Darkness(28)

The implication in that was actually kind of reassuring. “What, were you a Boy Scout?”

“No. I beat up on kids who were.”

For a moment she looked at him in surprise. Then something—a glint in his eyes, a twist at the corner of his mouth, clued her in: he was joking.

“Funny,” she said. But it was good to know that he could joke. She didn’t know any, so she couldn’t be sure, but she liked to think that killers lacked a sense of humor.

As well as sex appeal. He definitely possessed that, too. Even in his present condition, he exuded a kind of animal magnetism. Raw masculinity in spades.

He was so close she could see the small lines around his eyes and the deeper ones bracketing his mouth; the elbow of the arm tucked beneath his head brushed her leg. Even lying down he was big. His ink-black hair appeared to be slightly damp again, and she remembered the snow that had melted in it. He was frowning: the straight black slashes of his brows nearly met above eyes that were bleary with fatigue. The blue tinge had left his mouth, which was still way too pale, just like he was way too pale. From the darkness of his hair and eyes, she was as sure as it was possible to be that vampire was not his natural color.

He was still sexy.

“Bag’s warm inside,” he said. “Or else I’ve got hypothermia bad.”

She knew that feeling hot while you were actually freezing to death was a major end-stage hypothermia symptom.

“The bag’s warm,” she said. “I ran the pan inside it. And the hand warmers are down at the foot.”

“Ah.”

He hitched the silken cocoon higher around his shoulders. In the process his knuckles brushed her side. Her pulse skittered uneasily as she registered just how small the space really was, and that he took up way more than his fair share of it. His lids drooped as if he was on the verge of closing his eyes, but the prospect didn’t make her feel any less anxious. She didn’t know him, didn’t trust him, and was more than a little afraid of him despite his assurance that he wasn’t going to hurt her. To make matters worse, she was attracted to him. And there wasn’t going to be any keeping her distance from him.

To say that she was uncomfortable was an understatement. She felt vulnerable and at risk, and she didn’t like the feeling. The hollowing of her stomach, the prickliness creeping over her skin, were sensations that she could have lived without.

To combat them, she did what she could to take control of the situation.

“I’m going to finish setting the furnace up,” she said, indicating the pan of rocks.

“Furnace, huh?”

“That’s right.”

Telling him what she was doing was unnecessary, but she was nervous, and talking to him, she hoped, would help mask that. If he had any evil intentions toward her, demonstrating how useful she could be to him might help ward those off, too. She crawled away from him as she spoke, pushing the pan of rocks down to the far end of the tent and positioning the blanket behind it so that its shiny metal surface would reflect and thus intensify the heat. Stripping off her gloves, she tucked them into her pocket and reached for her backpack. Rooting around in it, she pulled out two protein bars, the last bottle of water, and the first aid kit.

His head was tilted so that he could watch her.

“You got any kind of weapon in there?” he asked.

The question sent curls of apprehension twisting through Gina’s bloodstream. It spoke volumes about what kind of man he was. It told her that he still thought someone was coming after him despite the storm.

It scared her.





Chapter Eleven





No,” she replied shortly. “I don’t have a weapon. I have food. And water. A first aid kit.”

Trying to calculate how far the glow from the flashlight might be visible after accounting for the shrouding effects of their protective nylon shell and the storm was useless. Worse, picturing the tent as a beacon of light in the snowy darkness made her feel like jumping out of her skin. Under the circumstances, the staccato drumbeat of the sleet pounding down outside was downright reassuring. The occasional blast of errant wind that rippled the silky walls around them was, too.

No one is out there in this.

As soon as it was over she was getting away from him, she reminded herself. Without him, she was in no danger at all. She just had to sit tight and ride out the storm.

Tearing open the wrapper with more force than the action strictly called for, Gina shoved a protein bar at him. It had been hours since her last meal. She wasn’t hungry—she was beyond it, she thought—but some of the shakiness she was experiencing might be because she needed to eat. He definitely needed the calories to make up for the blood he’d lost, and to produce heat.

“A pocket knife? Eating utensils?” His tone made it clear that he was still harping on the possibility of a weapon. Taking the protein bar, he raised himself up on an elbow and bit into it hungrily. His voice was stronger now. She thought that the warmth plus the water he’d consumed had revived him a little.

“Try a spork.”

He grimaced his opinion of the weapon potential of the combination spoon and fork.

“Mace? Pepper spray?” he continued between bites.

“Oh, my gosh, you’re in luck: I have bug spray. No, wait, they’re towelettes.” She was eating by that time, too. The chewy combination of chocolate and oats tasted better than the finest filet mignon—or at least it would have, if chills of fear hadn’t been chasing each other down her spine at the idea that he thought a weapon might be necessary. “Are you seriously expecting some kind of an attack? Tonight? Out here?”