“I’m sorry. I sound ungracious. Thank you for going to so much trouble.”
He shrugged. “Not that much.”
She shook her head. “That’s not how I remember it. Everything takes more work up here.” Whatever the chasm between them, however badly he wanted her gone, she owed him this much, at least. More.
He had already turned to leave when she spoke up again. “Mitch…” He didn’t turn back, but he stopped. “I want to thank you for everything you’ve done. Taking care of me…” She felt her face flame again as it dawned on her that he must have seen her naked. Someone had changed her sweat-soaked clothing and put her in the clothes that had been in her backpack. It couldn’t have been Davey.
Resolutely, she pressed on. “You’ve taken care of Davey, and I don’t think—you don’t have children, do you?”
He turned halfway, and she thought she saw fleeting amusement as he shook his head. “Not hardly.”
“So much could have happened to him if I’d fallen ill and we’d been here alone…” Her throat tightened. Dire possibilities squeezed the breath out of her. Swallowing heavily, she shoved the terrifying prospects away, lifting her gaze to him once again. “I owe you more than I can ever repay.”
She swear that faint color stained his cheeks.
“Anyone would have done the same.”
“No—no, they wouldn’t have.” This stranger had been kinder to her in these few days than her husband had been in their entire marriage.
Mitch watched her with careful eyes for a long moment. His voice turned gruff. “The water’s going to get cold. Can you make it in there by yourself?”
Perrie wasn’t sure, but she nodded, anyway.
He glanced down at her son. “Well then, come on, Davey. Let’s go outside.”
“Don’t worry, Mom. Mitch will take care of us.” Her son followed him out with not even a glance back at her, already chattering away happily. “Can we watch for another eagle, Mitch?”
She’d never realized how hungry he was for a father.
Perrie watched them leave, the blond-haired owner of her heart and the dark giant who watched over them both.
He didn’t want them here—at least, not her. Yet he took better care of both of them than the man who’d said sacred vows with her, who had fathered her son.
There had to be some way out of this coil. She would find it, somehow. For now, her bath awaited.
Mitch stayed on the porch until he heard the water splash against the sides of the old washtub and could be sure she’d made it all the way from the bedroom.
She couldn’t drown—the tub wasn’t that big. But she could have passed out along the way. She was far from recovered.
They wouldn’t venture far, just in case. And he would try very hard not to think of ivory skin glistening with droplets of water. Of the slow track of moisture gliding down her slender spine toward gently-rounded hips. Or of soap bubbles clinging to other silken curves.
Mitch tried to reconcile the soft, tender creature who loved her child so much with the woman who would refuse all contact with her only other living kin. Cy hadn’t spoken of her much, but he’d told Mitch about Perrie’s mother, about all the lovers. That Perrie had no idea who her father was.
She had reason to be wary of him, sure. He’d seen the fear in her eyes. He was a stranger and as far from her Boston existence as anyone could be.
But she’d known Cy all her life, had spent big chunks of it here in this place. She had to know how much she meant to the old man, yet in his darkest hour, she’d turned her back on him as though he meant nothing to her.
It had looked like real grief in her eyes when she spoke of Cy. She’d seemed genuinely shocked that he was dead. Either she was the finest actress he’d ever seen, or something was very wrong.
“Mitch?” Davey ran back to him, breathless. “Come see! I found a squirrel.”
“If you’re this noisy, he’ll be long gone.” But Mitch rose to follow the child, enjoying his excitement. The fresh eyes Davey cast on the world never ceased to amaze him. He was too fearless by half, but no more so than Mitch himself had been as a child. Yet within the fearless boy was an old man, a child aged before his time.
Perrie was hiding something. Maybe this boy knew what it was, but Mitch wouldn’t stoop to that. Instead of daydreaming about glistening wet curves, Mitch should start asking the owner of those curves some hard questions.
Perrie jerked awake from the nightmare, heart beating a fandango. She rubbed a slow circle on her chest and breathed deeply, staring into the darkness, listening. When she heard Davey’s even breathing from the cot nearby, she relaxed a little, but she knew sleep would be elusive.