Not that she could have.
“I realize this is rather sudden for you, so I really don’t want you to give me an answer right now.”
“But you’re only in lustwith me,” Cam managed to whisper behind his finger.
He reached down and took hold of her hands again. “Oh, I’m definitely in lust with you. But while we were hiding in the maintenance garage, I realized that lust doesn’t hold a candle to the intimacy we’ve shared this past week.” He took what appeared to be a fortifying breath and held her hands to his chest, over his solidly beating heart. “So, Camry MacKeage, would you do me the honor of consideringspending the rest of your life being intimate with me?”
She dropped her gaze to her hands clasped in his. “I-I have to think about it.”
He released what sounded like a relieved sigh and flopped back on the air mattress, pulling her with him and snuggling her up against his side. “Thank you. But while you’re thinking, I’d like you to consider one more thing.” He tilted her chin up for her to look at him. “Marrying me just might be your chance to trump the universe.”
“How?”
“By your getting married beforeyou make love to your husband. That way you can’t ever question that you’re the one doing the choosing, not Providence.”
Cam tucked her head into his shoulder and stared across his chest. “But what if I marry you, then we make love, and I don’tget pregnant?” she whispered, clutching his shirt in her fist. “That would mean you’re notthe man I’m supposed to marry.”
His chest fell on a heavy sigh. “Camry, sweetheart, you have to stop letting your fear that something might or might not occur dictate your life. Your only basis for assuming that what happened to your sisters has any bearing on what will happen to you is your belief that traditionis even a tangible integer. But the very fact that your sisters loved the men they married precludes any direct correlation to their getting pregnant. If you were to develop a matrix, with tradition being Xand seemingly related occurrences being Y,I believe you would see how rarely they actually intersect. In fact, I’d be surprised if such an equation could even be written, because—”
Camry stifled a yawn and melted bonelessly against him with deep and utter contentment. Because honest to God, the very fact that he was lecturingher made Cam’s heart swell with the realization that he truly loved her!
And seeing how her ears weren’t wanting to fall off, well . . . could that mean she just might love him back?
Chapter Fourteen
Somewhere in the far reaches of sleep, Luke heard Max and Tigger stirring—only seconds before he heard the zipper on the tent slide open. The realization that it wasn’t Camry doing the zipping, because she was snuggled tightly against him, made Luke bolt up in adrenaline-laced alarm.
“You people are trespassing,” said the man holding the shotgun only inches from his chest, his voice a menacing growl.
Luke cut off Camry’s yelp of surprise by shoving her behind his back when she also sprang upright. “We’re not looking for trouble,” he told the white-bearded, wild-haired old man. “We’re just doing a little winter camping.”
Camry peeked past Luke’s arm. “You’re the one trespassing,” she said. “This mountain belongs to Jack and Megan Stone.”
“You look like land developers to me,” the man snarled, though he did lower the shotgun barrel slightly.
Which still disconcerted Luke, as now it was aimed at his groin. “We’re not land developers,” he said, leaning sideways to put himself in front of Camry again. He eyed Max and Tigger, wondering why neither dog seemed particularly worried. In fact, they looked downright pleased to have company. “We’re on sabbatical from work, getting some fresh mountain air before we go home to our families for Christmas.”
“I’m Camry MacKeage,” Camry said, leaning around him again. “My family lives in Pine Creek. We own TarStone Mountain Ski Resort.”
The gun barrel lowered several more inches as the man arched his bushy brows in surprise. “ CamryMacKeage, you say?” His eyes narrowed again on Luke. “You Lucian Renoir?”
Luke stiffened. “Yes.”
Their uninvited guest’s expression suddenly turned eager. “Well okay, then!” he said, backing out of the tent—and taking his shotgun with him. Tigger and Max bounded after him. “I’ve been waiting weeks for you people to show up!” he continued from outside. “Dag-nab-it, it took you two long enough to get here!”
Luke turned to Camry with an inquisitive arch of his brow.
When she merely shrugged, they both scrambled to put on their boots. They slid their jackets on over their long johns and rushed for the tent door, but Luke pulled Camry to a stop. “Let me go first.”
“It’s obvious he’s only a harmless old hermit.”
“Who just happens to know our names? I spent two months on this mountain, and I never saw a trace of him. So just humor me, would you, and let me go out first?”
She stared into his eyes for what seemed like forever, then suddenly smiled and motioned toward the tent flap. “Be my guest, Maxine.”
Luke shot her a warning scowl, then poked his head through the flap to find the man sitting on the ground, laughing uncontrollably as Tigger attacked his face with her tongue. Max was flopped on his back with all four paws in the air, his tail thumping the snow as the guy rubbed his belly. Luke looked around for the shotgun and saw it leaning against the track of the snowcat, beside the . . . next to the . . .
He scrambled out of the tent, pulling Camry with him. The moment she stood up, Luke surreptitiously motioned toward the cat. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Oh my God,” she softly gasped. “That looks like Podly. Or at least its outer housing.” She glanced briefly at the man, who seemed to have completely forgotten them in favor of playing with the dogs. “He’s using our satellite as a sled?”
“You go check it out,” Luke whispered, heading toward the man. He stopped and held his hand down to him. “You can call me Luke, Mr. . . . ?”
The still-laughing man took hold of Luke’s hand, but instead of shaking it, he used it to pull himself to his feet. “Dag-nab-it, I seem to be getting older instead of younger,” he chortled, finally shaking Luke’s hand. “Name’s Roger AuClair. You like that sled, Missy MacKeage? I’d be willing to sell it to you,” he called to Camry. “Or if’n you want, I can custom make you one just like it, only out of wood scraps.”
He walked over to her. “A wooden one would cost you less than this one, ’cause this stuff don’t fall out of the sky every day, you know,” he said, running his gnarled hand over the charred metal. “I still got to polish it up some. You got any sweets in your fancy snow machine?” he asked, peering in through the window of the snowcat. He looked back at Camry. “I’m open to bartering. Pound for pound, anything I build for you in exchange for anything you got that’s sweet, be it home-baked or store-bought.”
“I believe we have some sweet granola bars,” Camry offered with obvious amusement. She glanced toward Luke, then down at the sled, then back at Roger. “But instead of trading me this beautiful piece, would you happen to have other parts of whatever fell out of the sky that we might barter for?”
“Something about this big, maybe?” Luke added, holding his hands not quite a foot apart. “Sort of square, and rather heavy for its size?”