She was just leaning forward to tie the bottom of her pants closed when she heard Jack approaching at a hurried pace. Megan shoved the straps in her pocket, grabbed her mangled bra and looked around, then simply tossed it in the fire. She lay down on the bed of fir boughs and closed her eyes, sleepily fluttering them open when he strode into camp.
“That didn’t take long,” she said, stretching with a fake yawn, watching him drop his heavy load of gear.
He hunched down in front of the fire and held his hands to its warmth, glancing at her out the corner of his eye. Yup, his hair was soaked and had started to freeze, and every inch of visible skin was covered with goose bumps.
“Did you fall in the slush? Your hair’s wet,” she pointed out, ignoring the fact that his clothes were dry.
He stiffened. “No.” He pushed a log deeper into the flames a bit more roughly than necessary.
A blind man couldn’t miss her dry sack sitting on the ground, even though he’d tried to hide it by throwing her wet snowsuit on top. Then again, maybe he was grumpy because he was freezing.
“Did you remember the cocoa?”
He gave her a suspicious glance, then reached under her wet snowmobile suit, pulled out the Thermos, and tossed it to her. He picked up several more sticks and shoved them in the fire, only to suddenly stop in mid-shove. He used the stick in his hand to lift something out of the flame, which he held up between them.
Megan realized it was the charred remains of her bra. She snapped her head around to look up at the branch the clothes were hanging on. “Well, jeez,” she said in disgust, looking back at her bra with a frown. “It must have fallen into the fire.”
Jack eyed the distance from the branch to the fire, then lifted one brow, implying the bra would have needed wings to reach that far.
Megan opened the Thermos and drank directly from it, then wiped her mouth with the sleeve of Jack’s leather jacket. “Can you get your sled unstuck?”
“Not without a block and tackle and two hundred yards of rope,” he said, still eyeing her suspiciously.
It was killing him that she wasn’t reading him the riot act—she’d have to remember this strategy in the future.
“I went after your survival gear,” he growled.
“Was the water very deep?”
He eyed her again. “Just over my head.”
Megan took off his jacket. “Here, slip this on. It’s already warmed up.”
“No, you keep it.”
“I’m actually starting to feel hot,” she countered, tossing it to him. She turned and pulled his shirt off the branch and tossed that at him, too. “Wipe your hair dry. And if you hand me the dry sack, I’ll see what goodies we have.”
He pulled the liners out of her soggy boots and set them beside the fire to dry, then stood up, picked up her snowsuit, and draped it over another branch, then he finally set the dry sack beside her. He slipped into his jacket and obediently started wiping his hair with his shirt.
Megan took pity on him; he was cold and tired, and adding tension to that mix was cruel. “Look, I know we needed my gear if we have to spend the night out here. I…I just didn’t want anything to happen to you,” she whispered, feeling her face flush—and not due to the roaring fire.
He stopped wiping his hair.
She shrugged, hoping to appear more nonchalant than she felt. “I guess I’ve gotten used to having you around this past week.”
“I’m not going away, Megan.”
“I know.”
He came over and sat beside her on the boughs, taking her hands and holding them in his. “I need to talk to you about what I said that day I sent you away.”
She tried to pull back, but he held firm.
“I didn’t mean it, Megan. I’d walk through the fires of hell before I’d ask you to do that.”
“I know.”
“What do you mean, you know?”
“I figured that out about five minutes after my plane took off. I was looking down at the nesting sites we’d been working together, and realized that anyone who handled those goslings and eggs the way you did wouldn’t ask me to end my pregnancy.”
He pulled her to his chest and wrapped his arms around her in a fierce hug. “I knew you wouldn’t do it. But nothing I said was working, so I decided to make you hate me so much you’d pack up and leave on the supply plane that very day,” he whispered into her hair.
“It worked.”
His embrace tightened. “I am so damned sorry for what I put you through.”
“And I’m sorry I realized what you were doing too late.”
He leaned back to look her in the eyes. “I love you, Megan. When I first arrived on the tundra and you greeted me, I felt like I was being run over by a herd of caribou.”
She opened her mouth, but he pulled her back against him again. “Shhh, just listen. I want you to think about us getting married. We can live here in Pine Creek, or wherever you want. I can work from anywhere.” He cupped her head to his shoulder, stroking her hair. “Don’t answer me right now. I just want you to think about it.”
She tried to pull away to speak.
“Shhh,” he said again, holding her in what was starting to feel like a desperate hug. “Just let what I said sink in for a while. Just…just give me a chance.”
She mumbled into his shoulder, but he just squeezed her tighter. The poor guy was shaking like a leaf, and Megan suspected it had nothing to do with his dip in the lake—despite his feeling as icy as a wet polar bear. She gave up trying to explain that he was making her cold all over again, and wrapped her arms around his waist inside his jacket to share what little heat she had left.
The baby gave a sharp kick.
“Holy hell,” Jack said, jerking back to stare down at her belly. “He just kicked me!”
“He does that sometimes,” she said, smiling at his shocked expression. She reached out and took his hand and set it on her stomach. “Wait a minute and he’ll do it again. Damn, now you’ve got me calling it a him!”
As if on cue, her belly started thumping like a snare drum. Jack laughed out loud and bent down and kissed the spot where the baby was kicking—then just as suddenly straightened, his face a dull red. He scrambled back to the fire and started stoking it again, even though it was roaring brightly enough to be seen from space.
Megan leaned back against the tree with a smile, running her fingers softly over her belly. Here was the man she’d fallen in love with on the tundra. Whenever he’d worked up the nerve to kiss her, he would turn red, get sort of clumsy, and all but apologize. One time after kissing her senseless, he’d turned and walked straight into the tent pole, bringing the entire canvas down on top of them. She was beginning to suspect his nerdiness wasn’t an act after all, since Jack Stone didn’t appear to have any more finesse than Wayne Ferris.
She was glad the nerd hadn’t disappeared completely.
Apparently realizing he was about to start a forest fire, Jack turned his attention to the dry sack. He pulled out a mess kit, a neatly coiled rope, a hatchet, some power bars, and a small plastic container. Megan knew the container held fishing line, a mirror and compass, several lighters, and an ozone light stick to purify water for drinking.
“No radio?” he said, pulling out the sleeping bag and peering inside the empty sack.
Megan shrugged. “We always carry the satellite phone. Besides, that sack is rarely ever opened because we rarely get into this kind of trouble.” She looked him directly in the eyes. “I’m sorry, Jack. I should have listened to you about not traveling back on the lake. I was being stubborn and stupid.”
He unrolled the sleeping bag and shook it open, then motioned for her to move so he could lay it out over the boughs. “You’re not in an exclusive club, sweetheart. We’d be here at least a week if I listed all my transgressions.” He sat down beside her. “Don’t ever apologize for following your passion, Megan. That’s what I love the most about you.”