As far as she knew, he didn’t realize he was here. It was highly likely that he didn’t even know where here was. They hadn’t exactly met under normal circumstances. What did she really know of him? He’d staggered into the cabin, hurt and bleeding, only to fight against the very hands that were helping him. He’d insulted her lack of curves and admitted that he was no gentleman.

Okay, she knew he was strong and gruff and wounded. Pulling the scratchy blanket up around her neck, she sighed. Closing her eyes, she hoped Kane Slater had a gentle side.

“Where in the hell are my clothes?”

Kane’s bellow brought Josie awake so quickly her vision blurred. Groggy, she sat up and glanced out the window. No wonder she was a little addle minded. The sky was just beginning to turn gray, which meant she’d been sleeping on the hard bench for less than three hours.

“I asked you a question, dammit.”

The room was chilly in the dawn’s early light, the fire awfully low. A firm believer in first things first, she swung her feet onto the cold floor and saw to the fire, thinking that Kane Slater’s gentle side—if he had one—was going to need a little work.

His rough side, on the other hand, was blatantly apparent. He was sitting up in bed, glaring at her, fresh blood soaking the bandage she’d changed hours earlier. Wrapping a woolen blanket around her shoulders like a shawl, she planted her hands on her hips and glared back. “The clothes I could salvage are over there soaking in a bucket of water. If you hold still, we might be able to get that bleeding stopped again. Or you can sit there and holler and move around until you pass out again. It’s up to you.”

Kane cradled his right arm and held very still. It took a lot to make him bite back a scathing retort. The little scrap of a woman studying her thumbnail a few feet away had done it without batting an eye. Keeping her in his line of vision, he sank into the pillows at his back and gritted his teeth against the pain shooting through him.

Doing everything in his power to focus on something other than the pain, he studied the woman. Or was she still a girl? A woman, he decided, although it was hard to tell with that blanket wrapped around her. She had straggly blond hair and plain gray eyes that were too big for her narrow face. He wondered what she would look like dressed. While he was at it, he wondered what she would look like undressed. A vague memory hovered at the edge of his mind. He glanced at the back of his hand, and then at the slight slope of her breast. The skin on his hand prickled with a message that short-circuited before it reached his brain.

“You live up here?” he asked.

With a shake of her head that sent her hair tumbling into her eyes, she said, “I live halfway down the mountain in a little town called Hawk Hollow. I came up here to be by myself. It’s lucky for you my father and brothers are such narrow-minded fools.”

Kane didn’t come close to following her logic. He didn’t see what her father and brothers had to do with him, but he supposed she was right about one thing: He was lucky he’d stumbled upon this cabin when he did. He was lucky the place had been warm, and he was lucky somebody had been here to get him into bed and make him as comfortable as possible. Although he hated to admit it, he supposed he had to admit that he was lucky to be alive.

Studying the narrowness of her shoulders and the thin body underneath the blanket and thick flannel gown, he said, “You must be stronger than you look if you managed to strip a man my size.”

“You are a big one, Kane, that’s for sure. And you’re right. I’m stronger than I look.”

Her smile hit him right between the eyes. He hadn’t realized he’d closed them until he tried to wrestle them open again.

“It’s okay, Kane,” she whispered, placing a hand on his good shoulder. “Relax. That’s it. Just rest and think about the things you like.”

Her hand was warm and narrow and surprisingly soft where it rested on his bare skin. He liked the touch of her hand, and the sound of her voice, and the way she said his name. “I’m afraid I’m at a disadvantage,” he murmured through the darkness swirling toward him from every direction.

“What disadvantage is that?” she whispered.

“You’ve seen me naked and I don’t even know your name.”

“I guess we’re just going to have to even things up a little now, aren’t we?”

His eyes popped open all by themselves. Something that had no business stirring in a dying man stirred low in Kane’s body. His eyes delved hers as she tucked the quilt under his chin.

Holding his gaze, she said, “My name’s Josie McCoy. You didn’t really think I’d strip down right here and now; did you?”

Kane closed his eyes, wondering when his thoughts had become so transparent. “Can’t blame a man for being disappointed.”

“Mister. I mean Kane, I’d be disappointed if you weren’t disappointed.”

His mind was fogging up, making it difficult to concentrate. Just in case he didn’t wake up again, he said, “I don’t know if you saved my life or made dying easier. I owe you either way.”