Courting Carolina (10 page)

“A girl or—wait, you said
babies
. Pete didn’t mention they were having twins.”

“One of each.”

“They had
twins
?”

“That’s what they usually call the little heathens when they come in pairs. So, why aren’t ye sleeping already? You’re going to be busier than a one-armed paper hanger tomorrow.”

“Yeah, about that; how about if you leave the twelve-footer
for the next trip? That way I’ll only have to run four miles instead of seven.”

“How about you hop the cable? You grown soft since Afghanistan, or just lazy?”

“I’d like to think I’ve grown smarter.”

Alec heard a snort come over the phone. “Okay, we’ll only bring the bridges for the next two streams,” Duncan muttered. “Speaking of pairs, what’s up with the men you found, anyway? Talk in town is a lightning strike did them in, and that you’re the one who stumbled across them and called the sheriff.”

“Yeah, hell of a surprise. Have you heard anything about who they might be? They weren’t dressed for hunting or hiking, and I found a handgun nearby. They looked like they’d been fighting each other. One had a knife sticking in his thigh, and when I checked for pulses it appeared as if they each had a broken arm.”

There was a hesitation, and Alec assumed Duncan was looking around to make sure he was alone. “An execution?” Duncan said softly, not unfamiliar with damage control himself. “Or a falling-out among thieves, or maybe drug runners? The sheriff’s being tight-lipped, but Spellbound and Turtleback are crawling with state police and game wardens and border patrol asking if anyone saw two men hanging around fitting their descriptions.”

“And?”

“And nothing. Nobody saw anything.”

“What about missing boats or abandoned cars?” Alec asked. “Any speculation as to how they ended up in my neck of the woods? The closest tote road is six miles away. That’s a hell of a walk in street shoes for an execution or drug drop.”

“Which means you keep your eyes open for trouble, Grizzly Adams.”

“I’m hurt you didn’t notice I shaved today.”

“Maybe tomorrow I’ll raise the winch high enough for the rotor blades to give you a haircut. Or are ye finally turning into your old man?”

“You see me running around with two small braids
dangling down the sides of my face, you have my permission to shoot me on sight,” Alec growled on a laugh. “Hey, toss a pillow in the chopper tomorrow, would you? I got back to the shelter today and found mine scattered all over my campsite. Anything happening at the resort I should know abo—” Alec slapped a hand over the phone’s mike when Jane let out a bloodcurdling scream, and turned to see her running up the beach toward him.

“What in hell was that?” Duncan’s voice boomed from the phone.

“Raccoons,” Alec muttered as he hung up and jumped off the boulder just in time to catch the naked woman when she threw herself at him.

“There’s something in the woods!” she cried as she proceeded to try burrowing inside his jacket. “Even Kitty was so scared that he ran off. It must be a bear!”

Apparently the only threats Kit felt confident going up against on land were two-legged, Alec decided as he contorted first out of Jane’s death grip and then his jacket. He wrapped it around her, then pulled her back into his arms, partly to keep her from thrashing him but mostly because she was so soft and cuddly and all but still naked.

Oh yeah, he was definitely going to hell for mentioning the bear.

“Easy now, there’s nothing in the woods that’s going to hurt you, I promise.” He kissed her forehead. “How about if I—” A god-awful commotion came from a hundred yards past the brook, quickly followed by a snarl that turned into a panicked yelp, which was then followed by a loud splash hitting the fiord.

“Ohmigod, Kitty!” Jane cried, thrashing again, only this time to get free instead of trying to burrow inside him. “We have to go save him!”

Alec took hold of the empty sleeves of his jacket to control her struggles. “The splash was too small to be Kit.” Was she afraid the orca-wolf would
drown
? “It’s likely only raccoons fighting over dinner.” He kissed her forehead with
another chuckle. “I swear they sound meaner than wolverines when they’re having a family squabble.”

Jane relaxed into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder with a heavy sigh. “I’m not a very good woods-woman, am I?” She leaned back to look him in the eyes. “And I want so very much to be one.”

“Why?” he asked, brushing a lock of wet hair off her face. “What’s wrong with being just you?”

Her gaze lowered to his chin. “Because I want to be a woman you would like.”

Alec pressed his hands to her face and lifted her eyes back to his. “I like you just fine, Jane, just the way you are.”

“You…you do?”

He nodded and pulled her to him, only to find himself kissing a completely naked woman when she slid her hands around his neck and his jacket fell to the ground.

“Enough to make love to me?” she whispered against his mouth.

Seeing how every blood cell in his body shot straight to his groin, all Alec could do was cup her baby-soft bottom and press her into the evidence of his desire.

“I want you, too, Alec, so much that I ache.”

Nearly shouting with elation that he hadn’t been the only one who’d spent today in lust-induced pain, Alec swept Jane into his arms and headed for the woods in search of a soft bed of moss. He stepped into the trees, lowered her feet to the forest floor, and popped several buttons on his shirt trying to take it off as Jane kept equally busy kissing him. He tossed the shirt on the ground and dropped to his knees while bringing her with him, then ran his fingers through her wet hair to tilt her head back and pressed his mouth to the racing pulse on her neck.

Her gasp ending with an encouraging little sound of pleasure, Jane clutched his shoulders when he pressed her back onto the shirt and carefully settled on top of her, her legs immediately wrapping around him. Alec found just enough
firing cells left in his brain to realize that he not only had to get his own urgency under control, but Jane’s as well. The woman might still be a virgin, but she certainly hadn’t spent the last two years as a wallflower. And when her attempts to reach his belt buckle failed because she couldn’t squeeze her hands between them, she started ordering him to take off his pants. Well, that is when she wasn’t using her imperial mouth to drive him crazy by kissing his chin and cheeks and whatever else she could reach.

Christ Almighty, if he didn’t slow her down to a reasonable speed, the few remaining cells in his brain were going to abandon their post and join the party in his jeans. He captured her pushing and tugging and kneading fingers and, being mindful of the bruises on her wrists, pressed her hands up over her head with one of his, then carefully eased his tongue out of her mouth before she swallowed it.

He rested his forehead on hers. “Here’s an idea,” he rasped, only to snap his free hand down to her hip to stop her squirming. “How about if we just do a little necking first, before we rush straight to the good stuff?”

She stilled, and stiffened, and tried to slide out from underneath him.

Alec settled more intimately against her. “I’m one second away from disgracing myself, lass,” he whispered against her lips. “And I’d really rather not.”

“Oh. Oh, I’m
sorry
,” she cried, her eyes going as round as the full moon reflected in them. “I didn’t realize!”

He choked back a laugh and rested his forehead on hers again. “Never apologize for holding that kind of power over a man, Jane, because that’s where your true beauty lies. Will you let me give ye a small taste of that power tonight?”

She stilled again, a smile slowly lifting the corners of her mouth. “That sounds…delicious.”

Okay then; permission had been asked for and granted.

Alec took a fortifying breath and allowed his lower brain free rein, its first order of business apparently being Jane’s wonderfully full, conveniently naked breasts. “Damn, you’re lovely,” he murmured, kissing his way toward one of the
luscious mounds as he palmed it—only to become so distracted that he lost his grip on her hands. But instead of going for his belt buckle again, Jane pulled the band off his hair and ran her fingers through it, then used her grip to guide his journey.

Oh yeah, the lass was no wallflower.

Alec ran his tongue around her beaded nipple before closing his mouth over it, smiling when she arched into him and abandoned his hair in favor of digging her nails into his shoulders. “Ohmigod,
yes
,” she rasped on a moan, unwrapping her sexy long legs to lift her hips into his. “Whatever you do, don’t stop.”

“Not a worry, lass,” he said on his way to her other breast, which he then closed his mouth over and suckled. He settled lower on her body so that his naked chest was touching her mound, which turned her responding moan into another gasp. Alec once more sent his mouth downward, relishing the feel of her heated skin quivering beneath his tongue as Jane grew restless, her hands tugging and pushing and kneading at him as he sipped a path down the tightening muscles of her belly.

She reared up, her hands going to his hair again. “Alec,” she cried hoarsely in surprise. “W-what are you doing?”

He lifted his head just enough to smile at her and gently nudged her back down. “Close your eyes and focus only on feeling what I’m doing to you.” He settled lower, sliding his hands under her bottom and opening her to him, and kissed her mound before lifting his head again. “Are they closed? I need ye to turn your mind’s eye inward, Jane. Can ye trust me enough to take you to a wonderful place?”

“Y-you have to come with me,” she softly petitioned, even as her hips lifted in anticipation. “I want us to go there together.”

“Not this time,” he said thickly, lowering his head to kiss her more intimately, pulling another gasp from her as she stilled on an indrawn breath.

Assured he had her undivided attention, Alec found her bud nestled in a bed of moist warmth, and lightly suckled.
Her responding cry of pleasure went straight to his groin; her thighs quivering against his shoulders as she rose into his intimate kiss. He felt her muscles contracting and slid his hands up to capture her restless fingers as every little sound she made, every shudder of her building passion, brought him closer to the edge of his own control, until Alec feared he really might disgrace himself.

And still he continued, his own mind’s eye picturing Jane bathed in moonlight, her head thrown back with abandon as she spiraled headlong into the storm he was creating inside her. She was so responsive, so alive with passion that he nearly lost it when she suddenly crested. She stilled on a keening cry of release that lasted several pounding heartbeats, and Alec gently soothed her breathless journey back to reality until he felt her relax on a ragged sigh.

He slowly sipped his way back up over her heated skin to her breasts, and kissed first one and then the other of her softened nipples. He continued on to the racing pulse in her throat with a deep sigh of his own, then carefully moved to settle alongside her. She immediately rolled into his embrace and buried her face in the crook of his neck, and he pulled his shirt she’d been lying on up over her shoulder as she gave a sensuous shiver. After kissing her cheek, he used his chin to tuck her head against his chest, and grinned at the realization she was fighting back sobs.

Jane Smith might be aware of what her saint-tempting smile and sashaying bottom did to men, but it was obvious she hadn’t realized all that a man could do to her. And truth be told, he was rather humbled that she had trusted him to give her a glimpse of what—or at least some of what—she had to look forward to. His brain slowly starting to function again, Alec ran his fingers through her nearly dry hair and tilted her head back. “Ye know,” he said thickly, “I do believe I’ve never been so glad I was born male.” He brushed his thumb over her flushed cheek. “Ye don’t ever worry about being anyone but yourself, Jane, because you’re a treasure to be cherished.”

She blinked up at him, pulling in a shuddering breath.
“I…I don’t want to be some treasure that gets locked away for safekeeping.” She smiled sadly. “I want to be an ordinary woman a perfectly ordinary man could love, and live in a house overlooking the ocean that we’d fill with beautiful, ordinary children.”

Alec hugged her to him again, his heart aching with the knowledge of just how impossible her dream was. “Would ye settle for camping out in a lean-to with a ski bum for a while before ye go in search of this perfect man?” He rested his lips on her hair. “Because I’m thinking that when you do find him, ye might like to have something by which to judge this paragon of…ordinariness.” He tightened his embrace, partly to still her trembling, but mostly to tamp down the image of her with another man. And then he took a deep breath and stepped in front of the bus. “And if ye want, I will stand beside you as you stand up to your father.”

She reared back. “You can’t. No one can fight my father.”

“You have, quite successfully for over two years.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve never much cared for the antiquated notion that men have the right to bully women under the guise that it’s for their own good.”

She leaned as far away as his embrace would allow. “My father’s not a bully. He’s just…he’s just being a
father
.”

Alec pulled her against him again to hide his smile. So she didn’t hate her old man; she just didn’t care to have him deciding her fate. “Does that mean you don’t want me to help you remain missing?”

She tilted her head back again, her eyes narrowed. “Only if you promise that if he does find me, you won’t confront him. This is
my
battle, and I won’t allow you or anyone else to become casualties.” Her fingers dug into his chest. “You men don’t have a monopoly on waging war, you know. I might not have your physical strength, but there certainly isn’t anything wrong with my brain.”

“Nay.” He chuckled. “And that’s what really worries me.”

She poked him hard enough to make him grunt. “Give me your word that you won’t step between me and my father if it comes to that.” She poked him again when he hesitated.
“I mean it, Alec. If you don’t promise, I swear I’ll disappear on you, too. I won’t have your damnation on my conscience.”