With a painful grunt, I try to roll to my back, but can’t breathe at first. I glance over to see my bike a few yards away, the back tire still spinning. Rain buckets down on me, washing away some of the road and my chances of getting to my cabin.
“Yes. Yes, this will do. I will just lie here until I can breathe again. That works fine. I like being outdoors,” I assure myself because I am definitely out here all by myself.
Foolishly I try to lift my head.What was that light?Why did I want to stop and seek it out?There should be no one this high on the mountain. My grandmother owned most the land here last I knew. I don’t recall any other cabins on her land. Then again it has been almost a decade since I was last here with her.
Smiling despite my pain and the rain soaking through my clothes, I whisper her name.Nanette. Ahh, I miss her. Maybe she is why I want to come here. After I lost her, I lost my way a little. She was the only woman who gave a shit about me and my pictures. Mother said unless I got photos in Cosmo or Vogue, my photos were worthless.
“I mean, a Nobel prize says different, Nell,” I tell her, or the skies overhead since she is not here to hear me rant, “not that I won one yet, but I was in the running. Were you ever in the running, Nell? No. No, ma’am you were not,” I snark, laughing at myself because I would never talk to my mother that way if she were here.
We stopped talking at all about five years ago, until she found out I might be getting married. Leave it to Nell to show up when I least wanted her there. Taking over the planning and chumming it up with my would-be husband’s rich family, she was loving every minute of it.
“Huh...is that why I ignored how miserable I was at the idea of getting married? I mean,I wantto get married. I want to have babies. I think maybe even four. Oh, twins! I would love two sets of twins. How cute would that be? My head hurts. I have a concussion and I am delirious. I will go into shock, catch hypothermia, and maybe die right here. Good trip, really cleared things up,” I mumble before my words feel too thick in my mouth.
“I want to get married,” I whimper again as I twist my battered body away from the cold rain, “just not to him. God, he would have made an awful father. Selfish. He was a selfish, stupid man,” I start to laugh again but my head hurts and I am dizzy, so I close my eyes.
I will lie here long enough to catch my breath. Get my bearings about me. I know no one will be coming up this mountain during a downpour. I was dumb to come up here tonight. I knew I smelled rain. Who goes up a mountain at dusk with a storm coming? Who has two thumbs?This girl.
As the cold starts to fade away, a rush of heat hits me. I try to lift my head, but I can’t move.Am I paralyzed?I wiggle my toes in my boots.Eww, my socks are wet.No, I can move. My body just doesn’t want me to.
“Don’t move, babydoll,” a rough voice calls, sounding hot and heavy as it pours over me. Immediately I feel warm and safe.
“I-I can’t. I don’t want to. I am cold,” I whimper, reaching for the dark shadow looming over me.
“Come here, let me get you, babydoll. Come here, hold on tight.”
Nodding because that is all I can do, I throw my arms open. The figure lets out a soft sound that rumbles from his chest. It is ahim, I can smell manly stuff. Leather and oil, and something clean. Laundry. He laughed. Oh, I liked it. It was a nice laugh.
“Mmm, warm. He has me,” I murmur as I go weightless before I am swallowed up by warmth and darkness.
“Yeah, babydoll. I have you.”
Chapter Three
Shepard
Slasher flicks always start this way.
If this beautiful creature is a slasher with a machete or butcher knife, she can tear me to shreds. I would gladly let her do her worst. I will be her friend to the end, that is for goddamn sure. Shaking myself free of those stupid thoughts, I step away from her before I do something stupid.
Somethingmore stupidthan bringing a stranger off the road into my cabin.
Lying soaking wet on my battered leather couch is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Her dark hair is a mess and I see she is bleeding from a head wound. Her leather pants and top are dirty and cling to her. But her face...oh, God, her face. It’s like it was sculpted from marble. Her skin is so creamy white, and her pink lips look so soft and sweet.
I cannot see her eyes, but I somehow know they are green. Green like the darkest pines that dot the mountainside. Clear like the lakes that are cool and beautiful, down to the bottom. Freckles dot her little nose and her cheeks, and I want to trace them with my fingertips, but I can’t touch her yet. I can’t touch her until she tells me I can—ifshe tells me I can.
When I was walking Biscuit, the rescue I saved when I found him living alone in that cabin two years ago, I heard her wreck. First came the crash of the tree limb that now blocks access up the mountain. Which I think is where she was headed. Who would be stupid enough to come this far up the mountain, after sunset, during a storm?
“Not her. She ain’t stupid,” I tell myself as Biscuit paces with me, both of us watching her closely, “sheis notstupid. But maybe I am. What was I thinking moving her? I should have called the doc,” I curse myself as I run a hand through my hair. I need a haircut. Need to trim my beard. When she wakes up to find me as her rescuer, she is going to be scared.
“Don’t want her scared of me. We don’t want to scare her, do we Biscuit?” I mutter as I stop to gaze down at her again.
When I heard the tree fall, I was going to call Mack or Landon, tell them we had some work to take care of after the storm passed. All of us that live on the mountain try to keep the roads safe and clear for each other. As I turned to head back to the cabin to make the call, I saw her.
Zipping past me like a bird in flight, she was a vision. That bike of hers, with that sleek look and her curves riding it, was sexy as shit. For the first time in ages, my dick stirred. I had to find out who she was. Her head snapped back, and I swore we made eye contact, but I can’t be sure.
Then I watched in horror as her bike spun out on fallen leaves littering the road. I cursed myself for not rushing to clear it before she came this way—not that I had any idea a woman on a bike would be sailing up the mountain this time of night in this kind of weather. When I saw her go down, my blood went cold, and my heart stilled in my chest.
Since I was up the hill from where she went down, it took some time to get to her. I was frantic by the time I reached her. Terrified of what I might find. I can’t explain it, but shehadto be fine. I could not stand the idea of her being anythingbutfine. When I neared her, I heard her talking and my heart stuttered once again.