Page 21 of Recurve Ridge

Familiar eyes met mine and held. Something wild, almost manic, flitted there. Robe didn’t hide his demons like I suspected Alan did beneath a facade of smiles and misdirection. No, Robe chose to wear his trauma raw on the outside, like so much armor against a world he had retreated from. The ridge suited him in this way, both barren, bare rock the elements blasted against, but still they held firm. The shadows within his eyes spoke of scars I was sure lingered beneath his beard and shirt. He’d built his body up, either to physically battle what he had to face or out of necessity to survive in his own way.

I wondered what my own crutch would be when my brain freed up enough to allow my numbness to fade.

Robe held his silence as he wound his arms tighter around me, offering a physical barrier from the overcrowded room, and rested his chin on the top of my head. Roughened fingers tangled in my hair as he crushed me against his chest.

Warmth pervaded me, wrapping me in Robe’s fresh forest-and-woodfire scent.My Everest.I marveled at the steady beat in my chest that matched his heart’s solid pounding against my cheek as I leaned into his embrace, taking the security his arms offered.

Leave. Run from the wolf.

Was he a wolf, though? I felt far lessLittle Red Riding Hoodand more a Grimms’ fairy tale where the heroine fell in with a group of uncouth men rife with faults who always ruined the day.

I snorted a little into his shirt, torn between aiming for a second bout of hysterics or settling on a keening whuffle noise.

Spoiler alert: the whuffle won out.

All broken here.

No one ever returned from those sorts of tall tales, or if they did, they weren’t the same. Not the sort of story that suited me. I loved my urban life in New York City, so different from the one I fled my home country to avoid. The cult-escapee girl turned the CEO’s PA, or something like that.

An all-male scent surrounded me, another grounding point of difference. No expensive perfumes worth a month’s pay filled the cabin’s living area with a posy of allergens. If Robe owned a single bottle of cologne, I’d eat my knickers. Not that I had any; they were left behind in my rushed exodus, along with all my other things.

I lost my phone, and I left mycarparked out front of my boss’s house. I might as well have called it my independence. Right now, I owned nothing at all: not pride in my body, the ability to call for help or to drive away to a home. All I could claim was a cabin full of men I barely knew and a half-empty cup of whiskey.

Somehow, for now… that was enough.

I chanced a peek around Robe’s massive chest, peering through the open doorway that the blond Viking—Jon—exited through earlier.

Their personal battles scared me. Robe offered me a slice of peace, and I’d take it in a heartbeat, needy creature that I’d become after the horrors I ran from. But the risk of ruining what they had, the community that had continued its existence in his cabin even in my scant days here, listening to their muted conversations, the occasional raised voices through Robe’s heavy, closed door…. Well, half of me wanted to stay wrapped in his arms no matter the cost.

The other half of me, the part that had fueled my headlong sprint through the mountainside, screamed a different message.

—run and run and run?—

Knickers were the least of my worries.

Run, run, fast as you can. Can you catch me, Mr. Mountain Man?

The niggle itched at my brain again. My old English professor bitched about alliteration overuse inside my head. But no matter how many times I said the words to myself, my feet refused to let me leave Robe’s side.

I swallowed an onset of panic, locked in my own private hell. Serene on the outside, clawing and shrieking on the inside.

Like when he stopped me in the forest.

Help me.

More than broken, definitely. My jaw locked. I couldn’t get the words out that would provide relief from my invisible cage. He stood right there, holding me, and I couldn’t communicate what I needed.

Useless as a newborn, I forced my senses to revolve around him. The rhythmic beat of his heart fast became my benchmark, what I returned to when panic delved deep and took root. The hard ridges of muscle surrounded me in a warm, safe embrace. I didn’t want to leave his arms or escape his cabin.

I wanted out ofme.

Crisp mountain air and smoke that had nothing to do with a woodfire slipped through my firewall. I tapped my fingers on the tree-trunk biceps that surrounded me, lightly at first, then more insistently as I tried to bring myself back to the present.

Robe sent a single glance my way, and his features shifted from the facade of civilization he kept up for the men opposite us to something far more primal. He read the panic I couldn’t communicate in any other way as I hit max capacity, my deafening silence my last line of defense as I shuddered with the aftereffects of delayed terror.

Everest released me, cursing beneath his breath as Alan set something on fire in the kitchen. He scooped an arm around my waist and leaned me against the bar like I weighed no more than a Mari-sized doll.

Long steps ate the floorboards beneath him, and then he swept one arm beneath the counter, collecting an overstuffed white paper bag. In a fraction of a second, he upended a pyramid of salt over the small inferno Alan had managed to ignite in a frypan.

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