“What the –,” Ace began.
“Fuck?” Nick finished.
Wrapped in a soaking wet blanket and half-covered in snow was a body with sock-clad feet stuck out at the end. If it hadn’t been for the dog, he didn’t think they’d have seen it.
Rushing towards the person, they began unwrapping the body. Stunned upon the reveal, their eyes met for a brief moment before Nick took off his backpack to retrieve the extra supplies he’d brought, and he began his search for a pulse.
Gently brushing the hair away from her face, her quiet beauty distracted him for a quick minute. Dark hair with natural red highlights gave her a glow under the blue hue from the cold. An upturned nose and thin, yet plump, lips had his heart racing. With full cheeks, she was a stunner. Covered in bruises, he could only imagine the hell she had endured to wind up abandoned in the middle of the mountains.
“Anything?” Nick asked him, breaking him from his perusal of her form. With the chill from her icy skin, he didn’t have much hope until…
Concentrating, he waited for it—There it was! A slight flutter, barely there.
“Got it!” he told Nick triumphantly.
“We have to get her inside and warmed up,” he replied, looking around them. “We need to come up with some kind of a stretcher first, something to keep her stable.” Passing over a neck brace and survival blanket, he told Ace, “Put these on her.”
Wrapping the blanket tightly around her wet body, he hoped it was enough to combat the cold he was sure had seeped into her bones already. Gently lifting her head, he slipped the cuff of the brace under her neck before strapping it around to protect any further damage to her spine.
Giving a whistle, Roxie ran over from where she was sniffing around a bush. “Down,” he told her, pointing to the woman’s side in hopes the dog’s body heat would help warm her up.
Standing up, he looked to see Nick collecting sturdy branches, so he joined the hunt. Once they had enough, they made quick work building a make-shift backboard by tying the sticks together with the climbing rope Nick had in his bag.
“This should do,” he told Ace. “Roll her to her side, and I’ll slip it under her.” They worked as one, strapping her on the board before he called it in to dispatch, telling them they were going back to Nick’s cabin.
The cuts and bruises all over her face were stark in the sunlight reflecting off the fresh snow as it fell. “Fuck,” Ace cursed, seeing the deep teeth marks in her cheek.
“What?” Nick barked out from his position leading the way down the mountain.
“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.