Bewitched: In Too Deep

“What are you whining about?” As she stood, forcing her wobbly legs to support her, she squished. The puddle had seeped beneath her leather jacket to the layers of padding beneath. She was soggy as an old dishrag and probably holding about a gallon of water.

“Your breasts, sweetheart, those magnificent assets that are worth my life.”

Oh for pity’s sake. “Are you still harking on about that?” She looked around and saw nothing but darkness and endless stretching highway. The rain continued to fall, but luckily there was no traffic. None at all. “Where are we?”

“Yes, I’m still harking. It is my life, after all, though it obviously means little enough to you. And I’d say we’re in the middle of the damn road, somewhere between Corsville and oblivion, getting more sodden by the second.”

She started walking, leaving him behind. With every step, her boots, two sizes two large and now slick with the rain from the inside out, rubbed against her heels. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling and she knew before long she’d have horrible blisters. But what else could she do? Stand around and wait for Ralph to return? Miss the grand performance she’d waited a lifetime to witness?

Probably, her thinking continued, she’d already missed it. That prospect angered her so much, she ignored Harry when he called to her.

“Hold up.” His large hand closed on her arm and pulled her to a halt. “We can’t just traipse down the middle of the road. In case it’s escaped your notice, Floyd and Ralph are not nice men. They could double back looking for us. We need to get out of sight.”

True enough, she thought, and nodded. “Yeah, and I suppose that means the woods.” She glanced down at his dress shoes. “And with this downpour, it’ll be a swamp.” Her smile wasn’t entirely nice. She started in that direction, and Harry followed. Both sides of the highway were lined with thick trees and little else.

“I can see by your snide expression you expect me to have a certain aversion to mud?”

She kept walking. “I hope not, ’cause big and heavy as you are, you’ll sink up to your knees.”

Harry turned up his collar and swiped the rain from his face, then shaded his eyes. “With all those trees acting as an umbrella, the ground might not be as saturated as you think.”

“You hope.”

He ignored her. “And likely the woods abut a farm or some sort of residential dwelling. We could get access to a phone.”

She turned to face him. “All right, have you convinced yourself?”

His look of condescension had her grinning again. “I was attempting to reassure you, but I see the effort was wasted. Allow me to lead.”

“Sure thing, Harry.” At least his big body would block some of the rain. She stumbled along behind him in her heavy, soaked clothes, more miserable than she’d ever been in her life—not that she’d let him know it.

Harry took her arm. “You surprise me. I didn’t expect you to be so agreeable.”

She hunched both shoulders against the rain and trod onward, pulled along by his hand on her arm. “I’m easy.”

His chuckle could be heard even over the rainstorm. “No grand confessions here, if you please. Not when I can’t do anything about them.”

She tried to stare at him, lost at his words, but he more or less dragged her behind him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He grinned again; she couldn’t see it, but she could hear it. “I appreciate an easy woman as much as the next man. But these conditions aren’t exactly conducive to seduction.”

Appalled, she forgot to watch her step and tripped over a tree root. Harry pulled her upright before her face hit the mud. Of all the outrageous!… “I wasn’t talking about sex, you idiot!”

They continued a few more feet, and luckily, though the mud did suck at her too-big boots, it was drier, the rain not so blinding, filtered by the many trees.

“That’s for the best, I suppose, since I don’t as yet know what you have to offer. All I know is that you apparently think it’s worth a man’s life.”

She rolled her eyes and decided to ignore him. Several minutes later, she was wincing in pain.

Harry stopped and turned to frown down on her. Without the rain lashing her face, her eyes were able to adjust to the darkness, and once again she found herself scrutinizing him.

He was by far the biggest man she’d ever seen, tall and thickly muscled, but with grace, if such a thing was possible. And he had the strangest eyes, a shade lighter than his medium brown hair, almost a whiskey color, but bright and thick lashed. Intense, bordering on wicked. When he looked at her, she actually felt it; she’d felt it even back in the store. That’s how she’d known he was creeping up on her, intent on telling her something. She hadn’t wanted his attention or anyone else’s. She’d wanted to be able to concentrate on her first small victory in her private war.

But the plan had fallen through. Damn Dalton Jones.

Harry touched her chin, his fingers gentle. “What’s the matter? I expected a tenacious little mug like you to keep up, not lag behind.”

She sighed. Showing a weakness to this man, any weakness, went against the grain. He was the one out of his element, yet he hadn’t offered a single complaint. But there was no hope for it. “My feet are killing me.”

“Ah, I see. Well, since I may want to retain that pleasure for myself—killing you, that is—why don’t you explain to me exactly what the problem is?”

The threat didn’t alarm her. She was already used to his wry sense of humor and didn’t fear him at all. “My boots are too big and now that they’re wet they’re sliding up and down and I can feel the blisters on my heels. It hurts.”

He stared down at her, those eyes of his bright in the darkness, like a wild animal surveying prey, making her shiver with a strange and exciting feeling. But his voice, in comparison, was soft, inquiring. “Why are your boots too large?”

She scowled, attempting to ignore the fluttering in her stomach. “Because I hadn’t exactly planned on trudging through the woods in them.”

Coming down on his haunches in front of her, he said, “Give me your foot.”

“The bottom is covered in mud.”

“I’ll survive.”

He lifted her foot and wiggled her boot, judging the size while ignoring her cry of pain—the jerk.

“I have some knit gloves in my pocket. Do you think you could stuff them into the heels as a little padding?”

Her sore feet loved the idea. “Yeah, thanks.”

To her surprise, he picked her up.

To her further surprise, he cursed and hastily set her back down again when streams of rainwater squished out of her clothing to run down his chest. “What in the world are you wearing? You feel like a sodden mop and weigh a ton.”

She flushed, both from his initiated gallantry and his censure. She wasn’t used to either. No man tried to schmooze her, and they sure as hell didn’t try to boss her around. Through gritted teeth, she explained, “I have a few…layers on.”

Though she tried to duck away, one large hand reached beneath her jacket and clutched at the material over her rib cage. He squeezed, and it was like wringing out a rag. “Ah. I assume this is why your precious breasts are invisible?”

Overcome with embarrassment, ready to drown him in the nearest available mud puddle, she nodded. “And you can shut your mouth on any more questions because it’s none of your damn business anyway!”

“My curiosity grows in leaps and bounds.”

“I hope you choke on your blasted curiosity.”

He laughed. “Come on, and no, I won’t carry you regardless of how your feet hurt.”

“I wasn’t going to ask!”

He assisted her to a fallen log amidst tons of greenery. Charlie prayed it wasn’t poison ivy vines twining everywhere. Harry crouched in front of her again and tugged off the boots.