She made haste to cover her discomfiture. “I would like very much to get back home and put on clean, completely dry clothes,” she assured him in a deliberately emotionless voice. “But I have to admit that I’m wondering if those men might still be out there. If your wolf friend didn’t chase them all the way back to town, of course.”
She kept her chin high to keep from drowning in chagrin at having to admit—to him—that she was afraid. That she didn’t want to go back to town alone.
It galled her incredibly to acknowledge such a weakness, to give him any power over her beyond what he already had.
But he was staring beyond her again. His broad chest rose and fell with deep breaths that Joey might almost have called agitated, had his face not been so rigidly calm.
“I should go after them,” he muttered, more to himself than to her, “and make sure they’re hiding in their little holes.”
With a deliberate effort he looked down at her, his expression softening in a way that made her bite her lip. “But not now. You can’t stay out here.” He put his hands on his hips and considered her. “And you can’t go back to town. It’s too far, and it’s too late. And… ” His gaze raked over her assessingly. “You look like a drowned wood rat.”
Joey’s mouth fell open in outrage before she could stop it. A thousand cutting remarks flew to the up of her tongue and died there. She could beg him to take her back, of course, she could further put herself in his power and still have no way of securing his help. She could argue with him here, remind him he’d agreed to help her, and then try returning to town on her own in the dark. Or she could give up all hope of getting his cooperation and go home now, and forget all her hopes and plans.
None of these options seemed the least bit appealing. So she held her tongue until he said what she’d expected him to say. “You’ll have to come back with me. My cabin is some distance away, but it’s a lot closer than town.”
Having come to this decision, it was clear to Joey he did not expect her to object. She bristled. She fumed. But she also realized that he made perfect sense, and his cabin had been her destination all along. That much hadn’t changed. She still needed his help, and she still was bent on getting it, one way or another. That they weren’t the circumstances she preferred had little to do with it.
“All right,” she admitted at last. “I guess I don’t have much choice.” She pursed her lips and met his eyes with deliberate coolness. She would stay in control. “I should thank you for helping me out. And for your ‘friend’s’ help, too.” She thought back to the wolf and the way it had stared at her the way Luke was now.
“Later I’m going to ask you about that wolf.” She made the statement a challenge, to let him know that she didn’t give in easily—to anything. He might have her at a disadvantage, but she was still someone to be reckoned with.
She half-expected him to offer his arm in support, but he kept his distance. In fact, he seemed finally aware that she wore clothing while he had none at all.
“Wait here,” he commanded, and before she could answer, he had bounded off into the trees.
She caught a flash of tanned skin among the deep green of the wood and then no more, pulling on her jacket, she squinted the way he had gone. She grew rapidly irritated by his absence as the sun sank lower in the sky and the wind grew ever more penetrating. But then, all at once, he was back .He was still bare from the waist up, but snug jeans now covered everything below.
With an uneasy start, Joey realized that the covering did not seem to make much difference. The awareness of him she had been fighting all along was not the least reduced by the addition of clothing. And he still showed not the slightest sign of being uncomfortable himself. Even his feet were bare on the damp gravel of the beach.