Awol Bride. Victoria Pade

crawl into bed with her and hold her and keep her warm with those massively muscled arms wrapped around her?

      Ohhh, that was some weird flashback to the teenage Maicy’s fantasies...

      A blow to the head... I’ve suffered a severe blow to the head. It must have knocked something loose...

      Something she would make sure was tightened up again.

      “We’ll deal with everything else tomorrow,” she heard him say into the chaos of her thoughts.

      “So I can’t shower tonight?” she said when that sank in.

      “Nope. I’ll heat enough on the stove for you to clean up a little better, but I want you down until tomorrow. We’ll see then if you can shower,” he decreed, before heading to get the lantern.

      And as much as she didn’t want to, Maicy couldn’t help checking out his walk-away.

      That had gotten better, too.

      But it’s what’s inside that counts, she lectured herself.

      And she didn’t mean what was inside those jeans.

      It was what was inside the man that counted.

      The man whom she had—once upon a time—asked to marry her.

      Only to have him turn her down.

       Chapter Three

      Maicy would have slept much better on Sunday night had Conor not come in every two hours to check on her—the way he’d warned her he would.

      The four-poster bed was the most comfortable thing she’d ever slept on. Conor had given her a brand new T-shirt and sweatpants straight out of the packages to use as pajamas, the sheets were clean, and with two downy quilts covering her and the slowly burning fire in the shared fireplace—that Conor also kept watch over all night—it would have been heavenly if not for her headache, and the interruptions.

      She awoke Monday morning to the sound of wood being split outside. Using the blanket that had covered her on the sofa the night before as a robe, she tested her strength and balance rather than bounding out of the bed.

      She was still weak and sore in spots, but much better than the night before. So she left the bedroom and went into the kitchen.

      Looking out the window over the sink she could see that the wind had calmed slightly, but snow was still falling heavily on top of what looked to be more than two feet already on the ground.

      Conor had shoveled a path to the woodpile and was there, splitting logs with the swing of an ax.

      That was a sight to wake up to!

      One she was leery of standing there to watch.

      She was not going to be sucked into admiring the fine specimen of a man he’d become. There was nothing personal between them at all anymore, and that was the way it would stay. Their former connection had died an ugly death. And even before it had, it clearly hadn’t been as meaningful to him as it was to her. So what he was doing for her now was merely being a good Samaritan, there wasn’t anything else to it.

      She just had to stop cataloging—and yeah, okay, admiring—his physical improvements, and make certain that she didn’t read anything into his behavior. He was a doctor—taking care of injured women who fell in his path was just part of his job. It didn’t mean anything. She didn’t want it to mean anything. She was indifferent to him now. So she didn’t let herself stay at the sink and watch him splitting logs. Instead, she moved across the room to the front window to survey that side of the cabin.

      He’d shoveled off the front porch and cleared the snow from his SUV but she wasn’t sure why he’d bothered. There was no driving on the road with all that snow.

      “Come on, snow, just stop,” she beseeched the weather to no avail, plopping down onto the couch dejectedly.

      Conor came in not long after and made powdered eggs that weren’t too unpalatable, and then removed the dressing from her head.

      As he did she said, “So you did become a doctor, but what about career military?”

      “Yes, that too—so far,” he answered as if there was some question to that. But she didn’t explore it. Something seemed to be on his mind today, troubling him. He was checking for cell service obsessively and with every failed attempt the frown lines between his eyebrows dug in a little deeper.

      But the days of feeling free to just ask him anything, the days of confiding in each other, were long gone.

      Once he’d checked her wound and judged that it was healing properly, he cleaned around it, redressed it and sealed it in a makeshift wrapping that allowed her to take a shower and very carefully wash her hair.

      It wasn’t the best shower or shampoo she’d ever had but it still made her feel worlds better.

      Then she put on another pair of Conor’s gray sweatpants and a matching gray sweatshirt that were many sizes too big for her but were warm and soft inside.

      The trouble was—despite the fact that they were clean—the sweats smelled like Conor.

      Not that it was a bad scent. The opposite of that, actually. They carried a scent she remembered vividly, a scent that was somehow clean and soapy yet still all him. A scent she hadn’t been able to get enough of when she had feelings for him. A scent that brought back memories that she had to fight like mad to escape.

      But fight them she did. And mostly failed.

      After a lunch of potato soup made from dried potatoes—and making sure that Maicy was well enough to be left alone for a while—Conor decided to snowshoe down the road that led to the cabin in hopes of finding a cell signal.

      He left her with orders to rest but because Maicy felt well enough to look around a bit, she spent the afternoon getting the lay of the land, for her own peace of mind.

      It wasn’t as if she thought Conor wouldn’t come back this time. It was just that her past had taught her to always make sure she could take care of herself in any eventuality.

      So she explored the supplies in the mudroom, counting bottles of water and calculating how long they would last, and learning what types and quantities of foodstuff were available.

      She located flashlights, lanterns and kerosene, an abundance of candles, boxes of matches, more snowshoes, heavy gloves she hoped she never had to put her hands into because they were pretty gross-looking, and a second ax.

      She even opened the back door and stuck her head out so she could get an idea of how to reach the woodpile from there.

      Then she found the stairs that went from the mudroom to the basement and she made her way down.

      She checked everything out, read the instructions attached to the generator so she could feel as if she had a working knowledge of its operation. She located the two extra propane tanks and studied how the one that was currently attached to the water heater could be replaced if necessary. She also discovered where Conor had come up with the additional blankets and pillows that he’d used to sleep on the couch.

      Then she returned upstairs and opened every cupboard door to see what was inside, figured out how to work the wood-burning stove, and decided she was going to make the evening meal—canned chili and cornbread from a mix.

      The only thing she didn’t go through was Conor’s duffel bag. But as daylight was waning and he still hadn’t come back, she began to plan what she would do if he didn’t return. How she could use a pair of the snowshoes that were in the mudroom and layer on more of the clothes he must have in his duffel, if she needed to go in search of him.

      But then she heard stomping on the porch just before the front door opened and in came Conor.

      He was so covered in snow that