“It’s four-wheel drive,” Alison said.
“Doesn’t make a difference. You’ll tear out the undercarriage and probably get so stuck it’ll take a tow to get you free. We can try to go through with my truck, but I’m not sure even I can make it.”
“What other choice do we have?”
“We can go back to my place and wait for the rain to stop,” he said. “And then I can call someone in town to come out and fill in the road.”
“Your place? You live up here?”
He nodded. “We just passed the turn about a hundred yards back.”
Alison considered her options. Try to make her way down the mountain and spend the next couple hours, cold and covered with mud, driving through a rainstorm to get home. Or spend the evening with an incredibly sexy doctor, alone, in his mountain cabin. Should she waste energy thinking about it? Or simply admit that his offer was just about the most intriguing prospect she could imagine?
“If you think it best, then I guess we could wait out the storm at your place.”
“Grab your stuff. We’ll leave your car here and take mine.”
“But what if someone hits it in the dark.”
“Ettie and I have the only two cabins on this road,” he said. “And she doesn’t own a car. So I think you’re safe.”
Somehow, the word “safe” didn’t seem to apply to being close to Drew. When she was near him, she felt that she couldn’t think straight. And the kiss they’d shared. Maybe it would happen again, Alison thought to herself. Oh, who was she kidding? It would most certainly happen again. And after a few more kisses, they’d progress to other more interesting activities.
She swallowed hard and began to gather her things from the backseat. “All right. I think that would be best.”
2
THE CABIN WAS COLD AND dark as Drew opened the front door for Alison. He circled around her and lit an oil lamp, which illuminated the rough interior. “I haven’t spent a night on the mountain in a couple weeks. I usually stay in the apartment above the clinic.” He lit another lamp. “It’s rustic, but it’s comfortable.”
He watched her reaction carefully, a tiny sliver of guilt niggling at him. He’d seen the gully in the road. But maybe she could have made it across. There was a section that looked as if it might hold. Had he been quick to advise her otherwise because he wanted to spend the night with her?
Alison drew a deep breath and let it out, a cloud forming in front of her face. “It’s cold.”
“I’ll get a fire started,” Drew said, tugging off his damp jacket and crossing the room to the fireplace that dominated the west wall. “Take off that wet coat.”
She was slender and long limbed, yet not very tall. And she moved with such a simple grace that he couldn’t help but fantasize about the body beneath the soggy clothes.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been in a real log cabin until today,” Alison said as she wandered around, looking at his things. She picked up a picture of his family. “Is this you?”
Drew nodded. “I’m the oldest of four kids. I grew up here, at least until I was eight. Then my folks moved off the mountain and into town.”
“Town?”
“Knoxville. My dad got a job in a glove factory there and my mom worked as a maid in one of the hotels.”
“And you became a doctor. That’s pretty amazing.”
Drew bent down and began to stack logs in the fireplace. “I guess it is. It would have been more difficult coming out of the tiny school system here. In the city, I had a chance to take advanced placement classes in science and that helped me get some scholarship money.”
“And you lived here when you were a kid?”
He lit a match and touched it to the paper beneath the wood. It flickered, then caught fire as he straightened. “My father grew up on the mountain. This land has belonged to our family for generations. My great-great-great-grandfather built this cabin with his own two hands. Except for me and Miss Ettie, everyone is gone now.”
“How are you related to Miss Ettie?”
She was the most curious person he’d ever met, always asking questions and so interested in the answers. He had a few questions of his own he’d like to ask. Was there a man in her life or was she free to enjoy his company? Did her lips really taste as good as he thought they did, or had he been dreaming? And what did she look like beneath those wet clothes?
Drew cleared his throat, trying to keep his mind on the conversation and not on the shape of her mouth or the curve of her neck. “Ettie’s the youngest sister of my great-grandmother, so that would make her my great-great-aunt. My great-grandparents brought her to live with them after her parents died. She grew up a few miles from here.”