.

forget that she’d walked through her own kind of purgatory. It felt so good to be held. So safe. So warm. She trembled in his embrace.

      “Patrick...” She whispered his name, not wanting to stop, but knowing they were surely going to regret whatever madness had overtaken them.

      He jerked as if he had been shot. Staggered backward. “Libby. Hell...”

      The exclamation encompassed mortification. Shock. Regret.

      It was the last one that stung, despite knowing that keeping distance between them was for the best.

      She managed a smile, though it cost her. “We’d better get back to camp. I’m starving, and it’s going to be dark soon.”

      His apology should have erased the friction, yet they faced each other almost as adversaries.

      He nodded, his expression brusque. “You’re right.”

      This time, following him through the forest came naturally. No matter the strained atmosphere between them, in this environment, she trusted him implicitly to take them wherever they needed to go.

      Dinner was homemade vegetable soup warmed on the camp stove. The chef had made the entrée and added fresh Italian rolls to go with it. While Libby tended to the relatively foolproof job of preparing the meal, Patrick started a campfire and rolled a log near the flames so they would have a comfy place to sit.

      With the cup from a thermos, Patrick ladled soup into paper bowls that would later be burned in the fire. He’d explained that the aluminum spoons they used were light in a pack and good for the environment.

      Libby ate hungrily. It was amazing how many calories one consumed by walking in the mountains. Neither she nor Patrick spoke. What was there to say? He didn’t really want her here. Not to replace Charlise. And beyond that, they were nothing to each other. Virtual strangers. Except she normally didn’t go around kissing strangers. She jumped when an owl hooted nearby. Though she was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and the day had been warm, she scrambled to find her jacket. Huddling into the welcome warmth, she stared into the fire and tried not to think about the night to come.

      If she had any hope of convincing Patrick that she was capable of filling Charlise’s shoes, she had to act as if spending a night in the dark, scary woods was no big deal.

      She stared into the mesmerizing red and gold flames, listening to the pop and crackle of the burning wood. The scent of wood smoke was pleasant...a connection, perhaps, to her ancestors who had lived closer to the land.

      She and Patrick had eaten their meal in complete silence. Libby was okay with that. All she wanted to do now was get through this overnight endurance test without embarrassing herself.

      She cleared her throat. “So, it’s already dark. And it’s awfully early to go to bed. What do people do in the woods when they camp out during the winter?”

      Patrick’s face was all planes and angles in the glow of the fire. He was a chameleon—dashing and elegant as a Kavanagh millionaire, but now, a ruggedly masculine man with unlimited physical power and capability. Looking at him gave her a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach.

      The sensation was no secret. She was seriously in lust with her reluctant boss, despite his arrogance and his refusal to take her seriously. He could be funny and charming. He had been remarkably patient, even when saddled with his mother’s charity case.

      But the truth was, he didn’t want her on his team. And when it came to the attraction that simmered between them? Well, that was never going to amount to anything, no matter how many hours they spent alone in the woods. She pressed her knees together, her heart beating a ragged tempo as she waited for an answer to what was one part rhetorical question and the other part a need to break the intimate quiet.

      If she had a tad more experience, or if she honestly believed that Patrick felt a fraction of the sexual tension that was making her jumpy, she might make a move on him. But despite his kiss—which was really more of a hands-on apology—she didn’t delude herself that he had any real interest in her.

      Women like Charlise were more his type. Athletic superwomen. Not timid females afraid of the shadows.

      Besides, she had to stay focused on starting her life over. She was on her own. She had to be strong.

      She had almost forgotten her question when he finally answered.

       Five

      “Speaking for myself, I suppose it depends on who I’m with.”

      Patrick wasn’t immune to the intimacy of the moment. He still reeled from the impact of the kiss. But all else aside, his mother would kill him if he played around with Libby. Libby was emotionally fragile and just coming out of a very rough period in her life. He couldn’t take advantage of her vulnerability, even if she was already worming her way into his heart.

      A part of him wanted to tell her how much fun sleeping-bag sex could be. But that would be crossing the line, and Libby Parkhurst was off-limits. He’d be exaggerating anyway. Most of the women he’d been serious about would run for the hills if he suggested anything of the sort.

      It occurred to him suddenly that his love of outdoor adventure had largely been segregated from his romantic life. He hiked with his brothers. He took clients out in the woods with Charlise. But he’d never really wanted to bring a woman along in a personal, intimate sense.

      Yet with Libby, he was tempted. Unfortunately, temptation was as far as it went. He had to keep her at a distance or this whole scenario might blow up in his face. Particularly when he had to fire her.

      He picked up a tiny twig and tossed it into the fire. “You can always listen to music. Did you bring an iPod? It was on the list.”

      Libby nodded, her profile disarmingly feminine in the firelight. “I did. But if I have earbuds in, I won’t be able to hear the wild animals when they come to rip me limb from limb.”

      Patrick chuckled. Despite Libby’s lack of qualifications for the job as his assistant, he enjoyed her wry take on life. He also respected the fact that she acknowledged her fears without being crippled by them. As if he needed more reasons to be intrigued by her. But that didn’t make her an outdoorswoman.

      “I won’t let anything happen to you, I swear.” It was true. Libby might not be the one to cover the maternity leave, but he felt an overwhelming urge to protect her.

      Eventually, Libby needed a moment of privacy in the woods. He had known it was coming. But he was pretty sure she wasn’t comfortable about the dark.