From Kiss to Queen Read Free Page B

“Let’s go, then. I’m freezing.”
    â€œZip up your coat,” she ordered—only to do it herself, as if he were a five-year-old. She then patted his chest in a motherly fashion. “Even wet, the leather will hold in your heat. I know a place about an hour from here where we can stop and build a small fire that won’t be seen from the air. We should have just enough time to dry our clothes before the sun sets.” She smiled up at him. “Be thankful it’s Indian summer.”
    Mark let her take his hand again as she started off through the dense trees, even as he hoped she had matches in her backpack—which she’d refused to let him carry. It might have been Indian summer, but he would bet the nights were frosty nonetheless.
    For the next hour Mark walked, tripped, cursed, and shivered. His angel, he knew, was also shivering and sometimes cursing. But her expletives were rather civil. No damns or hells or taking God’s name in vain; she cursed like a nun, with holy this and holy that, and darns, shoots, and hecks. And even those mutterings were quiet, as if she didn’t want him to hear.
    She led him up over gullies that could be classified as small gorges, around boulders the size of cars, and across a couple of streams. She never hesitated, always seeming to know where she wanted to go, and Mark uncharacteristically resigned himself to her care while being curiously charmed and utterly enchanted.
    She had literally saved his life. Hell, she was still saving it.
    Jane Abbot was an enigma; he’d seen her scared, courageous, calm, angry, and blushing. He’d felt her worry, her compassion, and her confidence. Even despite her limping gait, she was holding her own on the rugged terrain, often helping him over some of the rougher spots. But for all of her abilities and bravado, she was still a feminine little thing. The hand he was gripping was contrastingly smooth against his, her bones fine, her body petite. When he’d been so angry at her for shooting at the plane that he’d shaken her, Mark had felt a delicate neck he could have easily snapped with a mere flick of his wrist.
    Only she hadn’t seemed to notice that fact. She’d gotten angry and threatened to throw him back in the lake, even though he outweighed her by nearly a hundred pounds.
    She hadn’t seemed to notice that fact, either.
    â€œWe’re here,” she said on a sigh of relief, suddenly stopping.
    â€œWhere is here?” Mark asked, looking around the dark, dense forest.
    â€œHere is about three miles from the pond. The trees are tall and thick enough to disperse any smoke a fire will create, and we definitely can’t be seen from the air. This is . . . um, it’s probably a good place to spend the night,” she hesitantly offered.
    The first hesitation Mark had heard from Jane today. He squinted down at her and grinned. “It sounds as if you’ve chosen well. And we can both use the warmth and rest. We should be able to make it to safety tomorrow, do you think?”
    â€œYes.” She shrugged out of her pack and leaned hergun against a tree. “There’s a small settlement about twenty miles from here that has a phone.”
    â€œTwenty more?” Mark asked, gingerly lowering himself to the forest floor.
    â€œI kind of led us out of our way to cover our tracks,” she admitted. “But I know where there’s a canoe stashed not far from here,” she rushed to explain. “We can do most of those miles by water.”
    â€œA canoe? Stashed?”
    â€œSporting camps leave canoes on various lakes every spring so they can fly clients in for a day of fishing and then pick them up that night.”
    â€œAnd you know where one of these canoes is stashed?”
    â€œOne of the camps I used to work for always kept one on a large pond not far from here.”
    â€œYou work for a sporting camp?”
    â€œUsed