Showdown at Lizard Rock by Sandra Chastain Page B

visits. He didn’t know why he was so irritated at her indifference. She was trouble. He was better off ignoring her completely. He stood, torn by indecision. What he wanted to do was jerk the tent flap back, march inside her tent, and … hell, he didn’t even know if she was in there.
    The only sound he heard was the soft gurgle of the water as it churned to the surface. He had to admit that there was something physically and spiritually soothing about the sound, something good about knowing that the springs and that old Lizard had been there for two hundred thousand years. No matter how tired or out of sorts he was, he could work out his frustrations with his swim and sleep like a baby afterward. He felt his stomach muscles contract into hard knots. That night, especially, he hoped Kaylyn was right about the calming effects of the water.
    He walked on, determined to bring his raging emotions under control. Soon his brother, Jack, the architect, would be there to help lay out the houses and the sites for the golf and tennis courts. Then Joker would be along to set up the memberships and handle the actual running of the community. How on earth was he going to explain Kaylyn Smith and a donkey camped out on the site?
    He stubbed his toe and stumbled forward, trying to regain his balance. His bare foot hit a sharp sliver of rock, and it penetrated with a vengeance. “Ouch!” He hopped around on his good foot as he tried to bite back the pain. “Damn! Now the rocks are attacking.”
    Kaylyn had heard him thrashing in the darkness. Now she heard his oath and his genuine cry of pain. Without a thought she rushed from her tent to his side. “Who’s attacking you? What’s wrong?”
    “It’s sabotage. One of your rocks has stabbed me in the foot.” He groaned, balancing himself by sliding his arm around her neck.
    “Foot?” The word hung in the air as she felt the shock of his bare body against her. She didn’t have to ask if his wardrobe was coordinated that night. The answer would have been no. No, that was wrong. The answer would have been yes. His feet were bare, and the rest of him matched perfectly.
    “Here, sit down on the rock,” she said thickly, “and let me get a light so that I can see.”
    “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” he said dryly.
    She ignored him, tucked her shoulder under his arm, and helped him over to one of the large boulders. “Does it hurt bad?”
    “No,” he said bravely, sorry that she’d moved away. Kaylyn’s height continually undermined his control. He’d never been with a woman as tall as she, and he found the experience unsettling. “I think it’s just a flesh wound, just a warning from the Lizard.”
    “Wait here.” She hurried back into the tent and reappeared with a lantern. She placed it on theground and examined his foot. He hadn’t been faking the injury as she’d suspected. There was no mistaking the seeping red blood that was staining the dirt beneath his foot.
    “I give up. I’m dying,” he said dramatically, openly ogling the woman kneeling before him. “You and the rocks have won.”
    “Shut up, Vandergriff. You easily could pick up blood poisoning from a wound like this.”
    Wound? He had long forgotten the cut. From the moment he had seen Kaylyn in the light of her lantern, his pain had disappeared. That wasn’t a nightgown she was sleeping in. It was a man’s worn white T-shirt, and it made a perfect second skin for the body beneath it. For five days he’d tried to block out the memory of her body as he’d seen it the first day on that damn rock. But the picture had been with him every minute since. And now she was perched invitingly before him. He moved slightly as the rough rock ground into his bottom.
    “Is the pain bad?” she asked.
    “Awful,” he said, knowing the pain he was feeling had nothing to do with his foot.
    “I think what we need to do is get your foot in the springs and clean out the dirt. Then I’ll bandage it