She glanced at the man who stood before her. Maybe he had a car she could use.
He stepped up to her, stooped and placed her arm around his shoulders. “Come on.”
She hopped along beside him, her right leg trembling, entire body quaking as he led her deeper into the forest, away from the mountain. Where was he taking her? Was it safe to trust him? The sensible side of her said it wasn’t, but one glance at him was enough to make the rest of her feel she could. There was something about him that set her at ease and made her feel safe.
Protected.
It was probably just shock talking.
“Do you have a car?” She looked up at him.
He kept his profile to her. “Me? No. My brother has one though. Did you walk all the way up here?”
She shook her head.
He glanced at her. “So you have a car?”
She nodded this time and fought a grimace as a thousand needles jabbed up her left leg. “No keys. In backpack. Lost it.”
He huffed. “You’re in no state to be driving anyway.”
She looked up at him now, trying to see whether she really could trust him, needing to convince the sensible side of her that he wasn’t a danger to her. He looked as if he could handle himself and his black jacket hid some serious muscles she could feel as he moved with her, easily helping her walk. He knew this area too, had managed to find her from wherever he had come from, despite the weather.
“Where are we going?” She peered into the forest he illuminated with the flashlight he gripped in his other hand and then at the sky, trying to make out which direction they were heading.
“I’ll take you to my place.” He noticed it when she tensed, but misinterpreted the reason for it. “I won’t hurt you. As soon as you’re strong enough to leave, you can go. I’ll stay with my brother while you take my cabin.”
She hadn’t feared he would try anything with her. She feared she was going to pull him into danger.
“What’s your name?” Her voice trembled slightly as she asked that.
“Lowe.” His tone was gruff, but the sound of his voice still warmed her.
She tried to smile, but it came off as a grimace as her leg ached. “Cameo.”
He slid her a look, one that put fire in his blue eyes that burned away all trace of gentleness.
“Whatever trouble you’re in, I’ll keep you safe, Cameo. I swear it.”
Chapter 4
Lowe helped Cameo over a particularly rough and uneven patch of ground, holding her gently, careful not to hurt her as she hopped along beside him. Every inch of him was aware of where the slight female pressed against him, how his fingers gripped her ribs beneath her right arm, and how her breath hitched whenever her leg hurt her. The feel of her was driving him crazy, together with the scent of her blood as it swirled around him in the wind, and the fact she had been attacked.
That last one had his bear side wild with a need to rip apart the male who had done this to her, made it uneasy and filled him with a deep desire to tuck her closer to him, sheltering her in his arms.
He had thought the urge to shift and attack that had come over him when he had found her would have faded by now, but it was still going strong, kept him quiet as it filled his mind with images that made him restless. The replay spinning around his head was different every time, but one thing remained constant—the human male had survived the fall and Lowe had been the one to kill him.
Lowe glanced down at Cameo, studying her profile as she stared intently at the ground, carefully picking her way over it.
He wanted to know more about her situation, but one look at her was all it took for him to see she wasn’t ready to handle being questioned. She was too pale, her eyes unfocused despite how fiercely she watched the ground before her, and although she was doing her best to hide it from him, she was in pain. In shock.
Talking about the male would only remind her of what she had done. It would only make her condition worse. She wasn’t handling it well, was as quiet and lost in thought as he was, and his gut said she was still blaming herself for what had happened.
The scent of fear was still strong on her too, as acrid and overpowering as it had been when he had come upon her, when she had refused to look at the body, and it triggered a powerful reaction in him—a fierce need to protect her.
That urge had him striking out on a south-eastern path rather than heading directly east to attempt to find Knox. The weather was abysmal now and night was closing in, and getting Cameo somewhere warm where she could rest took priority. Knox was going to be furious with him when he returned to Black Ridge, but his brother would return there. He knew it in his heart and it calmed him, eased the need to find him and make sure he was all right.
Knox might understand his reason for choosing not to join up with him again when he met Cameo and saw the state of her. Being out in the cold was only going to worsen her condition, could even prove fatal for her. He knew a little about humans. They were weak, easily succumbed to hypothermia. He feared that her state of shock and her injuries might make it easier for hypothermia to seize her.
She hissed in a breath when she wobbled on a root and was forced to put her left foot down to steady herself.
He glared down at her injured leg. He wasn’t sure what was wrong with it, and he wanted to get a good look at it because he feared it might be broken. The need to get her tucked safe and warm inside his cabin grew stronger, rousing an urgency inside him that had his bear growing even more restless and had him turning to her.
“I can carry you.” The moment those words left his lips, she turned a glare on him. “I really don’t think now is the time to be stubborn.”
He pointed the flashlight at her leg, drawing her gaze to it.
“It’s fine,” she bit out. “I can walk.”
He wanted to growl at that, but held it back, aware that if he unleashed it he would only terrify her.
To prove her point, she broke free of his arm and defiantly hobbled a few steps, the toe of her left boot barely touching the dirt before she hopped forwards.
He grunted. “Fine. We’ll do this the hard way… but you don’t need to be stubborn about it.”
“I’m not stubborn,” she snapped, fire in her eyes as she scowled over her shoulder at him.
Maybe the shock was passing, for her at least. It felt as if it hit him instead as he stood there staring at her, bewitched by her spit and fire, by how her sky-blue eyes gained a sharp edge. She was beautiful, even when the soft curve of her jaw set in a hard line as her full lips flattened and her cheeks reddened. Caramel-coloured eyebrows knitted hard above those entrancing eyes, ones that dared him to say another word about her being stubborn.
Lowe got the feeling he had been wrong. She wasn’t stubborn. She was scared. She didn’t want to rely on him any more than she already was, clearly feared that she was pulling him into her mess. She was responsible. Courageous. A female who felt sure she could handle everything on her own.
Only she didn’t need to, not anymore.
That look in her eyes said she wouldn’t concede easily though, and as she dropped her gaze to her feet and leaned against a tree for support, he recognised something else. She didn’t want to be a burden.
Here was a female who was clearly used to being strong and capable, and who was ashamed of what had happened to her. Foolish female. Being injured and relying on someone else didn’t make her weak. Refusing help was being weak. Clinging to some crazy notion that she could do it all alone and hurting herself further just to prove a point to herself, well, that was something he wouldn’t allow.
He strode up to her, wrapped his right arm around her ribs and gripped her firmly, but not hard enough to accidentally hurt her, showing her that she wasn’t going to push him away that easily.
“You want to walk, then we’ll walk.” He looked down into her eyes and hated the edge of hopelessness and vulnerability they possessed. He sighed. “But, if you want me to pick you up, give
you a rest like, just ask, Cameo. I’m not offering to do it to come across as some macho male or dominate you. I’m not trying to trample your independence or make you feel weak and helpless. I’m just trying to stop you from hurting and to help you get through this.”
She lowered her gaze to the ground again, a solemn look crossing her face. “I know.”
Her eyes slipped shut and she sighed.
Lowe leaned across her and placed the flashlight in her right hand, and she frowned down at it as he closed her gloved fingers around it.
“Light the way for us. We’re heading that way.” He directed the flashlight towards where he knew Black Ridge to be.
She nodded and clutched the light, kept it steady on the ground just a few feet in front of her, so it illuminated her path, and he started walking with her again. He could feel the tension in her easing as they crawled along at a snail’s pace. Giving her something to do that made her feel useful had been the right move. She was far more relaxed now, focused on her task, and was even leaning more heavily on him, using his strength and his support to help her move easily over the uneven terrain.
At this rate, they might make it to his cabin before the month was out.
“You really live up here?” Her soft voice barely reached him as a gust of wind roared through the trees and her question ended on a shriek as it shook snow loose from the trees and it showered down on her.
Lowe released her for a moment and brushed the white powder off the hood and shoulders of her dark jacket, and then slid his arm back around her. “This storm is getting worse.”
He scoured the route ahead of him, trying to make out where they were. The snow made it hard for him to recognise anything as it raced through the trees at almost a horizontal as the gale caught it.
“We should find somewhere to stop for the night.”
She locked up tight as he said that, her blue eyes leaping to his face. “We can’t stop outside in this weather. We’ll freeze.”
“Wasn’t talking about outside.” He squinted through the snow and thought he spotted a sheer rocky wall ahead that he recognised. “There’s plenty of caves around here.”
She gasped. “And plenty of bears or cougars in those caves.”
“The local wildlife won’t bother us.” He chuckled and when she looked at him as if he was insane, he tried to think like a human, because he didn’t like her looking at him that way, as if she wanted to run a mile from him. He glanced at her belt. “You’ve got your trusty bear spray. That’ll keep us safe.”
She looked as if she wanted to touch it to check it was still there.
He sneered at it in his mind. Infernal shit. He hated that stuff, had wanted to roar at her when she had threatened him with it, his bear side quick to remember every damned time some bastard had sprayed him with it in the past. Humans were often a little too trigger happy when it came to bear spray. Not once had he been a threat to a male or female who had hit him with the fiery, horrific concoction the canister contained.
“We’ll need a fire.” She was sounding more like she was going to agree to finding a nice sheltered spot to bed down for the night. “I can make one.”
“I bet you can, but I think I can handle it just this once.” He guided her left, towards the cliff he had seen, and breathed a sigh of relief when it turned out to be the one he had been thinking about.
She froze and refused to move as she spotted the entrance to a small cave, one that was tucked in a bend in the rock, away from the direction of the wind. “What about bears?”
He inhaled, pretending to be getting ready to sigh when he was really scenting the air. “No bears. But I’ll check it out.”
He released her and went to walk away, but she grabbed his sleeve in a fierce grip. He looked back at her, his gaze colliding with hers as his eyebrows rose high on his forehead to disappear beneath his black hat.
“Won’t you need this?” She held the flashlight out to him.
“Oh. Yeah. That’ll help.” He smiled at her, took the light he didn’t need to be able to see in the dark and waggled it. “Silly me.”
It was hard remembering to act like a human when he hadn’t been around one in so long.
He pretended to use the flashlight, but kept his eyes away from the bright spot on the ground, not wanting to dampen his naturally good vision by looking at it. When he reached the small cave that extended back into the rock a good fifteen feet, he kept it pointed at the entrance, away from the rear of the cave. As he had suspected, no animals were occupying it. There wasn’t even a sign one had been using it recently.
Lowe went back to Cameo and handed her the flashlight. “Nothing in there. Come on.”
He helped her to the cave, settled her on the dirt inside it and left her for only as long as it took to find something he could use to make a fire. Thankfully, there were some twigs and branches inside the mouth of the cave, sheltered from the storm. They were dry enough to use for a fire. He made one close to the mouth of the cave and got it going, warmed his hands a little on it as he waited for the flames to catch and spread before adding more wood to it. It smoked a little, but it would do.
Lowe eased back into the cave, towards Cameo, and settled on his knees in front of her. She still had a death-grip on the flashlight, was using it to inspect every inch of the cave at least a dozen times.
“You good? Warming up?” He smiled when she looked at him and grimaced when she flashed the damned light right in his face.
“Sorry!” She lowered the beam. “Um, yes. I’m warming up a little.”
“That’s good.” He unzipped his black jacket, removed it and placed it around her shoulders.
“Wait. You need this.” She tried to take it off, but he gripped the two sides and held it in place.
“I’m good. I’m warm enough.” He was cold, but he could handle it and she couldn’t.
Her body was frail compared with his and shock was making her vulnerable to the icy chill in the air. He sank onto his backside in front of her boots and looked at her leg.
“When you’re warm enough, I’d like to take a look at that leg.” He nodded towards it and her gaze fell there, growing distant again.
When she didn’t answer, just remained silent with that lost look in her blue eyes, he tried to think of something to say, something to take her mind off the dead man they had left behind in the woods.
He wanted to question her, was worried by the fact there had been a human up in the valley with a handgun of all things. The dead male hadn’t been with Archangel, he had gotten that much from what he had seen, but he was trouble. Lowe had found several IDs on him, all of them likely fake, and no car keys.
Either he had lost them like Cameo had apparently lost hers, or there was someone else in the valley looking for her.
Once he had her comfortable at his cabin, safely inside it, he would ask her about what had happened. For now, he would concentrate on getting her to Black Ridge.
Saint wasn’t going to be happy with him when he rolled into the Ridge with Cameo in tow, but Lowe wouldn’t take no for an answer about her staying there.
They would just have to be careful while she was at the Ridge and keep their secret under wraps until she was gone. His bear side wanted to moan and roar, grew agitated at the thought of her leaving, and it made him restless, had him looking towards the mouth of the cave as a need to shift came over him.
“Did you hear something?” Cameo whispered.
Lowe shook his head. “Nothing out there. Not even my brother.”
“Your brother?” Her gaze drilled into the side of his face. “You mentioned him before. You think he’s out there in this storm?”
“I know he is. When I heard the gunshots, I left him on a trail to come find you.” And now he was worried about him because the storm was growing worse still and Knox had been a long way from the lodge and home when Lowe had left him.
The gods only knew where his brother was now.
Knox would have
come after him, wanting to stick close and protect him. Chances were high that his brother was out there in the woods somewhere, searching for him in this blizzard. He could only hope his brother had enough sense to find somewhere to bed down for the night. Knox had the advantage over him there. He could shift into his bear form to sleep the night away and wouldn’t need a fire to keep him warm. His dense fur would do the job.
Lowe got to freeze his ass off in his human form instead.
“Are you worried about him?”
He looked back at Cameo. “Nah… A little. Knox can handle himself. He’ll pick a cave and bed down until the weather passes.”
“How long have you lived up here?” Her gaze grew curious.
Lowe shuffled back to face her and started unlacing her left boot. “A while. It’s nice up here. Quiet… Normally.”
He smiled at her.
She almost smiled back at him, but her gaze dropped to her foot as he pulled her boot off. Her very expensive boot. She had some serious socks on too, and he had noticed her jacket was top of the line. Whoever Cameo was, she was a woman who knew her stuff, who looked almost comfortable out here in the wilderness, as if she belonged here.
Lowe undid the zipper that ran a few inches up the leg of her salopettes from the hem, loosening them, and then gently eased the material up to reveal bare skin.
“Is it bad?” There was a tremble in her voice now.
He shook his head, because he wasn’t really sure what he was looking at. There were some nasty bruises on her shin and up her calf, and a few grazes. He removed his gloves and blew on his hands, trying to warm them up. She still tensed and hissed in a breath when he touched her calf.
“Sorry,” he muttered with a glance at her.
She shook her head, her lips tightly compressed as her eyes watered. Maybe it hadn’t been his cold hands that had caused that reaction in her.
“It hurts?” He looked down at her leg and then back into her eyes.
Rescued by her Bear (Black Ridge Bears Shifter Romance Series Book 2) Page 4
