useful. Goddamn it! Of all the rookie mistakes, this has to take the biscuit.”

Sam's the guy you want to be holed up in a cave with in the dead of winter…

Suddenly, Jane's casual words in the yarn shop seemed prophetic.

She'd gathered a pile of dry leaves for tinder as Sam had instructed—growled, more like—and was back to huddling inside his coat now, trying to stop her entire body from convulsing with shivers. She'd warmed up just enough to understand how close she'd been to being cold
permanently
. Her dreamy state had vanished, and she was back to seeing Sam for what he was…one grumpy-ass, unpredictable troll.

Who, as she recalled, had no great love for
her
. And now here they were, trapped together for God knew how long.

“How did you find us?” she asked between chatters. “I'd have thought the snow would have covered our footprints a long time ago.”

Sam was checking on the alpacas again, making sure mother and babe had a cozy spot in which to kush, out of the wind and wet snow. Seeming content with the nest he'd arranged for them, he looked over at Merry. “It did. If you hadn't stacked up those rock cairns along the way as you went up, I doubt I'd have found you until morning,” he admitted. “The giant X shape you built with those boughs outside the cave didn't hurt either.” In the dim glow of her phone's flashlight, Merry saw a reluctant smile crease his features. “Guess you did listen to some of the survival lessons I taught the kids.”

Merry forbore to mention that she'd learned this not from him, but from her first ski instructor, after he'd determined Merry could not be convinced to stay on the tame runs most other kids were content with. Rescue 101, he'd called it.

She could use rescue
102
right now. But Sam was disappearing on her…toward the back of the mine shaft. She'd given it only a cursory exam earlier, and hadn't found anything that seemed useful. “Where are you going?” she asked, a bit more shrilly than she liked.

Sam was rummaging in the rafters. “To save our asses, unless you'd rather freeze all night. I may not have brought anything useful with me today, but fortunately I'm not always this big of an idiot.” He dragged down a bundle that had been stashed up there. “Fatwood,” he said, holding up a cord of resin-impregnated kindling. “And firewood.” He started tossing down some logs that had been tucked up in the support beams as well. Soon he had a pile sufficient to keep a fire going several hours. “Always keep it high and dry, out of the wet.”

It would have been nice to know about that three hours ago
, Merry thought. “Isn't that cheating?” she chattered. “I mean, aren't you supposed to, like, start the fire with the power of your studliness?”

Sam snorted. “I save my studliness for special occasions. Times like these, I prefer my trusty Zippo.” He fished around in the back pocket of his jeans, coming up with a worn silver lighter. In moments he'd dug a fire pit, fashioned a bundle out of the tinder she'd gathered, and arranged the fatwood and logs atop it in some arcane arrangement clearly designed for maximum ignition potential. Another moment, and he had a decent fire going. It wasn't doing much to heat the place—and wouldn't until they got a nice base of coals going—but the light was enough to allow Merry to turn off her phone's flashlight.

“Lucky thing you left all that stuff up there,” she said, pocketing the phone. She shuddered to think what might have happened if he had not. Then again, right now shuddering was about
all
she could do.

“I always leave caches of supplies around natural shelters in case of emergency. I've got about six others stashed around these trails.”

“Ah.” Of course he did. “I don't suppose snacks are included?” Merry hadn't eaten since the night before, and she was hungry enough that she'd begun to wonder if Dashie had a little milk to spare.

“Wouldn't be much of a cache without them,” Sam said. He rummaged some more, then held up a rectangle that crinkled with a distinctive candy-wrapper sound. “PowerBars,” he said, and tossed one at Merry, who caught it gratefully.

“Now eat up, and let's get naked.”

I
suppose you'll want me to be the back spoon,” Merry said through clenched teeth. Despite his high-handed command, they weren't clenched in annoyance, but to keep them from clacking violently together. Even in his coat, even with the fire crackling in the pit he'd dug for it, she couldn't seem to generate enough heat to bring up her core temperature. She knew this was unavoidable—she'd had enough avalanche and snow rescue training to understand that much—but she didn't have to like it.

I'd like it a whole lot better if the man I'm about to suck body heat from didn't despise me
, she thought.

Sam sighed, arranging the pine boughs he'd gathered into an impromptu pallet for them to share, with a second pile ready to do duty as a cover. “Just get down on the ground and strip.”

Under other circumstances—with a different man—the command would have been kinda hot. But Merry was too cold—and too nervous—for cheap thrills. “Fine. But just so you know, this is totally going to be way sexier on my blog.”

“I thought you were calling it a column?” Sam's tone was dry.

“Whatever.” She started to unbutton the coat and unwind the scarf Sage had made her.

“Did I say strip,
then
lie down?” Sam said sharply.

“What's the difference?” she half chattered, half hissed.

“About three degrees of lost body heat. You're halfway into an epic case of hypothermia already. You want it to get worse? Stand around bare-assed in the breeze arguing. You want to get warm, you get on top of those boughs with me and
then
we'll worry about stripping off.”

“Yes,
sir
.” She aimed an ironic salute at him. But Merry was secretly relieved she wouldn't have to face Sam's gaze on her mangled body. His
body
on her mangled body was going to be bad enough. As best she could, she crawled atop the layer of prickly branches Sam had arranged. At least they smelled good, which was more than she could say for herself, after today's adventures. Or Sam, most likely. Not that she planned on sniffing him.

“Now take off the coat and lay it like a blanket over you.”

Merry complied.

“Sorry it's not a Beautyrest,” he said as he climbed under the coat with her. Even with their clothes still in place, the effect was immediate. The man was a
furnace
. She felt him wriggle and rustle as he loaded their bier with the second bunch of branches atop the coat. Then the air between them got even hotter as he shed his shirt. His pants, thankfully, seemed to be staying in place. “I couldn't find any pillow-top mattress trees in this neck of the woods.”

His tone sounded almost…
humorous?
But Merry wasn't feeling much like laughing right now. The feel of his very solid body behind hers was making her…uneasy. “I'll manage,” she gritted. Merry shut her eyes and forced herself to start stripping off her shirt. But she'd barely gotten it unbuttoned when Sam sighed and stilled her with a firm hand.

“Stop. You're knocking all the boughs off. Let me.” Suddenly, Sam's hands were all over her torso, sliding the shirt off her shoulders, briefly pinning her arms at her sides before the sleeves came free. There was a puff of frigid air, and then his chest made contact with her bare back. Merry jumped.

Hot
.

Hard
.

Furry
.

He wrestled around a bit and made their discarded shirts into a blanket atop the boughs—to sandwich the warmth in, Merry supposed. But it also kept Sam's
scent
in, and it wasn't stanky after all. No, this was honest, and musky…and weirdly, undeniably
delicious
. It wasn't something you could put your finger on. You just knew you wanted to keep inhaling it, like fresh-baked bread or new snow atop a pristine mountain. Or your beloved after sex…

Sam wrapped an arm around her body and drew her in.

“Before you ask—yes, it's necessary.”

Merry bit back the several things she wanted to say. She knew damn well the fastest way to raise one's core temperature was for skin to feed off skin. She could feel the theory bearing fruit already as the convulsions loosed their grip on her aching body, and a warm lassitude replaced them. A knot of tension uncurled inside her belly, only to be replaced by another sort of tension altogether.

“Shoes too.”

Merry did as he bid, kicking off her damp boots. She drew her feet as far as she could up into their nest, cursing her height, but Sam didn't give her a hard time—in fact, he wrapped his legs around hers, tangling them together and making sure her cold soles were sandwiched by his calves, which felt warm even through his jeans.

Jesus. I've had
sex
less intimate than this
, Merry thought. She was quiet a minute, listening to the sounds outside their little shelter, the suckling of tiny Bill at his mother's teat. She breathed shallowly so as not to encourage more contact between their bodies—or inhale too deeply of Sam's scent.

Okay. This wasn't so bad.

Then she felt something stiff poking into her lower back. It hadn't been there a moment before. She lurched forward, but Sam's arm held her in place. “Is that your…?!” she hissed.

“It's a branch, Wookiee,” said Sam, sounding half-asleep. Yet…was it her imagination, or did his voice hold a certain tension?

“Do branches
throb
?”

There was a pause, which Merry couldn't interpret.

“This one does. Just ignore it. A little wood is all part of nature.”

How the hell was Merry supposed to ignore that rhythmic pulse against her back…or the one that was beginning to match it, low in her own abdomen? The woodsy smell of him was overwhelming in the tight space. Outside, the wind howled and the snow piled up. They weren't going their separate ways anytime soon. Just thinking about it made her shudder.

Sam pulled her closer, rubbing her upper arms with his rough hands. “Okay?” he asked, sounding for once like a nice, normal person. “Or still cold?”

Merry was not cold. Not remotely. But that was no reason to believe Sam had the hots for her. As he'd said, “wood” was natural, even when you didn't care for the person whose proximity caused it.
He probably just doesn't want his reputation as a survival teacher to be ruined. Otherwise my ass would be out in the snow.
“I've endured worse,” she said shortly.

He grunted, but he moved his pelvis a few inches back.

Merry told herself she was glad.

The silence grew awkward. Finally, Merry couldn't stand it anymore. “Look, I'm sorry, Sam. I appreciate you rescuing me, and doing this.” She gestured to indicate their bower. “I know it can't be fun when you hate the person you're spooning up with.”

“I don't hate you, Merry.” Sam sounded almost…
surprised?

“Baloney. You've loathed me from day one. And you seemed pretty damn angry a minute ago, bossing me around.”

“I'm not angry,” he said. “Well, I
am
, but not at you. I'm angry at myself, for not looking after you. It's my responsibility to watch over everyone and everything on the Last Chance ranch.”

“I can look after myself,” Merry said stiffly.

“I can see that. And you did really well, Merry,” Sam surprised her by saying. His breath was warm against her neck, his voice a rumble she could feel as well as hear. “Getting Dashiell to shelter…keeping her cria warm…that was impressive. I know Dolly will be grateful. And…so am I.”

“A compliment?” Merry rolled her eyes. “I must have whacked you harder with that branch than I realized. Or did you forget I'm the entitled rich girl, exploiting you folks for my own gain?” Merry's tone was more bitter than she'd intended. But she had to defend herself against this new, confusing Sam somehow. She didn't trust this niceness…not after the look in his eyes the last time she'd seen him. That had
hurt
.

Sam gently swept aside a strand of her hair that had tangled in his stubble, tucking it against her neck. His arm settled back around her waist like it belonged there. “I might have been a bit harsh on you,” he admitted. He paused a beat. “Hell. I
know
I was, and I know I owe you an apology.”

Merry tried to pull away, but there was nowhere to go, except out into the storm. “Don't bullshit me, Cassidy.”

“I'm not. Look, I had a lot of time to think, while I was out in the woods. I realized I never gave you a fair shake, from the day you first arrived at the ranch.”

“And now, suddenly, you've changed your mind?” She wanted to roll over and look at him, to read the expression in those electric blue eyes, but that would have brought her bra-clad breasts into contact with his chest. And her heart perilously close to his.

He sighed, propping himself up on his elbow. She could feel him looking down at her profile, as if willing her to look back at him, but she just stared into the fire stubbornly. “Not
changed
it, so much as realized it wasn't you I've been fighting with, all along.”

Merry waited. Her heart was beating fast.

“When you arrived at the ranch, Merry, it wasn't you I saw; it was my ex-wife. Jessica.” He blew out his breath. “Christ. I can't believe I'm about to tell you this. I don't talk about her—with
anyone
.”

“So why tell me?” Merry asked. It was weird, talking to Sam in the dark, skin to skin, intimate, and yet unable to see the expression in his eyes. She stared instead at the tableau of mother and baby alpaca, drowsing together across the fire. So sweet, so peaceful. She wished she and Sam could be at peace with one another too. What would it be like, to feel trusting and safe with Sam? From the moment she'd met this enigmatic, often hostile man, she'd wanted to know what made him tick. Yet suddenly she wasn't sure she was ready to hear his story, to feel something real with him. He'd turned on her too many times. “Why now?”

“I guess I owe it to you, after the way I treated you.”

“You don't owe me anything. Not…” She hesitated.
Give the dude a break. It's obviously killing him to be this nice
. “Not unless it's something you really need to say.”

“You know? I don't know why, but I think I
do
need to tell you.” He sounded mystified. “Just promise me this stays between us. No posting it online.”

“Of course not. Jesus, Sam. What kind of person do you think I am?”

“I don't know,” he said seriously. She could feel his gaze searching her face, and her cheeks heated up. “But I do know you're not Jessica. It's just, when I saw you that first day, all dolled up in that fancy coat and freaking out about a little llama spit, I couldn't help comparing you two.

“She was glamorous, worldly,” he went on. “Accustomed to the best. And she…” He paused, and Merry could hear the working of his jaw as he ground his teeth. “She had certain expectations. Of me, of what I should provide. How I should look, behave, what I should value.” Merry could feel him shaking his head. “It was a bad match from the start. But I was young, and she was…so beautiful. So confident. When she took an interest in me, I couldn't believe it. I was just this nobody kid from Jersey City. I wasn't handsome. I wasn't suave. But somehow she picked me.”

He sighed. “I was fresh out of school. We met at some fancy-ass benefit. I was only there because my friend had won tickets off a raffle, and Bruce Springsteen was playing.
Not
Bon Jovi, by the way.”

Merry smiled at the reminder of their conversation up on Wheeler Peak.

“She thought I belonged,” Sam continued, “and I wanted her to keep thinking that. I was crazy about her. I wanted to be everything she expected from the man on her arm. So I took the job she wanted for me, pursued the career path she funneled me down. I schmoozed with the friends she thought were suitable. Hell, I even dressed in the monkey suits she bought me. And still I couldn't make her happy. Over time, it got really bad. I could see the disappointment in her eyes when I couldn't fit in with her crowd, when the money I brought in wasn't enough. We started fighting all the time, and we both said some pretty terrible things. It was killing me not to be the man she needed, and I knew I was standing in the way of the life she really wanted. So finally, I left.”

Merry couldn't imagine this younger Cassidy. Sam had always seemed so self-assured, so comfortable in his own skin and confident of his skills. She'd never pictured him as someone with vulnerabilities, insecurities.

“It took me a long time, and a lot of roughing it, but I found my way in the end. Where I belonged wasn't in some stock exchange, parsing derivatives, and it wasn't drinking appletinis on some douchebag's tax-write-off yacht. I lost myself in the woods—but I
found
myself there too. I was finally the man
I
needed to be, not the man she'd demanded I be. I was content—or getting there, anyhow. And then you came along.”