He could face Helen now, he thought, and marched up the incline to the cabin, carrying his dirty clothes. The minute he opened the door, he was catapulted back to step one.
Helen was sitting before the fire on a low stool with a basin of soapy water. She was shaving her legs with Zeb’s straight edge. And she was wearing only her T-shirt and his black silk boxers.
Rafe said a silent Hail Mary and headed straight for the bed.
“Don’t you want to eat first?”
He dropped down onto the bed, face first, with a groan. “I’ll eat extra for breakfast,” he mumbled into the quilt. Luckily, he fell asleep immediately.
The next morning, he awakened to the sound of driving rain. Instead of being upset, he gave a silent prayer of thanks. He would put in another grueling day, even in the rain. It would be muddy and miserable. There was no way he would get turned on by Helen under those conditions. Right?
Wrong!
Helen insisted on working with him. And neither pelting rain, nor icy stream, nor sliding mud could dim his pleasure in ogling her in a wet T-shirt.
He threw down his shovel after only an hour.
“Where are you going?” Helen asked.
“To sharpen Zeb’s razor.”
“Why?”
“To slit my throat.”
He was sitting by the fire, nice and dry, reading Zeb’s Bible, or trying to — he kept hearing a snickering in his head — when Helen came in carrying a dead rabbit from the root cellar. She was sopping wet, from plastered hair to squeaky boots. He put the Bible aside and rocked back and forth, watching her dry her hair and take off her boots and lift the hem of her T-shirt. He felt like a time bomb was ticking under his skin — tick, tick, tick.
“Why don’t you do some meditating now?” he suggested.
“I meditated this morning.”
“Well then, gargle or whistle or say something really irritating.”
She grinned and licked a drop of rain off her upper lip.
“I’m sick of rabbit,” he growled, shooting up suddenly from the rocking chair. “I think I’ll go check those fishing lines of Zeb’s.”
“Coward,” she called out after him.
An hour later, she followed him down to the stream where he was hunkered on the bank, shivering with cold.
“Come back to the cabin,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I won’t tease you anymore. I’ll even sleep on Zeb’s pallet tonight.” When he said nothing, she asked, “Did you catch anything?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t checked yet,” he admitted with a laugh.
“Oh, Rafe!” She sighed, dropping down beside him. She put an arm around his stiff shoulder. “I love you so much.”
“Yeah, ain’t love grand,” he said wretchedly, then grinned at her. “You’re killin’ me, babe. You know that, don’t you?”
She nodded, laying her head on his shoulder. “I’ll make it easier for you from now on. I promise.”
“Hah!” He shot her a skeptical glance. “You could begin by not parading around in that T-shirt anymore.”
“Oh.”
“I have visions of champagne breasts dancing through my head.”
“I think that’s supposed to be sugarplums.”
“Whatever.”
She shook her head at him. “Are you okay now? Why don’t you come up and have some rabbit soup.”
He grimaced. “I’m going to start hopping pretty soon.”
“As long as you don’t develop a cotton tail,” she said as he stood and helped pull her to her feet.
“It’s definitely not cotton.”
“Oh, you!” She jabbed him playfully in the side with her elbow. She was just as sick as he was of rabbit, rabbit, rabbit. Looping her arm in his, she joked in a Bugs Bunny voice, “What’s up, doc?”
“You know damn well what’s up, darlin’.”
It was a sweet, companionable moment. Helen wanted to cherish the feeling, the love that enveloped them. She wanted to tuck away the memory of that instant out of time so she could bring it back over and over to cherish in the dark days to come.
The dark time came way too quickly, despite the fact that the rain had stopped and the afternoon sun was peeking out from behind the clouds.