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 shivering, 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 scrap 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 hell?” 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 space 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?” Amusement 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 space 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 hell 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. Damn, 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 God 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