Seize the Flame by Lynda J. Cox

Author:Lynda J. Cox [Cox, Lynda J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western, Historical, Scarred Hero/Heroine, Second Chance Love
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press Inc.
Published: 2015-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

“We need to get some more firewood. We’ll be out before the night is over.”

Jessica forced the lump in her throat down when Drake buckled his gun belt around his hips. That lump returned and settled as a block of ice in her chest as he slipped the leather loop off the hammer.

“I want you to come with me.”

She shook her head. “My coat is still damp. I’ll freeze out there.”

“If you got that cold, I could just warm you up again.” With a grin, he tossed a blanket to her. “Wrap this around you. We’re not going to be out that long, just long enough for me to cut up some dead fall. I don’t plan on taking up lumber-jacking. Let’s go. We’re wasting daylight.”

Her irrational fear faded with his banter. She swung the blanket over her shoulders and followed him out the door. He wanted her with him, but he was wearing his revolver. “Why are you making sure you can draw quickly?” The words poured from her faster than she could stop them. She wasn’t sure if she was hurt or angry. She settled on angry.

“Have you forgotten what time of year it is?” The glance he delivered over his shoulder spoke louder than his words but he didn’t stop walking. “We’ve got grumpy bears moving into the high country for the winter and the wolves moving down, following the elk and deer. If I’ve got to draw, I don’t want to waste a few seconds fumbling to get the gun out of the holster.”

“Oh,” was all she could think to say. His words defused her anger.

Drake rolled his eyes. “We seem to have a problem with trust here.”

Jessica shook her head, hesitating outside the lean-to shelter. “No, I seem to have the problem with trust. And it’s cold out.” To emphasize her point, she tugged the blanket more tightly around herself. “Why can’t I wait in the line shack while you’re out chopping wood?” Even as she asked that, she knew the answer. If anything happened, it could be hours before she realized he hadn’t come back. And then she would have to go looking for him in the dark.

Drake picked up the axe from the back corner, and after pushing Rusty out of the way, left the lean-to. He jerked his head toward the snow-shrouded forest. “There should be less snow in the trees, and they’ll provide a wind break. It won’t be so cold there.”

She shoved from her head the images of the summer he asked her to marry him when even her father noticed both the amount of firewood Drake was cutting—often without his shirt, the sweat glistening on defined muscles—and that she was watching him chop all that wood. That recollection of the effect he had on her then still had the power to make her weak-kneed. She was thankful he couldn’t see her face, because as hot as her cheeks felt, she knew she had to be blushing. That would be interesting, trying to explain her heightened color.

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