Night Magic Part 9

Unmollified, Puff yowled piercingly and resumed his pacing.

"You'd better hurry," Clara informed McClain with unalloyed joy. "He's really got to go. I don't know if you're familiar with male cats, but-"

"I'm not, and I don't want to be," McClain replied shortly, and began to maneuver the raft toward the left bank. When they were perhaps two feet away, he jumped out and dragged it the rest of the way in. Puff leaped out before the raft had even reached the sh.o.r.e and disappeared into the shadows beneath the trees.

"If we're lucky he won't come back," McClain said as Clara slid her clammy shoes onto her feet before inadvertently stepping out into about six inches of icy river water. Swearing under her breath, she sloshed up on the bank. She was so cold she didn't think it was possible to get any colder.

"Or maybe a bear will have him for dinner," McClain continued on the same hopeful note. Clara ignored him. She was too miserable for arguments. She was too miserable even to worry about Puff. She was too miserable for anything except being miserable. To top it off, she too had to go to the bathroom. With a sour look at McClain, she tromped off behind the same bushes Puff had favored. There were some advantages to being next door to naked, she reflected.

"What now?" she demanded when she returned to see McClain pulling the raft up into the trees and, placing the oars beneath it, overturn it under some bushes. Her still wet clothes tumbled into the litter of leaves. Clara scarcely noticed.

"I thought I saw a cabin up through the trees. If we're lucky it's empty."

"Wh- where?" Clara was so cold she could barely talk. McClain took a look at her, frowned, and headed in a southerly direction through the trees. After perhaps a hundred feet she saw it too, a small log cabin, not much more than a shack, actually, perched crookedly beneath a tall pine. The windows were boarded up and the place had the forlorn air of having been deserted for years. It also looked as though it might collapse at any second, but at least it was shelter from the rising wind and that was all that Clara cared about for the moment.

"Do you think you can break in?"

McClain snorted. "I don't imagine much breaking will be required."

He walked up to the door, which was a foot or so off the ground as though a step had once stood before it. When he pushed on the door, it moved inward with a rusty creak for about three inches before stopping. After another gentle shove, which produced no progress, McClain put his shoulder to it and pushed. With a piercing shriek of outraged hinges, the door swung open.

Inside the cabin was as dark as a cave except for the slightly grayer rectangle cut by the open door. It smelled of mildew, but Clara didn't care. She was right on McClain's heels as he stepped up and in. She would face anything just to get out of the cold.

"Umph!" She was concentrating on not putting her feet through any of the holes in the floor when she b.u.mped into McClain's back and stopped, standing as close to him as she could. She was really freezing, and the warmth his body emanated was as welcome as a furnace.

"Graceful as ever, I see," he remarked sourly over his shoulder. But he drew her beside him and put his arm around her, all with such an unpleasant expression on his face that Clara knew better than to get the wrong idea. He was simply trying to warm her.

"I don't suppose you've got any matches?" Given the state of her undress, McClain's little joke didn't even drag forth a reply. She stood, shivering, pressed up against him even though he had removed his arm, feeling his movements as he fished in his pockets. There was a clatter of change, a rattle of crumpled paper, and then a pleased grunt.

"Matches?" she asked.

"Better. A cigarette lighter. Wait here."

"Where are you going?" But it was too late. He had already headed out the door, withdrawing his precious warmth. When he reappeared seconds later, he was carrying a flaming torch made out of something that looked like a pine cone. As McClain held it high, they both surveyed the interior of the cabin.

The inside was as rickety looking as the outside. The walls were made of rough slabs of wood haphazardly fitted together so that c.h.i.n.ks of the darkness outside showed through the joinings. The two boarded windows had once had gla.s.s in them. A few shards were left clinging to rusty metal frames. The far wall was lined with shelves, on which several ancient looking canned goods still rested. A rusty potbellied stove sat in one corner, the stovepipe slanting up at a crazy angle through a jagged hole in the roof. The floor was rotting linoleum over equally rotting wood, mined with holes. The roof appeared to be tin. The cabin itself was only one room, and it was bare of furniture of any description.

"It's not the Sheraton, but it's better than nothing," McClain said, then yelped as the torch burned down to his fingers. Dropping the thing with a curse, he stepped on it to make sure that it was out. Then he turned and went back outside, leaving Clara standing, shivering, in the middle of the cold, dark room.

When he returned some five interminable minutes later, he was carrying a small armload of branches and was accompanied by Puff, who meowed imperiously when he saw Clara.

"I knew we wouldn't lose him. My luck's been running this way all week."

Clara ignored that, kneeling and holding out her arms to Puff, who swarmed into them. She gathered him against her chest, murmuring soothing endearments into his ear. At least he was fairly dry, she was glad to note. Only his feet were still wet. He purred furiously at her attentions, b.u.t.ting his head against her chin. After a moment she put him down. He stared up at her, rubbed himself against her bare, frozen ankles, and meowed ingratiatingly. When she did not immediately respond, being too busy shivering, he meowed again.

"What's he squalling about now?" McClain was piling branches into the stove as he spoke.

"He's hungry." Clara was, too. She had a feeling that if she ever got over being on the verge of dying from the cold she would expire from hunger.

"Oh, is he? Listen, you mangy furball, I have not eaten for almost thirty-six hours, thanks to you. Keep on yowling and you may be my next meal."

Puff merely looked at him and yowled harder, while Clara watched with greedy antic.i.p.ation as McClain applied the small flame of the lighter to the tangle of branches in the stove. After a moment, a larger flame appeared, then flickered and grew.

"A fire," Clara breathed, enraptured, rushing to stand near it, shivering harder in blissful antic.i.p.ation of waves of warmth. Puff followed, still complaining. Clara ignored him with the ease of long practice. McClain fixed him with a baleful glare, then turned his attention back to the stove. For some moments he watched the slowly building blaze with a critical eye, then shut the door to the small stove. The stovepipe swayed precariously. Clara crowded nearer to the rusty black object.

"Don't touch it. I imagine it'll get pretty hot in a few minutes," McClain warned, moving away. Clara paid no attention. The scant wafts of heat that were emanating from the squat thing were pure Nirvana. She could have embraced it.

"Corn, corn, corn and carrots."

Clara looked around to find that McClain was using his lighter to read the dusty labels of the cans still left on the shelves.

"Do you suppose that stuff's still any good?" she asked through chattering teeth.

McClain shrugged. "The cans appear to be intact. We can open them and see if they look all right. I don't know about you, but I could eat a- cat." He added this last as his eyes fixed on Puff, who, seeing him holding a can, was staring avidly up at him and yowling with the vigor of a cheerleader at a pep rally.

"Sorry, pal," he said to Puff with what sounded like malicious enjoyment. "Nothing here for you. Just veggies. Better luck next time."

"Oh, he'll eat anything," Clara a.s.sured him. McClain had set the can down and was fishing in his pockets for something. The screwdriver. He brought it out with a triumphant flourish and proceeded to attack the can, making a good sized hole in the lid after a series of whacks and jerks. After inspecting the contents, he set the can down on top of the stove and proceeded to open another and do the same. Finally all four cans were opened and warming on the stove. The smell of food- even corn and carrots, neither one of which had ever been high on Clara's list of favorites- was enough to make her dizzy. She hadn't eaten since her meal at Mitch's house more than twenty-four hours before, she realized. Then she remembered he'd said that he had not eaten for thirty-six hours, and almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

Puff yowled pitifully, staring up at the open cans. Clara's stomach growled in concert. She heard another rumbling sound and frowned. It took her a moment to realize that McClain's stomach was growling as well. This shared human weakness softened her toward him just a little. It was good to know that at least some of her misery was shared, even by so loathsome a creature as he.

"Soup's on," McClain said, gingerly picking up the cans and setting them on the floor. Puff rushed over to them immediately; McClain swatted him away with a foot. Puff yowled piteously as McClain dropped to sit cross-legged, guarding his prize. Clara sat too, careful to keep the makeshift poncho about her. Even with McClain's belt holding it in place at the waist it was not the most reliable of garments.

"Oh, give him some, please," Clara said impatiently as Puff continued to yowl.

"We only have four cans."

"He can have some of my share. There's no way we're going to eat four cans of vegetables, anyway."

"The way I feel now I could eat four grocery stores full of vegetables, much less four cans. And he, if you recall, had two ham sandwiches. My ham sandwiches. The..." His words lapsed off into indecipherable muttering, accompanied by a dark look at Puff.

"Please..."

Yowl! Puff yowled again.

"Oh for G.o.d's sake." McClain picked up one of the cans of corn and, turning, dumped about a tenth of its contents on the dirty linoleum behind him. Puff was on it with the avidity of the starving. McClain watched him in narrow-eyed disbelief.

"That cat's unnatural."

"No he isn't. He's hungry. And so am I."

That brought McClain's attention back to her. He looked her up and down with that same narrow-eyed stare he usually reserved for Puff, reached down into the jagged hole he had made in the top of the can of corn with two fingers, scooped up some corn, popped it into his mouth, and chewed with evident enjoyment.

"So eat," he said. Clara, giving him a look of disgust, nevertheless picked up another can of corn and proceeded to consume its contents in the same uncivilized fashion. It was surprising how delicious vegetables could be when one was hungry.

After the meal, McClain wiped his hands on his jeans and disposed of the cans by the simple act of tossing them out the cabin door. Then he went outside. When he came back some ten minutes later he was carrying the raft upside down on top of his head. Clara's half frozen clothes were perched up on top. Clara watched with interest as McClain struggled to maneuver the unwieldy raft in through the narrow door. When he finally forced it through, to send it shooting and slithering to land almost at her feet, Puff leapt up from the nap he had succ.u.mbed to after his meal, hissing and spitting at the unexpected arrival. Clara stayed where she was, eyeing first McClain and then the raft. Bringing the raft inside for the night seemed a little strange, but doubtless he had his reasons, and she was too tired to worry about them.

"Here." He tossed her clammy clothes at her. Clara had been half asleep, leaning back against the wall with her entire body drawn up under the poncho. His action caught her by surprise; before she could react she was slapped in the face by icy cloth. More rained around her.

"Why did you do that?" Clawing her way out from beneath her stiffened jeans, which had landed on her head, she glared at McClain.

"If you want those things to be dry in the morning you'd better rig them up in front of the stove tonight."

Acknowledging the truth of that, Clara groaned as she got to her feet and gathered up her garments. She was so tired it was all she could do to breathe.

"Here." McClain untied the rope that surrounded the raft's perimeter and attached one end of it to a nail protruding from a wall. The other he affixed to a rusty cup hook at one end of the middle shelf, creating a crude clothes line.

"Thank you." She was surprised, and not a little touched, at his effort, which was solely on her behalf. Now that she came to think of it, it was the first thing he had done that had not benefitted him as well. Of course, it could just be that he didn't fancy traveling with a damp companion in the morning.

As she draped her clothes carefully over the line so that they would get the maximum heat, he went out again. When he came back, he set two of the empty cans he had apparently retrieved from outside on the stove.

"Present for you," he said briefly in response to her inquiring look. When she frowned, he gestured at the cans.

"Water.To wash with. I don't know about you, but I feel grubby as h.e.l.l."

Clara did too. She looked at him for a moment with real grat.i.tude. Of course, she wouldn't be able to get very clean with the small amount of muddy river water he'd been able to fetch, but still it was better than nothing. And a very nice thought.

"Thank you," she said again. And meant it.

She was draping her teddy over the line when she heard the unmistakable sound of a zipper being lowered behind her. Turning around, she was aghast to see McClain calmly sliding out of his jeans.

"What are you doing?" Her voice held just the tiniest edge of hysteria. Seeing McClain standing before her in nothing but a sweatshirt and a pair of maroon cotton jockey briefs was unnerving, to say the least. His legs were long and hard muscled and covered with dark hair. The sweatshirt ended just below his waist, providing no coverage for what lay below it. His underwear provided little more. They clung to his narrow hips like a second skin. The little placket in the front of the briefs bulged with silent proof of his maleness. Then he crossed the room to hang his jeans on the line beside her clothes. His soaked sneakers he placed carefully beside her shoes in front of the stove. She had an excellent view of a tight, well-muscled rear in motion. Dazzled, she stared.

"I was hanging up my clothes to dry. Now I'm going to wash and then I'm going to go to sleep."

She had been so lost in contemplating the view that his words made her start. Guiltily, she looked at him, to discover him watching her, his eyes narrowed. His green eyes were as bright as emeralds. Clara hastily busied herself with straightening her clothes on the line. A totally unnecessary action, since she had done it once already. But she didn't want him to think that she was watching him.

With all her good intentions, she couldn't help herself. As he poured water from one of the cans into his palm and splashed it over his face, she stared. She stared even harder when he casually grasped the edge of the sweatshirt and pulled it up over his head in a fluid movement, leaving him bare except for the clinging maroon briefs. His back was magnificent, she saw as he splashed more water under his arms and on his chest. Deeply tanned and broad-shouldered with a deep cleft running down the center to disappear beneath the white elastic waistband of his briefs. His muscles rippled as he moved. Clara watched, feeling a quickening of her senses. He had the most beautiful back she had ever seen; she had to fight an urge to go over and run her hands along that satin over steel flesh...

He pulled the sweatshirt back on and turned so fast that Clara barely had time to switch her eyes back to her jeans. She would die of mortification if he guessed she had been watching him like a starving man at a feast. Nervously she moved over to the stove and stared down at her can of water. She needed some kind of cloth to wash her face. The poncho that she had been wearing when she fell in the river was hanging on the line with her other clothes. She took that from the line, dipped its end in the can, and proceeded to wash her face and neck.

With another of those narrow-eyed looks in her direction, McClain crossed to where the raft sat in the middle of the floor. She took advantage of his inattention to scrub hastily at her body beneath the covering poncho. As a bath it wasn't much, but it was the best she could do. Warily she looked over her shoulder to see if he was watching her. To her astonishment he was stretched out at full length in the middle of the raft. He just fit, using the rolled side as a pillow to support his head. Clara blinked at him. He returned her look, unsmiling.

"You're going to sleep in the boat?"

"You have any better suggestions?"

Looking around at the empty cabin, Clara had to admit she didn't.

"But what about me?"

"If you have the sense G.o.d gave a flea, you'll join me."

Clara stared down at him. He looked perfectly serious- if one didn't count those outrageously s.e.xy legs that were stretched at full length and crossed at the ankles.

"I can't sleep in that ridiculous boat with you. There's not enough room, for one thing."

He shrugged, stretched, and crossed his arms under his head. His green eyes narrowed as they looked up at her.

"The less room, the better. It's cold out there tonight and getting colder. That stove doesn't put out much heat. And you are probably well on the way to pneumonia already from the asinine stunt you pulled earlier."

What he said made perfect sense, she had to admit. It was ridiculous under the circ.u.mstances for them not to curl up together and share their body heat. Only that was the problem, she discovered as she turned the possibility over in her mind: Just thinking about sleeping next to McClain in his underpants made her body heat.

"You're going to have to shed the blanket, by the way. It's the only cover we have."

He said it so negligently that it was a moment before Clara caught the full meaning of the words. Then, as she pictured herself lying without the blanket- naked- in his arms, she felt her blood heat to scalding. Whatever else he was- and she generally felt he was three separate kinds of sons of female dogs- he was every inch a man. And s.e.xy. So s.e.xy that she had to bite her tongue just to keep from staring at those sinewy legs. To say nothing of the tantalizing cling of claret cotton...

"There is no way we are sharing this blanket. I am wearing it."

McClain's eyes narrowed even more. "So?"

"I am not wearing anything else," she clarified, her eyes still having to struggle to look only at his face.

"So what? Believe me, I'm too tired to do anything about it. If it makes you feel better, I'll shut my eyes."

This did not make her feel any better. "No!"

"Don't be any stupider than you can help, Clara."

This weary statement sent her eyes flying to his. He was looking at her with the kind of exasperated patience a man might show to a slightly thickheaded dog.

"I am not sleeping naked with you!" Clara blushed even as she said the words. She felt the hot color wash up over her neck and chin and cheeks to the roots of her hair. Blushing was the bain of her existence when she was a teenager; she had thought she'd gotten over it by now. In more ways than one, it seemed, McClain brought out the worst in her.

"All right, so you're not sleeping naked with me." These unexpectedly reasonable words made Clara look at him suspiciously. He was sitting up, pulling the sweatshirt over his head and tossing it at her. She fumbled for it, dropped it, and bent to pick it up, all the while trying to look everywhere but at his magnificently muscled torso. Bare except for his briefs, his body was gorgeous. His front looked even better to her than his back. His shoulders were bronzed and thickly muscled and broad; his arms too were well-muscled. His chest was wide and tapered and covered with a thick wedge of coal black, curling hair. His abdomen was ridged with muscle, looking impossibly hard and enticing above the clingy cotton of his briefs. And the part covered by the briefs was dazzlingly tantalizing... Clara felt her mouth go dry and hastily averted her eyes. The quickening she felt from just looking at him was embarra.s.sing.

"So put on my sweatshirt and get in here. Now."

"No."

"Do it!"

Clara was so befuddled by the totally unprecedented feelings his mere physical presence was evoking in her that she couldn't even summon up the strength to argue. If truth were told, she wanted to cuddle up to that strong, hairy chest... If she pretended he wasn't McClain, he could almost be her fantasy man, she thought, gazing at him distractedly. The hero she wrote about- "G.o.dd.a.m.n it!" he roared, jackknifing into a sitting position. The shouted profanity effectively quelled her too vivid imagination. This was n.o.body but McClain, nasty, unprincipled, overly aggressive McClain, no matter how attractive the package. Muscles and chest hair were no proof against a rotten personality.

"All right," she capitulated suddenly, relieved to have gotten over that sudden attack of the hots for him. "Just shut your eyes."

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake," he muttered, but shut his eyes he did. Keeping a wary eye on him, Clara pulled the sweatshirt over her head without removing the poncho, managing to get it on without revealing anything that shouldn't have been revealed. The sweatshirt, thankfully, hung halfway down her thighs.

"I could have kept my eyes open," he said with disgust, opening them.

"You were peeking," Clara accused, still clinging to the blanket that she had just pulled over her head.

"Would you please get over here with that blanket? Now that you're wearing my shirt, I'm the one who's freezing to death."

Clara tossed him the blanket, relieved when he covered himself with it and lay down. Intellectually she knew he was a real stinker, but when faced with all that sinewy bronzed flesh her body reacted with a mind of its own. It went all tingly and soft, female to his male. A reaction she didn't like at all.

"Well, come on," he said impatiently, throwing back a corner of the blanket, which, when stretched out, was just sufficient to cover the raft. The hole in the middle McClain had cut for his head would undoubtedly let in a draft, but that couldn't be helped. Swallowing, avoiding his eyes, Clara took the three steps that brought her to the raft's side and climbed gingerly in. Once she was sitting he pulled her down beside him. Before they were settled comfortably, her head was on his shoulder and his arms were around her. For warmth, she told herself fiercely as her blood started to heat again at the feel of the satiny smooth shoulder beneath her cheek. The smell of man enveloped her, making her spine tingle. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were pressed into his side, her smooth bare legs brushed his hair-roughened thighs. She had never, in her life, been so aware of a man as a man.

Her hands she kept tucked firmly between them; she had already had an accidental encounter with the soft hair on his chest when she had first lain down, and it had unsettled her to such an extent that she dared not risk another. But her fingers, with a mind of their own, ached to touch him...