Too Close To The Fire/Too Hot To Handle (Montana Men 3) by Jaydyn Chelcee Page B

snake bit, did you?”
    “I
don’t know. I don’t think it was a snake. Didn’t I see a small flashlight in
your bag?”
    “Yeah.”
Dianna fished out the flashlight and crawled out of the hut. Rising to her
feet, she flipped on the switch and shined the light on the rocks where he’d
been sitting.
    “There
it is,” she said as the small circle of light captured the creepy-crawly. “A
scorpion.” She raised the light to Taylor’s face. “Where’d it get you?”
    “My
hand. I sat down on that rock and braced myself with my hand. It got me.”
    “Well,
the good news is, it probably isn’t poisonous.”
    “I
don’t care. It hurts like hell.”
    “Yeah,
they hurt. I got stung by one once when I was visiting my aunt and uncle at
Damnboola.”
    Taylor
wiped a hand over his face. “Where’d it get you?”
    “Oh,
I did the wrong thing that night. I crawled into bed without checking it first.
The minute I stretched out, it popped me twice on the thigh. I didn’t know what
had happened. I jumped out of bed and screamed. Silver, my cousin, turned on
the lamp and started jumping around and screaming, too.”
    Taylor
rubbed the back of his neck and blinked. “Why did she scream? Did it sting her
as well?”
    Dianna
laughed. “No, but she knew something got me, and she was afraid it’d get her,
too. She hopped around the room shrieking like a banshee. Uncle Rufus ran in
with an old elephant gun he owned. Scared the heck outta me when he slammed
open the door and stood there glaring at us like a wild man.”
    “What
happened then?” He drew a short, ragged breath and released it.
    She
wondered if he was okay. He looked a little pale.
    “I
screamed louder and ran round and round my bed. Silver joined me in the race.
We made several circles round the bed. Uncle Rufus yelled, What the hell is the matter with you girls ?”
    Taylor
shook his hand and winced. “Damn, it feels like my fingers are going numb. Keep
talking. Tell me the rest.”
    “I
paused in my race to escape the varmint pointed at Silver’s bed, and said, ‘There’s
a bloody critter in the bed with big teeth and claws.’ Uncle Rufus was so
gallant. He blasted Silver’s bed with the elephant gun.”
    “You’re
kidding?”
    “Nope.
Aunt Marion came running down the hall screaming, ‘What in the world? Jesus,
Mary, and Joseph, you’ve killed the bed, Rufus.’”
    Taylor
laughed. “What did he say?”
    “Nothing. I was
busy telling Aunt Marion how Uncle Rufus had shot the wrong bed, because it was
my bed the beastie was in.”
    “Oh,
my God, what did she do?”
    “She
marched over to my bed and yanked back the covers. There was nothing there. But
my leg felt as if a coal of fire had been set on it. Aunt Marion moved the
pillow and there it was, parked there with its tail reared over its back, just
waiting to pop me again. It still gives me goose bumps to think about it hiding
under my pillow.”
    “Oh,
Jesus, I’m gonna be sick.”
    Dianna
traced the light over his face again. Now he looked both pale and sweaty. “We’d
better get you inside the shelter before you pass out.”
    “I’m
not going to pass out from a little scorpion sting.”
    He
took one step and promptly collapsed at her feet.

 
    * * * *

 
    Dianna gasped and
leaned over Taylor’s prone body. A watery sun crawled across the sky. Streaks
of orange, purple, and faded blue forced their way through the mountain of
clouds churning across the sky.
    There
would be more rain, and soon.
    She
dragged the flashlight over Taylor from head to toe, but she couldn’t see anything
wrong. He hadn’t pulled on his boxers when he’d left the shelter. Her gaze
settled on the soft package lying between his thighs. What she’d held in her
hands at times last night was reaffirmed in the dawn’s early light. Even soft,
there was plenty there.
    She
tore her gaze away from the tempting sight and picked up his hand, eyeing the
red dot where the scorpion had popped him. There was a