Page 25 of Curves for the Mountain Man

The smell of pungent aftershave hits my nose, and I turn. Scofield has his rifle trained on me, almost close enough to attempt to disarm him. Fuck, maybe our luck’s finally run out.

Don’t let me die, Lord, and fail Ginger for good. Let me live. Let me live for her.

Without a second thought, I rush him, the only advantage left me the element of surprise. Shock crosses his face as he takes one step back, firing. A searing pain grazes my right shoulder, and I hear a man’s voice wailing deep-throated anguish of the most bone-chilling kind. Staring at my arm, I see a swipe of burgundy. But the sound isn’t coming from me. It’s Scofield.

The motherfucker stepped back into the bear trap, the hungry steel claws buried deep in his shattered leg. Thrown off balance in the snow and shocked by the searing pain, he sits on his ass in the brush, the AR-15 in the snow between us, begging for one final fight.

Frenzied groans fill the air as we both lunge for the weapon, reaching it at the same moment. But in a struggle of wills, he’s no fucking match. I wrestle it from his hands, using the weapon to press him into the ground and choke him out beneath his neck. He gasps and sputters, and I can see the panic in the whites of his eyes.

“You should have never fucking touched her!” I scream, my face inches from his, smelling desperation and death.

“Please,” he begs, gasping for air. “Show mercy.”

“Have you ever shown mercy, you motherfucker?” I rage. His eyes fly wide, attempting to piece together who I am.

Lifting the pressure from his chest and neck, I see hope flicker in his eyes before I slam the butt of the rifle into his face with a sickening crack, knocking him unconscious. Blood spews from his broken skin and skull.

I search him, finding Jeep keys in his right-hand jeans pocket. He wears a bulletproof vest. No wonder the first shot failed. The realization makes me wonder how much more there is to this story and who this guy really knew.

I survey his body with emotionless eyes, confiscating what we may need. His jacket, his boots. It makes me sick to think of Ginger wearing these items. But I’m too big for his clothes, and I have to keep her warm, preparing for all possibilities, including walking out of the forest. I assume, however, that his Jeep has enough gas to get us back to civilization.

Grabbing the AR-15, I leave my revolver next to him with the final bullet. Offing him is too easy. I want him to suffer and dieslowly. I want the pain to deconstruct and destroy him before he takes the coward’s way out.

The coward’s way…I can’t believe how close I came to that fate.

My arm aches and burns as I work, but adrenaline keeps most of the pain at bay. Piling everything of possible use from Scofield’s body inside the back of the Jeep, I jump in the cab, adjusting the seat to accommodate my height. The gas tank is half full, more than enough to get us into New Brunswick and the hospital. I set off on the road in Ginger’s direction, my heart racing.

“Thank you, God,” I praise, despite the metallic smell of blood coming from my shoulder.

My stomach knots, reality seeping into the past twenty-four hours. Ginger has been in the most dire of straits since meeting me. Fighting for her life and conditioned to look for a savior. Once she returns to civilization and her friends and family, everything will change. She won’t need me anymore, although my need for her will remain immeasurable, unquenchable, unfathomable.

The forest is dense with lots of underbrush, so I can’t go far off the roadway, but I get as close as possible to the waterfall and cave. Rounding the vehicle, I open the passenger door, ready to take Ginger, and then I race towards the sound of water, where the most precious person in my world hides, weakening by the minute.

I carry her in my arms through the dense snow, ignoring the acute ache in my shoulder and willing us towards the Jeep. A gunshot pierces the still of the forest.

The motherfucker didn’t even try to free himself from the trap or fight through the pain to survive.

Chapter

Eleven

GINGER

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I listen to the high-pitched click of a heart monitor as my mind slowly wanders back to me. The effort feels interminable, like I may never reunite my mind with my physical body. Minutes feel like hours, or maybe hours like minutes. Slowly, the heat of the fire-warmed cave and the masculine deliciousness of Roscoe’s mouth fade into a very different reality.

I’m in a hospitable, and the sounds I hear are coming from machines hooked to me. My heart bursts with gratitude yet again. He did it. Roscoe somehow got me to New Brunswick, although the details around it remain fuzzy and far away, like watching a movie backwards through foggy glass.

Snippets of memory tumble around in my head, like mismatched socks in the dryer. My Ranger’s rugged face, exuding concern as he carried me through the snowy woods. Carried me where? I strain to remember. His shoulder bled, and he grimaced in pain.

The Jeep. Oh God! Asher’s Jeep. But why? My thoughts feel so twisted and turned I can’t make sense of them. And the coat I wore and boots—Asher Scofield’s coat and boots. The images sitin my mind like still frames, making my brain fester and toil to piece it all together.

My eyes snap open, taking in the white, impersonal room where my hospital bed sits. A curtain is drawn back, a study in muted shades of pastel, but the bed next to me is empty. So, is the chair by my bed where someone recently sat. I can tell by the depressions in the cushions.

Roscoe. Where’s Roscoe?

I close my eyes, nodding off again to the sound of the noisy monitor. The mountain man’s arms encircle me, his burnished gold hair between my fingers. His heartbeat calms me as I drift back into a primal world of caves illuminated by fire and love—tender, wild, and unbridled. A place where I feel infinitely safe and cared for despite the horror of everything I’ve endured.

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