As quickly as she’d been face-planted in the snow, the man on top of her flipped her onto her back and stared down at her with his dark green eyes.
“Dante?”
“Emma?” He shook his head. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Well, I’m sure not on a picnic,” Emma said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Dante stared down at the pretty young college professor he’d met when he’d taken classes at the University of North Dakota, working toward a master’s degree in operations management.
She stared up at him with warm, dark chocolate-colored eyes, her gaze scanning his face. “What happened to you?” She reached up to touch his temple, her fingers coming away with blood. “Why was that man shooting at you?”
“I don’t know.” Dante’s brow furrowed. “Did you get a good look at him?”
“No, it was all a blur. I thought he was coming to help, but then he started shooting at you. I rammed into him, knocking his gun out of his hands. Then he took off.”
“You shouldn’t have put yourself in that kind of danger.”
“What was I supposed to do, stand by and watch him kill you?”
“Thankfully, he didn’t shoot you. And thanks for saving my butt.” Dante staggered to his feet and reached down with his right hand and helped her up. “He shot down my helicopter with an RPG and would have finished me off if you hadn’t come along.” A bitterly cold, Arctic breeze rippled across the prairie, blowing straight through his thermal underwear. A shiver racked his body and he gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering.
Emma stood and brushed the snow off her pants and jacket. “What happened to your clothes?”
“I fell into a puddle of flaming aviation fuel when I climbed out of the helicopter.” He glanced back at the inferno. “We need to get out of here in case the fire ignites the fuel in the tank.”
He climbed onto her snowmobile.
“You should take my coat. I bet you’re freezing.” Emma started to unzip her jacket.
He held up his hand. “Don’t. I can handle it for a little while and no use in both of us being cold.” He moved back on the seat and tipped his head. “Get on. I don’t know where you came from, but I hope it’s warmer there than it is here.”
Her lips twisted, but she didn’t waste time. She slipped her leg over the seat and pressed the start button. She prayed the bent skid, damaged in the collision, wouldn’t slow them down.
Once she was aboard, Dante wrapped his arms around her and pressed his body against her back, letting her body block some of the bitter wind.
It wasn’t enough. The cold went right through his underwear, biting at his skin. He started shaking before they’d gone twenty yards. By the time they topped a rise, he could no longer feel his fingers.
Emma drove the snowmobile along a ridge below which a tent poked up out of the snow. A truck and trailer stood on the ridge, looking to Dante like heaven.
When she pulled up beside the trailer, Emma climbed off, looped one of Dante’s arms over her shoulder and helped him into the trailer. It wasn’t much warmer inside, but the wind was blocked and for that Dante could be very grateful. The trailer consisted of a bed, a sink, a small refrigerator and a tiny bathroom.
“Sit.” Emma pushed him onto the bed, pulled off his boots and shoved his legs under the goose down blanket and a number of well-worn quilts. She handed him a dry washcloth. “Hold this on your shoulder so you don’t bleed all over everything.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a smile.
Her brows dipped. “Stay here while I get the generator running.” She opened the door, letting in a cold blast of air.
“Keep your eyes open,” he said through chattering teeth.
“I will.” She closed the door behind her and the room was silent.
Dante hunkered down into the blankets, feeling as though he should be the one out there stirring the generator to life. When Emma hadn’t returned in five minutes, he pushed the blankets aside, wrapped one around himself and went looking for her.
He was reaching for the doorknob when the door jerked open.
Emma frowned up at him, her dark hair dusted in snowflakes. “The generator’s not working.”
“Let me look at it,” he insisted.
She pushed past him, closing the door behind her. “It won’t do any good.”
“Why?”
“The fuel line is busted.” She held up the offending tube and waved him toward the bed. “Get back under the covers. At least we have a gas stove we can use to warm it up a little in here. I don’t recommend running it all night, but it’ll do for now.”
“Why don’t we get out of here?”
“It’s almost dark and it started snowing pretty hard, I can barely see my hand in front of my face. It’s hard enough to find my way out here in daylight. I’m not trying in the dark and especially not in North Dakota blizzard conditions.”
“I need to let the base know what happened.” He glanced around. “Do you have any kind of radio or cell phone?”
“I have a cell phone, but it won’t work out here.” She shrugged. “No towers nearby.”
His body shook, his head ached and his vision was hazy. “I need to get back.”
“Tomorrow. Now go back to bed before you fall down. I’m strong, but not strong enough to pick up a big guy like you.”
Dante let Emma guide him back to the bed and tuck him in. When she smoothed the blankets over his chest, he grabbed her hand.
Her gaze met his as he carried her hand to his lips and kissed the back of her knuckles. “Thanks for saving my life.”
Her cheeks reddened and she looked away. “You’d have done the same.”
“I doubt seriously you’d be shot down from the sky. Your feet are pretty firmly on the ground.” He smiled. “Paleontologist, right?”
She nodded.
“Isn’t it a little late in the season to be at a dig? I thought they shut them down when the fall session started.”
She shrugged. “With our unseasonably warm weather, I’ve been working this dig every weekend since the semester started.”
“Until recently.”
“Since it snowed a few days ago, I figured I’d better get out here. I’d heard more snow was coming, and I needed to dismantle my tent and bring it in.” She stared toward the window as if she could see through the blinding snow.
“I take it you didn’t get the tent down in time.”
She gave him a little crooked smile. “A downed helicopter distracted me.”
“Well, thank you for sacrificing your tent to be a Good Samaritan.”
Her cheeks reddened and she turned away. “Let’s get that shoulder cleaned up and bandaged.”
She wet a cloth and returned to the bedside. Pushing the fabric of his thermal shirt aside, she washed the blood away.
Her fingers were gentle around the gash.
“It’s just a scratch.”
Her lips quirked. When she’d