by Cynthia Eden
And help was coming…help was getting ever closer, he could hear those sirens. But…help wouldn’t arrive soon enough for him.
The bullet had torn through his back. It was lodged inside of him. It was killing him. “Found you…” he whispered. His head turned and his lips feathered over her cheek. “Found you.”
“Help us!”
Her scream was the last thing he heard.
***
“Stay with me!” Shelly grabbed the hand of the man who’d saved her life—the stranger with the dark hair and the piercing blue eyes. The stranger who was still and cold on the stretcher. “Don’t you do this!”
The EMTs shared a long look. “Ma’am, you need to let him go.”
“You have to help him!” A deputy’s car had raced to the scene first. How long ago had that been? Twenty minutes? Half an hour ago? Once he’d arrived, the guy had radioed for help, and the ambulance had come, but the ambulance attendants weren’t helping! “Stop the bleeding! I think the bullet is still inside of him! You need to—”
“He’s gone, Shelly.”
She stiffened. Her gaze jerked to the right. The sheriff stood there, lit by the swirl of lights. His hat was pulled low over his head, and his hands were on his lean hips. His badge gleamed.
“He was dead before the ambulance arrived,” the sheriff added softly, his lips tightening. “I’m sorry.”
She was still clutching the stranger’s hand. She didn’t even know his name. He’d saved her—twice—and he was dead? Just dead? This couldn’t happen! It wasn’t right.
“Let him go,” Sheriff Blane Gallows added. “They need to take him away.”
She didn’t want to let him go. She wanted him to open his eyes. To see her.
Found you.
“Shelly, I know this isn’t easy, but you have to let the man go now.” The sheriff’s voice was soft, tender. She’d known Blane her whole life. She’d spent many summers and holidays in the mountains, and they’d grown up together. Been friends, even tried a brief period of time being lovers. That hadn’t worked, but they’d remained close.
“I don’t even know his name,” she whispered. He should feel cold, shouldn’t he? He was dead, she was holding onto a dead man, but his skin still felt warm to her.
“He didn’t have ID,” Blane told her, his hand squeezing her shoulder. “But we can get his prints. We’ll figure out who he was. Notify his family. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of him.”
She made herself let him go. Shelly turned her head and met Blane’s green gaze. “He saved my life.”
Determination sharpened his features. “We’re looking for the hunter who fired that shot. Damn fools can’t understand regulations…”
Shelly shivered. She wasn’t so sure the shot had been fired by a reckless hunter. “My brakes didn’t work. He saved me—God, I guess he saved me twice.” She looked back at the stranger, helpless, but he’d just been loaded into the ambulance. His face had been covered, his body covered.
Found you. His rumbling voice echoed in her mind.
“Come on, Shelly, I’ll take you to the cabin,” Blane promised her. “It’s too cold to stay out here.”
Shoulders hunching, Shelly nodded. Blane was right. There was no point in staying out there any longer. The mysterious stranger who’d saved her life—he was gone.
A light dusting of snow began to fall.
And a tear slid down her cheek.
***
His eyes opened and, at first, he only saw a wall of white. He jerked upright as he realized that some sort of cover was over him—a sheet? What the fuck? He shoved it out of his way and glanced around.
Someone screamed. Over and over again.
A woman. She had a stethoscope around her neck and she wore some kind of blue uniform. She gaped at him, her eyes huge and her face stark white. “You’re dead!” she yelled. “Dead, dead—”
A quick sweep of his gaze revealed that he was in the back of an ambulance. The vehicle gave a sharp swerve to the left, and he knew the driver had heard the woman’s screams.
“Not exactly,” he muttered, and he leapt for the back doors. He shoved those doors open even as the ambulance fish-tailed, and he jumped out, flying right from the rear of the vehicle. He didn’t fall. Didn’t stumble at all. He landed on his feet, and he took off running for the line of trees. He heard the screech of the ambulance braking behind him. And he also heard—
“Dead! He’s dead!” The woman was still screaming.
She was…not wrong.
It wasn’t the first time he’d woken from the dead. And he feared it wouldn’t be his last, either.
CHAPTER TWO
It was midnight, and Shelly still couldn’t sleep. She paced the confines of her cabin, her bare feet sliding over the old, wood floors. She’d tried to sleep, but every single time that she’d closed her eyes, she’d seen her stranger. She’d seen him dying, for her.
The fire crackled in the large, stone fireplace. The red and orange flames were dancing as she stared straight at them. Guilt twisted her stomach. The same guilt had her hands shaking in front of her. A man had died, and she was so sick of death. Sick of it reaching for the people around her, over and over again. Sick of—
A soft knock sounded at her door. Her head jerked toward the sound, and her brows lowered as she gazed at the door. She was near the top of the mountain, on an isolated, private stretch of land. Land that had been in her family for generations.
The knock came again, only harder this time. Stronger.
Shelly swallowed as she inched toward the door. It was too late for a visitor. The place was too isolated for some tourist to wander up to her doorstep by mistake. Her phone was on the table near the door, and she grabbed it. Her fingers swiped over the screen. She could call Blane and get the sheriff there in…
In thirty minutes. Because that’s how long it takes to get from his place to the top of this mountain. Oh, damn.
The knock came again. Harder. And…
“I know you’re in there.” A man’s voice. Strong. Familiar. “You’re standing behind the door, and you’re scared, but you don’t need to be.”
No, no way. No. She was wrong about the voice being familiar. Wrong because it couldn’t be, could not be—
Her stranger?
She surged toward the door, flipped the locks and yanked the door open. A cold burst of wind and snow hit her, and Shelly stared in shock at the man before her.
It was him. Her stranger.
The hero.
The dead man.
Her knees started to buckle. The phone slipped from her grasp and dropped to the floor. She was about to follow that phone and hit the wooden floor, but—but he caught her. He moved so fast, catching her and lifting her into his arms. He held her easily as he swept into her cabin, kicking the door shut behind him.
She should scream. She should jerk out of his arms. She should do something.
“You should breathe,” he told her, and his lips—firm, sensual—kicked up just a bit. “That’s what you should do first. Breathe. Then you can scream. You can jerk away from me. You can do everything else you have planned, but you have to start by breathing.”
He carried her to the chair in front of her fireplace. He sat her down ever so carefully even as she sucked in a couple of deep gulps of air.
He knelt in front of her, his hands going to cage her in the chair. His hair was mussed and dusted by a bit of snow. His eyes were just as amazingly blue as they’d been before. He wore a t-shirt—the same black t-shirt he’d worn at the bar. Jeans. Boots.
“You’re dead,” Shelly said.
“I actually get that a lot.”
“What?”
His right hand moved to cup her cheek. His touch was so warm, and she flinched against him.
“Easy.” His gaze didn’t leave her. “I just want to make sure you’re not going to pass out on me.”
Her hand caught his. Held tight. “You’re here. Really here.”
One dark eyebrow raised. “Yes.”
“I’m not dreaming? Hallucinating? Having some kind of breakdown?” Shelly needed to be one hundred percent sure of this.
All trace of amusement left his face. “I’m right here.”
She shook her head. “I saw you die.”
He glanced away from her.
She was still holding his hand. Still holding him, and Shelly didn’t think she’d ever let go. “Who are you?”
He swallowed. “I really hoped you’d know.”
What? “I’m Shelly. Shelly Hampton, and I wish that I could say I knew you, but I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“Shelly.” He seemed to taste her name. Savor it.
She shivered.
His gaze focused on her once more. “I need to tell you some things. And when I do, I want you to promise me that you’ll keep taking those deep breaths, okay?”
She sucked in another deep gulp of air.
“The things I say, they’re going to sound crazy, but I swear, they are true. I’m not lying to you. I won’t lie to you.”
His voice was so deep and hard. His gaze so intense.
“I don’t know who I am.” His gaze held hers. “A few months ago, I woke up in a lab. I was strapped to an exam table. Men and women in white coats rushed around me. I heard them saying my experiment was a success.”
She pulled in another breath.
“They kept me locked away in a facility—didn’t take me long to figure out it was run by the government. They thought I couldn’t hear them when they talked, didn’t think I picked up on their whispers, but I did. They said the place was part of Project Lazarus, and I was a test subject. A fucking lab rat to them.”
She had no idea where this story was going. She didn’t—
“Then they killed me.”
“What?”
He rolled back his shoulders and surged to his feet. His hand pulled from her hold as he towered over her. “I think they killed me five times. Part of their experiment, you see. Because they wanted to see how long it would take me to come back from the dead.”
She could only stare at him. I’m in the mountains, alone in my cabin, with a man who is insane. I let him in my home. Does that make me crazy, too? It must, it—
“You’re not fucking crazy,” he growled. “And you’re also not remembering to breathe, Shelly. Breathe.”
She sucked in more air. Her heart was racing so fast she thought it might burst from her chest at any moment.
“I hate that you’re afraid of me. I-I didn’t think you’d be afraid.” He raked his hand through his hair. “I thought you’d see me…that you’d know me.”
“Um.” She cleared her throat. “Excuse me, but I have to tell you that we’ve never met. Never. I mean, not before I saw you in the bar tonight. We’re strangers.”
His whole body stiffened. “We can’t be.” His hand dropped to his side. For an instant, fury was on his face, and his lethal glare had fear surging even stronger inside of her. She pressed back into the chair and tried to figure out how she could escape. How she—
“You can’t run from me.” A muscle jerked in his jaw. “I’m here to protect you. You’re in danger, don’t you see that?”
She was seeing that fact pretty clearly. Because the guy in front of her was spinning some wild story about a government experiment and—
“You were in my mind. From the minute I woke up in that hell, you were in my head. I’d have flashes of you. I couldn’t remember anything else, only you.” He was definitely angry. He spun away from her, pacing toward the fire. “You were—you are the only thing I know, and you stare at me like I’m a monster.”
Time for her to run. While his back was turned. Now. Shelly leapt from the chair and raced for the door. Her hands flew out and—
Hit him.
Because the big, probably crazy stranger was suddenly in front of her. Impossible. He’d been behind her. He’d been in front of the fireplace. But now he was between her and the door. He’d beaten her to the door. And he wasn’t even breathing hard.
“I am not here to hurt you. You’re in danger, but not from me.” His voice was low, and it seemed to sink right beneath her skin. “I found you…I tracked you…I searched for you because I knew I had to keep you safe.”
“But you don’t know me.” Her voice was too high. Cracking. A terrible contrast to his. “We don’t know each other.”
Pain flashed in his eyes but was quickly masked. “You are the only thing I know. They held me in their lab, kept me prisoner for months. Experimented on me again and again. Killing me, bringing me back.”
No, surely…
Dear God, that couldn’t be true, could it? “Y-you were shot tonight. Show me your back.”
Staring straight at her, he yanked the shirt over his head.
She swallowed. Twice. The guy was built. He didn’t just have a six pack going on. More like a twelve pack. But there were scars on his chest. Faint white ridges. A lot of them. Bullet wounds? Knife wounds?
He turned, giving her his back.
And where there should have been a gaping hole…her fingers reached out and touched warm skin. He jerked hard beneath her touch, and she heard him hiss out a rough breath. “Got the bullet out. I’m okay now.”
She didn’t stop touching him. His skin was…it was slightly red in the middle of his back, near his spine, and she could have sworn that what looked like some kind of fresh scar tissue was starting to form. “Impossible.” Was that…was that blood still on his back? Dried blood?
He turned toward her. Offered her the shirt in his hand.
Shaking, she took the shirt and she found the hole that had been left by the bullet. There was dried blood on the shirt. His blood. She dropped the shirt. Backed up four quick steps. Shook her head. “This isn’t happening.”
“I wish it fucking weren’t. It’s my life, though. Or what’s left of it.” He gave a grim laugh. “You’re what’s left of it. I found you.”
Those words—Oh, God.
“I knew you were out there. You were in my head, and I knew you had to be real, no matter what bullshit the assholes in that lab told me. When the place was destroyed, I escaped. I came looking for you.” He advanced toward her.
Shelly backed up another step.
“You’re in danger.” His hands fisted at his sides. “I know it. I can…I can sense things, okay? Hell, I can come back from the dead. I think that proves I’m not exactly normal.”
No, he was far from normal.
“My senses are better than a normal man’s. Far fucking better. I can hear through walls, I can hear whispers from a hundred yards away. I can see better than any human—see, hear, smell. I’m faster, I’m stronger.”
Nothing he was saying reassured her. “How do I know that you aren’t just crazy?”
His eyes narrowed. “I can prove it.”
Um…
A moment later, he opened the cabin’s front door. Cold air blew inside, chilling her. “Come and watch,” he invited.
And then he slipped outside. She rushed to the door, intending to slam it shut and lock him out while she still had the chance. This was her perfect opportunity, this was—
He was gone.
Her head poked out of the doorway. She looked to the left, to the right, but he wasn’t there. He’d vanished in a blink. No way. Impossible.
Shut the door. Go inside. Lock him out—
“A lock won’t keep me out.” His voice boomed in the night. Boomed—and he had to be a good hundred yards away from her. She inched forward onto her porch, squinting to try and make him out in the distance. He was a shadowy figure and—
Then the shadowy figure seemed to fly toward her. He moved so fast. She opened her mouth to scream, and he was just there. Right in front of her. Touching her. Holding her.
“Told you,” he said, his voice eerily calm. “I’m fast.”
And he let her go. He backed away. An old tree had fallen near her ho
use. The tree’s trunk had to be at least five feet round. He grabbed the tree and lifted it up, as if it weighed nothing.
Oh, God.
She ran back into the cabin. Slammed the door. Locked the door. Triple locked it. Her right foot hit the phone she’d dropped moments before, and she yanked it up. Her fingers flew over the screen as she started to call Blane—
The door burst open.
She yelped and whirled to face the man standing there. He’d knocked in her door—and he still held up one hand, as if he’d just used one hand to break into her cabin.
Shelly rushed across the room, she grabbed for the fireplace poker, but he was too fast. He got to the fireplace first. His hands closed around hers before she could get a weapon. The phone went flying again as he pulled her close.
“Don’t hurt me,” she cried even as she tried to figure out how to hurt him.
But his eyes widened in absolute shock. “Never,” he swore, and his hold—it was careful. Gentle. His fingers were around her wrists, but his thumbs were stroking her skin. “I came to keep you safe, not to hurt you.”
He had saved her life—twice. Shelly’s head tilted as she fought her fear and studied him. “You really don’t know who you are?”
He shook his head. “In the lab, they just gave me a number. Never used a name. And like I said, the only thing about my past that I remember—”
“Is me,” she finished softly. Her words were calm and quiet, but her heart was racing like crazy in her chest. What he said didn’t make a bit of sense to her. Everything seemed impossible but…
But…
She had seen him die. He’d been dead at the crash scene on the mountain road. And she’d seen his super speed. His incredible strength. “Is there anything else you can do? Any other super powers that I need to know about?” Because, yes, it sounded like she was boarding the crazy train.
His gaze cut away from her.
Oh, crap. “There is something else.”
He kept stroking her inner wrists. Her pulse was going mad beneath his touch. Understandable since he scared her. A guy with his powers, how could he not scare her? But there was also a strange awareness between them. A sort of primitive pulse that was drawing her to him.
