LITMIR.BIZ

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you say something?”

      “I asked if you’d mind calling Russ over at the lodge. Mr. Blackwolf will need a room where he can rest a few days before he heads back to Seattle and both rooms here at clinic are already occupied.”

      “Oh, sure.”

      She closed the door behind her on her way to the outer office, but not before she caught a glimpse of Blackwolf shrugging out of his gown so the doctor could check his ribs. At the brief sight of the pilot’s broad, muscled chest—complete with the same coarse, dark hair as she’d seen on his legs—Holly’s pulse skipped.

      No question about it, Holly thought as she picked up the phone and punched buttons. Guy Blackwolf was one fine specimen of a man.

      She spoke to Russ at the lodge, Ned at the Hardware Store, Clay at the sheriff’s office, then Quincy at the auto repair shop and Mitch Walker, who owned a small construction company just outside of Twin Pines.

      No luck.

      With a sigh, Holly stared at the closed examination room door.”

      Like it or not, saving Guy Blackwolf had made him her responsibility.

      Two

      How in the world was a five-foot-eight, one-hundred-twenty-pound woman supposed to get an injured, six-foot-three, two-hundred-pound, solid-muscled man up twenty steps of stairs?

      Slowly, Holly decided as she parked her car behind her store. Through the light mist of rain enveloping her windshield, she frowned at the steep redwood planks leading to her apartment.

      “Here we are.” She shut off her car’s engine and looked at her passenger. He had a bandage over the stitches on his temple, and his right eye looked as if it had waltzed into an angry logger’s fist. He looked wounded, ruggedly handsome and just a touch dangerous. “Think you can make it up those stairs?”

      He glanced at the steps. “Piece of cake.”

      “Right.” She slid out of the driver’s seat, thankful that the earlier downpour had settled into a heavy drizzle. She came around the car, frowned when she saw he’d already opened the door and stepped out before she could reach him. She sucked in a breath when his knees started to buckle, watched as he grasped the edge of the door to steady himself.

      “Maybe I should go get some help,” she said warily.

      He shook his head. “Just give me a second. I’m fine.”

      He wasn’t fine at all, she thought, though she had to admit he looked extremely fine in the clothes she’d brought him. The jeans were snug around his lean hips, the blue flannel shirt cut across his broad shoulders as if it had been tailor-made for him. She’d brought him boots, as well, but they’d been too small, so he’d had to wear the same ones he’d had on when she’d pulled him out of the plane and into the lake.

      And now, with no place else for him to go, she was bringing him home.

      Resigned to her fate, she slipped an arm around his waist, felt the heat of his body against hers. “You ready?”

      He nodded, draped an arm around her shoulders. “You really don’t have to do this, you know. There’s got to be a bed or sofa somewhere in this town I can crash on for a couple of days.”

      “Like I told you back at Doc’s office, the lodge is full of tourists in for the fishing season and the storm stranded a group of backpackers from Anchorage.” She paused at the foot of the stairs, shifted her weight. “At the moment, there isn’t an empty bed in town. Here we go. Let’s take it slow and easy, one step at a time.”

      They made it halfway up the steps when she felt him sway slightly. She’d never be able to hold him if he went down. They’d both end up in a pile at the bottom of the stairs. She almost wished she had accepted Doc’s offer to help.

      “Don’t you dare quit on me when the going gets tough.” She tightened her hold and shoved him toward the next step. “There’s a warm bed and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s at the top of these stairs. Now move it.”

      “Words to heat a man’s blood, darlin’,” he muttered, but the tight set of his strong jaw and the death grip he had on her shoulders told Holly that doing the wild thing was the last thing he had on his mind.

      They were both soaked by the time they reached the top of the steps. Holly yanked the door open and they stumbled into her living room, dripping water on her brown tiled entry. She maneuvered Guy to the small sofa in the center of the room and dumped him there. They were both breathing heavy.

      “I’m all wet.” He started to rise, but she pushed gently on his shoulders and eased him back.

      “It’s leather,” she said. “A little water won’t hurt it. You just stay right there.”

      Her apartment was small, a cozy one-bedroom with hardwood floors, knotty pine walls and a floor-to-ceiling river stone fireplace. She’d loved it the moment she’d laid eyes on it, even though the dirt and dust had been a foot thick and the current residents, a family of gray squirrels, had protested angrily at her intrusion. She’d scrubbed the place spotless, learned how to replace broken water pipes and cracked tile, seal a leaky roof, repair cabinet drawers. Over the next several months she’d slowly made it her own: an old pie safe from a local flea market she’d stenciled leaves on, a tiny oak kitchen table and two ladder-back chairs she’d stripped and restained, a pine wooden crate that had once shipped cans of salmon was now an end table for her sofa.

      She was as far as she could be from the tiny, dust-dry Texas trailer park where her mother had raised her. And still, she thought, it wasn’t far enough. But she felt more at home here in Twin Pines than she had anywhere else. For the first time in her life, she was happy.

      She loved everything about the small, back country town. No one had to prove themselves to anyone here. No one judged or criticized or set impossible standards.

      Not that the town was immune to gossip, of course. Gossip was the number one pastime in Twin Pines, and several of the residents had turned it into an art form. When the auxiliary ladies met on Wednesday afternoons at Holly’s general store, the gathering was more of a theater performance than a meeting, each lady attempting to outdo the next with a current little tidbit of hearsay. Stories were embellished and acted out with dramatic enthusiasm, and though the truth might be stretched, the tales were never malicious or hurtful. And Holly knew that in spite of all the talk, there wasn’t a resident in Twin Pines who wouldn’t be there for their neighbor if they were needed.

      Three years ago she wouldn’t have believed that such a place existed. Or that she could ever be a part of it. But it did exist and she was a part of it, she thought with a smile. Twin Pines was her life now. The town, the people, her store. The kids at Twin Pines’ Elementary she read stories to every Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. She wouldn’t trade or give up one little part of any of that. Not for anything or anyone.

      She hurried to her hall cupboard and grabbed a handful of towels, then came back into the living room and tossed one at him as she bent down and reached for his boots. “We’ve got to get your clothes off and get you in bed.”

      “So I did die.” Smiling, he laid his head back and closed his eyes. “And this is heaven. Ouch!”

      His eyes flew open again when she yanked his wet boot off. “Or maybe not,” he said, frowning. She smiled sweetly and turned her attention to his other foot.

      “Dry your hair, Blackwolf.” She pulled on his second boot, but it clung stubbornly. She pulled harder and finally it came free with a sucking pop. “And take off that shirt.”

      “I’m kinda shy. Maybe if you took yours off first, I’d feel more comfortable.”

      Holly arched a brow at him as she glanced up. The glint in his pale gray eyes was mischievous, but his face was pasty-white, his voice heavy with exhaustion.

      “Blackwolf…” she warned.

      “Can’t

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