LITMIR.BIZ

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the bed—and—breakfast where Kyle was staying. She didn’t want to think about Kyle. She didn’t want to think about Mort Harbour, either. All she wanted to do was go to sleep and wake up in the morning to a whole new day.

      There should have been nothing especially difficult about that plan. But although Nell curled up in her sleeping bag inside her tiny yellow tent as soon as it was dark, it took her a long time to fall asleep.

      

      * * *

      

      Wendell’s truck was roaring right in her ear. Roaring as loudly as if the accelerator were stuck.

      With a gasp of dismay, Nell sat bolt upright, her head skimming the slanted roof of the tent. The roaring was real, not part of a dream. All too real. So were the yelling and the snatches of song, the beams of light piercing the walls of the tent then vanishing, the flicker of flames through the thin yellow fabric.

      She rubbed her eyes, crawled out of her sleeping bag and unzippered the tent flap. A full—scale party was in progress on the beach. The roaring and the beams of light came from three all—terrain vehicles that were spewing out sand as they tore up and down the beach. The singers were grouped around a campfire. With a sinking of her heart, she saw that the party was entirely male. Ten of them, counting the ATV drivers. Ten men and several cases of beer.

      Her tent was visible from the beach. Even though it was—she checked her watch—nearly three o’clock in the morning, the party showed no signs of abating. She didn’t need her mother’s voice to tell her that the combination of beer, drunken males and loud machines was not a particularly trustworthy one.

      Praying that they wouldn’t notice the outline of her body through the tent, Nell hauled on a sweatshirt and jeans, laced her boots and gathered up her haversack and jacket Then, at the last moment, she bundled her sleeping bag under her arm. She’d go farther along the headland and find a dry place under the trees where she’d feel safer.

      As she crawled out of the tent, one of the headlights caught her full in the face, blinding her. A chorus of voices began yelling at her, drowning the soft swish of the waves. “Hey, baby, come and join us…Lotsa beer…C’mon, sweetheart, we’ll show you a good time.”

      No thanks, Nell thought, and headed up the hillside into the trees, stumbling over roots and rocks because she didn’t have her night vision. As she looked back over her shoulder, she saw with a quiver of fear that one of the men was staggering up the beach toward her tent, brandishing his beer bottle at her.

      Nell hurried deeper into the woods. Although the men sounded like happy drunks rather than mean ones, she had no desire to put their good nature to the test. Not at three o’clock in the morning. She shoved her way through the thickly interwoven spruce trees, remembering that she’d seen a pathway along the ridge, glancing back nervously to see if she was being followed.

      With a suddenness that drove the breath from her body, she collided full tilt with a man who had just stepped out from behind a gnarled pine tree. She tried to scream, felt a hand clamp over her mouth and began, futilely, to struggle. She should have headed for the road, she realized wildly, not the woods, and did her level best to claw his face with her nails.

      “Nell, stop! It’s—” She struck out again, wriggling with the desperation of terror, trying to get a purchase with her boots so that she could lunge free. “Quit it—it’s Kyle!” the man gasped.

      Her ribs were cinched by her captor’s arm, forcing her to stillness. The timbre of his voice struck a chord in Nell’s memory, freeing her from the knife—edge of panic. His voice wasn’t the only thing that was familiar. At a more primitive level, so was the clean, masculine scent of his body. She jerked her head up and looked straight into deep—set eyes as black as the night. “Kyle?” she whispered.

      “Yeah…it’s okay, Nell. You’re safe.”

      “I—I thought you were one of them.”

      A note in his voice she hadn’t heard before, he rapped, “Did they hurt you?”

      “No—no, they just scared me. I’m all right”

      She was shaking in reaction, like aspen leaves in the lightest of breezes, her fingers clutching at his shirt as though she’d never let go. Kyle took her in the circle of his arms, drawing her close, his hands rhythmically stroking her back. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he murmured. “But I didn’t want you screaming your head off so that the whole bunch of them came charging through the woods to the rescue.”

      “What are you doing here anyway?”

      “I couldn’t sleep. That’s when I saw the lights on the beach. Figured I’d take a look and make sure you were okay.”

      With a little sigh, Nell collapsed against his chest. She muttered, “We’ve got to stop bumping into each other like this.”

      “You’re right…you pack a punch, lady.”

      She slid her arms around him. The curve of his rib cage, the flat belly, the hardness of his breastbone, she remembered them all. “It was nice of you to think about me.”

      “Especially after you said you didn’t want to see me again.”

      “So I did. Why couldn’t you sleep?”

      “Never you mind.”

      His cheek was resting on her hair, a state of affairs that she liked very much. She murmured, “You smell nice.”

      “So do you,” Kyle said.

      Against her face she could feel the roughness of his body hair at the neckline of his shirt; it seemed the most natural thing in the world to nuzzle at it with her lips. Warmth began to spread through her body, her shivering changing its tone so gradually she was scarcely aware of what was happening.

      “Don’t do that!” he choked.

      Her head reared back. “What’s wrong?”

      Easing his hips away from hers, he said grimly, “Do I have to spell it out for you?”

      “You mean you…” Nell flushed scarlet, stepped backward, tripped over a tree root and sat down hard on the puffy folds of her sleeping bag. It failed to pad the root. “Ouch!” she said.

      Kyle reached down and hauled her to her feet. “What in hell are you doing junketing through the woods with a sleeping bag?”

      “I was going to find a dry spot and go back to sleep,” Nell replied with as much dignity as she could muster. “You swear too much.”

      “There’s something about you that brings out the worst in me. One aspect of which is swearing. I don’t suppose it’s a two—person sleeping bag?”

      “It is not.”

      “Too bad. Because I’m not leaving you out in the woods alone while those party animals do their best to tear up the beach. You’ve got two choices. We’ll go to the bungalow where I’m staying—you can have my bed and I’ll bunk down in the living room on the chesterfield. Or else the two of us’ll stay out here for the rest of the night”

      It was cold in the woods, and her bottom was still smarting where it had connected with the root “Let’s go to the bed—and—breakfast,” she said meekly. “As long as we won’t disturb the owners.”

      “My God—no arguments?”

      “Would they do any good?”

      “No. Here, take my hand.”

      He led the way to the path on the ridge, and within minutes they were walking along the paved road, Kyle favoring his left leg. The beach party was still going full blast “I hope they don’t touch my tent,” Nell said.

      “If they do, they’ll have me to reckon with.”

      She had never before allowed a man to protect her.

      She

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