Alessandra rolled her eyes, crossed the small clearing, and went to offer aid and assistance to Superman.
* * *
The shelter was simple.
Tanner tied a line between a pair of palms that stood about twelve feet apart. Then he draped the tarp over the line and flared out the edges, holding them down with stones from the clearing.
Despite his request—okay, his demand for help—he didn’t let her do much.
She helped him stretch the tarp over the line. Then she held the edges of the tarp steady while he weighted them down.
That was it.
He didn’t say much, either.
Yes when she asked if he wanted her pull the tarp toward her. No when she asked it he wanted her to pull the edge tighter. A grunt when she asked if the shelter was going to stay open at both ends, or maybe it was a sneer, not a grunt.
“I’m only asking,” she said.
“Yeah. Well, this isn’t the Waldorf.”
Brilliant. And back to basics. Superman the Surly.
Once, she’d thought she’d felt him looking at her, but when she turned around, she realized she was wrong. He’d been busy with the paracord line, frowning and measuring as if their existence depended on whether it was tied an eighth of an inch lower at one tree than at the other.
The leafy branches went under the improvised shelter in lieu of a mattress.
“That’ll do,” he said as he stood surveying the result, his hands on his hips and his feet apart.
Alessandra nodded and tried not to think about those two open ends or that there’d be nothing between them and the ground except a bunch of leaves.
She’d spent the last couple of nights under far worse circumstances, tied to a tree while her abductors snored just a few feet away. This would be fine. Really, it was an improvement—or it would have been if a tarantula hadn’t walked into the shelter just after they’d laid out those branches.
Tanner had carefully scooped up the creature and carried it into the trees.
“Go on,” he’d said. “Find somewhere else to spend the night.”
She wasn’t a fan of spiders, especially ones the size of saucers even though she knew they didn’t bite unless you startled them, and she couldn’t repress a quick shudder.
“Don’t like tarantulas?” Superman asked, the edges of his lips curling ever so slightly.
“I like them just fine,” she said, lying through her teeth.
Clearly, he liked them. Enough to save them rather than kill them.
Interesting.
He was also opposed to killing snakes unless it was a matter of life or death. And yet she had no doubt he’d use his rifle, his pistol or the huge knife sheathed at his hip against anyone who tried to hurt her.
He’d kissed her as if the end of the world was imminent—and, yes, of course, he’d kissed her. She had a good imagination—it was
what had drawn her to clothing design in the first place—but no woman on the planet could have imagined a kiss like that.
The heat of his mouth.
The strength of his arms.
The power of that big, hard-muscled body against hers…