Midnight Exposure (Midnight #1)(31)

Scott returned with the supplies, draping the open sleeping bag over Jayne. He clasped her cold hands between his own to warm them while Reed cleaned the ligature wounds and other cuts, then applied a thick coating of antibacterial ointment and bandages.

Reed felt a warm rush of pride at the gentleness in Scott’s touch. Scott’s chronic procrastination didn’t seem as important as it had this morning.

Scott poked the fire in the woodstove and added another log. “I’ll go outside and start the generator.” He bent to pick up Jayne’s clothes.

“Wait. The chief’ll want them for evidence. Lay her clothes out on a clean sheet in the washroom. When they’re dry, we’ll put them and the sheet in a paper grocery bag. Try to touch them as little as possible.”

Scott followed instructions, lifting her jeans with one finger under a belt loop.

“Guess the phone’s out?” Reed asked.

“Yep. No satellite reception either.”

“Of course.” The landline was unreliable, but satellite TV and Internet would return as soon as the sky cleared. As far as cell service was concerned, the area north of town was a giant dead zone. They had no way to call for help until the storm passed.

Scott grabbed his coat on his way to the door. After he’d left, Reed slipped his hand under the sleeping bag to feel the skin on her chest. It rose and fell with steady breaths, but she was still ice-cold. Damn. Apprehension gnawed at his gut. She wasn’t warming up fast enough.

He stripped off his sweater and T-shirt, then lifted the quilted flap of the sleeping bag. Stretching out next to the unconscious woman, he pulled her body against his bare chest and pulled the covers over them both. His skin protested with a wave of goose bumps. It was like hugging a refrigerated side of beef.

But he prayed Jayne didn’t freak out when she woke up.

Someone had actually tied this woman up. Someone nearby. Someone he possibly knew. The faces of his neighbors began to flip through his head in a mental lineup of potential suspects, and for once he wished he were more social. There were more than a dozen small places around here; at least two or three were vacation homes, unoccupied most of the year. Who knew how many hunting cabins lurked out there in the surrounding forest?

Could be a transient, holing up in someone else’s empty house.

Or the culprit could be one of them.

Any one of Huntsville’s normal-looking residents could harbor a dark side.

Reed shifted Jayne’s frozen body in his arms to a fresh patch of his chest that hadn’t yet been chilled by the contact. Her hair trailed across his skin and curled into ringlets as it dried to a bright shade of copper. He brushed a damp curl off her cheek. She stirred. Reed’s heart kicked.

How would she react to being squashed up against him?

She stiffened in his arms.

“It’s all right. You’re safe. I’m just trying to get you warm.”

Reed fought to remain still and detached as she squirmed against him. Long legs brushed against his jeans. Through the thin tank, her breasts rubbed against his chest. One popped into view as she wiggled around, and he jerked his eyes away to study a small water spot on the ceiling.

No denying it, though. That was a nipple in his peripheral vision.

He reached across her body to pull the sleeping bag over her shoulders, covering her torso. She squirmed, smashing her hips against his groin. Pain and pleasure rocketed up Reed’s spine. He shifted her body off his hips and started to slide out of the sleeping bag.

She raised her head an inch or so from his shoulder and blinked hard. Her body lifted.

She rocked him with an elbow to the jaw, and colors burst through Reed’s head.



Jayne pushed hard against a warm, muscular—and bare—chest as her vision cleared. There was no mistaking that square jaw and those intense green eyes. Lying on his back beneath her, Reed Kimball blinked and rubbed his chin. He held his other hand in front of his face, ready to block another strike, but Jayne could still feel the hot imprint where his palm had splayed across her lower back, holding her snugly against his body.

Memories flooded her head. He’d found her in the road. He’d rescued her. And she’d repaid him with an elbow in the face. Luckily their close proximity kept the strike light. Heat rushed into her cheeks.

“Oh my God. Reed. I’m so sorry.” The words scratched her dry throat. “Are you OK?”

He grunted and closed his eyes for a second. When he reopened them, their gazes locked, and a sense of security slid over her. She was safe with this man. She felt certain down to her bones with every solid thud of his heart against hers. Though she was usually slow to warm up to a guy, he had saved her life.

“I’m fine. How are you?” Deep and soft, his Southern lilt caressed her battered nerves.

Jayne took stock. She’d been cold, so cold she’d thought she’d freeze to death. But thanks to Reed, she was warm and dry, cocooned in a thick sleeping bag chest-to-chest with him. He threw off heat like a furnace, and her body had wrapped itself around his muscled body, soaking up his warmth like a cat basking in a patch of sun. Considering everything she’d been through, just being alive felt freaking peachy. “I’m OK.”

Apparently, the heated bliss of togetherness only went one way. Barely two seconds after she woke up, Reed wormed his way out of the sleeping bag. The empty space went cold in his absence. Jayne instantly missed the contact with his warm body—and the perception of security that went with it. Feeling her fingers on her scarred cheek, she lowered her hand, noting thick bandages around her wrists and left hand. She’d have more scars, more reminders of the violence she’d suffered. Every inch of her body began to ache.