Page 138 of Roughing It

The knuckles on his hand gripping the steering wheel turn white. His voice is hard. “I’m not afraid. I have obl?—”

“Obligations? To what? To your parents? To your brothers? You’re thirty-five years old. They’re twenty-nine and thirty-three, not seven and eleven. Your brothers can take care of themselves. They don’t need you to save them. Think of what you want for once!”

He slams his hand on the dashboard so hard I worry the airbag will deploy. “I am thinking of what I want! I fucking want you! Can’t you see that? For you to stay here with me where you fucking belong! So we can build a goddamn life together!” He roars the words, and for a moment, there’s nothing but pure silence between us. Mine shocked. His seething.

Hudson’s frustration-filled eyes flick to mine for just a moment. Less than a second. But that’s all it takes. Without warning, the world shifts. Hudson’s arm shoots out, bracing me, and he’s yelling my name. Tires screech and a rumblesounds like the earth is collapsing around us. Everything twists.

Turns.

Spins.

A blur of green, brown, and gold. Crunching metal. Snapping branches. Breaking glass.

Searing pain. Two loudpops.

And then nothing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

blakely

I blink my eyes open, but the world looks wrong. Off. Tilted.

Shit.

Why does everything hurt? A steady throbbing radiates from my right shoulder to my left hip. There’s white dust all over my clothes. Mud and an acrid chemical scent fill my nose, along with the coppery tinge of blood.

What the hell happened?

Then, like a nightmare unfolding, I remember. The fight. A flicker of tawny fur darting across the road from the treeline. Hudson yelling my name. His arm holding me in place as the Jeep spins. His arm falling away. The crunch of metal crumpling as it battles rocks and trees. Blissful silence.

Wait. His arm falling away.

With a shaky hand, I swipe at my eyes, trying to figure out what I’m seeing. Out my window are trees. Towering trees. And a hint of sky.

The shattered windshield fractures and distorts everything in front of me, like looking through a kaleidoscope of mud and underbrush.

And to my left is…

A whimper slips from my mouth. Hudson lays slumped over in his seat, his leg bent at an awkward angle. I’ve spent thirty days with this man; he’s not into yoga.

“H-Hudson?” No answer.

I cough, doing my best to dispel the itchy powder coating my throat and lungs. “Hudson!” My voice is scratchy. Louder than before, but he doesn’t respond.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” I mutter over and over, the word morphing into a frantic mantra as I reach for him. Or try to. I’m trapped, my seatbelt doing its job—to the point of pain—holding tight across my torso. The pressure on my shoulder and chest makes getting air almost impossible. Although, that could be the impending panic attack.

“Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Think, Blakely. Think.”

My hands flit around me until I get my brain online enough to pat my seat in a desperate search for my phone. But it’s gone.

I force myself to inhale for four and exhale for five, then five and six, then six and seven. Once I’m no longer seeing spots, I unlatch my seatbelt. Which—duh, dumbass—means I crash into an unconscious Hudson.

“Shit. Sorry, Bear.” He doesn’t move or react to my weight pressing against him, including against hisit-should-not-be-facing-that-directionleg. “Why am I talking? You can’t hear me. Right? If this is some last day of wilderness training hazing, it’s not funny. Or the silent treatment because of our fight?”

Panic sinks its claws deeper, dread slithering in alongside it.I have no idea where we are. My phone is missing in action. I’m sitting on top of an injured Hudson. Shit, shit, shit.

Snaking a finger under his chin, I press against the pulse point in his neck. “Don’t you dare be—” my whimper cuts off my words. I can’t. I can’t.

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