Where was it coming from?
“Ahh.”
Oh.
Wait.
The moaning was coming from her.
With that realization, she was flooded with pain—it covered every inch of her like a heavy blanket.
Paisley had no idea why she hurt so badly and was trying to figure it out when suddenly, she was blinded by light.
Instinct had her squinting against it and raising her hands to cover her face. Then everything came back with a rush. There had been a man in the road holding a human head. He’d pointed a gun at her. She’d lost control of the car and crashed it.
Now someone was standing beside her car.
Trying to open the door.
When the man with the flashlight began to try to force her battered car’s door open, Paisley forgot about the pain. She forgot about everything but getting out of here.
Her hands were shaking badly, and she fought with her seat belt to get it undone. Her limbs were heavy and sluggish, and once the seat belt finally snapped open, she got tangled in it as she tried to shove it away from her.
With a huge creak that shuddered through the car, the man wrenched open her door.
Large hands reached for her.
Paisley tried to move out of his reach, climb farther back into the car where she could escape through another door, but her body wouldn’t cooperate, and soon those large hands were wrapping around her biceps and dragging her from the car.
She screamed.
And screamed and screamed as though her life depended on it.
Because it did.
Chapter Three
“Stay still,” Stephen ordered as he attempted to drag the woman from her mangled car.
She didn't.
She just continued to scream and struggle to get away from him. The urge to shake some sense into her and physically make her stop screaming was strong, but he'd had to put his flashlight down to get the door open, and now he couldn't see well enough to check how badly she was injured.
Stephen took a long, slow breath; now was not the time to lose his temper. The woman was hurt and no doubt scared—getting angry with her wasn't going to help.
“Ma'am, I'm a cop,” he said, hoping that would calm her.
It didn't.
She continued to yell at the top of her lungs. Too bad for her, the wind caught any sound she made and whipped it away, rendering it useless.
Unable to take another second of her screams, he shook her as firmly as he could without causing her more harm. Hysterical women were hard enough to handle on a good day, but on a freezing, snowy night they were a definite no.
“Just do it,” she shrieked. “Go ahead. Kill me.”
Kill her?
The lady had clearly hit her head. Why would she think he was going to kill her? This was what he got for stopping to help a stranger in need. No more runs through the woods as a storm was coming in for him. He didn't usually, only this storm was supposed to last for a few days and he couldn't spend that long cooped up in his cabin, so he'd needed one last run. A long one that would last him a few days. He’d been on his way back home when he’d seen her car in the ditch.
“Please. Please. I won't tell anyone what I saw, I promise. Just, please, don't hurt me.” The woman had gone from telling him to kill her to begging him to leave her alone in under ten seconds. He really needed to know how badly she was hurt, but first, he needed to get her out of the car.
Keeping a firm grip on her biceps, he forcefully dragged her from the vehicle. She was still squirming, but her strength seemed to be waning, and that probably wasn't a good thing. The storm seemed to have knocked out reception so he couldn't call for help, and driving in this was out of the question—they’d both wind up dead—which meant he was going to have to take her back to his cabin and tend to her there. He just hoped her injuries weren't so bad she would be dead before the weather cleared enough to get her to a hospital.
“Please,” she whimpered. She would have been lying in a heap on the ground if he wasn't still holding her up.
“I'm a cop,” he repeated slowly, carefully enunciating each word, so it penetrated her terrified haze.
The woman froze.
He could feel her eyes on him even though all he could see was the shadowy outline of her face.
“A cop?” she echoed.
“I'm a cop,” he confirmed.
“Oh, thank goodness.” With that, she threw herself against him, her hands curled into his jacket, her shivering body pressed against him, and something inside him stirred. A feeling right in the pit of his belly—a spark, a tingle, a whatever you wanted to call it, but this woman made him feel something he didn't think he'd ever experience again.
He was in big trouble.
Chapter Four
A cop.
She was saved.
Paisley couldn’t believe her luck. Of the only two people stupid enough to be out in this storm, one was some sort of deranged killer who cut off people’s heads, and the other was a cop.
It seemed too good to be true.
She froze.
Maybe it was.
Where had the killer gone?
How long had she been unconscious?
Why hadn’t the killer come for her?
If this man had arrived, then shouldn’t he have seen the killer?
If he was a cop, shouldn’t he have arrested him or something?
Unless …
Unless this man wasn't really a cop.
Maybe he was the killer, and he was just trying to trick her, so he could get her out of here and locked away someplace. What better way to put her at ease and make her as compliable as possible than to lull her into a false sense of security thinking she was safe in the hands of a police officer?
What should she do?
If he knew that she knew he was really the man who’d been standing in the middle of the road, he might kill her now.
She had to try to keep calm, play things cool, then get out of here.
It was a good half mile to her house, and although adrenalin was currently buzzing through her system, she knew she was probably hurt; she’d been in pain when she’d first awakened. She would never make it there in this storm. Maybe she could flag down a passing car or even find a house where she could get help. Regardless of what she did, she had to get out of here. If she didn't, it wouldn’t matter how she got help—she’d be dead so help would be irrelevant.
The man noticed that she had fallen quiet and pulled her back, presumably so he could see her—well, see her as best as he could in the virtually non-existent light. Paisley did her best to keep her face neutral; she thought she probably wasn't doing a very good job and hoped that since all she could see of this man was a dark shadow, that was all he could see of her as well.
Her eyes scanned his shadowy appearance, attempting to determine if he looked the same as the man holding the head. It was too hard to tell. It’d been mostly dark when she’d seen him standing in the middle of the road, and all she’d really been looking at was the head. And the gun. She hadn’t been taking note of height and weight or other physical characteristics.
“Hey.” The man shook her, and her attention snapped back to him.
He was waiting expectantly.
He’d said something to her, but she had no idea what.
Nor did she care.
She wanted his hands off her. They were strong hands. Big hands. And they held her firmly.
Paisley had never felt claustrophobic before in her life.
Until now.
“I’m going to take you back to my cabin. It’s not far from here, and you’re clearly hurt. I need to get you inside out of the storm.”
The man’s voice once again drew her attention back to him, and she felt her heart rate accelerate. If he got her into his cabin, she might never get out. Well, except in pieces if he did to her what he’d done to his last victim.
She needed to know if he had a gun on him.
If he did, then that cemented it—he was the man who’d been in the road.
Her knees chose that moment to wobble and then buckle.
Although she tried to fight it, she fell forward.
The man snapped his arm around her waist to keep her on her feet, and her hands landed on his chest as she tried to steady herself. Even through the thick jacket he wore, she could feel his abs were hard as rock and every bit as chiseled. Without her realizing it, her fingers moved across his chest. Under different circumstances, abs like this would have had her drooling. Now, she was just filled with terror. How could she get away from someone this big and this strong?
She couldn’t.
Then her still roving hands found something.
Something that raised her terror levels from over the top to so strong it felt like it was choking her and there were no signs of it stopping.
Her hands had found a gun.
This man, who had dragged her from her car and pretended that he was a cop who was just here to help her, was wearing a gun in a holster at his side.
It really was him.
He was just trying to trick her.
Maybe it was the scam he used to lure his victims—pretend to be a cop, put them at ease, then drag them off and do who knows what with them before chopping off their heads.
If she stayed here with him, he would do the same to her.
She’d never get to see her parents again or her brothers or her brand new baby niece or her horses or her friends.
It was up to her.
Live or die.
She still had a say in that; it wasn't all up to him.
She could stand here and let him take her to his cabin and decapitate her, or she could run and not stop for anything.
Run.
That was her only hope.
“Let’s go … it’s this way. Do you think you can walk?” the man was asking her.
Paisley let him turn to lead her to her doom, pretending that she was going with him like a compliant little lamb, then at the last second, she threw her entire body weight backward.
Unprepared, his grip on her loosened.
Without a second thought, Paisley yanked her arm free, turned, and darted off in whatever direction she was currently facing. She didn't know where it led, and she didn't care. All that mattered was that she needed to get away from her would be killer.
Run.
She had to run.
Run and not stop.
Run to save her life.
Chapter Five
The woman ran.
The stupid woman had yanked herself from his grasp and staggered off through the woods.
He guessed he had to admire her guts. She was hurt, delirious, not dressed to be out in the freezing weather, and yet she had gone running off as if her life depended on it. Which he realized that she thought it did. He didn't know why she thought he was a killer. For all he knew she’d been fleeing for her life when she’d crashed her car and confused him with whoever was chasing her.
Stephen thought he really should just leave her out here to die of hypothermia. It wasn't worth the trouble chasing her and dragging her to his home and trying to deal with her. But …
Leaving her to die out here wasn't really his thing. No, his thing was killing people with his anger and bitterness, then doing whatever he could to bring them back only to fail and feel like he was killing them all over again.
He should go home.
Leave the stupid girl to run till she passed out from exhaustion and died.
She wasn't his problem.
He didn't want any more problems.
And he certainly didn't want her to end up like his last problem.
He should let her go.
He should.
Forget all about that soft body, those roaming hands, that feeling that had only grown when she’d virtually collapsed in his arms.
“Face it,” he muttered aloud, “you’re already hooked.”
Sighing, Stephen collected the flashlight from where he’d discarded it earlier, searched the woman’s car for her purse, then ran off after her.
He really was in big trouble.
Chapter Six
Paisley thought of nothing else but running.
It was all her world consisted of.
She wasn't sure how she was remaining on her feet, her entire body felt heavy like someone had filled it up with lead, and she had to drag it along. Her chest was burning, and each breath she took was a ragged gasp that sounded like she was about to drop dead at any second, maybe she was.
The wind howled relentlessly, curling around her, penetrating her clothes and leaving no inch of her untouched by its icy fingers. It screamed in her ears, making them ring, and blew up her nose, drying it out and further hampering her breathing.
There was a hazy feeling inside her that told her there was something wrong with her, but she was ignoring it; she didn't have time to be injured right now. She had to keep running.
Or staggering was probably a more accurate word for her movements.
She couldn’t feel her feet or her legs, and she hoped it was just because of the cold and not because she was too badly hurt.
Adrenalin couldn’t mask whatever injuries she had sustained forever.
She needed to find help.
Only, she had no idea where she was going.
Paisley had planned to head for the road and try to run alongside it just within the tree line so it would be harder for the cop or killer or whoever he was to see her but where she could still see the headlights of any approaching car. But she didn't seem to be able to find the road.
How much longer could she keep going?
It was only by some miracle that she hadn’t passed out already.
Maybe she should try to find a place to burrow down and hide out. If she could find a safe place, then she could just wait for the man to go running past and then get back out and search for help at a slower pace. Or maybe she could even find a spot where she could stay warm enough to spend the night, then when it was light, find help.
If she survived the storm.
She was getting sleepy now.
All she wanted was a warm, dry place to lie down and rest.
Her body couldn’t keep going, and yet at the same time, she couldn’t seem to stop.
It was like her body had made the decision between flight or fight, and now that it was firmly in flight mode it wasn't stopping for anything.
Paisley gasped. She was struggling to draw in enough air to keep her lungs inflating. With every step she took, thin, sharp branches scratched at her face and tried to tangle themselves in her hair or her clothes, slowing her down. It seemed the entire forest was trying to work against her. As though it belonged to him and wanted to help him get her by snarling her up in its web of trees, twisting her and turning her until she didn't know which way to go, then ensnaring her and keeping her captive until he could come and chop off her head.
Panicking now, her foot caught on a tree root, and she stumbled forward, bracing herself to hit the hard ground.
Somehow, she managed to remain upright, and in the distance, she thought she saw a light.
Light.
Salvation.
Safety.
Hope blossomed through her, giving her a second wind.
Then …
Something rammed into her from behind, slamming her forward and down onto the ground.
Pain spiraled from her hands, through her wrists, and up her arms all the way to her shoulders and she groaned as her face hit the ground, getting a mouthful of snow.
Rough hands grasped her arms and yanked her over.
A shadowy figure loomed above her.
Her life flashed before her eyes.
Sitting on her mother’s lap reading stories. Sitting on her father’s shoulders, feeling like she could survey the entire world. Being teased by her brothers. Going to school. Playing with her friends. Climbing trees. Chasing the dog. Trips to
the beach. Christmas trees. Easter egg hunts. Riding her horses with her hair flying and the wind rushing across her skin feeling like she could go anywhere and do anything.
“Sorry, you were going a lot faster than I thought you would be,” he apologized, bringing her out of her reverie.
She would have fought him, but her body seemed to have given up now, and all she could do was lie there and pant and wheeze and try to breathe so she didn't pass out and leave herself completely at his mercy.
“Please, don’t kill me,” she rasped as soon as she had enough air in her lungs to produce a sound. She was not above begging for her life.
“Look, lady,” he began, his tone borderline annoyed but also a little winded, and she felt a puff of pride that at least she’d made him work for it if he wanted her as his next victim. “I don’t know why you think I'm going to kill you. I don’t know what you saw or what happened before you crashed your car, but I. Am. A. Cop.” He enunciated each word like he had earlier. “See?”
A bright light suddenly blinded her, and she scrunched her eyes closed. Paisley wished that she could make herself disappear just by closing her eyes like she’d believed she could playing hide and seek with her brothers when she was a little girl.
The pressure on top of her didn't ease, and the pain was starting to shove itself into the forefront of her mind. Why didn't he just do it already and get it over with? Maybe he got off on torturing women. What would he do to her before beheading her?
“Just look,” he said, his voice gentler this time and the shake he gave her was little more than a light jostle.
Tentatively, she opened her eyes and squinted to see what he was trying to show her.
It was a badge.
He held it in front of the flashlight so she could see it.
Relief wanted to creep in, but she held it back.
He had a badge. That was definitely a point in his favor, and it looked real, but how could she be sure that it was? She had never seen a real police badge before, and if this were his ploy, pretending to be a cop, then he would have a badge, wouldn’t he?
The man sighed. “You’re still not convinced, are you?”
Whispers of Winter: A Limited Edition Collection of Winter Romances Page 88
