I’ve been flung over his shoulder.
“Caleb Walker, put me down!”
He remains infuriatingly silent.
“I am not,” I insist, “a sack of potatoes that you can just sling over your shoulder! How dare you! Now put me—Eep!”
I yelp as a solid hand with long fingers squeezes the back of my leg. I can feel his fingertips imprinting on my inner thigh.
“Quiet,” he orders.
“Or else what? I’ll scare the animals?” I demand, acidly.
“No, else I’ll make you be quiet.”
You know that you’re tired when your imagination gladly latches on to little comments like that. When it conjures up all kinds of ways in which a towering, mountain man might be able to keep a woman quiet. Only a completely exhausted mind would fantasize about their kidnapper.
Still, the fact that he’s a large and strong man is a little hard to avoid when being manhandled over such a broad and powerful shoulder.
Escape is hardly likely.
And I’d be lying to not admit to the blazing heat of blisters on the base of each of my feet. Being carried around by a caveman has a few benefits, at least.
I latch onto his broad shoulder blades and try to look back at the man carrying me. In the darkness, all I can see are his unkempt hair and the pale shell of his ear. His gait is rhythmic beneath me and oddly calming.
“You know,” I grumble, still unimpressed. “Your hospitality leaves something to be desired.”
The man only grunts.
You wanted a new life, Lizzie Lucas,I remind myself, swaying with the motion of every heavy step. Say hello to the new you…