Page 47 of Strung Along

There’s movement on his side of the call, and I’m instantly feeling guilty for bothering him. Could I hit a lower low? I doubt it.

“Go back inside instead of sitting in the cold. I have to go, but please go inside and think through what to do. Sittin’ in your car if it’s dead won’t help you,” he directs calmly.

My stomach drops at the thought of him hanging up on me right now. I have no right feeling hurt by his schedule.

“Okay,” I croak.

There’s a slam of a door in the background and a loud male voice that doesn’t belong to Bo shouting before I hear him tellme to go inside one final time. The familiar beeping of an ended call is my only company now.

I hate the way I stare at my phone, waiting for him to call back when I know he won’t.

By the time I slide my hands into the pockets of my jacket and curl them in an attempt to warm them up, I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting in the car or how long I linger, unable to haul myself back outside. Long enough for snot to run from my nose and my legs to have no feeling left in them. The air I suck down is cruel, burning in my lungs.

A scream rises up my throat when my door is pulled open and I’m hauled out of the car as if I weigh nothing. The heat radiating from the hard body behind mine nearly makes me purr, and I think I hate myself a little for that, considering I’m probably being kidnapped.

“You’re fucking frozen,” my assailant scolds.

It’s Brody. Brody, Brody, Brody.

His hot breath fans over my neck, and I moan at the sensation of it against my cold skin, uncaring about the way the sound makes him stiffen against my back. His voice and presence settle my fear, and I begin to go lax in his arms.

“What are you doing here?” I mumble. It’s taking everything in me not to spin in his arms and bury my face in his jacket.

His words are quick off the tongue. “I drove by your house on my way back to the ranch and saw you sitting inside of your car. You can’t be sitting in a cold car, Anna. Where are your keys?”

“In the ignition.”

The sound of protest I make when he releases me and steps toward the car is pitiful. I wish I could feel my blush because I know it’s there.

Brody catches my eyes and doesn’t look away. It’s a soft gaze. Unguarded. “Let me get your keys, and then we’ll go inside.”

“Both of us?”

“Unless you don’t want me to. I can boost your car and then leave,” he offers, not a hint of offense in the words.

I shake my head far too quickly. “No. You can come in.”

The corner of his mouth tilts into a small smile before he’s reaching into the car and pulling my keys free. He’s more at ease now than he was the last time I saw him, but there’s still something off. I can’t put my finger on it yet.

When he shuts my car door and turns to me, I jerk my head toward the house and say, “Come on.”

Even with my legs half-numb, I feel my knees shake when he slides his arm around my waist and carefully tucks me into his body before leading us up the sidewalk.

I don’t consider pulling away. Not even once.

19

BRODY

Alarmed doesn’t come closeto describing how I felt when Anna called me—called Bo.

The thought of her driving on roads she isn’t comfortable with or knowledgeable of turned my stomach. Even before learning that she was sitting out in the cold, her car dead and hearing those tears in her voice, I was sprinting away from my grandfather mid-lecture and toward my truck.

The pull I feel for her doesn’t make sense. It’s concerning that my first instinct is to drop my duties and responsibilities for a woman I’ve known just shy of a month. Her distress is cutting, a shake to the ground beneath my feet.

I’m positive I’ll face the consequences of abandoning the ranch when I’m finished here. I won’t be able to hide why I left or have been sneaking off once I do. My grandma will smell any potential lies before they’ve slipped from my tongue.

That’s a problem for later, though. When I’m not bundling a frozen woman in my arms who needs to get warm as soon as possible and trying to keep from going completely caveman on her.

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