Читать книгу Colton 911: Cowboy's Rescue - Marie Ferrarella - Страница 14

In contrast with the chaos that was going on directly outside, the moment that Maggie walked into the cabin, she was struck by its strong, clean lines. There were no unnecessary extras visible anywhere, nothing personal that pointed to the man who lived here whenever he was in town. It could have been a rustic hotel room waiting for someone to come and inhabit it. And at least for now, it had been spared by both the hurricane and the ensuing flood that had come in its wake.

If there was any detraction at all, it was that very little light came into the cabin.

“I don’t suppose the lights are working,” Maggie said. To test her theory, she hit the switch by the door. Nothing happened when she did. “Apparently not,” Maggie said with a resigned sigh.

Jonah looked up at the living area’s vaulted ceiling. “At least the roof is intact and not leaking,” he told her.

“There is that,” she agreed with a smile as she glanced up.

Jonah made his way over to the gray flagstone fireplace. “I’ll get a fire going. That should warm us up a little.” He turned toward Maggie. His eyes slid up and down the woman and for the first time since he’d finally managed to locate her, he realized that she was drenched and dripping. “Why don’t you go look in the bedroom closet and see if you can find something to change into?”

Almost self-consciously, Maggie glanced down at herself. There was a pool of water forming on the wooden floor just around her feet. She looked up again.

“What about you?” she asked.

“I’ll change my clothes, too. But first I have to go back out and put Cody up for the time being.” He could see she was about to ask him where he planned to put the horse. There was no barn on the premises. “The shed behind the house is still up.”

“That’s a piece of luck,” she remarked.

“Yeah,” he agreed with a laugh. “Otherwise, I’d have to bring Cody in here with us.” He saw the surprised look on Maggie’s face. The way he saw it, he wasn’t suggesting anything that unusual. “I can’t take a chance on losing our only means of transportation. Otherwise, we’ll be stranded.”

Made sense, she thought. “Need any help?”

Jonah sat back on his heels and watched as the bits of paper he had tucked in between the firewood began to burn. The flames spread, greedily consuming the wood that was all around them.

“No,” Jonah answered, rising once he was sure that the fire in the hearth wasn’t going to go out. “I got this covered. You just do what you need to do to get dry. The bedroom’s back there,” he added, pointing toward the rear of the cabin.

Not that it would have taken her an inordinate amount of time to find the room. The cabin consisted of the living area with a kitchenette on one side and a bedroom along with a three-quarter bath tucked directly behind the back of the fireplace.

Maggie looked after him uncertainly. “You sure you don’t mind my rummaging through your closet?” she asked just as he crossed back to the front door.

Jonah smiled, surprised that she was standing on ceremony, given the unusual situation they found themselves in. “There’re no skeletons in there if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Maggie flushed slightly. “It’s not that. I just thought that...”

Feeling awkward—after all, she didn’t know the man that well—her voice trailed off, letting him fill in the blanks for himself.

“And you won’t find anything in there to embarrass you—or me,” he assured her. Turning up the collar of the all-but-useless rain slicker, he put his hand on the doorknob, turning it. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Jonah promised.

The next second, he pulled open the door and stepped out into the gusting rain.

Maggie hurried over to the front window to watch Jonah for as long as she could before he disappeared around the side of the cabin. From what she could see, it didn’t look as if the hurricane was going to double back. With any luck, she thought, crossing her fingers, Brooke was done with them.

Now if the rain would just let up...

Backing away from the window, Maggie glanced down at the wooden floor she had just traversed. Her entire path was marked by drops of water.

“Time to stop leaving puddles,” she murmured. “Guess I’ll go see what he does have in his closet.”

She’d thought that maybe Jonah would have some items of clothing that an old girlfriend had left behind—or perhaps even a current one. The way she saw it, it was more than possible. A man who looked like Jonah Colton couldn’t be going through life unattached for long, she reasoned. He was the kind of man that women literally threw themselves at.

But all she could find in the lone closet as well as in the tall chest of drawers were his clothes. Debating, Maggie finally decided to borrow one of his flannel shirts, but there was no way in the world that she was going to put on a pair of his jeans. Jonah Colton had a good eight inches or more on her, not to mention about eighty or so pounds—if not more. Any of his jeans that she would have put on would have come parachuting down.

She listened for a moment to make sure Jonah hadn’t come back, but only silence met her ears. Moving quickly she stripped off her utterly soaked shirt and put on one of the button-down work shirts from the closet.

Just as she thought, it fit her like a tent. She tied the ends together to make it nominally shorter.

Even so, it was way too big for her. It felt roomy enough for two of her to fit into the shirt.

Maggie had just finished assessing herself in front of the freestanding large mirror when she heard the front door open and then close again. Holding her breath, she hurried out to make sure that the person she heard was Jonah and not someone who had stumbled upon the cabin while looking for some shelter from the storm.

She released her breath when she saw it was Jonah.

“Is your horse all tucked away and dry for the time being?” Maggie asked as she joined Jonah in the main room.

“For now.” His eyes swept over her. He did his best not to laugh. “I see you found something to wear—sort of,” he tagged on, his eyes sweeping over her. “And you kept on your jeans,” he realized. “Why?” Jonah asked, tossing off the rain slicker and heading for his bedroom.

“Well, decency is the first reason that comes to mind,” she answered. “You and I aren’t anywhere near the same size and while I can get away with sporting a pup tent as a shirt, there’s no way I could wear a pair of your jeans without constantly worrying that I was about to wind up executing a pratfall.”

“Point taken,” he answered, his voice floating in from the back where he had disappeared. “Wow,” he cried, “it feels good to peel off these wet clothes.” He seemed only half-aware that she was there.

He might only be half-aware of her but that definitely was not her problem, Maggie thought. To say the least, she was exceedingly aware of his presence. So much so that she was trying hard not to envision the way he looked right now, standing in his bedroom, bare chested and who knew what else was bare—trying to decide what to put on to replace his wet clothes.

“You know,” he said as he came out, startling her, “I do have a belt that I can lend you. It would help to keep my jeans up for you,” he offered.

She couldn’t help staring at his waist. Flat and muscular, her guess was that his belt would still be way too big to her.

“You might not have noticed,” she told him, “but I’m a lot smaller than you are.”

“Oh, I noticed, all right,” he assured her.

Jonah had become keenly aware of every single inch of Maggie years ago, long before this hurricane had hit. He’d noticed her when he had still been an ugly duckling and she had been a swan. And she was right. Her waist was way smaller than his. He thought of a solution.

“I have a length of rope you could use around here somewhere,” he said, looking about the living area.

“That’s okay,” she told him, waving away his suggestion. “They’re practically dry.”

“Liar,” he teased. But he wasn’t about to push this. Jonah rolled up his sleeves one at a time. “You said you were hungry.”

Her eyes were drawn to his muscular forearms, and she remembered the way his arms had felt around her. Belatedly, she realized that he was probably waiting for her to answer.

“Starved,” she told him, still looking down at his forearms.

He rummaged through the pantry that was right next to his refrigerator. “I’m afraid all I can offer you is either a box of sugarcoated cornflakes, or half a loaf of bread. Anything else—if I had it—would require a stove and electricity to make it edible.”

Turning toward her, he held out the box of cornflakes in one hand and the loaf of bread in the other.

“Both,” she said without any hesitation. “I don’t remember the last time I ate.” Her stomach rumbled as if on cue. She flushed as she glanced down, self-consciously. “But obviously my stomach does.”

“We’ve all been there,” he said, glossing over her rumbling stomach to help her cover up her embarrassment. “Have at it,” he told her, handing her the box of breakfast cereal and the partial loaf of bread.

Maggie accepted both. If this was all he had on hand, he obviously didn’t believe in stuffing himself. “I see that gluttony isn’t one of your vices.”

Jonah laughed, appreciating that she had retained her sense of humor despite the situation she had endured.

“No, but curiosity is.” And then Jonah became serious as he asked, “What the hell were you doing out there with a hurricane about to hit the area? You were taking an awful chance with your life.”

Rather than make up an elaborate excuse, Maggie leveled with him. “To be honest, I forgot all about the hurricane. Besides, the weather bureau is usually wrong with its forecasts more than half the time, anyway.”

He watched her go at the cornflakes as if they were going out of style. She wasn’t kidding about being hungry.

“You forget about Bellamy and Donovan’s wedding, too?”

“No, I didn’t,” she answered, a little indignant that he would think she was such a scatterbrain. “I just thought I’d have enough time to get to Live Oak Ranch and then get back. When I left for the ranch, the wedding was a day away.”

He supposed she had a point. But he had another question. “And just what was so important at the ranch that you had to go right then?”

Maggie waited until she’d had consumed another handful of cornflakes before answering. “The answer to a riddle.”

Jonah frowned. She wasn’t being clear, he thought. Was that on purpose, or was she just as in the dark about her so-called “mission” as it sounded?

“What kind of a riddle?” he asked.

Rather than just give him another vague answer, Maggie leaned forward and pulled out the map she had hastily tucked into her back pocket just before the threat of being swept away by the rushing waters had her climbing up into the tree.

Then she told him the whole story, such as it was. “A couple of days ago, I got a letter from my attorney informing me that my former late father-in-law, Adam Corgan, had left instructions in his will to send this map and the note he wrote to me after he was dead.”

Well, he could see why that had aroused her curiosity. It would have aroused his, as well.

“May I?” Jonah asked, nodding at the map and note in her hand.

Maggie held out the papers for him to take. “Sure, go right ahead.”

Jonah read the note twice and was no more enlightened than he had been a minute ago.

“‘The truth shall set Elliott Corgan free.’” He read out loud, then looked up at Maggie. His brow was furrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Maggie shook her head. “I have no idea. I found the tree,” she told him, indicating the map. “That was the one I was clinging to when you rescued me earlier today,” she explained. “But I didn’t find anything there that made what was in the note any clearer. To be totally honest, I have no idea why Mr. Corgan would have wanted me to have this, or what he was cryptically trying to tell me. None of it made any sense to me.”

“It’s suspicious, all right,” Jonah agreed, frowning as he glanced at the note again. Something was off here, he thought. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach, like something solid that just sat there. “Maybe the police chief has some idea what your late father-in-law was trying to say,” he suggested.

“Late ex-father-in-law,” Maggie corrected. She wasn’t related to any of those people anymore. Emotionally, she never had been.

The corners of his mouth curved slightly. “No love lost I take it.”

“Adam was okay, I suppose,” she told him charitably. “But James...” she said, referring to her ex-husband. “Well, that’s another story.”

“That makes this note you were sent even more suspicious,” he said, waving the map and note.

She laughed dryly. “You won’t get an argument from me.”

He’d been watching her as Maggie made short work of the bread and cereal he’d given her. “Sorry I can’t offer you anything more than just that bread and stale cereal,” he apologized again.

“Right now, this is a feast,” she assured him—and then suddenly she realized what she was doing. “And I’m hogging it all,” Maggie said. She tilted the open box toward him. “Here, have some of your own cereal. There’s not much left.”

He held up his hand to keep her from pushing the box toward him. “That’s okay, you eat it. I can wait until we get back to town.”

Town. That sounded a million miles away, Maggie thought wistfully. “Is that going to be anytime soon?” she asked. “My sister must be worried sick about me.”

Jonah laughed dryly. “Your sister is the reason I was out here looking for you in the first place. She was pretty scared now that you mention it. She was afraid that you might have drowned—or been blown away.”

Maggie raised her chin defensively. “She should have known I can take care of myself,” she said, doing her best not to let guilt overwhelm her. Her lips formed a pout. “You win a couple of beauty contests and everyone thinks you have cotton for brains and can’t find your way out of a paper bag.”

“I did find you up a tree,” Jonah pointed out, trying not to smile.

“Right,” she agreed. Then she said deliberately, “I was in a tree, I wasn’t floating facedown in some storm-filled ditch.”

“Well, if it means anything,” Jonah told her quietly, “I never thought you had cotton for brains.”

The unexpected affirmative comment caused Maggie to smile. “It means something,” she replied. And then she stopped suddenly, cocking her head toward the window. “Hey, listen,” she said, alert. “Hear that?”

Jonah did as she instructed. But, he thought, he obviously didn’t hear what she did.

“Hear what?” he asked Maggie. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly,” she exclaimed, her eyes shining as she abandoned the empty cereal box on the scarred table and hurried toward the front window. She looked out, scanning the sky. “The storm’s over,” Maggie announced like a town crier. “Or at least it’s stopped for now.” She turned around to face him. “I think we should take advantage of the lull and get back to town before the weather decides to change its mind again.”

“Best idea I’ve heard today,” Jonah told her, although there was a part of him that would have liked to have lingered in the cabin a bit longer.

Maggie was already at the door. “What are we waiting for?” she asked. She couldn’t wait to get back to civilization.

“I need to put out the fire,” Jonah told her. When she looked at him, her brow wrinkled in confusion, it occurred to him that she might have misunderstood what he was saying. “In the fireplace,” he added. And then he proceeded to do just that.

“Oh.” Maggie felt like an idiot. She thought he was referring to something she’d felt going on between them. “Of course,” she murmured belatedly.

“You wait here while I saddle Cody up,” Jonah told her. He could see that she wasn’t the type who liked being left behind. “I’ll hurry,” he promised, closing the door behind him before Maggie had a chance to protest.

Or before he had a chance to act on the feelings that were bubbling up inside him.