Cowboy's Texas Rescue. Beth Cornelison

      He shook his head. “I wouldn’t feel right wearing them if you were—”

      “Jake.” She grabbed his arm. “I…God, this is embarrassing.” She squared her shoulders and raised her chin. “They won’t fit me.” She exhaled harshly, creating a white cloud that slowly dissipated, along with her pride. “I’m too fat for them.”

      Jake scowled, his gaze wandering over her as he shook the jeans out to put them back on. “If you say so.”

      Chelsea turned away, biting the inside of her cheek and choking down the burn of humiliation that climbed her throat. Even Todd’s cruel bluntness when he’d dumped her hadn’t stung this much. She knew she shouldn’t be so sensitive, shouldn’t care what Jake thought of her appearance. She’d probably never see him again after today. But her waist size was a sore spot for her. And not just because Todd had used her weight gain as an excuse to break up with her.

      The extra pounds reminded her of a dark time in her life, long months spent at the side of a hospital bed, weeks of eating fast food and junk snacks from a vending machine so that she could stretch extra minutes from the day. She’d turned to comfort food when she thought she might lose her mother. The added pounds represented grief and a loss of control in her life that she was still struggling to reclaim.

      “For the record—” Jake’s voice drew her from her gloomy thoughts “—you’re not fat.”

      She cringed mentally at his attempt to comfort her. She didn’t want his pity or his false flattery. “Todd thought so,” she mumbled under her breath.

      “You’re not.”

      “Whatever.”

      She heard the rasp of his zipper as he re-dressed, the thump as he stomped his foot back in his boots. She stared down at her own feet. At least Brady—or whatever the convict’s name was—had let her keep her tennis shoes. They had miles to walk before they’d reach shelter and a phone.

      “And along those same general lines, when you tell your friends about today, be kind.” She lifted a puzzled look to Jake, and he sent her a wry grin. “Remember that it was cold out here.”

      When his meaning became clear, she darted a glance at his groin, then back to his face. And laughed. “Seriously? That was c-cold mode, and you’re worried what I’ll tell my f-friends?”

      He arched an eyebrow. “Just sayin’.”

      An icy wind buffeted her, burrowing to her bone and stealing the return quip from her tongue. Chelsea hunched her shoulders and blew into her hands. “My parents’ house is about s-six miles that way.” She aimed a finger down the road, her teeth chattering. “That’s where I’m staying while they’re on vacation.”

      “Is that where you were headed when the car ran out of gas?”

      She nodded.

      Jake folded his arms around her, blocking the brunt of the wind with his body. He lifted her hand and rubbed her frozen fingers between his palms. “Is it safe to assume Brady headed there when he left here? Did he know where your parents lived?”

      She ducked her head to look in Ethyl’s front window. “Well, the GPS is s-still in the car, so it’s hard to s-say. I was driving, and the GPS only g-gives one step of direction at a t-time. He knew the general d-direction we were headed but maybe n-not a specific address.”

      The idea of an escaped criminal breaking into her parents’ house, eating their food, sitting on their sofa to watch their new flat-screen TV made her skin crawl.

      “Is your parents’ place the closest house?” Jake asked, twisting at the waist to scan the empty horizon.

      “N-no. Henry Noble’s house is about t-two miles from here. Then Darynda Jones and her kids live about a mile d-down Haverty Road. Her husband is deployed in Afghanistan until July.”

      “Okay. We’ll head to the Nobles’ because it’s the closest. From there we can call the cops to check out your house before you go home.” He took her hand and started down the road, casting a wary eye to the sky. “Let’s hurry. These flakes keep getting bigger and coming down faster.”

      Jake stopped walking after Chelsea stumbled for the third time in as many minutes. Facing her, he blinked as giant snowflakes battered his face, driven by a biting wind. “Am I going too fast?”

      “S-sorry. I j-just…M-my legs are so c-cold, they’re numb. I can’t feel them, m-much less walk straight.”

      Frowning his worry over her worsening condition, Jake glanced down the road, gauging how much farther they had to walk to reach her neighbor’s house. Two inches of snow had already accumulated, and the wind blew harder by the minute, dropping the temperature with each gust. His head throbbed where he’d hit it, but he couldn’t do anything about his aching skull, so he shoved thoughts of it aside to concentrate on Chelsea. “Climb on my back. I’ll carry you.”

      She stared at him blankly, her slowing mental faculties another sign of hypothermia.

      “Chelsea, do you understand what I said? Can you hold on to me if I put you on my back?”

      If needed, he could carry her fireman-style over his shoulder. Checking for some sign of coherence, he looked straight into her eyes—gorgeous, green bedroom eyes, he noted again, feeling a kick in his pulse. And, hot damn, but her generous bottom lip begged to be nibbled like a fresh strawberry.

      Chelsea frowned. “I—I’m too heavy.”

      That again? “Nonsense. I’ve carried men bigger than you, under worse circumstances.” He thought about how his comment sounded, then added, “Not that you’re big…I just mean—” Another lightning bolt of pain shot through his head. He gritted his teeth. “Hell, just get on my back and hold on. Okay?”

      Crouching in front of her, he pulled her arms around his neck. When her hold on him tightened, he slid his arms under her legs and stood. If he weren’t so concerned about how red and cold her skin felt, he’d really enjoy having her breasts pressed against him and her legs wrapped around his waist… .

      His knees still hurt from tackling the worker in the radiation lab the day before, and as he stood, a grunt of pain slipped out.

      Chelsea sighed and wiggled weakly. “See. I t-told you I’m too heavy.”

      “Relax.” Jake tightened his grip and trudged on down the road. “That grunt was not about you. It was about the abuse my knee took on the job recently.”

      “Wh-what do you do?” she asked.

      Conversation was good. If he could keep her alert and talking, he could monitor the extent of her hypothermia.

      “I do security work.” His standard vague response.

      “Like a m-mall cop?”

      He chuckled. “No. Overseas contract work.” More nonspecific generalities. Even his family didn’t know the full extent of his top secret black ops work.

      “O-oh.” She fell silent for a moment. “I’m a vampire.”

      Jake scowled. “A vampire?”

      Was this his first sign she was losing touch with reality, disoriented, hallucinating? Not good.

      She gave a small laugh. “Y-yeah. I take people’s b-blood.”

      “To drink?” He’d heard of weirder things.

      A scoff. “No! For s-surgeries and s-stuff. I’m a phlebotomist at the b-blood center.”

      A grin of relief tugged Jake’s lips. “Gotcha. For a minute there, I thought you were losing it.”

      She chuckled weakly, then sighed. “Y-you smell good.”

      “Uh…thanks.” He thought he smelled like airports and twenty hours on a stuffy plane, but…whatever.