“Why?”
She shrugged. “It’s safer, isn’t it?”
He thought she might explain, but she didn’t, and he did not pursue it. A heavy raindrop had just hit his sleeve. He looked up at the sky and felt another splatter his shoulder.He reached over and took the reins from Phoebe’s hands before she startled. “Do you feel that? I think we’re in for a soaker. We are not far from the cabin, but we need to pick up the pace.”
They did, but it didn’t matter. By the time they reached the old prospector’s abandoned lodging, the dark clouds had all rolled in and opened up. They were wet through and through and wretchedly cold.
Remington stamped his feet as he entered the cabin while Phoebe stood in one place, hugging herself as she shivered. “I’m sorry, Phoebe. If I’d had any hint this storm was coming, we would not have set out.” He thought she nodded, but it could have been she was only shaking with cold. “Look, there’s a lean-to around the back where I can shelter the horses, and an old smokehouse where I might find some wood for the stove. If there’s nothing inside, the smokehouse is so close to collapse I’ll knock it down, and we’ll use that wood to start a fire.”
“All right.”
“I won’t be long. You should walk around some, maybe take off your shirt and wring it out.” He was out the door without waiting to see what she thought of this last suggestion, but he was a romantic as well, and he lived in hope.
Chapter Seventeen
Remington’s hopes were dashed when he entered the smokehouse and found Phoebe standing there with an armload of wood.
“What?” she asked, feigning innocence. “You told me to walk around.”
“I also told you to take off your shirt.”
Phoebe smirked. “Uh-huh.”
Remington bent, picked up another piece of wormy wood, and dropped it on top of the pile in her arms. “Take that.” And then, because her arms were occupied and the best she could do was dropping the wood on his feet, he leaned over and kissed that splendidly sassy mouth. “And that, too,” he said, when he straightened.
There was nothing about Phoebe that was disingenuous. She tilted her head and gave him a long, considering look. “You’re a dangerous man.” Then she shoved her armload of wood against his flat belly, forcing him to take it. “You go on inside now, Romeo. I’ll follow directly.” Because he let her, she was able to maneuver him out the door and into the driving rain, but as soon as he was gone, she pressed her knuckles against her mouth and held them to the lingering imprint of his lips.
Remington was stripping bark off some of the wood to serve as kindling when Phoebe returned. He stopped to help her unload. “Where are you going?” he asked when she headed for the door. “Oh, no. Not outside again. Do this and I’ll get more wood. Besides, I still have to get the saddlebags, canteens, and horse blankets.”
Phoebe returned to his side, hunkered down, and relieved him of the log in his hand. “Do we have matches?”
“In an oilcloth in my saddlebag.”
“Hurry, please.” She applied herself to stripping bark and tried not to think about how long he would be gone, or that he should have thought about the saddlebags, canteens, and blankets before he thought about getting the wood—or about kissing her. He was obviously addled.
Phoebe kept at her task for two reasons: She had an overwhelming urge to be warm again, and as long as she worked, her back was to the bed where she had been tied. As soon as she walked into the cabin, she had glimpsed a short length of rope on the floor at the foot of the bed. She had shivered then, and it shook her bones. Remington was not the only one who was addled, she decided, although she doubted their reasons were the same.
She gave a small start when the door banged open. Remington was carrying the blankets under one arm, the canteens under the other, and the saddlebags from both horses over a shoulder. The door got away from him.
“Sorry,” he said, closing the door with the heel of his boot. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I thought for a moment it might be Fiona. She knows how to use a door to great effect as well.”
“Indeed,” he said dryly. He tossed one of the blankets, both canteens, and a saddlebag on the bed, and carried the rest to her. He snapped the blanket open and handed it over. “Wrap yourself in that. It’s drier than the other one and a modest enough cover if you want to get out of your shirt.”
“You are relentless.”
“Persistently optimistic.”
Phoebe sat cross-legged on the floor and huddled in the blanket. “Mm. Aren’t you cold?”
“For all but a minute back there in the smokehouse.”
“I suppose you mean the kiss.”
“You’d be wrong,” he said, unwrapping the matches. “I was referring to uncovering a yellow-bellied racer in the woodpile.”
She wrinkled her nose. “What is that exactly?”
