Free Bea by Peggy Webb Page A

promise.
    Of course, he wasn’t looking—
    o0o
    Bea stretched and wiggled herself awake.
    At first she didn’t know where she was. She snuggled down under her covers feeling warm and safe. Then slowly she became aware of the body next to her, a big muscular body radiating heat and giving off the friendly aroma of wool blankets and clean cotton T-shirts.
    Russ. She gave a guilty start. She was piled all over him like whipped cream on a cake, her head burrowed into the warm curve where his arm joined his shoulder, one arm draped across his chest and one leg flung across his hips.
    His hips, mind you. She carefully eased her leg off him. She felt hot all over, especially in the region of poor, deprived Virginia. Waking in such a predicament didn’t improve her temper one bit.
    She had to get on her side of the tent—and fast. What if he woke up and found her draped all over him? One thing might lead to another and then he’d find out that in a day of easy sex and downright promiscuity she still lived by Rule Four – a rule the she had made up, mind you, all those years ago at Camp Piomingo. If the boys from Camp Geronimo come over, don’t let them near your Virginia.
    Shoot! How had Belinda and Janet and Molly managed to hang onto their Virginias when Mr. Right came along? And why in the devil was she suddenly thinking of Russ as Mr. Right? Good grief! He couldn’t be more of a Mr. Wrong!
    Suddenly he stretched and rolled, pinning her underneath him. His eyes flew open.
    “Well, good morning.” He smiled at her. “Did you sleep well?”
    “It’s hard to tell from this position. You’re squashing my chest.”
    “Sorry.” He rolled back over and propped his hands behind his head, smiling up at the canvas ceiling. “It’s a remarkable day, don’t you think?”
    “What’s so remarkable about it?” She scooted over to her side of the tent and tried to look seriously busy folding up her sleeping bag.
    “Well... Here we are on this mountain with the morning sun out there shining down as if it didn’t have anybody else to shine for except the two of us. Don’t you find that remarkable?”
    “I suppose...if you thought about it that way... hmm.”
    She couldn’t bring herself to look him directly in the eye. Not after the way she’d been spread all over him this morning, like butter on toast. The thing that was so bad about it all was that she had actually enjoyed the feeling. Enjoyed it, mind you. And him totally wrong for her. He was a drifter who would likely to go no-telling-where at any minute without even giving her a backward glance.
    Oh, he was terribly unsuitable and highly risky. She cursed her own judgment in starting such a journey with him. The very idea, going home, all the way to Florence, Alabama, with a man she hardly knew.
    She supposed she’d been desperate when she made that decision. Yes, that was it. Desperate. And a little bit scared.
    “Bea?”
    “Hmm?” She slowly turned to face him.
    His smile reminded her of baseball games in the summertime, sitting on the bleachers and cheering for the home team, of buttered popcorn in front of the fire with the family dog curled like a pretzel on the hearth, of two people in the kitchen, their hands sticky with dough, their fingers touching in the bowl as they made pizza crust together.
    “Why don’t you leave the sleeping bag rolled out?” he said. “I don’t expect we’ll be going anywhere today.”
    “Why not?”
    “There’s that big rock pile on the road, remember? It will take another day and a half to clear it out of the way.”
    “With me helping, the work will go faster.”
    She turned away from him so she wouldn’t have to see his face. It reminded her of home.
    “Hmm,” he said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “Maybe.”
    He contemplated her back. Such a prideful, straight back she had. You wouldn’t know to look at her now that she could feel so good cuddled up next to you at night, he thought.
    Of course, he was