Читать книгу Not Just a Cowboy - Caro Carson - Страница 10

Chapter Four

He wants to take me to bed?

What a stupid, stupid suggestion. They were in the middle of a mission, in the middle of a storm-damaged town, not to mention that Patricia felt gritty and hungry and so very damned tired. How could any man think of sex when all she could think of was—

Bed.

Oh.

“You’re trying to be funny, aren’t you?” she accused.

That lopsided grin on his face should have been infuriating instead of charming. She drew herself up a bit straighter. It was infuriating. It was.

Luke had the nerve to give her hand a squeeze before she pulled it away. “There, for a few seconds, the look on your face was priceless.”

“I hope you enjoyed yourself. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

He didn’t let go of her clipboard when she reached for it.

“Nope,” he said. “You go where this clipboard goes, so you’ll just have to follow me if you want it back.” He took off walking.

She was so stunned, he was several yards away before she realized he really expected her to follow. He turned at the corner of her tent and disappeared—but not before he looked over his shoulder and waved her own damned walkie-talkie at her.

Shock gave way to anger. Anger gave her energy. She caught up to him within a few seconds, her angry strides matching his slower but longer ones as they headed down the aisle between tents.

She snatched her walkie-talkie out of his hand. “You’re being childish.”

“I am.” He nodded, and kept walking.

“This isn’t summer camp. People are relying on me. On all of us. They rely on you, too.”

“And yet, I can still respond to a fire if I hear the signal while I’m enjoying this romantic walk with you. It’s okay, Patricia.”

She yanked her clipboard out of his hand and turned back toward the admin tent. He blocked her way just by standing in her path, being the ridiculous, giant mass of muscle that he was. She felt twenty-two again. Less. Make that nineteen, handing a slightly altered ID to a bouncer who was no fool.

“It’s not okay,” she said, and her jaw hurt from clenching her teeth so hard. “I cannot do my job if I can’t get to my headquarters. Now move.”

Instead, Luke gestured toward the tent they’d stopped next to. “This is the women’s sleeping quarters. Recognize it? I didn’t think so. You were first on scene, weren’t you? You decided where the first tent spike should be driven into the ground, I’ll bet. So, you’ve been here forty-eight hours, at least. You were supposed to have gotten sixteen hours of sleep, then, at a minimum. You’ve taken how many?”

Patricia spoke through clenched teeth. “You’re being patronizing.”

The last bit of a grin left his face, and he suddenly looked very serious. “I just watched you fall asleep sitting up on a piece of wood. Forty-eight hours is a long time to keep running. Take your break, Patricia.”

Patronizing, and giving her orders. She didn’t know him from Adam, but like every other man in her life, he seemed to think he knew best. She was so mad she could have spit. She wanted to shove him out of her way. She wanted to tell him to kiss off. But she was Patricia Cargill, and she knew from a lifetime of experience that if she wanted to get her way, she couldn’t do that.

She’d learned her lessons at her father’s knee, and she’d seen the truth over and over as stepmamas and aunties had come and gone. If a woman got spitting mad, Daddy Cargill would chuckle and hold up his hands and proclaim a soap opera was in progress. His cronies would declare that women were too emotional to be reliable business partners. The bankers would mutter among themselves about whose turn it was to deal with the harpy this time.

No one ever said those things about Patricia Cargill, because she never let them see her real feelings, even if, like her father’s discarded women, those emotions were justified now and again.

Luke was standing over her like a self-appointed bodyguard. He’d decided she needed protecting. That was probably some kind of psychological complex firefighters were prone to. She could use that to her advantage.

She placed her hand oh-so-lightly on his muscular arm, so very feminine, so very grateful. “I’ve gotten more sleep than you think. That power nap was very refreshing. It’s so very thoughtful of you to be concerned, and I’m sorry to have worried you, but I’m fine.” She took a step in the direction of the admin tent.

“Where are you going?”

“Let’s get your glove. It will only take a minute.” She smiled at him, friendly and unoffended, neither of which she felt. She didn’t give a damn about his stupid glove, but it gave her an easy way to get back to her office.

“Forget it. You’re very charming, Patricia, but you’re very tired.”

For a fraction of a second, she felt fear. She’d failed in an area where she usually excelled. She’d failed to manage this man effectively.

Luke lectured on. “The rules exist for a reason. You’ve been working nonstop, and you’re going to get sick or hurt.”

The rules exist for a reason. She wasn’t sure why, but that sounded so familiar.

“Who takes your place when it’s your turn for downtime?” Luke tapped her clipboard. “I bet you’ve got a whole organizational chart on there. I’m curious who you answer to, because you seem to think the rules don’t apply to you.”

“Karen Weaver is the head of the Austin branch of Texas Rescue,” Patricia said. She sounded stiff. That was an accomplishment, considering she felt furious.

“I bet you make sure every single hospital volunteer from the most prestigious surgeon to the lowliest rookie gets their breaks, but Karen Weaver doesn’t make sure you get yours?” Luke used her own trick on her, running the tips of his fingers lightly down her arm, all solicitous concern.

“Karen is...new,” Patricia said.

Luke laughed. The man laughed, damn him. “She’s new and she doesn’t know half of what you do, does she? You don’t trust her to take care of your baby.”

Bingo. But Patricia wouldn’t say that out loud, not for a million dollars.

Luke’s hand closed on her arm, warm and firm. “Karen isn’t you, but she’s good enough to handle the hospital while everyone’s sleeping.” He turned her toward the sleeping quarters and pulled back the tent flap, then let her go. “Please, take your break.”

She wanted to object. She made all the decisions. She was in charge. But even her anger at his high-handedness wasn’t sustaining her against her exhaustion. He’d brought her to the very threshold of the sleeping quarters. To be only a few feet away from where her inflatable mattress lay, empty and waiting...it was enough to make the most adamant woman waffle.

Luke’s voice, that big, deep voice, spoke very quietly, because he was very close to her ear. “I’m not your boss, and you aren’t mine. You answer to Karen, and I answer to the fire chief. But this afternoon, you gave me orders, and I obeyed them because they were smart. You told me to drink; I did. You told me to sit; I did. So it’s my turn. I’m telling you to get ready for bed. I’m going to bring you a sandwich from the mess tent and place it inside the door, because it’s a sure thing that you haven’t taken time to eat. You’ll eat it and you’ll get some rest when you turn off that walkie-talkie, because you know it’s the smart thing to do. You’ve worked enough.”

Patricia had never had a man speak to her like that. Telling her to stop working. Telling her she’d done enough. It made her melt the way poets believed flowers and verse should make women melt. It made her so weak in the knees, she couldn’t take a step for fear of stumbling.

Weakness was bad.

“You can’t give me orders,” she said, but her voice was husky and tired.

“I just did.” With a firm hand in her lower back, an inch above the curve of her backside, Luke Waterson pushed her gently into the tent, dropped the flap and walked away.

* * *

Patricia felt strange the next day.

It should have been easier to focus on the relief operation after a full meal and a good night’s sleep. Instead, it was harder. That sleep and that meal had come at the hands—the very strong hands—of a fireman who looked like—

Damn it. There she went again, losing her train of thought.

She checked the to-do list on her clipboard. The items that had been done and crossed off were irrelevant. Being at the helm of Texas Rescue’s mobile hospital was like being at the helm of one of her sailboats. Congratulating herself on having handled a gust of wind two minutes ago wouldn’t prevent her boat from capsizing on the next gust. Whether on a lake or at a relief center, Patricia looked ahead, planned ahead, kept an eye on the horizon—or in this case, on her checklist. One unfinished item from yesterday jumped out: Set up additional shade for waiting area.

Patricia tapped her mechanical pencil against her lips. She had the additional tent in the trailer. She just didn’t have the manpower to get it set up. According to the tent’s manual, it would take three people twenty minutes. That meant it would require forty minutes, of course, but she didn’t have three people, anyway. She could serve as one, although she wasn’t good with the sledgehammer when it came to driving the spikes in the ground. At this site, the spikes had been driven right through the asphalt in many cases, and she knew her limits. Driving iron spikes through asphalt, even crumbling, sunbaked asphalt, wasn’t her skill set.

An image of Luke Waterson, never far from her mind this morning, appeared once more. Appeared, and zoomed in on his arms. Those muscles. The way they’d flexed under her fingertips as he’d escorted her back to the tents in the dark...

Luke could drive a spike through asphalt.

Patricia went to her tent and fetched his glove.