A Babe In The Woods

“Give,” her unexpected guest told her quietly. “You can’t win. You’re going to break your arm trying.”

Storm braced her elbow, closed her eyes, tightened her grip on his hand and pushed with everything she had.

Damn. He was holding her. Toying with her. She suspected he could put her down in a second if he chose.

They were arm wrestling over who was going to look after that diaper. Jake and Evan had been arm wrestling with her since she was a tot. They’d shown her a trick, a way to snap her wrist quickly at the very onset of the match, which gave her pretty even odds against superior strength.

And it often told her a great deal about a man, the way he accepted his defeat or his victory. And she needed to know something about this man.

She had never arm wrestled Dorian. A mistake. She probably could have saved herself a great deal of heartache if she’d used her regular measuring stick of character, instead of pretending to be something she was not. She nearly shuddered at the thought of that bright-red lipstick and thick black mascara that she’d hidden behind.

Still, it seemed to have been a terrible mistake to suggest an arm wrestle to this man, too.

Because when his hand had locked around hers, she had felt the strength in it. A pure strength. And she had felt something else.

Pure sizzle.

Right down to the bottom of her belly.

She’d arm wrestled just about every man in Thunder Lake and never, ever felt that sudden “woomph” deep in her stomach.

She glanced into the clear gray of his eyes and felt it again. A pull to him that was unfathomable given their circumstances, given the fact he thought he could make her stay here, and she planned to prove him wrong.

She told herself, sternly, she only needed to know something of him so she knew what to do once she had left here. Give him a few days with the baby to have his vacation? Or go down that mountain as fast as she could and come back with the law?

The very fact that she did not feel free to leave when she wanted should be telling her exactly what she needed to know.

But her intuition was placing her in a position of inner turmoil. Her intuition looked into the clearness of his eyes and saw, lurking just beneath the cool, still surface, strength of spirit.

The facts spoke of something else. The wound, his presence at her cabin not really explained, the baby most likely not his. He wasn’t even comfortable changing a diaper!

Childishly, she decided how the arm-wrestling match finished would make her decision for her. If he won, she would go down the mountain and forget she had ever seen him or that baby. If she won, she was coming back with Constable Jennings from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

She closed her eyes again, focused all her strength, felt her arm begin to tremble with effort and exertion. And nearly fell off her chair when he suddenly released her hand.

“Hey!” she said, miffed.

His eyes weren’t clear now, but deliberately hooded. “A draw,” he said blandly.

“It was not. I was about to take you.” She knew darn well the exact opposite was true.

“You were about to break your arm.”

“Oh, right.”

“I could see the white line of your bone right through your skin. Trust me. It was a draw.”

He had called the match because he thought he was going to harm her. That told her a reassuring little fact she needed to know. It would seem he wasn’t planning to hurt her. It would seem he was—the word noble flitted through her mind. She gave herself a shake.

She got to her feet abruptly, wiping her hand on her jeans as if she could wipe away the sudden feeling that had engulfed her when she had looked into his eyes.

They were the eyes of a dangerous man. Mysterious. Cool. Calm. And yet she could not help but feel the strength in them was linked to her own future.

He nodded at her. “You’re very strong.”

On the outside. Still, it was a good response. He had won the match, even if he was noble enough not to say so. He was sure of himself. He didn’t need to overpower her to nurture his own self-esteem. And he didn’t rub her face in his superior strength, either.

No surprises there. He oozed that standoffish kind of confidence of a man who walked tall and walked alone.

She spun away from that steady searching look in his eyes and looked at the baby. The aroma wafting off that wee individual was every bit as astonishing as the amount of noise he could make.

Gingerly, she picked up a clean diaper and studied it. “What’s his name?” she asked the man behind her.

And then realized she didn’t know his name either.

“You can call him Rocky. You don’t have to change him. I’ve managed before.”

“A deal’s a deal. And what can I call you?”

Hesitation. “Ben.”

She unfolded the diaper and flipped it trying to figure out which way it went on. What kind of man didn’t even want to tell you his name? Perhaps the arm-wrestle test had failed to reveal his character to her after all.

Really, all she had to remember was one thing.

She was a terrible judge of character when it came to men. Arm wrestling or no.

Suddenly, he was right behind her. He had come on leopard-quiet feet, and so she gasped with soft surprise when he reached around her and took the diaper, laid it out flat on the counter and contemplated it for a moment.

His arm was brushing her shoulder.

She could feel the corded muscles in it, the heat coming off it. He smelled of the forest and of man, and compared to the other smell in the cabin it was pretty heady stuff.

She gritted her teeth.

And reminded herself. His wound was suspicious. She was a terrible judge of men. Whose baby was this, anyway? She moved slightly so that she was out of range of that muscular arm and his masculine potency.

“Like that,” he decided, placing the diaper, and then casually, “And what should I call you?”

“Storm, just like it says on the brochure.”

“Storm.” He repeated it, looking at her as if he was looking deeper, trying to see beyond what his eyes told him. “A nickname?”

“My brothers always called me that.” Her brothers had always said the name accurately reflected her temperament, though she didn’t share that with Ben.

He nodded at that, satisfied she suspected that his own assessment of her character, arrived at in less than fifteen minutes, had just been confirmed.

“Well, Storm, I think the moment of truth has arrived.”