Kiss Me (Fool's Gold #17)(74)
Unfortunately, private didn’t equate to sleepy. She turned again, then sighed heavily. She needed a man...bad. But not just any man. Zane. Only Zane.
After several more minutes of tossing and turning, Phoebe tried to meditate her way to sleep. She pictured herself in a beautiful mountain meadow. She could hear the sound of birds and feel the sun’s warmth on her arms. The scent of the flowers surrounded her. Everything was perfect...right up until a woodpecker took up residence.
A woodpecker?
Phoebe opened her eyes and realized it had started to rain. The noise she’d heard was rain gently pattering against her tent. She felt along the seams and was grateful when they turned out to be watertight. At least she wasn’t going to get soaked.
She closed her eyes again and relaxed. The rain was kind of nice. Soothing. It was just the right rhythm to lull her off to sleep.
Until the rushing river of water that coursed through her tent about forty minutes later woke her right up.
Phoebe sat up with a muffled shriek. She was drowning and intensely cold. Something damp brushed against her face. She couldn’t see, couldn’t figure out where she was and—
Memory returned and with it the realization that there was freezing water racing into her tent. She was immersed in it and soaked.
Several things occurred to her at once. First, Zane had warned her about the mossy ground being a seasonal stream, or river in this case. Second, that she was never, ever going to be warm again. Third, and perhaps most important, she had to get out of here.
If getting into her snug sleeping bag was difficult, getting out of it while both of them were drenched was nearly impossible. She shimmied and shoved and squirmed and swore. Finally, she freed herself. Dressed only in a shirt, panties and socks, she stepped out into the rain and found herself more than ankle deep in water.
She could feel her hair plastering to her head and the shivers rippling through her body. Grabbing the tent with both hands, she tugged and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge. Giving up on it, she ducked back inside and dragged out her saddlebags and duffel, her jeans and boots. Then she slogged through the rain and muddy ground to the closest tent.
“Z-Zane,” she said, her teeth chattering as she stood there in the darkness. “M-my t-tent is f-flooded.”
She heard a heavy sigh, then his voice. “You’re just standing out there getting wet, aren’t you?”
She nodded before she realized he couldn’t see her. “I was wet b-before. There’s a river in my tent.”
A flashlight clicked on, then the tent flap opened. “Leave your gear and get in here.”
Phoebe hesitated, not wanting to abandon her belongings, but the sight of Zane holding a large, dry towel was too much for her to resist. She dropped everything and ducked inside.
The tent was slightly larger than her own, but still a pinch for two, especially when she was soaking wet, on her knees and trying not to drip on everything. Zane wrapped the towel around her and grabbed his boots.
“Is your tent still standing?” he asked.
She nodded because her teeth were chattering too much for her to speak. Though the sight of him with his shirt unbuttoned was doing a lot to warm her up. His chest had just a smattering of hair at the top that veed over his flat stomach toward his jeans.
He gave her a quick glance. “You’re soaked to the bone, aren’t you?”
She nodded again.
He muttered something that sounded like “Figures” or maybe it was “damn fool woman”—she wasn’t sure. He fingered her dripping shirt, then shook his head.
“Take off your clothes, get dry, then crawl into my sleeping bag. It’ll warm you up. I’m going to put your gear into Cookie’s wagon where it’ll have a chance to dry off by morning. After I take down your tent, I’ll be back.”
He closed his shirt and put on his cowboy hat. As he started to crawl outside, he paused and looked back at her. “I’d appreciate it if you’d stay out of trouble between now and then.”
“O-okay,” she managed between lips numb with cold.
When Zane was gone, Phoebe did as he’d told her. She peeled off her wet socks and stretched them out by the flap. She hesitated over her shirt, but the dripping cold material sucked the heat from her already chilled body. Abandoning modesty, she wrestled the buttons open and pushed off the garment.
As her panties were only slightly damp and she couldn’t imagine actually getting completely naked under circumstances like these, she left them in place. She wrapped the towel around her wet hair and slid into Zane’s sleeping bag.
Instantly warmth enveloped her. The soft material was toasty and smelled of Zane’s body. It was like being in his arms...sort of. She imagined nestling her cheek against his muscled chest.
She curled up into a ball and willed herself to stop shaking. The towel fell off, but she couldn’t unfold her arms long enough to put it back in place. Then she decided to just leave it because it would protect his pillow from her damp hair.
There were noises from outside. The faint sounds told her Zane was dragging her tent to safety. She felt really bad for getting him up in the middle of a stormy night, and more than a little stupid for not listening when he’d told her not to put her tent on a dry streambed.
She was well into her course of self-recrimination when he returned. The flap parted, and a very wet Zane crawled in beside her.