Lover in the Rough Read Online Free

said, she shook her head and laughed helplessly. “Forgive me. I’m not usually so, so unwrapped .” She looked away from his unique eyes and shook the canteen briskly. Full. She unscrewed the top, drank quickly, put back the top and handed the canteen to him. “That should hold me. Thanks.”
    Without looking away from her eyes, the stranger removed the canteen top, drank deeply, sealed the canteen and gave it back to her. For an instant all she could think of was his lips touching where hers had so recently been. The thought sent an odd feeling through her. She tried to look away from his eyes but could not.
    “Mint,” he murmured. “Nice.”
    “Mint?” Then she realized that she must have left the taste of her favorite candy on the rim of the canteen. “Oh . . . mint,” she said. She laughed and held her hands up to her flushed cheeks. “My God, what you must think of me!”
    He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his thick black hair. “I think you can drink out of my canteen any time,” he said, chuckling.
    Reba caught herself wondering if his hair felt as springy-silky as it looked. He smiled down at her suddenly, as though he knew what she was thinking and it pleased him. She took a shaky breath. He had the most unsettling effect on her of any man she had ever met.
    “I’m going to be late,” she said quickly. She turned away, then looked back. “Thanks for helping me.”
    His smile widened. “If you hadn’t been wearing those silly sandals I’d have let you run loverboy right into the rocks,” he said, looking down at the smooth curves of her legs, at their feminine strength and grace. “You’re in a hell of a lot better shape than he is. No wonder he couldn’t wait to find out if you’d feel half as good as you look.”
    “Do you ever have an unspoken thought?” she asked tartly.
    “All the time,” he murmured in his husky drawl, looking at her mouth, at the outline of her breasts beneath the clinging silk blouse, at her bare legs and the smooth feet he had brushed off and fastened into delicate sandals. “You’d better go before I start thinking out loud.”
    She tilted her head to the side as she looked up at him. “Aren’t you afraid I’d run you right into the ground?”
    His slow smile sent warmth curling through her. “Want to try?”
    For a wild moment she wanted to do just that. Then sanity returned. But he had seen the moment of wildness in her, and responded to it with a ripple of movement that reminded her of the change that had come over him when Todd looked as though he would fight. Muscles taut yet relaxed, silvery eyes intent, body poised for whatever might come, the stranger waited for her to decide.
    Reba closed her eyes and shivered, suddenly not trusting her own reactions. The weeks since Jeremy’s death had shredded her usual control, threatening to reveal her most private feelings. And this rough stranger had the uncanny ability to touch those feelings. No matter how gentle the touch, it frightened her. She hadn’t been this vulnerable since she was a child. She didn’t like it one bit.
    When she opened her eyes, the stranger was watching her. The intensity of a moment ago was gone, replaced by a gentleness that was almost tangible.
    “He’s dead, isn’t he? The man loverboy wants to replace.”
    “Yes. A month ago.”
    He lifted his hand, then let it fall without touching her. “The first weeks are the worst,” he said simply.
    “I hope so,” she whispered. “I can’t live like this, with my skin inside out, every nerve exposed.”
    “You’re still fighting it. When you stop fighting you’ll begin to heal.”
    “Yesterday I would have said ‘Never!’ But today, when you showed me a rock as old as time . . .” Impulsively Reba touched his cheek with her fingertips, a light brush of warmth. “Thank you.”
    She turned around and walked quickly to her car. She turned back once, realizing that she still was holding his canteen.