Bound to Happen (11 page)

Torn, Leslie sought an alternative. There didn’t seem to be one. Given the choice between having to carry a gun, which was abhorrent to her, and having to put up with this fool of a man trying to catch a cheap thrill by peeking at her, her decision came fairly easily. “Okay. Peek if you want, but I’m not going to use that gun.”

Joe frowned. “Really? You hate guns that much?” When she only nodded, he continued contritely. “I was hoping you’d take the gun and save me the time. But if you really feel that strongly, I’ll wait for you. There’re clean towels in the bottom dresser drawer.”

“Thank you.” She got the feeling that whatever it was that he was saving his time for was important to him. So she asked him about it while they waited for more water to boil.

“I have a deadline I’m trying to meet. I lost a day and a half with the accident, and I was hoping to make it up today,” he explained.

He wasn’t accusing or blaming her for anything, but then he didn’t have to. Leslie was packing around enough guilt these days to saddle herself with being the cause of the strife in the Middle East. She wished she could help him. “Look. How likely is it, exactly, that an animal would come anywhere near me today? I haven’t seen or heard anything bigger than a squirrel or a rabbit in the past two days.”

“The chances aren’t great. You might see a deer or something, but the way our luck’s been going, I’d rather not leave you unprotected.”

“What would you say if I told you I was feeling very lucky today?”

“I’d say you were lying and trying to be nice.” He smiled at her in a way that was meant to be friendly and appreciative. She looked away quickly. Her reactions to his smiles were not logical, and that made her uncomfortable.

“Really, I think I’ll be fine if you want to go ahead and go. I’ll take a quick bath, and I’ll keep the door locked. I won’t even leave the cabin. I know I haven’t exactly proved it to you yet, but there are people who actually think of me as being quick witted and able to take care of myself.”

“There are?” His words were insulting, but his expression was teasing.

“Yes,” she said smiling back, trying to sound confident as she envisioned herself fighting off a hungry puma with a stick. “There really are. And I do feel much better today. I think you should go.”

“Are you sure?” She nodded reassuringly. Joe frowned as if he wasn’t at all certain. Finally he sighed and agreed. “Okay. It shouldn’t take long. A couple of hours tops.”

Joe left, and the cabin began to creek and groan loudly as if it missed his presence. Leslie, of course, didn’t miss him a bit. It was only natural for her to feel a little skittish, out in the middle of nowhere, in an unfamiliar cabin, sitting in a strange little bathtub, with all kinds of vicious animals slinking around outside the door. She felt just as fidgety when Joe was around. In a slightly different way, naturally. But what it boiled down to was six of one and half a dozen of the other.

Amazingly enough, it wasn’t long before the warm water took effect and began to soothe her aching muscles and jangled nerves. She submerged herself totally in an effort to cleanse herself of the dirt of the last two days. Joe’s soap on a rope smelled manly, as if it just had sailed in from one of the seven seas, but Leslie didn’t care. The lather felt wonderful, so wonderful, she washed her hair twice with it.

Feeling fresh and uplifted, she got out of the tub and wrapped herself in a large yellow towel. She felt like a new woman. Well, not exactly like a new woman, more like the old Leslie with a few new insights. She didn’t have the answers she’d been looking for, and there was still the matter of the mountain to come to terms with, but there was something else too. A strength that comes from inside when you least expect it. A desire to go on when things look hopeless. A knowledge that for every question or problem there is a suitable solution, if one kept searching for it. And looking for answers is what Leslie did best.

Wistfully she wished Joe were back. She wanted to share her good feelings with him, show him that she wasn’t always the woebegone fool he’d picked up in the woods two days ago. Leslie sighed. Boldly she opened the front door and looked out at the new day. Ponderosa pines towered over her, the aspen fluttered in the breeze, even the little blue flowers that trailed along the ground seemed bigger and brighter and more beautiful than they had the day before. Vaguely she wondered just where she was. Would the construction of her company’s project extend this far into the mountains? She couldn’t remember, but it was most certainly going to be the first thing she looked up when she got home. Joe would hunt her down and draw blood if she were responsible for destroying his hideaway. Unless … Was there still a way to put a stop to the project? Some way to right her wrong?

Leslie was in her problem-solving mode when she reentered the cabin. First things first, she decided, dropping her towel on the floor. She couldn’t save a mountain if she wasn’t dressed for it.

Leslie felt she could claim a thorough and intimate knowledge of Joe’s entire wardrobe. She could attest to the fact that he’d had no women visitors, or if he had, he let them all go home with their underwear on. Having to choose from among the huge selection of white T-shirts and jeans she found had been tough. So she chose the ones on top and turned her attention to the flannel shirts. She picked a red one because it was that sort of day. Joe’s jeans were quite big in the waist, and he apparently had only one belt—the one he had on. Feeling that perhaps it was being put to its best use in keeping Joe’s pants in place, she opted to use one of his ties. Consciously, she picked out the ugliest one she could find. It was red with weird little emblems dotted all over it. It was also on the bottom, closest to the nail on which the ties hung, which lead her to believe Joe seldom wore it and that he wouldn’t object to her using it for a belt.

Coffee was next on her list. She definitely was going to miss her coffee maker in the next two weeks, but the little tin pot and the wood-burning stove would have to do for now. It was while she was waiting for the coffee to brew that she found the pistol Joe had left on one of the wooden crates.

It was an evil-looking instrument. Cold, black, metallic, just looking at it sent a shiver up her spine. Still, she disliked admitting that she was afraid of it. Grudgingly she had to concede it had a useful purpose—scaring off large animals. What if Joe ran into some fierce wild beast on his way back from the outhouse some night, and she couldn’t lift a finger to help him, she wondered. She owed it to him, after all he’d done for her, to at least be able to shoot the gun if an emergency arose, she concluded.

She reached out and picked up the pistol by its handle then laid it back down again. If she was going to shoot a gun, she was going to shoot the loudest one. She walked over to the cabinet Joe had opened before, and with great care and trepidation, removed the double-barreled shotgun. Assuming it to be loaded, as the pistol had been when Joe checked it, she was careful to keep it aimed at the floor until she got it out of the cabin.

Leslie was surprised that it was heavier than it looked. Why anyone would choose to use it in a bank robbery puzzled her, because it was very awkward to handle. Joe had said that her best targets would be the sky and the ground, and taking into consideration the weight of the thing, she felt the ground to be her best bet.

Careful to move her feet out of the way, she put the butt of the rifle under her right arm. Supporting the gun with her left hand, she extended her right index finger to the trigger. She paused to take several deep breaths, telling herself this was something she had to learn for Joe’s sake. Then she closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger. It didn’t move. She tried it again with the same results. It didn’t make sense to her. Joe wouldn’t keep a gun that didn’t work in his cabin.

Upon closer inspection, it didn’t take her long to find the little safety lock and release it. Repeating her previous steps, she regathered her courage and pulled the trigger again. The sound was not only deafening, it was terrifying. But it was the force of the shot being put to the ground that was so powerful; it knocked Leslie clean off her feet, throwing her backward to land flat on her back, winded and stunned.

For several long minutes she lay there sucking in air, aware of the throbbing ache in her right arm and shoulder and wondering what good she would be in the event of an emergency if she couldn’t stand and shoot a gun at the same time. She was just about to get back on her feet and try it again, when she heard Joe’s panic-stricken voice calling out to her.

L
ESLIE KNEW SHE
should have gotten up and made it clear that she was unharmed. She wanted to get up, but she was curious to see what Joe would do. Was his alarm due to the fact that someone was hurt? Or due to the fact that he thought she was hurt? Playfully, she kept her eyes closed and didn’t twitch a muscle.

First she heard and then she felt the rhythm of Joe’s steps as they raced toward her. He called her name twice before he reached her side.

“Dammit to hell! I knew it. I should never have left you here alone. Leslie? Leslie, can you hear me?” he asked, his voice unsteady and full of fear. “Les?”

She could feel his hands on her shoulders as they gently moved up to examine her neck and the back of her head. They came down again, over her arms and ribs, then quickly to her legs.

“Where are you hurt? Oh, wake up and tell me where you hurt,” he pleaded, growing more distressed by the second.

Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea, after all, Leslie pondered, while she relished the feel of his hand on her cheek as he gently pushed her hair away from her face. She got the distinct impression that if she suddenly came to life right now, Joe would surely kill her for deceiving him. She opened her right eye just a smidgen to get a look at the expression on his face. Even though her vision was hazy, she could tell he was extremely upset.

“Hmm, I don’t see any bleeding,” he said, passing his hands over her shoulders again. “I hope you’re not bleeding internally.” He sounded horrified by the very idea.

His hands moved down along her ribs and more intimately across her pelvis to the juncture of her legs. Slowly, they traveled upward palpating her abdomen and still higher until they curved around her breasts. Her unbuttoned outer shirt had fallen away, leaving only the thin T-shirt as a barrier between her and Joe’s searching hands. Her heart beat painfully in her throat when his fingers lingered to fondle and caress. He teased the hardening peaks with his thumbs, and air caught in her lungs. She began to feel truly faint as he continued to arouse every nerve ending in her body until it stood up and screamed with need.

“Ah …” she groaned loudly as she struggled to sit up and end the game. Fortunately, her right shoulder really did hurt, or she’d have come up too quickly and blown the whole act. She’d have to be more careful, she reminded herself. “Where am I?”

“Where you belong, sweetheart. Flat on your back,” Joe said in a saccharine voice, his anxiety subdued too rapidly, much to Leslie’s dismay. Brave enough to open only one eye, she saw that he had leaned back on his legs and was watching her, undeceived. So much for the great new day, she thought fatalistically.

With both eyes open, she hung her head in shame, unable to look him in the eye, until she remembered what he’d done. “You were pawing me! You knew all along I wasn’t hurt, and you took advantage of me,” she blurted out, incensed.

Joe’s mouth dropped open at her brazen outburst. “You’ve got a nerve,” he shouted right back. “After what you did to me? Scaring me like that? You’re lucky that’s all I did. I ought to roll you over and spank you.”

Leslie’s eyes narrowed as her rage grew out of control. “You try it, and I’ll kill you,” she said, wrapping her fingers around the shotgun that still lay beneath her right hand. It barely was an inch off the ground when Joe’s eyes lowered to the gun wrapped tightly in her fist. His gaze returned to meet and hold hers with a penetrating stare. Joe didn’t move a muscle. He sat there watching her calmly as if he knew she wouldn’t take aim and couldn’t pull the trigger.

He was right. Leslie’s mind took a step forward, and she saw herself holding a deadly weapon, aimed straight at another human being. The sight was nauseating, her body convulsed at the horror of it. She laid the rifle back down on the ground. “I’m sorry,” she said in a soft voice, this time she was truly ashamed.

“So am I.” Joe’s deep, harsh voice was so understanding and sincere that she couldn’t help looking up at him. He smiled at her. “You scared me. I wanted to teach you a lesson.”

“It was a bad joke on my part. I’ve learned my lesson.” She laughed softly at herself, and said, “Actually, I should have known better. I never was very good at pretending. Even when I was a little girl.”

Joe was smiling at her. His expression took on a wistfulness as his gaze roamed over her face. “I’ll bet you were a cute little girl.”

Under his intense scrutiny and unaccustomed to his softhearted words, Leslie felt selfconscious and warm all over. Their gazes locked. In that instant, there was a vague connection made between them. He stated a fact, and she accepted it and agreed with it. But neither of them would acknowledge it as they looked away in denial.

Joe cleared his throat loudly, then addressed her point blank. “What the hell were you shooting at anyway? I told you to use the handgun if you needed to. You idiot. You’re lucky you didn’t break your arm with that shotgun.”

She wanted to tell him about a pack of wolves in an effort to maintain his caring attitude, but it wasn’t exactly her style. Try as she might to follow her mother’s advice, lying just never seemed to work for her. “I wasn’t shooting at anything. I thought I should at least try to shoot a gun in case of an emergency. I thought this gun would be louder.”

“Bigger is better, huh?”

“Well, that’s what I was hoping.”

“Can you stand up? Are you feeling okay?”

“Yes.”

“All right then, come here.”

Leslie got to her feet as she watched Joe pick up the shotgun and check to see if the second round was still in place. He motioned for her to come to him, and when she was within touching distance, he took her arm and pulled her even closer.