A Certain Kind of Hero Read Online Free PDF Page B

given her, with a prim “If you insist.” She didn’t know what to do with the stuff, anyway. She unzipped her jacket.
    â€œHere, I’ll trade you.”
    It surprised her when he produced a pint of whiskey from his box of supplies, sampled it, then extended it her way. “Help yourself. Warm yourself up inside.”
    â€œI’m fine, thanks.” She wasn’t sure what bothered her about it. Maybe it was just the idea of nipping from a bottle, or the fact that she’d felt as though she were on a roll with her clever repartee and suddenly he’d suggested a different kindof fun. The kind that made her nervous. “A little too warm, in fact.”
    â€œNice and cozy, isn’t it?”
    He didn’t seem to notice the change in her tone. Which was fine. She didn’t want him to. She wasn’t a kid anymore, and he surely wasn’t. In fact, she found it hard to imagine that he ever had been.
    He took another drink, then pointed with the bottle toward the hole. “Your job is to watch that line. I’ll fry up the first course while you catch the second.” Again he offered the whiskey. “Maybe you haven’t heard, but this is part of the fun of ice fishing.”
    â€œI don’t know how you can drink it straight like that,” she said, shaking the bottle off with a grimace.
    â€œYour trusty guide will show you how.” He took a longer sip this time. “Easy as sin, once you get past the initial burn.”
    â€œWith sin, the burn comes later, doesn’t it?”
    â€œWhen I find out, I’ll give you a holler.” His naughty grin was enticing. “All it takes is one belt to chase the chill.”
    â€œI’m not cold.” In answer to that grin of his, her indulgent smile probably looked prudish. “Neither are you.”
    â€œNo, but I’m sinful.” And it didn’t bother him one bit. Neither did her prudishness. He favored her with another of his charming winks. “And you’re not quite sure whether it turns you on or scares the hell out of you.”
    Rather than admit to both, she stood silent, and he went about his cooking. She was more interested in watching Gideon than watching the fishing line. His broad shoulders seemed to fill one whole side of the ice shack. His size dwarfed the little camp stove over which he happily busied himself cooking their meal. The truth was that every move he made turned her on, even the occasional nip he took from the bottle. He probably didn’t realize that in high school she’dhad a reputation for being somewhat aloof. She glanced at the hole in the ice and smiled to herself. The term “cold fish” had been bandied about, actually. Not that it mattered, since she’d dated only boys she could count on to be, well, almost as scrupulous in their behavior as she was.
    All right, the truth was that the boys with the un scrupulous reputations never asked her out. Not that they hadn’t flirted with her once in a while, and not that she hadn’t occasionally flirted back. But going out with her would have been a waste of a precious Friday night with the family car.
    Apparently her reputation hadn’t preceded her when she’d come to Pine Lake. The thought almost made her laugh out loud, and the joke was on her, for imagining a locker-room network that extended this far. It was time to grow up, she told herself. Time to stop playing games. Time to try a different kind of…
    â€œYou’ve got a bite there, daydreamer.”
    â€œWhat?”
    Arms folded over his chest, Gideon stood there grinning down at her. “If you weren’t afraid to touch the thing, you’d have felt it.”
    â€œWhat thing?”
    â€œThe long thing—” the look in his eyes grew deliciously devilish “—that I dropped in the hole for you, sweetheart.” He chuckled. “Your hook, line and sinker.”
    â€œOh.”