Page 3 of Brewing with the Mountain Man
"Where?" I manage to say through chattering teeth.
"My cabin. Half mile." He's already moving. "Stay close. I'm not coming back for you if you get lost."
I should protest or try to maintain some kind of authority here. Instead, I practically run to catch up, because the alternative is freezing to death alone in the woods trying to prove a point.
The storm hits like carnage unleashed. One second we're moving through heavy rain, the next we're in a complete whiteout of wind and hail. I can barely see the man's broad back in front of me, and can't see anything else at all. My uniform is soaked through in seconds, cold seeping into my bones, despite my jacket.
A hand grabs my forearm, large and steady,and pulls me forward. I don't resist. Can't resist. I just stumble after him through the screaming wind, trusting this stranger who I was trying to cite ten minutes ago because there's literally no other choice.
I lose all sense of time. Could be five minutes, could be twenty. Everything is cold and wet and loud, and the only solid thing in the world is his iron grip dragging me through the maelstrom.
The cabin appears in flashes, like a mirage—weathered logs hunched against a granite outcrop.
Then suddenly there's solid wood under my feet instead of forest floor, and he shoves me through a door as hail the size of nickels shatters against the steps.
He shuts the weather out behind us.
I stand there dripping on a handmade rug, shivering so hard my vision blurs. The cabin has rough wood walls and a stone fireplace and the kind of rustic charm that magazines try to fake. It’s warm and dry and utterly foreign.
The dog shakes himself, spraying water everywhere, then trots over to a bed in the corner near the fire like this is all perfectly normal.
I look up at the man who just saved my life.
Rainwater has slicked his hair dark, tracing the cords of his neck before disappearing under a wet collar. My rescuer. My suspect. My?—
My teeth chatter so hard I bite my tongue.Ow!
"Get out of those clothes," he says, already moving toward another room. "You're hypothermic."
And because this day couldn't possibly get more crazy, my last coherent thought is that I'm stranded in a remote cabin with a six-foot-six hulk who ran from me.
Now I’m completely at his mercy.
My supervisor is going tokillme.
If this mountain man doesn't do it first.
CHAPTER 2
LEDGER
Saving an annoyingly attractive park ranger from a freak storm and bringing her back to my cabin was not on today's agenda.
I yank open my dresser drawer harder than necessary, pulling out thermal layers and wool socks. Behind me somewhere, she's still standing in the main room shivering like a wet chihuahua, probably trying to figure out if she should be more worried about hypothermia or being alone with me.
Smart money's on both.
The logical part of my brain—the part that kept me alive in prison and functioning out here alone for eight years—knows I did the right thing. You don't leave people to die, no matter who they are or what they want from you. Ethics 101.
But the rest of my brain is angry as all get out that I just brought the enemy into my home. My hideaway. The one place in the world where I don't have to see people looking at me like I'm a bomb waiting to go off.
And now she's here, in my space, and the second she stops shivering she's going to remember she needs my identification.
"There's a bathroom through there." I emerge from the bedroom, arms full of dry clothes, and thrust them at her. "Change. All of it. You don’t want frostbite."
She takes the clothes with shaking hands, those bright blue eyes huge in her pale face. Up close, I can see the freckles scattered across her nose, the way her soaked braid drips onto my floor…and how obscenely the wet fabric of her uniform clings to her body in ways that have me looking away fast.
She's young. Too young to be out here by herself.
