Page 72 of Mountain Hero

WINTER

No, please, not again.

This can’t be happening again.

Isn’t being abducted and held captive once in my life enough? Did I do something terrible to deserve this? I can’t think of anything—I try to be kind, not break the law except for occasionally speeding, donate to charity—that would earn me this kind of punishment.

Then again, sometimes bad things just happen to good people. My parents are proof of it. Maybe I’m doomed, just like them.

I want to cry at the unfairness of it.

Actually. I’m already crying, even though I know it makes me seem weak. But how can I not feel this way?

I was so happy. All my things were packed in the car and I was heading back to Enzo’s, thinking about making sandwiches to bring him for lunch, still feeling deliciously sore from our lovemaking this morning. Then I saw the little farm stand with the pumpkins and mums and thought those would be perfect for the front porch.

As I pulled off the road, I had a silly idea of carving I love you into one of the pumpkins and having it lit and waiting on the front step when Enzo got home.

We haven’t said it yet, but my heart knows. I love him more than anyone, and he loves me back.

My chest was just so full of fizzy joyfulness. Everything seemed perfect.

Then the SUV parked behind me, and the man got out. He looked normal—clean-shaven, hair tidy, dressed in jeans and a flannel button-down—and even though my instinct now is to be wary around men I don’t know, there didn’t seem to be anything threatening about him.

He even gave me a friendly little wave and commented on how nice the weather was. How he was looking forward to carving the pumpkins with his kids and how excited they were for Halloween. At first, he was careful to look at the pumpkins at the opposite end of the stand from me, like he was intentionally trying to keep his distance.

There wasn’t a red flag. At least I didn’t see one. But maybe I’m just exceedingly bad at judging people.

I never dreamed there could be another threat out there waiting for me. Especially not from a man I’ve never seen before.

But he was, and he is. This man—this complete stranger—came up behind me while I was putting money in the lockbox and then…

There was just pain. Dagger-teeth biting into my back, all my muscles spasming; I collapsed to the ground, my body slamming into packed dirt and gravel. On the way down, my face collided with the edge of the wooden stand, and everything went gray and fuzzy for a minute.

When everything cleared, I was tied up. Gagged. Wedged on the floor behind the driver’s seat with a heavy blanket draped over me.

And then the man, who I stupidly thought seemed so normal, said in a chillingly casual tone, “I know you’re confused. You weren’t supposed to be a part of this. But this is the only way.”

I didn’t understand until we got to the cabin. Or the shack, more accurately. In the quick glimpse I got as I was carried inside—upside down, since I was slung over this jerk’s shoulder—I saw rotting wood and cracked glass and overgrown shrubs encroaching on the tiny building.

Once we were inside, I was tied to a chair in the center of a barren room while he threatened, “If you try to run, I’ll shoot you.”

At that point, I was more than halfway into a panic attack, my breath sawing in and out in shuddering gasps. With my mouth gagged, my nose stuffy from crying, I started to get dizzy from lack of oxygen. But then he yanked the fabric from my mouth, grumbling, “Calm down, already. It’s not like I hurt you.”

Um. I’d have to disagree. My back still aches where the taser hit me, my cheek is throbbing in rhythm with my pulse, my body aches from hitting the ground, and my wrists are raw from the rope tied around them.

But things could be worse. Unfortunately, I have the experience to prove it.

I had a thought of yelling when he removed the gag, but then he added with a sneery smirk, “Don’t bother yelling. We’re half a mile from the road. And the nearest neighbor is two miles away.”

So I swallowed back the scream trying to burst out of me and instead choked out, “Why?”

He didn’t respond at first. All he did was take out his phone and take a picture of me. Then he spent the next minute tapping away—sending messages, presumably—before finally answering me.

In an irritated tone, he said, “You’ll find out. When he gets here.”

Then he started pacing across the small room, making aggravated huffs and muttering things like you can’t find good help these days and why is it so fucking cold here and I could have been in Cabo right now if not for that incompetent asshole.

Once I worked my panic to a more manageable level and could think more clearly, my thoughts turned to Enzo.

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