Page 57 of Chasing the Wild
Christ, the man did me a favor by getting me away from that creepy guy, but the way he went about doing it somehow made my hackles prickle and my defenses sit up.
It felt like the moment when he accused me of getting knocked up by Kayce all over again.
Colton Wilder certainly has a way with words.
Lying there in the dark, I gnaw on the inside of my cheek for a while. Did the sound of him coming back to the house wake me up? I reach over and fumble around, slapping a hand in the direction of the bedside table, before successfully tapping my phone’s screen. Numbers glare at me through the dark, telling me it’s two in the morning, and while I don’t know how these bonfire nights usually go, I don’t exactly picture Colt as being the type to indulge in benders around the campfire lasting through the night.
That’s more Kayce’s style, and the two Wilder men couldn’t be more different in that regard.
God, I need to stop comparing them.
Now that I’ve had a little bit of sleep, I wince at the thought that maybe I locked Colt out of his own house in the midst of my drunk, petulant state of mind.
Guilt weighs heavily on my chest. Cowboys rough it in all conditions, and that man is as tough as nails, but shit. What if he’s trapped outdoors in below-freezing temperatures, and I’m the heartless, sulky bitch who barred him from coming inside?
I slip out from under the warm covers, tugging the loose blanket from the foot of my bed to wrap around me as I go. Crossing the carpet, the sliding door off my bedroom overlooks the dark porch. When I crack the curtain, I can’t see shit, but there’s still an orange glow of embers off in the distance where the fire has burned down.
There’s one way I can know if he’s back for certain, so I creep out into the hallway. The low sensor lights pop on, letting mesee just enough to make out the room my eyes are immediately drawn to. It’s a space in the house I’m hyper-aware of at all times, whether his door is open or closed, whether he’s in there or not.
Straight away, I can see that his bedroom door is standing wide open. No lights come from within either.
Crap.
Now, I really feel the churn of guilt.
There’s still just enough alcohol in my bloodstream that I don’t stop and think. I just move. Perhaps it’s the late hour, or the instinctive fear of something gone terribly wrong, or call it fucking intuition. I can’t simply crawl back into bed without checking, without confirming with my own eyes. So I wrap myself tighter in the blanket and set off through the house.
Scanning around, there’s no sign of life in the office or kitchen. The fire in the lounge has burned right down overnight, and I spot that his hat and jacket are missing from the hooks.
God, what if he’s frozen to death out there, or something worse happened with whoever that guy was? Guns and alcohol and angry men are not a good combination.
But I haven’t heard any gunshots.
I don’t think.
Oh, my god. What if that’s what woke me up?
My heart is wedged in the back of my throat as I unlock the front door and prepare to step out into the bracing chill. Even from where I’m standing in here, it’s obviously quiet outside, there’s no wind, and I can make out the silhouette of puffy snowflakes fluttering down just beyond the edge of the porch.
The glow of the bonfire is all I can see, and I wonder if maybe Colt is still down there? I’m not dressed to be outside at all, but even so I twist the handle and hover just a moment.
What’s my end game here? I’m hardly intending to venture out into the elements, but I find myself peering with all mymight through the glass panel beside the door to see if I can make out any sight of him.
I slowly ease the front door open on silent hinges before a deep voice startles me.
“Where do you plan on going, dressed like that?”
Chapter 17
The dark rumble hidden in the shadows makes me jump a mile. As I spook at the sound of Colt’s voice, the door slams shut, sounding like a thunderclap going off in this quiet space.
“Hoping one of them is still there?”
Holy shit. He sounds… I don’t know. Aggressive isn’t the word. Territorial perhaps? Like I imagine a wolf guarding their pack would bear glistening fangs in warning.
Either way, a flurry of goosebumps runs along my arms that has nothing to do with the witching hour, or the cold lingering outside.
Tugging my blanket tighter around my shoulders, I step in the direction of Colt’s words. This is the part where I shouldn’t engage, I should take my ass straight back to my bedroom. This little excursion confirms what I needed to see for myself, and I’ve determined he is inside and safe and not frozen solid somewhere out in the snowfall.
