The Curvy Astronomer and the Cowboy (He Wanted Me Pregnant!) by Victoria Wessex Page B

shouted Troy over the wind. “Put that back on! Come inside!”
    “I’m not leaving it!” I yelled. My eyes were streaming from the wind and from my hair whipping into them. I tried to swing the telescope around so that I could lower it and lock it down, but the cogs protested. Had snow already got in, or was the cold making things jam? I worked at it and worked at it, getting colder and colder.
    “It’s just a telescope!” Troy shouted. “You’ll freeze out here!” The wind was howling in our ears now, and the cold was the sort that numbs your whole head until it seems to ring.
    “I’m not leaving it to be ruined!” I yelled back. This is my life, I thought bitterly. Nursemaiding an inanimate object because it’s the most important thing I have. “ You go inside. I’ll be fine by myself.”
    Troy stared at me for a full ten seconds. Then he jumped up into the trailer with me. “Goddammit!” he said. “You are the single most stubborn woman I’ve ever met! What do you need me to do?”
    “Swing it around!” With his brute strength, he got it moving. “There!” I worked at the hand crank to lower it and the whole thing started to tilt slowly downward.
    “Hurry!” he yelled.
    “I am hurrying! It’s a hundred years old! It doesn’t do fast!” At last, it was locked down. We hauled on the ropes to pull the outer shell closed, but the rope kept slipping through my fingers. And I was shaking. I couldn’t stop shaking.
    Troy’s huge, warm hand closed over mine and, together, we hauled on the rope. The two halves of the trailer swung into place and I tried to tell Troy how to work the latches to lock them there. But my voice wouldn’t work. I couldn’t form words, I was shivering so hard.
    Troy took one look at me, slammed the latches home and then grabbed me around the waist and threw me over his shoulder. As we moved clear of the trailer, the full force of the wind and the snow hit me. I could barely see the cabin. The snow plastered to my face, blocking my eyes and mouth, and the cold made it difficult to even think.
    Troy ran with me bouncing on his shoulder, and a moment later we were barging through the door into the cabin.
    The air was so warm that it was like stepping into the bath again. I could feel the snow melting and sliding from my eyes and face, but the cold stayed behind, already bone-deep.
    “Emily,” Troy was saying. His voice sounded very far away. “Emily!”
    And all of it started to mix together. I knew I was standing in the cabin, but in my head, I was still out on the highway in the station wagon, all alone, getting colder and colder.
    “We need to warm you up,” he was saying. He was right in front of me, but he sounded as if he was on another planet. I saw him throw open the doors of the range cooker and I could see the blazing logs inside, but I couldn’t feel the waft of heat I knew must be there.
    He could be another Rick, the sensible side of my brain said. He could betray you. Safer to keep moving. Safer to stay out there, instead of in here, lest I get hurt again.
    But what if...what if being out there, independent and free and wild, was just as dangerous as being in here? A slow pain that crept up on me, instead of a quick one, but no less damaging.
    “I--I don’t--” It was hard to speak, through the shivering. “I don’t--”
    He put his big hands on my cheeks, and the warmth of them seeped into me.
    “I don’t want to be cold anymore,” I said in a rush. And stared up at him with big, scared eyes. Because I’d finally figured out that the only thing worse than trusting someone and having them hurt you, is to never trust anyone at all.
    “Oh, Emily,” he said in a low voice. “You don’t have to be.” And then his hand was under my chin, tilting it up even further, and his mouth was coming down on mine, his lips blessing mine with the warmth they so badly needed. A little jolt of heat wended its way down into my core, like a drop of boiling water