It also made him feel even more protective. The knowledge that Leah was back in the cabin, alone and vulnerable, feeding her baby, made him fiercely aware that he was the only thing standing between them and the harsh wilderness.
He was going to make sure they stayed safe, warm, and protected. He remembered Leah’s frantic expression as she asked if Emily had any signs of frostbite. She wasn’t going to have to worry about her baby’s safety again.
Once he was a safe distance from the cabin, Jeff stowed the axe and shifted. It would be easier to find suitable fallen logs in his leopard form, especially in the snow. Thankfully, since this was the first snowfall of the season, and it had been dry and cold for a couple of weeks beforehand, any fallen wood should still be dry enough to burn.
He needed to take care of this as quickly as he could, and get back inside to Leah.
More than ever, Jeff wanted to know how Leah had ended up here in the mountains, alone with her baby. She had an air of exhausted desperation to her, like she was on her very last legs, and he didn’t think it was all due to her hike through the snow.
He was sure that she needed help. But she didn’t want to admit it, and he couldn’t help her if he didn’t know what the problem was.
Maybe he couldn’t help her anyway, he tried to reason with himself. If she was in legal trouble, he couldn’t do anything. If she was in debt, if she just needed money...Jeff had savings, but it wasn’t a ton of money, not enough to help someone in the long term.
But reason didn’t seem to be working. If she needed money, he knew he’d give her some. If she needed any other kind of help, he’d give her that, too.
This is crazy. Why was he contemplating handing over his bank account to a woman he’d just met? It didn’t make any sense, but that didn’t seem to have any impact on his instincts.
And if it was a choice between handing over some money that he didn’t need for anything specific right now and letting a mother and her baby starve, that wasn’t any choice at all.
He was getting ahead of himself, though. He didn’t know what Leah needed. Maybe she was on her way to meet Emily’s dad somewhere, and they were going to set up house together and be just fine.
That thought should’ve been calming, but somehow it wasn’t.
None of that was important right now, though. He had to focus on finding wood.
It didn’t take too long to locate a suitable fallen tree; hardly anyone came up here, especially at this time of year, so the forest was essentially untouched. He came across a log that had been sheltered from the snow by the dense evergreen foliage above it, and carefully noted its location before running back toward the cabin.
He shifted back to human just before he got there, and went to the window to check on Leah and make sure she was all right.
She was still on the couch, her feet in the bowl of water, nursing Emily. She’d taken the scarf off, but the angle of the window meant that he wasn’t seeing anything he shouldn’t be, just the curve of her shoulder and the fall of her hair.
He’d meant what he said, before; he hoped she didn’t cut it. It was a cascade of dark brown curls, rippling over her shoulders and tumbling halfway down her back. He could just imagine running his fingers through it...
Stop that.
He couldn’t be attracted to Leah. She was a young mother, and Emily’s dad had to exist somewhere. Maybe they were going to meet him.
Although she wasn’t wearing a ring.
But even if Leah was single, that just meant that she was a single mom with a baby to focus on. Jeff couldn’t imagine that she’d want to date anybody under those circumstances. She clearly had a lot on her plate already.
But maybe he could help her with some of it...
No. Jeff was not going to bother a stressed-out woman with a baby to take care of by hitting on her. Especially not when they were out at a deserted cabin in the middle of a snowstorm together, jeez.
“Get it together, Hart,” he murmured to himself. “You have a job to do.” He had to make sure that Leah and Emily were safe. That was far more important than any thoughts he might be having about her gorgeous hair, or her deep blue eyes, or the curved body that he’d seen hints of through her layers of clothing.
Just as he was thinking that, Leah turned her head to look at the window. Seeing him there, she gave him a tiny smile and held out a thumb’s-up.
Jeff gave a thumb’s-up back and headed out to where he’d stashed the axe. Time to chop some wood.
But he couldn’t help thinking that he wanted to make Leah smile a real smile. Something more than just the turned-up corners of her mouth, something to light up her face with happiness.
Wood. Chop wood. He picked up the axe and headed out.
***
It didn’t take too long to build up enough of a wood supply for a couple of days. Hopefully they wouldn’t be here that long, but it wouldn’t hurt to have some left over to replace what they’d used.