Whispers of Winter: A Limited Edition Collection of Winter Romances

by Nicole Morgan

  At this rate, she wasn't going to get very far before he found her. At best, she gave him twenty or thirty minutes tops before he went into the bathroom to check up on her. She had wasted at least a couple of those minutes rechecking to make sure she was right about what she had seen. Those few minutes would have been better spent putting more distance between herself and the cabin.

  Had she put the bag with the jewelry back?

  She couldn’t remember.

  If she had left it on the counter, then Stephen would see it as soon as he walked into the bathroom.

  Then he would know that she knew.

  How angry was that going to make him?

  That he would come after her was a foregone conclusion. That he would find her was also pretty likely. All that was really in play was how angry he would be when he found her.

  Angry enough to torture her?

  Or to rape her?

  She was attracted to Stephen, but not so much that she would take sex with him however she could get it. The only way she wanted him to touch her was consensually when they’d had a chance to get to know each other, and real feelings had developed.

  Who was she kidding?

  Real feelings had already started to develop.

  At least until she’d found the jewelry.

  There had been an air of sadness about him, a haunted gleam hidden far away in the back of those bright blue eyes. There was a vulnerability about him too. Beneath the always in control persona, there was something softer, more fragile. She'd felt it in the way he’d touched her. He was afraid of hurting her because he was afraid of getting hurt himself. Paisley was in no way calling the love card yet, but she’d felt he was someone she wanted to get to know better. She’d felt like he was someone she could fall in love with.

  She would never trust her feelings again.

  How wrong could a person be?

  Paisley had always felt that she was a pretty good judge of character. She usually trusted her instincts—her gut reaction—when she was near someone. She used that same intuition when it came to the horses she worked with. Between teaching riding lessons and caring for her own horses, she often worked with horses that had been mistreated or neglected. Some of them came to her so scared of humans that it broke her heart, but she could always sense the ones who were going to end up making wonderful companions. Both Hazelnut and Walnut were rescue horses, and she’d known the moment she laid eyes on them that they were sweet-natured animals who just needed a little love and care to learn that they didn't have to be afraid.

  Yes, when it came to the men in her life, she knew she dated a lot of guys who were arrogant and controlling, but she had always been confident enough in herself to know that no man would ever be able to take who she was inside and destroy it. In a way, she kind of liked the challenge, the battle of wills, the fiery passionate sex.

  And she’d always known those relationships were going nowhere.

  Even with her ex-fiancé, she had always felt like it was never going to be.

  It was because those men were too one-dimensional for her. They had the arrogant and controlling side she liked, but that was it. They didn't have the layer of vulnerability that you discovered only when you earned their trust enough for them to let you see what they were hiding beneath that arrogance.

  Stephen was the first man she’d met who she thought had both.

  He’d felt like her horses when she’d first met them. Afraid, wanting to trust but not believing there was anyone trustworthy in the world. Those hours in the cabin, she’d felt herself wanting to show him he was wrong. That whoever had hurt him didn't deserve him.

  They’d had a connection.

  She was so sure of it.

  It was the only reason that her adrenalin overloaded mind would be so hung up on making out with him. It had lowered her usually sensible logic and gone straight to her underlying gut feeling. If he had kissed her, she probably would have gone all the way and not even regretted it in the morning.

  She wanted to believe that there was a rational explanation for the blood-covered jewelry he had hidden in his bathroom cabinet. But what? What reason could there be?

  She was wheezing badly now, and her vision was splotchy. Add that to the fact that it was still dark out and the swirling snow turned everything into one indecipherable blur of gray, and she was running blind.

  The pain was so severe that she couldn’t think of anything else.

  Her entire right side burned with every step she took; her head throbbed in time with her footsteps.

  Then pain exploded in her face as she ran headlong into a tree.

  She didn't have time to stop and worry about it.

  She could feel wetness on the back of her sweatshirt. Blood mixed with sweat, the stitches in the gunshot wound must have burst as she’d been running, and the wound was open again.

  Pushing herself away from the tree she’d run into, Paisley staggered, her energy mostly used up.

  She wasn't far enough away. She hadn’t put enough distance between herself and Stephen’s cabin. She had to keep moving.

  She tried to start running again, but her foot caught on a tree root, and she fell. Her knees took the brunt of the fall and pain shafted up her thighs to her hips.

  She had to get back up.

  She had to keep moving. Paisley tried to push herself back up, but her limbs no longer cooperated.

  She had reached the end of the road.

  She didn't think she could drag herself another inch, let alone get back on her feet and start running again.

  Then hands circled her waist, and she was lifted off the ground.

  “Hello, beautiful.” A hot, putrid breath covered her face.

  As weak as she was, her instincts kicked in and on autopilot. She swung her fists at him and kicked her feet, aiming for his groin as her brothers had always taught her to do if she found herself in a situation where she needed to fight for her life.

  Back then it had all seemed so easy. Connect with the groin, eyes, or throat, scream for help and run. But short of breath, injured, exhausted, it was a whole lot harder.

  Fight and pain.

  That was all her world consisted of.

  Laughing.

  She thought he was laughing at her.

  “Paisley.”

  She stopped struggling.

  That was Stephen’s voice.

  Only he sounded far away, his voice carried to her by the wind.

  This man wasn't Stephen.

  This man was the one who had been in the road with the human head.

  Relief had tears springing to her eyes. She had been right about Stephen. He wasn't a killer. He was just a guy who was in the right place at the right time and saved her life.

  That split second of relief was all the time her attacker needed to yank her up against his body and clamp a hand over her mouth so she couldn’t yell for help.

  His hand was large, and it covered both her mouth and her nose, completely cutting off her air supply.

  Already breathless from running and her tussle with this man, it didn't take long for her to start feeling the effects. Her pulse thundered in her ears and little white dots filled her vision. They danced about like the swirling snowflakes that covered the world.

  Her lungs screamed for oxygen, but there was none.

  She began to feel like a balloon.

  Floating.

  Floating up into the vast expanse of sky.

  Paisley thought of Stephen’s blue eyes.

  If she was going to die, then that wasn't a bad final thought.

  “Time to sleep, beautiful,” a voice whispered in her ear.

  Then the world shimmered away.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Paisley,” he yelled.

  He was never going to find her.

  He didn't even know where to look.

  He could barely even see where he was going, let alone find anything out here.

  They were probably bot
h going to freeze to death.

  The sensible thing to do would be to go back to the cabin while he was still close enough to find his way. There he could wait until the blizzard let up and then call for help or drive back into town and get the entire police force out here.

  Yes, that would be the sensible thing to do.

  Only Stephen never did the sensible thing.

  If he saved himself and went back home, then Paisley would die. She was already hurt, and she’d never find her way out of the woods. She'd end up collapsing, passing out, and dying of hypothermia.

  If she hadn’t already.

  Assuming she had gone out the bathroom window as soon as she’d gone in, then she had a good twenty-minute head start. Right now, the only thing working in his favor was the fact that she was injured and would be unable to move very fast. He was going to have to use that to his advantage if he was going to find her before it was too late.

  What he felt for her was …

  Was …

  Was something he couldn’t even put into words yet. All Stephen knew was that he had never felt that way about any other woman. There was something between them, something that if he wasn't too afraid to face could grow. Paisley wasn't anything like Carol, of that he was positive.

  No.

  He was deluding himself.

  Paisley thought he was a killer.

  What could there ever be between them when she saw him like that?

  Not that she was wrong.

  He was a killer.

  Just not in the way she thought.

  He was responsible for the death of his fiancée and his partner.

  They had been seeing each other behind his back. For months, apparently—pretty much since just after he proposed. It seemed when Carol said she was going to the gym, she really meant she was getting a workout of an entirely different kind.

  It probably would have gone on indefinitely if he hadn’t walked in on them one day.

  He had been away visiting his dying grandfather, but he’d come home early. After the man who had helped raise him after his father’s death had died, he’d wanted nothing more than to be with the woman he loved. So instead of staying another couple of days with his family, he’d driven through the night to get home.

  Instead of finding his future wife waiting for him, he’d found her in bed with his partner.

  Neither his partner nor his fiancée had been apologetic.

  Carol had simply packed up her things and told him she was leaving and going to live with Bob, who’d had the gall to say that he hoped they could still work together.

  That hadn’t happened.

  The following morning, Stephen had gone to his captain and asked to be transferred to a different division. He liked his new job working homicide, and when he accepted it was over with him and Carol, he realized he wasn't so much upset that they weren’t going to get married—they probably had never really been very compatible—but hurt by the betrayal.

  Hurt and bitter.

  So bitter that the day they came back to his cabin to collect the rest of Carol’s things, he’d been angry and said things that he didn't mean. When a thunderstorm and torrential rain had started, they’d asked to stay until the storm passed.

  He’d said no.

  They had left, and when he went for a run to clear his head—much like he’d done tonight—he’d found their car crashed into a tree about a quarter of a mile from his house.

  Bob had been dead, Carol had still been alive—just.

  Her injuries had been severe, and he hadn’t had his phone on him, so he’d pulled her from the car and done his best to perform first aid. When she had stopped breathing, he had started CPR.

  He hadn’t stopped until a passing motorist had found them and called for help.

  Three hours later.

  Even then, paramedics had had to physically prevent him from continuing with it.

  He hadn’t been able to accept that she was gone.

  That he had killed her.

  That was six months ago, and now things were repeating themselves.

  Bitterness had killed Carol, and fear was going to kill Paisley.

  When she’d been at his cabin, he should have explained. Stephen knew she had doubts about him, not that he blamed her. If their positions had been reversed, he probably wouldn’t have believed the man with a gun who’d turned up just after she had crashed her car trying to avoid a man with a gun.

  All he wanted was a chance.

  He and Paisley might never work out, but she was the first woman who’d even caught his attention since Carol’s death, and even with his ex, he’d never felt this way. Carol had been pretty and was one of those cop groupies who loved a guy in uniform. That had been about as deep as things went between them. She loved him because he was a cop, and he liked the way she looked up to him. But with Paisley, he believed he could have so much more.

  If he could let go of the fear of being betrayed again.

  “Paisley,” he yelled. He called her name every few minutes, not that it was going to do much good. She was running from him. If she heard him yelling her name, she wasn't going to answer and lead him right to her.

  He had a blanket with him so that on the odd chance he was able to stumble upon her he had something to keep her warm until he got her back inside. It was probably pointless, but he wasn't ready to give up yet.

  His flashlight did little to cut through the darkness of the storm, and yet every few yards he stopped and shone it about, searching for signs of Paisley.

  This time he thought he saw something.

  On the ground just ahead of him.

  Cautiously, he pulled out his gun. He couldn’t discount the possibility that whoever Paisley had seen in the road was still out here, and he knew the man was armed.

  When he saw nothing but the dark and the snow, he stooped to pick up what had reflected back the light of his torch.

  It was a charm bracelet.

  Paisley’s charm bracelet.

  He had seen it on her when he’d lifted her wrist to check her pulse.

  Jewelry.

  It was all he ever ended up with.

  Carol’s jewelry was all he had left of her. He had taken the jewelry she’d been wearing that day at the scene of the accident. Stephen wasn't sure why, nor was he sure why he kept it. As a reminder, perhaps, of the lives that he had taken.

  Resolutely, he tucked the charm bracelet into his pocket.

  This was not going to be all he ended up having of Paisley.

  He was going to have all of her, every single inch of her body, her mind, and her soul.

  Stephen stood again and started walking.

  Chapter Seventeen

  She was a pretty one, this one.

  Maybe even his prettiest yet.

  Raymond hoped this one was a laster. He was getting sick and tired of these girls who barely lasted a couple of days, let alone weeks or months. What good were only a few days of fun? He wanted so much more than that.

  It was risky to take another girl so soon after disposing of the last one, but this one had basically come gift wrapped and left on his doorstep.

  She was the girl who had seen him in the road. In hindsight, he should have been more careful. Only that road was usually pretty quiet, and with the blizzard coming in, he hadn’t thought he’d see anyone, and he couldn’t be bothered circling around and going the long way. That moment of laziness had almost cost him everything.

  When the girl had crashed her car, he had intended to retrieve her; if she was pretty, he’d keep her, and if she wasn't, he would have just killed her and dumped her body. Raymond had hoped that if he took her with him that when her car was found the authorities would just assume that she had been injured and disoriented and wandered off and gotten lost in the storm.

  The man had almost ruined things.

  He had come out of nowhere and approached the car only seconds after it crashed.

  Raymond always played things
easy and never took too many risks. It was how he had been able to do what he did for so long, so he hadn’t gone after them. He was older now, not as strong as he used to be, and he wasn't sure he could take both, so it was safer to just move on.

  It had only been pure luck that he’d run into her again.

  He had been disposing of the last pieces of his previous guest’s body when he’d seen her staggering through the snow. She was alone, and he couldn’t resist.

  Now that he had her, he was so glad.

  He carried her down to his basement. This was his special room. His room where his guests could stay where they would be safely out of sight from any other visitors he may have.

  The room was sparsely decorated; it wasn't like he needed much. There were chains hanging from the ceiling, a table with a range of his favorite tools, and a chair for him to sit and watch them. Raymond enjoyed watching. The emotions that filled his guests’ faces intrigued him. He had never felt emotions like other people did.

  He was a psychopath or an extension of antisocial personality disorder as some referred to it. He felt no empathy toward others, he manipulated them to get what he wanted, and he fooled everyone he came into contact with—except his guests who were the only ones in his lives privy to his true self—and he had no conscience.

  Raymond was fifty-eight now, a widower with four grown children, three daughters and one son, and nine grandchildren, five boys and four girls, who had worked his way up the corporate ladder to become the vice-president of a large finance company. He was well off and enjoyed his life out here in his cabin in the woods where he was free to do what he wanted without annoying neighbors interfering.

  His newest girl was still unconscious, so he had to balance her over his shoulder while he locked her wrists into the metal cuffs that would keep her suspended from the ceiling. As soon as he released her, she slumped down, hanging in a way that he was sure would hurt the shoulder where he had shot her.

  If he wasn't who he was, he might care—as it was, that piece of knowledge meant little to him.