Falke’s Peak

looked up at her. As she rubbed his chest and belly, she wondered how… “Oh, you’re going to go off into the wild and find some hot-to-trot kitty and bring her home? Or are you a love ’em and leave ’em type?” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.

“Maybe Axel’s just delusional?”

The purring stuttered, almost sounding like a chuckle, which made her laugh.

“I knew it! You are, aren’t you? Axel’s living in a dream world. Still, he’s the best damn good looking, delusional guy I’ve ever met. But don’t you dare tell him I told you so.” She winked, enjoying their little one-sided chat, and scrubbed her nails over his deep chest. He seemed to love that if his swishing tail was any clue.

“Well, I’ll share another secret with you.” The cougar’s ears perked up, and she grinned. “I’ve never been much of a cat person, but you’re growing on me.

I’m glad you were there today. Lucky for me, you’re on my side.”

The cat purred again. Dakota sighed and closed her eyes, tired to her bones.

The door banged open and in came Axel, carrying a stack of wood so high it covered his face. He walked unerringly across the room to a big wooden box in a corner and dumped the logs inside.

“That should get us through the night,” he said as he went back to the open door. He stepped outside and brushed wood crumbs and snow off his jacket, then came back inside and shut the door.

A cold draft made its way to where she sat, and she shivered.

Meow.

She shook her head and tucked her fingers under her armpits. “Yeah, well, it’s going to take more than five minutes for me to thaw, okay?”

Her stomach rumbled, and the cat growled as he rolled to his feet and left her side.

“Sorry,” she grumbled.

“Hungry?” Axel asked, as if he’d heard her belly.

But there was no way he could’ve since she was across the room from where he was peeling off his outer gear.

“Uh, yeah. Famished.” How the hell did he know?

She’d had another of those nasty power bars no more than an hour ago. Probably hungry himself. “Need help fixing dinner?”

“Nope. We’re just going to have…” He pulled the door open, leaned out and picked something up. When he shut the door he held up what looked like a freezer bag full to bursting with something brown. “Venison stew. Guaranteed to fill you up and make you beg for more.”

Dakota laughed. “Where’d you get that?” She was sure he hadn’t brought it up the mountain in his rucksack.

“Out back there’s a secured cache. We fill it up after the first hard freeze.” He went into the kitchen and, using his flashlight, scrounged through a lower cupboard to retrieve a big pot. “It’ll take a while to warm, but it’s fully cooked.” He pulled a pocket knife from his jeans and used it to cut away the bag from the frozen lump of food, then dropped the whole thing into the cast iron pot before carrying it toward her.

“Wow. Definitely rustic,” she said, scooting to the side a bit when he reached around her for something.

He set the pot on the hearth and set up the something. It was a small tripod with a hook dangling from the center. He carefully hung the pot handle from the hook.

“But not without some civilization,” he said, making her suspicious that he’d talked to Heidi about her and her expectations for this trip. He pointed to a generator against the wall near the front door. “We’ll fire that up in the morning so we can use the stove. We try not to use it much, since hauling in extra fuel for it in the winter is a real pain.”

“Hot water, maybe?” she asked hopefully, willing to take sponge baths if she could get her hands on Axel. His ass, as he leaned over the fire, was definitely something to look at. She really wouldn’t mind seeing it without the denim.

“I can get you some of that tonight,” Axel said with a grin when he straightened up and headed back into the kitchen. This time the pot he brought out was at least ten-gallon sized. He went to the door, slipped on his boots and went outside. He returned almost immediately, carrying the pot overflowing with fresh snow, kicked off his boots, shut the door and brought the pot to the fire. “It should be ready about the same time as the stew. We have a stash of hot chocolate in the cupboard, if you’d like.”

She grinned at him. “Thanks, Axel.” Then she grew serious. “I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you I got cold. I thought I could work through it.”

He reached over and pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear, making her shiver but not from cold.

“You did work through it. Just don’t do it again, okay?”

She nodded.

He seemed to collect himself. His hand dropped as he stepped back and sat down a few feet away on the sofa.

Falke stepped up onto the sofa and sprawled out next to Axel. Both of them looked at her, and it struck her, suddenly, that their eyes—man’s and cat’s—were almost the same color.

* * *

As it turned out, the door she’d spotted wasn’t the bedroom. That was up a narrow, rough-hewn wooden ladder to the loft. One bed. Huge, but only one.

Although, the couch had a queen-sized hideaway under its cushions—something Axel quickly pointed out. She’d been amazed to watch Falke completely bypass the ladder and land at the top with one big leap.

The doorway was to a bathroom of sorts. No running water, so no sink; however, Dakota couldn’t quite express her thanks for the rather high-tech looking waterless composting toilet. She wouldn’t have to go outside and wade through high snow banks to reach an outhouse in the frigid weather and pitch black night.

But best of all was the far corner of the small room.

Axel had warmed up a full ten gallons of water for her while they waited for the stew to start bubbling and, after supper, put on a second, smaller pot for the hot chocolate. He then took the ten gallons into the bathroom and filled a tank hung from the ceiling above a drain in the floor. A nifty little shower stall.

“Oh, Axel, this is awesome,” she’d exclaimed, wanting to push him out of the room so she could strip down and take her shower.

“There’s towels, shampoo, etcetera in there.” He pointed to a white cabinet on the wall. He’d lit two fat candles in the bathroom for light, and Dakota did her best not to stare at him in the romantic setting. Okay, a rustic bathroom wasn’t that romantic, but she had a damn good imagination.

She rushed back to her pack, pulled out the flannel pajamas she purchased yesterday after booking the trip and practically skipped into the bathroom to shower.

Outside the bathroom, as soon as Axel heard the water trickling down the drain, he turned to speak to Gunnar.

Don’t go there. His brother cut him off . You can’t keep your hands off her either. At least she’s the one petting me, not the other way around.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me she was freezing to death out there?” Axel had waited to jump Gunnar’s shit about this, even though it could have been dealt with telepathically. He was ready to strangle his brother. Between Dakota getting near hypothermic out there, and then Gunnar all but throwing himself in her lap, Axel couldn’t take much more.

Same reason you were pushing her limits all damn day, going farther and faster than you would have with any other woman we ever brought out here. Like you, I wanted to see how far she’d go before failing.

“Damn it, Gun, there’s a difference between sore muscles and freezing to death.”

She wasn’t freezing to death. She was cold. Besides, by the time she started shivering, we were less than a quarter mile from the homestead.

Axel growled and glared. Damn it, his brother was right. He’d been doing the same thing all day.

She’s…special.

“Shut up,” Axel hissed. Gunnar was his closest brother, in age—Axel had been first, and Gunnar was the second of four in their litter—and they’d always shared a special bond, slightly deeper than he had with the rest of