She looked up slowly, into his eyes. “Luke.” She tried to find words, but the choking fullness of her heart made it impossible. The green-gold of those intense eyes was suspiciously bright, though they never looked away from hers. “I’m all right.” She said it for him, but also for herself, he dropped his head to press his cheek against her hair above the bandages. He hadn’t shaved, and the stubble of his gray-shot beard caught in the loose strands. It felt wonderful.
“Joelle.” He breathed her name, and then again, as if to acknowledge a miracle. The big hands tightened where they clasped hers.
“I’m here,” she murmured, sensing some profound need within him. “And I’m glad you’re here, too.”
There was a long silence, Joey basked in a feeling of such complete contentment that it was hard to believe it wasn’t one of her fever-dreams or bizarre, fantastic visions. There were things she knew had not been dreams or visions, the one she remembered now made her powerfully aware of the feel of Luke’s heat burning against her, and no amount of exhaustion or abuse could short-circuit that instinctive response.
It soon became apparent that the reaction was not one-way. She shifted and lay back, tilting her head to gaze up at the bunched muscles of his jaw. Freeing one hand from his, she raised it to trace over the hard edge of his chin with her fingers. The tension seemed to flow out as she touched him, though the definitive indication of his desire for her showed no signs of departing. Joey grinned in spite of the pull of stitches.
“It’s all so strange,” she began at last, settling back more comfortably in his arms. “The last thing I remember—before I started having the strange dreams—was throwing a snowball at you. Remember? I scored a direct hit.” She couldn’t quite keep the smug satisfaction out of her voice, but the memory of what followed was sobering. “And then—something hit me, very hard, and knocked me into the snow. I remember that it was a bear, but the rest gets pretty fuzzy. Except that it hurt.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, Joey concentrated on the fact that most of the pain was blessedly gone. “After that, I guess I went in and out of consciousness, I remember seeing you a few times, but nothing really got through.” Her frown made the stitches pull, and she smoothed it out quickly. “I had the strangest dreams, so real.”
She broke off, as puzzled now as when she had first awakened to find an anxious Dr Collier bending over her. “All I know is that you saved my life, Luke. Again.Thank you.”
She could feel the growing tension in Luke’s body as she spoke, warning her even when she could not see his face. “I risked your life. I almost lost it.” His voice grated in self-condemnation, all tenderness gone.
Joey would have twisted in his arms, but he held her too tightly. “Do you think I blame you, Luke? Because we were attacked by a grizzly?”
His posture was still rigid with distress. “I should have seen it coming, just as I should have recognized the hypothermia. There was no excuse for my mistakes.”
“Luke…” Joey bit her lip, wondering how to ease his strange sense of guilt. “Those things were beyond your control. You tried to warn me of the dangers, and I wouldn’t listen. In any case”—she turned her hand in his to grip his fingers—”you’re only human.”
His reaction caught her entirely off-guard. There was an instant when she thought he would have leaped right out of the bed like an erupting geyser if it hadn’t been for her inhibiting presence. As it was, the strangled sound he made might have passed for a bitter laugh.
“Only human. I wish I had that excuse.”
As Joey puzzled over his meaning and began to formulate the obvious response, Luke brought his hand up to brush her lips, the touch of his fingers halting her desire to speak. For a moment she relaxed into the caress, forgetting everything less important. She had almost dozed off when he spoke again.
“Tell me about your dreams, Joey.”
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