LITMIR.BIZ

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moved slowly. The circulation obviously hadn’t returned to her arms and legs after her long hours of immobility. She was a fool to be coming down before massaging her limbs. She could hurt herself—

      His worst fears suddenly took shape before his eyes as her foot missed the final metal stake, her hand slipped off another and she fell to the forest floor.

      He dropped the binoculars and took off at a run. The branches whipped against his arms and legs and stung his face. He paid them no heed as he hurried through the thick underbrush. He wasn’t that many yards away but the vegetation slowed his movements.

      He was breathing hard when he crashed into the clearing where he’d seen her fall. She was lying on her back, her eyes were closed, her face white. He dropped to his knee beside her, probing for the artery in her neck.

      His own blood pounded. He had to concentrate hard to feel her pulse. Finally, a slow rhythmic beat registered against his fingertips. Relief spread through his chest. He watched her eyelashes flutter, then open. A line of puzzlement drew her eyebrows together as she focused on his face.

      “Where did you come from?” she asked.

      He was happy to note the strength in her voice, but ignored her question as he ran his hands up and down her arms, checking for broken bones.

      “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, flinching beneath his touch.

      Once again he ignored her. But when he moved to grasp her right thigh, intending to check her legs, she suddenly sat up and swatted his hands away.

      “Watch it, buster.”

      David sat back on his heels as he inspected the color flowing into her cheeks. He held back a smile.

      “You appear to be all right,” he said, managing to keep all emotion out of his voice.

      She rolled onto her side and began to pull herself toward the tree she had so recently dropped from. “Why wouldn’t I be all right?”

      “Just a wild guess, but maybe because you fell out of a tree?”

      “I didn’t fall. I deliberately let go. It was only a couple of feet, and I knew the soft moss between the Osmanthus would provide a soft landing.”

      David didn’t know what Osmanthus was, although he suspected them to be the evergreen shrubs on either side of the mound they were on.

      “Why did you let go?”

      “Because I wanted to.” She latched onto the tree trunk and struggled to pull herself upright. Her wobbly extremities weren’t cooperating.

      “Why didn’t you wait until you had some circulation back in your arms and legs before trying to get down?” he asked.

      “Why is any of this your business?”

      He was getting uncomfortable watching her determined but unsuccessful attempts to get to her feet. “If you rub your legs, you’ll be able to stand a lot sooner.”

      “I know how to take care of myself, thank you. What are you even doing out here?”

      “I’m an Eagle Scout trying to earn my merit badge,” he said in frustration. Hell, he was only trying to help.

      She looked him straight in the eye in that arresting way of hers. “What, no little old ladies around to help across the street?”

      “Only Boy Scouts get merit badges for helping little old ladies across streets. We Eagle Scouts have to contend with cantankerous photographers who insist on dropping out of trees.”

      He hadn’t tried to keep the irritation out of his tone this time. He squatted beside her, grasped her legs, and proceeded to give her muscles a brisk massage, no longer caring whether she objected.

      She didn’t bat his hands away this time. He could feel her eyes searching his averted face.

      “When are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?” she asked.

      “When are you going to tell me why you didn’t prepare yourself properly to descend that tree?”

      When she didn’t answer, he looked up to find that she was glaring at him. The flash of spirit looked good on her. He switched his attention back to her legs. They weren’t bad either, strong and supple beneath his hands. Rubbing them was something less than a chore. Still, he kept his mind strictly on the business of getting the circulation back into them. Well, almost strictly.

      “That’s enough,” she said after a moment.

      He released her legs and stood. But when he held out his hand to help her up, she ignored the offer and instead grabbed hold of the tree trunk. With what seemed like more will than strength, she pulled herself to her feet. But she wobbled and leaned heavily against the tree for support.

      “You’re dizzy,” he said, suddenly understanding.

      Her face had lost color, and she rested her head against the trunk. But she delivered her next words with strong, sweet sarcasm. “Such amazing insight.”

      “You didn’t eat breakfast, did you,” he demanded more than asked. “I thought you were a professional. You should know better than to begin a long assignment without any food in your stomach.”

      “First a private investigator, then an Eagle Scout, and now a mother hen,” she said. “Such versatility.”

      “You’re probably dehydrated, as well,” he said, knowing there was no probably about it.

      “Don’t you have a wife you could be annoying?”

      Despite her continuing attempt to be tough, she looked absolutely terrible. “If I did have a wife, and she pulled some stupid stunt like this, I’d—”

      He stopped his tirade as he watched her sink back to the forest floor. Closing the distance between them, he swept her collapsing body into his arms. Her head rolled onto his shoulder as a soft sigh escaped her lips. She had fainted.

      Her face was as white as the delicate flowers spraying the front of her jacket. Her bangs were wet with morning mist, and a silky strand of golden-brown hair from her braid tickled his neck.

      A full minute passed before David’s heart stopped skipping beats.

      What a fool she was. And what a fool he was for giving a damn.

      He twisted around and grabbed her backpack. The thing weighed a ton. How did this woman lug around such heavy stuff? He slung the backpack over his shoulder and started down the trail.

      SUSAN SLOWLY OPENED her eyes to find herself lying beneath a spectacular blue spruce. The hazy mist of the overcast morning curled through the heavy branches. She didn’t recognize the beautiful tree. She felt a soft, wool fabric beneath her fingertips. She didn’t recognize that, either.

      “Don’t try to get up,” David’s voice commanded from behind her.

      His voice she did recognize. Her memory came back with a bang. She’d gotten dizzy while descending from the blind. She’d let go of the steel stakes to drop onto the soft mound of moss beneath the tree. While lying there, trying to get her equilibrium back, David Knight had suddenly appeared to pester her.

      Pushing herself to a sitting position, she fought the immediate dizziness brought on by her abrupt movement. When the earth and sky finally resumed their correct positions, she discovered that the red plaid blanket beneath her was next to a brown dirt road.

      “I told you not to get up,” David said, scowling at her. He stood a few feet away, beside a silver Ford truck with an F250 logo on the side. He was pouring steaming, dark liquid from a thermos into a cup.

      She glanced around her. This certainly wasn’t the clearing with the fox den. This place didn’t look familiar at all, and neither did that silver truck.

      “How did I get here?” she asked.

      He put the thermos down on

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