Free Snowed by Pamela Burford Page B

wrong, and she wasn’t about to sit around like some gutless, obedient little girl and let the arrogant man succumb to exposure. No matter how much he deserved it.
    Within two minutes she’d donned her navy wool coat and her gloves and was shuffling along the shoveled path toward the carriage barn, cursing James the whole way. At any moment she expected to see his long form loping toward her, an indignant scowl on his handsome face.
    As the sky had darkened, the temperature had plummeted into the single digits. The biting wind made her eyes tear. It penetrated her coat to chill her to the bone. She clutched her collar around her throat, a futile gesture, and wished with all her heart that she’d thought to grab a hat on the way out. The woodpile came into view.
    She stopped in her tracks.
    James
—
his face pale and tensed in pain
—
was sitting propped against the stacked wood, one long leg bent at the knee, the other stretched out before him. His eyes were closed, his mouth half-open. His breath smoked in the frosty air.
    Never would Leah have imagined that fearsome James Bradburn could look so vulnerable. She shook herself out of immobility and hurried to him. Logs were scattered about. One gloved hand held a scrap of wood about a yard long. She touched his shoulder and he jerked, startled.
    “What the hell are you doing here?” he snarled.
    She bit back a scathing retort. “Where are you hurt, James?”
    “Ankle.” He winced and touched his right leg, stretched out in the snow. “Slipped on the ice when a rabbit ran in front of me.” She reached for him, but he brushed off her efforts. “I can do it.”
    “James, you’ve been out here over half an hour. Let me help.” She grabbed his arm and he shoved her away.
    “I can do it, damn it. Get back in the house.” Using the scrap of wood as leverage, he attempted to rise. He made it halfway to his feet, using his powerful arms to raise himself, but the instant he put weight on the bad right ankle, his face contorted in a rictus of agony and he slumped to the ground. He groaned and closed his eyes.
    Now Leah wanted to curse. “And they say
I’m
muleheaded! You might’ve broken that ankle, you stubborn fool. What are you trying to prove?” She must have inherited her obstinacy from the Bradburn side.
    “Not broken,” he said. “I don’t think.”
    “Why not?”
    “Broke it before. It’s different.”
    “You broke that ankle before?”
    He nodded, his features rigid. “Two years ago. Thrown from a horse.”
    Leah groaned inwardly. His fall must have aggravated the old injury. This wasn’t a simple sprain as she’d hoped. No wonder he couldn’t put his weight on it.
    A full moon glowed in the eastern sky. She looked toward the estate’s apple orchard several hundred yards to the south. She could just make out the bare branches of the trees against the gunmetal sky. She had to act fast. James might be the most exasperating man she’d ever met, but even he didn’t deserve to succumb to exposure this close to his own home. She patted his shoulder. “Hang on a second, James.”
    She scouted the woodpile until she found a collection of odd scraps, one of which looked long enough to serve as a walking stick for a man of his height. She tossed away the piece of wood he’d been using and placed the longer one in his gloved hand.
    “Just help me get on my feet,” he rasped. “Then I can
—
”
    “Shut up.” She’d reached the limit of her patience. “Save your king-of-the-jungle act for a more appreciative audience.”
    She crouched next to him and looped his right arm around her shoulder. Clutching his right hand, she braced her other arm behind his back and said a quick prayer to the patron saint of arrogant macho jerks. Slowly she straightened her legs, struggling to keep her balance on the ice. Helping him stand took every last ounce of her strength—he had to outweigh her by seventy pounds or more. Finally he was upright, leaning on her