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Beth Ann Williamson is desperate for a man to sweep her off her feet and rescue her from her situation. That I’m just waiting forPrince Charming to swoop in and save the day.” Her mouth pursed into a polite little smile, made all the more ridiculous by the makeup running down her face. “Look, Colt, I don’t know why you feel this need to show up here and try to play the hero, but the last thing I want is another man deciding that I can’t take care of myself and trying to take over my life. So you can just go away now. I don’t need saving, and I don’t need your help. Oh, and tell Miranda that I said nice try.”
    He didn’t see what Miranda had to do with anything. “You’re turning down a rescue?”
    She laughed and flicked her hand, as if shooing a fly. “Oh, I am turning down the entire kit and caboodle. The rescue
and
the person it came attached to.”
    All right, now he was getting annoyed. He leaned back, studied her. “Oh
really
?”
    “Yes, really,” she said viciously. “I don’t know if you were aware, but not every woman in the vicinity needs saving.”
    “I don’t know,” he drawled, knowing any response he made would irritate her. “You look pretty helpless to me.”
    That did it. Her entire body stiffened and she jerked upright. Her mouth clenched into a firm line. Beth Ann Williamson definitely had a stick up her ass tonight. “I am not
helpless
,” she seethed. “Just because I am female does not mean I need you to swoop in and be a hero. Sometimes we can save ourselves, you know.” She gestured at him with incensed, quick little motions. “I realize that’s difficult to get through that pile of meat on top of your shoulders that men like to call a brain, but it’s true. Not all women are helpless. Not this woman, for sure. And I certainlydon’t need you stomping in and making my life miserable like you always do, so why don’t you just go
away
?”
    Go away? He was here, standing in the rain and waiting to save her ass, the ungrateful woman. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to rescue herself. As if the thought of a man helping her out of the woods was somehow insulting to her. Fine. “You expect me to just leave you flailing in this mud all night? In the dark?”
    “Yes,” she said firmly. “I don’t need your help and I sure don’t need you here right now, following me around. Go bother someone else.”
    He was beyond annoyance now. The woman was irrational. “And so you want me to leave?”
    She turned and looked off into the woods, as if in exasperation. As if he were keeping her from finding her sister. “Did I stutter?”
    Ah yes. This was the Beth Ann he knew. Colt put his hands up. “Fine then. I will leave you alone. Out here. Just like you want.”
    “Good,” she bit out, then glanced down at his pants. He thought she was going to comment on the wood he was sporting despite her nasty attitude. But she pointed at his pocket, where he’d tucked his flashlight, with a finger that was wrinkled and shaking with cold. “Can I buy that flashlight from you?”
    “I reckon not,” he said with a drawl.
    She scowled at him. “God, I hate you. Go find someone else to harass.”
    And with that, she stomped off into the woods again.
    Fuck you, too,
he thought to himself. Here he was, trying to help her out and she bit his head off, treated him as if he were garbage for even daring to think she might need help. His spine stiffened anew as he watched her crash through the underbrush, and then her form disappeared back into the shadows. “Lucy?”
    Guess he should have told her that the camp was evacuated. Nah. Let her stew in her own juices for a bit. Teach her a lesson.
    He rubbed the front of his wet trousers, willing his damn dick to stop standing at attention. She might have had a mighty fine pair of breasts—slick, heaving breasts with tight, hard nipples—but unless he had a piece of masking tape for her mouth, the reality of Beth Ann was going