Heart of the Wild by Rita Hestand Page A

fretting."
    "I didn't come here to cook for you! Fix it yourself."
    Her words hung in the air between them, like a gauntlet. A silence filled the cabin, and then Amory's steel flinted gaze encompassed her. He moved in closer.
    "You better get it straight. You're here, like it or not. And we have to eat. Unless you want to be up all night, you'll do the cooking. I'm not a baby-sitter. Around here, the first available person does whatever is necessary. You'll carry your own weight, for as long as you're here. Because, you see, I don't care whose daughter you are, or how rich you are. Got it?"
    She opened her mouth to argue, but he merely turned away.
    Like talking to a wall, she gestured to the air.
    After a long silence she added. "I'm not cooking for you."
    "You don't know how?" His head quirked comically.
    "Of course I know how, but I'm not cooking for you," she insisted, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him.
    His frown deepened. "Fine, then you won't eat."
    "Fine."
    Her stomach rumbled quietly, as though objecting. She ignored the hunger pangs. She wasn't about to cook for him, even if it meant starving. Her stomach rumbled again, she frowned.
    What she really wanted to do was curl up in the big feather bed, alone, and forget this entire day.
    He stalked from the cabin and didn't return for several minutes. After making a few general repairs on the lean-to, he came inside to warm his supper, and ate in total silence. She grumbled to herself, she didn't need food; she didn't need conversation, either. Besides, the more they talked, the worse things got. A by-pass! Remarried! How many more surprises would there be? Why hadn't her father contacted her?
    If she hadn't been kidnapped she might have her cell phone on her. She could call him and talk to him and maybe fly out in the morning.
    But the fact that she was miles from nowhere with a man she had once contemplated marrying, soon zeroed in on her like a tidal wave.
    He joined her by the fire. This seemed a bit too cozy for comfort. Snowbound with Chay Amory. Chay? She loved his name.
    Her mind wandered aimlessly.
    Would her mother worry, or would she suspect that Kasie was simply pulling another of her little stunts? Kasie often took off for the unknown when her mother became too controlling. Why couldn't her parents realize how manipulative they had become.
    Would anyone come looking for her? Yeah, right—up here in the great nowhere! She frowned again. Her stomach continued to rumble.
    "There's some stew left, if you're hungry. Just warm it up."
    She had fallen totally silent, and stared hopelessly into the fire.
    "I'm not."
    "Still just as hardheaded, aren't you?"
    "Maybe."
    "I don't remember you being this stubborn before, but then my opinions were biased back then."
    "You don't have to put on an act, Amory. I know exactly what you thought of me, back then—and now."
    The painful memory stabbed at her, as her words tumbled freely out of her mouth.
    "Do you? I wonder?" His eyes glittered dangerously into hers.
    "I'm really not in the mood to play games. I want some sleep, and that's all," she said quietly.
    "I agree. Only I think I better get you a shirt to sleep in. It seems we overlooked the need for those kinds of clothes while shopping at Rosie's. Naturally, we didn't know your father wouldn't be here. In good weather John would fly in and fly you both out the same evening."
    "Yeah, in good weather. But no thanks; I'll wear what I have on. I've made it this far, I can stand it a little longer."
    "Maybe you can, but I can't," he said, going to a closet, and coming back to her with a big flannel shirt. "You're not sleeping in my bed smelling like a fish."
    He came closer, holding the shirt up to her.
    "Well, I was fishing, and you didn't give me a chance for a shower."
    "I guess that is my fault. But you will sleep in my shirt. A little big, but maybe you can survive one night in it. Too bad I forgot to take care of this problem, but I simply didn't