Rock Hard Neighbor

by Hart, Rye

  “Hey! Miss!”

  I turned around to see one of the staff riding up to me on a four-wheeler.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “You know there’s a storm setting in, right?” she asked.

  “I’m aware, yes.”

  “It’s going to be dangerous for you to be on those hiking trails. I’ve been going around to all the cabins and informing everyone about the storm. If you need anything from town, I suggest you get it now. And if you want to reschedule your visit, we’re doing that free of charge.”

  “That’s very kind of you but I’ll be all right,” I said. “I got a bunch of stuff before I came in and I’m only here for three weeks. The cafe and the restaurant will still be functioning, right?”

  “Yes, we have the backup generators in place, but I must warn you—”

  “Thank you for your time,” I said. “You’ve done your job. I’m just gonna take a quick hike and then I’ll be right back.”

  The woman seemed wary about letting me go but I felt empowered. This was my life and I was the one in control. Not a boss. Not a man. Not the weather. Not anything. I wanted to see a bit of the countryside and the mountains before I was relegated to the compound that was this resort and that was exactly what I was going to do.

  So, I turned around and started into the shadowed path that was the hiking trail.

  I became so enamored with the life and the sights around me that I wasn’t paying attention to the sky. I hiked and wound around and, eventually, I came to a downed tree in the road. I looked around and tried to find the path I’d snaked in on, which was when I realized I’d carved my own path.

  I was no longer sure where I was and I felt panic starting to set in.

  I looked up at the sky and noticed the gray clouds were getting darker. I really needed to get back to the resort before I got caught in all this shit. I walked around the tree and started along the road. This couldn’t be just a random road that led to nowhere, right? It had to lead somewhere. If it led to a house, whoever lived there could get me back on track. If it led to the main road, I could hitch a ride with someone and get back. But the road got narrower the farther along it went, and soon, a brush of trees completely overshadowed the small trail the road dumped me into.

  I pulled my phone from my pocket and tried to call someone. The reception was spotty and I didn’t have enough of a connection to pull up the internet. I had no idea where I was, I had no idea which direction the resort was in, and I could hear the wind whipping through the trees.

  Then, it happened.

  The heavens opened up and snow started to dump on me.

  It came down so hard that I could barely see the trail in front of my eyes. I picked up the pace, heading for the brush of trees to get out of the snow. My hair was getting wet and my coat was no longer protecting me from the freezing temperatures. As I made my way through the shadowed trail, tears rose in my eyes.

  My toes were getting cold and my body was trembling uncontrollably. I felt out of control. I felt like I was spiraling. I’d put myself in this position because of my cocky attitude about wanting to control my life and my destiny and now I was going to die in the mountains of Gatlinburg without anyone knowing I was out there.

  I picked up my pace and began running but, just as the trees broke, I stepped onto a rock and fell off to the side.

  I shrieked as my ankle popped and a searing pain ricocheted up my leg. I rolled down a small hill and connected with another tree. My back ached while tears streamed down my face. It was hard to breathe; I couldn’t take in enough air. The snow was coming down around me in buckets, slinking down my back and threatening my body with hypothermia. My ankle was throbbing and my leg was aching. I still couldn’t catch my breath and my tears seemed to be freezing against my skin. I was woozy from smacking into the tree and panic was starting to overtake me.

  I took in great gulps of cold air to try and calm myself down, but all I did was cause myself to have a coughing jag that sucked the oxygen right from my lungs. Just as the edges of my vision started to darken and my head started to feel floaty, I felt my body being lifted from the ground.

  Feeling suddenly safe, I closed my eyes and gave up fighting.

  Chapter 7

  Liam

  I saw the woman take a tumble from my window and I went charging out the front door. I didn’t know what the fuck a woman like her was doing out in weather like this but I saw the way her ankle caught. At best, she’d sprained it, but it was more likely she’d dislocated it. I hopped down the steps and went charging for the hill she rolled down. When I got to the edge, I saw her gasping for air.

  It was the same woman I’d seen walking across the road earlier that day, with the long blonde hair and the put-together clothing. Her eyes were a striking blue that almost halted me in my tracks but it was her gasping that ripped me from my trance before I made my way down to her.

  She’d tumbled her way into a tree and lost her breath. She was struggling to catch it and I knew if I didn’t get her inside, I’d be looking at a very serious situation. I lifted her up into my arms just as she passed out and I scaled the hill quickly before I ran back inside with her. I had to make sure I could get her lungs and her diaphragm to sync back up before I could even touch her ankle, which was definitely dislocated.

  I felt for her pulse and it was faint. I saw her stomach jolting but her chest wasn’t rising. I settled my hand onto her stomach and pressed down before I blew steadily into her mouth. The moment she gasped for air, I pulled away and looked at her ankle. Tears were streaming down her face while she tried to grasp at anything around her and I knew I had a narrow window to pop her ankle back in before shock set in.

  So, I grabbed her ankle, steadied her leg, and twisted.

  She groaned and her back arched while tears continued to stream down her face. I propped her foot up with some pillows before I walked back to retrieve a first aid kit. I dug out the ace bandage, as well as some heating and cooling gel. Then I settled back down beside her and started to take care of her ankle.

  It was going to swell up and hurt for a while but, if no ligaments had been torn, it should subside within a few days.

  I heard her breathing steady out while I applied the gel. She sighed with relief once the cooling sensation kicked in. Then, I began covering her ankle with gauze and an ace bandage. She had to keep it as still as she could manage until the joint itself could heal.

  I chanced a look outside. The snow was piling up much faster than I’d anticipated and now there was this strange fucking woman in my cabin.

  “What are you doing out in this weather?” I asked.

  Her wild eyes hooked onto me but I kept my gaze steady on her ankle.

  “What?” she asked.

  “What possessed you to go on a hike during this storm?”

  “I just wanted to see the sights before the storm set in,” she said.

  “You saw that tree up close. Get enough?”

  I lifted my gaze to her as her eyes widened at my statement.

  “Yes, I’ve seen enough. Thank you.”

  She pulled her ankle from my hands and immediately hissed in pain. She tried to place her foot on the floor, no doubt seeing if she could walk on it, but the moment her ass hit the couch, I leaned over to pick up her foot.

  “Enjoy the trial run?” I asked.

  “I knew the storm was coming,” she said. “But I figured I could get back before it actually started. The clouds didn’t look that gray when I left.”

  “And you got lost,” I said.

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  I flicked my gaze up to her while my hands finished wrapping up her ankle. I could see she was still shivering and the last thing I needed was for this woman to catch a damn chill. I got up and helped her out of her jacket, even as she continued to give me suspicious little side glances. Then, I gathered up some blankets and brought them back to her.

  “I’ll get a fire going in a second but ,if you g
et any colder, your ankle’s the least of your worries.”

  “What happened to it?” she asked.

  “You dislocated it when you did your little dance down the hill,” I said.

  “Are you always such a dick?”

  I looked back up into her eyes that were sparkling with anger and I sighed.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “You should be.”

  She wrapped herself up in the blankets while I propped her leg back up on some pillows. For now, the swelling would be kept at bay if she kept her ankle elevated. The ace bandage would work not only as a stabilizer but as a compression sock and, hopefully, no more damage could come to her joints and tendons. I got up and headed to the fireplace, stocking it with kindling before I got a flame going.

  Then, I tossed a few logs onto it and allowed the heat to permeate the room.

  I looked back at the strange woman and watched her shivering finally die down. The flames of the fire were flickering off her features and, for a moment, I could only stand and stare. What the fuck was I going to do with this woman in this storm? She couldn’t get back to the resort. Not in weather like this. It was dumping by the buckets and that side road would already be snowed out.

  And I still hadn’t gotten out with my chainsaw to remove that fucking tree from the road.

  “You shouldn’t have been out in this weather,” I said, again.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “You hurt yourself,” I said.

  “Look, once I get warm, I’m gonna go back, okay? So just leave the fucking attitude over there for now.”

  “You can’t go back in a storm like this,” I said. “I know these back roads. They’ll already be snowed out. And the main road that might still be open has a massive tree blocking it.”

  “And no one thought to move it?” she asked.

  “No one cares about people up here,” I said. “I was gonna move it when I got back home from town today.”

  “You’re too late.”

  “Excuse me for not knowing someone would be out prancing around in the storm of the century for fun.”

  She huffed, turning her back to me while she hunkered down on the couch. She was feisty. She couldn’t go back in this snow and we had no chance of getting her back anywhere until it let up, which I knew wouldn’t be for a few days.

  “I’ll get you some more pillows and you can sleep on the couch,” I said.

  “How nice of you,” she said sarcastically. “Thanks.”

  “Would you like to try your luck with the weather?” I asked. “Because if you’re really that stubborn, go ahead.”

  She turned back over to look at me, her eyes filled with fury and fire. I sighed. This was exactly why I didn’t want to be around people and why I had no interest in finding a companion. People talked too much. “This storm’ll eat you alive,” I said. “You can stay on the couch until it lets up.”

  “Thanks,” she murmured, sounding more genuine than before.

  I heard her sigh as she turned her back to me and a part of me felt sorry for her. I was also intrigued by her. If she was scared, she didn’t show it. Some burly man with a beard and a stern voice found her and brought her inside his cabin and she hadn’t even asked my fucking name yet. It made me wonder what her story was. What could’ve happened to her that was more frightening than a strange man bringing her back to his isolated cabin in the fucking woods?

  But if she didn’t want to know my name, then I didn’t care about knowing hers. After all, she’d only be here for a few days and then I’d take her back to wherever the hell she wanted to be.

  “I’ll go get those pillows,” I said.

  “Okay.”

  I walked around the couch and found my way to the hallway closet. I pulled a few extra pillows down from the top shelf, then went back to her. I propped her head up a bit more and put a bit of support underneath her back. I’d taken care of way too many soldiers in my time who were lying on nothing but slabs of wood. I knew how to make sure their bodies were comfortable and the more comfortable she was, the less tension she would carry.

  That meant her body would control the swelling of her ankle more, which meant she’d heal faster.

  Which meant she’d get the fuck out of my cabin sooner rather than later.

  “Thanks,” she said again.

  “Yep,” I said. “Just keep that ankle elevated and try not to walk on your own too much. It needs to heal.”

  Before she could get a word in edgewise, I headed back to my room. I could not believe I was actually going to have to take care of this woman during this storm. The last report I’d heard on the radio said this snow wouldn’t fucking let up for an entire week. An entire fucking week. I’d have to put up with this clumsy, stubborn, strong-willed woman for seven damn days until I could get rid of her.

  This was not the secluded mountain life I had been looking for.

  Raking my hands through my hair, I sat down on the edge of my bed. Even though I couldn't have cared less about that woman, a part of me couldn’t help but listen out for her. It was hard to shut down the part of me that was trained to help but I tried my best to do so. Before I could worry about her, I needed to prepare the generator for when the power went out.

  By the time I did my rounds and made sure the cabin was secured for the storm, I could hear her soft snores coming from the couch. I took out some meat I had thawing in the fridge, then pulled out a massive mixture of fresh vegetables. A stew would be the easiest thing to cook because she could dish it up on her own and heat it up herself. Making a stew and some biscuits could put more distance between the two of us, which meant I didn’t have to deal with her as much. I slammed around in the kitchen, pouring things into a pot before I brought it all to a boil. Not once did she move from the couch.

  She was obviously exhausted and I thanked my stars that she’d stay asleep through the night.

  I cooked up some biscuits while the stew settled, then I brewed some sweet tea. She was a city girl for sure but her light accent told me she was from Tennessee. I set out a cup and a bowl for her, just in case she got up in the middle of the night and wanted something. Then, I took my dinner back into my room.

  I was going to eat, listen to the radio, then go the fuck to sleep.

  The weather announcer kept changing his report every fucking moment. At first, it was going to snow for a whole three days. Then, he changed it to five. Then, it was an entire week. Even this asshat didn’t know what the fuck this storm was doing. I finished my dinner, turned off the radio, and took all my dishes to the kitchen.

  The woman was still sleeping on the couch while the fire slowly dwindled and I fought the urge to go and see how her ankle was.

  I filled the sink with hot bubbly water and put my dishes into it. The woman’s snores became louder and louder and, soon, she wasn’t breathing at all. I rushed over to her side and took one of the pillows out from underneath her head. In an instant, she was breathing again.

  This time, there was no snoring.

  I lifted up the blanket and took a look at her ankle. Her toes were swelling a bit, but nothing that was alarming to me. I unraveled the ace bandage from her skin, applied more of the soothing gel, and then wrapped her back up and tucked her in. Everything was coming back to me like it’d never left. My mind was racing with facts and statistics and clocking all the things that could go wrong. Part of me wanted to make sure I was prepared for anything that could happen to her.

  But part of me simply wanted to sleep this nightmare away.

  If she stayed long enough, she would know how battered I was. If she was trapped here long enough, she would see the monster she was staying with.

  I wasn’t sure if I could stomach that reality.

  End of Sneak Peak. Would you like to know how this continues?

  Click Here: Cabin Fever: A Mountain Man Romance

  COPYRIGHT © 2018 RYE HART - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced
, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on life experiences and conclusions drawn from research, all names, characters, places and specific instances are products of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. No actual reference to any real person, living or dead, is intended or inferred.