“She’s got a bite mark on her cheek. It’s fucking deep, man.”
A quick look back had Nick swearing up a storm, too. “Motherfucking son of a bitch!”
Shit.
When Nick started cursing like that, Ace knew he was pissed. The man never swore in front of a woman, unconscious or not. His cousin had a firm belief that women were to be respected no matter what. He was an old-school kind of guy, probably because of the quiet town they lived in. A lot of old-timers nosed their way into everyone else’s business. Pushed their old-fashioned rules on the younger generations as well.
“What do you think happened?” Ace wondered aloud.
“Some son of a bitch didn’t appreciate a fucking woman is what.” Nick was taking it personally.
“Calm down, Nick, before you do something stupid,” he said.
“I warned the Kicking Horse not to go global. Bad clientele would come around. I’ll bet my last fucking dollar it’s some greased up city slicker thinking he can come into my town and fuck shit up. Hell to the fucking no.”
Ace had the feeling Nick was more talking to himself than to him. It was a hit to the other man’s ego so he could understand. He was fuming, too. No woman should ever be treated with such brutality, such hatred.
He had to wonder who she was, where she came from, and why this had happened. With the amount of dried blood around and leading up to her, he was concerned about what they weren’t seeing and if there were any internal issues they didn’t know about.
The snowfall turned heavier the further they walked, and by the time they reached the SUV, it was almost a complete whiteout.
“We taking her home?” Ace asked.
“Yeah, won’t be able to navigate to town in these conditions,” Nick replied, looking up to the sky.
Opening the hatchback, they laid her down in the back. Roxie hopped in, dropped her head to the floor, and whined like the mystery woman was a long-lost friend.
“New friend, huh?” Nick laughed at her.
“You wanna ride back here, and I’ll drive?” Ace asks. His cousin stared at her, his eyes roaming her body before nodding.
Sliding in to sit beside their mystery woman, Nick watched her laboured breathing, worried she might have critical or possibly life-threatening injuries and die before they knew her name. With no idea of how long she’d been exposed to the elements, all they could do was hope for the best and pray she was a fighter.
The bruising on her face indicated she was left outside overnight. Grabbing the med kit he kept in his truck, he pulled out gauze, peroxide, and polysporin to clean up the bite mark and the few scratches on her face. He couldn’t begin to imagine what had transpired that led to her being assaulted so badly. The cop in him wanted to hunt her assailant down and make him pay. The man in him wanted to find out everything he could about her.
Despite being nearly translucent from the cold, her skin had a natural warm coloring to it, playing off of her dark hair. She had a quiet beauty about her that he admired. Her cold, clammy, sweaty skin had him worried about pneumonia. Hypothermia they could try to combat with heat, but he had no antibiotics to fight anything more serious. With the weather getting worse by the minute, taking her anywhere other than home wasn’t an option.
“These fucking roads are a bitch, man,” Ace complained from up front.
“This ain’t nothing yet. It’s going to get twice as bad before long,” Nick responded as he finished bandaging the woman’s cheek.
A short while later, they pulled up to his small cabin, opened the hatchback, and he jumped out, gently pulling the make-shift stretcher with him as Ace came around the side, and Roxie danced at their feet. When she started whining and jumping, attempting to get on it with the woman, he barked out, “Enough,” and she finally calmed down.
“Christ, you’d think it was her long-lost owner or some shit,” Ace laughed.
“I don’t know what’s up her ass, but she needs to cool it.” He pointedly looked at the dog, whose body was vibrating with excitement as she fought his command.
Following Ace inside, they headed straight for Nick’s room. It contained a fireplace, so they knew she was better off in his bed. Carefully placing the stretcher on the mattress, they began the slow roll and tug to get her unstrapped. Quietly working around each other, they finally got her settled in the middle.
Standing at the end of the bed, they quietly watched the slow rise and fall of her chest beneath her damp clothes.
“We gotta undress her,” Ace commented absently.
They both seemed to be transfixed by her. “Yup,” he agreed. “Leave her underwear if it’s dry?” he asked, wanting to conserve her modesty the best they could.
“Yup.”
Christ, what was it about this woman? They were both struck immobile by a seemingly invisible, yet potent chemistry to an unconscious woman.