Free Sandra's Classics - The Bad Boys of Romance - Boxed Set by Sandra Marton Page A

also provided their dinner of raisins and nuts, along with instant coffee and bouillon cubes to add to the water he’d boiled in the battered canteen cup.
    ‘All the pleasures of home,’ he’d said with a grin, handing her the cup filled with coffee.
    ‘Almost,’ she’d answered, giving him a grateful smile. ‘Is it always this black?’ she added, looking up at the sky.
    ‘Blacker. There aren’t any stars tonight but at least there’s some moonlight. Sorry there’s no sugar for that coffee.’
    Jessica shook her head and spread her fingers over the hot metal, savoring the warmth and familiar smell of the coffee.
    ‘Don’t apologize. I’m still amazed that we’ve got coffee at all.’ She sipped at the dark liquid and then glanced up at the sky again. The moon was chasing through the clouds, its pale underbelly a faint glow against the blackness of the night. The surrounding forest had come alive with a billion sounds.
    She drew closer to the fire and shivered. ‘I’ll never fall asleep,’ she said positively, handing the cup to Chad. ‘Not even for a minute.’
    ‘Coffee too strong?’ he asked innocently.
    ‘I wish that was the reason,’ she said. ‘What are all those things I keep hearing?’
    He chuckled softly and took the cup from her hand. ‘Do you really want to know?’
    ‘Good thinking,’ she said quickly. ‘Don’t tell me. I never would have believed it would be this noisy in the middle of nowhere.’
    ‘This isn’t noisy, Jessie,’ he laughed. ‘Noisy is what keeps me wide awake all night in a city hotel room. How can anybody sleep while horns blow and brakes squeal and sirens wail?’
    ‘All that fades into the background after a while. You’re just not used to city sounds.’
    He handed the refilled cup of coffee back to her and smiled. ‘I couldn’t have said it better myself. You’re just not used to the sound of silence.’
    ‘Silence, huh? Is that what you call it! I never heard so much chattering and snorting and shuffling. I keep expecting something to scream or hoot or howl...’
    ‘Something will,’ he laughed, ‘but you won’t hear it. You’ll be fast asleep before that part of the symphony starts.’
    ‘That’s not exactly what I wanted to know. You could have been kind and assured me there weren’t any sounds like those.’
    ‘You’re perfectly safe . Believe me, the creatures in the forest don’t want anything to do with you.’
    ‘Does that go for the bugs, too?’ she asked, shifting carefully on the leafy bed he’d made her.
    ‘It’s too late in the season for bugs. Well, for most of them, anyway,’ he added with a quick smile. ‘Besides, you don’t have to bother with them until you’ve been formally introduced.’
    ‘I have absolutely no intention of bothering them. I just hope they don’t want to widen their circle of friends.’
    Chad stirred the dark red embers of the fire with a blackened stick. ‘They won’t if you’re asleep,’ he said reasonably.
    ‘Well,’ she said cautiously, ‘I’ll try. But I’m not sure I’m going to be able to sleep. My body’s tired, but my head keeps reminding me that I’m lying on the cold, hard ground in the dark of the night in the middle of a forest on the top of a mountain ...’
    ‘I’ll bet you sleep like a baby. Go on. Close your eyes. No monster is going to sneak up on you, I promise.’
    There he went again, she had thought, smothering a yawn, making promises...
    It had been the last conscious thought she’d had before tumbling into a dreamless sleep, unless, of course, you counted that middle of the night bit of imagination working overtime when she had thought she’d been in Chad’s arms, burrowing sleepily against the hard warmth of him...
    ‘I’m back.’ She turned at the sound of his voice. He smiled as he stepped into the clearing and dumped an armload of small branches beside the dead fire. ‘Sorry if I woke you before. I tried to be quiet.’
    She shook her head and