Two years she had been waiting to see him again and she still couldn’t. She peered up into the darkness, wanting it gone so she could look into his eyes and see that everything was going to be all right.
So she could see in those same eyes that the moment they had shared had affected him as deeply as it had affected her.
She was dreaming now.
She released his hand and took her other one back, tucked both against her damp jacket as the warmth that had been slowly filling her fell away, leaving her frozen to her soul. Two years. Two long years and not once had he tried to contact her. If the moment they had shared had affected him as deeply as it had her, he wouldn’t have walked out in the dead of night and never contacted her.
Knox lingered a moment and then he sighed and moved away from her. She busied herself with removing her boots, trying to shut him out and ignore what he was doing as he moved around only a few feet from her. A bright golden light flared and her head darted up, her eyes adjusting to the sudden burst of light. It chased over Knox’s profile as he stared at the long match and then lowered it towards the grate of the fireplace. It didn’t take long for the fire to catch and spread, brightening the room and revealing Knox to her.
His dark blond hair was slicked back, the wet strands shining in the firelight, and the handsome planes of his face had settled in a hard expression as he stared at the fire, shifting a log with the iron to allow the flames to spread beneath it.
A distance had grown between them since she had taken her hand back, one she knew was her fault. One she wasn’t sure how to narrow down again. She hadn’t meant to push him away, didn’t want to be cold and bitter towards him, but she couldn’t help it. Seeing him again after two years, having him act as if nothing had changed between them, as if those two years hadn’t existed for him, was difficult for her. He had hurt her, and as much as she didn’t want to be petty and punish him, part of her wanted him to hurt too. She wanted him to know the pain he had caused her.
“I’ll… uh… I’ll get the generator going.” He stood and pivoted away from the fire, disappeared into a room off to her right, at the rear of the lodge, before she could say a word or stop him.
Skye unzipped her coat and looked at the L-shaped black couch, realised she couldn’t dump the wet item on it and forced herself to stand. Her legs were still stiff as she walked to the front door and closed it. She lingered there, clutching her jacket in front of her as she stared out into the swirling storm. It was a whiteout. That gave her comfort, eased the part of her that feared Karl was going to appear at any moment.
Knox was right and the men wouldn’t find the lodge in this storm in the dark. It would be a miracle if they found the lodge at all. They must have crossed the valley and covered a vast distance to reach this place. As far as she remembered, the glacier was a long way up the valley, almost twice the distance than the small hunter’s cabin had been from the trailhead.
The lodge had to be further from the glacier than Knox had made it sound, because there was no way he could have covered that much ground in the middle of a snowstorm and in the dark too. He had been moving swiftly though, and now she was thinking about it, he hadn’t needed a flashlight to illuminate the way for him. A hundred questions filled her mind.
They fled as a light flickered on, making her tense and her fingers tighten against her jacket. Something to her left beeped and she looked there. The light was one of three in the large modern kitchen area, suspended from a wooden crossbeam in the open vaulted ceiling. The other two in the black metal dome-shaped shades were out.
Skye hung her coat up near the door and checked her dark green sweater. It was damp at the hem where it had come loose from her black trousers, but she could live with that.
She hadn’t expected such a well-appointed kitchen up here in the remote wilderness. There was a large stove in front of the window that overlooked the front porch and a double sink set into the wooden cabinets. Another window above it revealed the side porch she had seen. The worktop looked like solid black granite, which couldn’t be right. It would weigh far too much for men to haul up here, even if they had a small four-by-four vehicle that could somehow traverse the forest to reach it. She didn’t know of any road beyond the forestry track.
Maybe they had flown it in with a helicopter. Some of the bigger lodges in the valleys used local pilots to deliver building materials to them. It made a lot more sense to her than men carrying it all the way from the trailhead.
There was no way a group of men would be strong enough to haul it all that way, not even if there were half a dozen of them.
She moved to the wooden post at the start of the long row of cabinets that acted as an island and separated the kitchen from the living room and touched the counter. It was cold enough to be real stone.
A door beyond the L-shaped couch opened and she tensed, relaxed again as she spotted Knox dusting snow off his soaked fleece shirt.
“You’ll catch your death in that.” She regretted it the moment she said it, the second he looked at his shirt and then at her.
A wicked glint in his blue eyes.
He undid the top two buttons, reached over his back and pulled the shirt off in one fluid move, revealing his bare torso to her.
Oh God.
Her mouth dried out and she tried to avert her gaze, but it was glued to his body as he lowered his wet shirt to his side and stood there facing her, letting her stare. Tempting her. She swallowed hard, wanted to be angry with him for playing such a trump card, for trying to sway her and get her to lower her defences. Impossible. It was impossible to be angry while she was staring at perfection. There wasn’t a man in this world who had a body like Knox’s. It was cut from stone, honed by the finest sculptors, made to tempt women and set their biological clocks screaming at them.
Strong male. Competent male. Perfect breeding material.
He looked every bit a hunter, or perhaps a warrior, as he stood there staring at her, the broad slabs of his pectorals shifting with each breath.
She frowned.
Each increasingly unsteady breath.
Her gaze flicked up to his.
He looked away from her and strode to his right, disappearing beyond another door.
Had her staring rattled him? She had thought he would lap it up, that he would enjoy having her eyes on him, but she had the damnedest feeling that she had shaken him and made him nervous.
Which would be a first.
He had never been nervous around her before.
Was he waiting for her to give him hell?
If she did, he would deserve it, but right now she was too tired to get into a fight with him.
Skye moved to the fire and stood before it, staring at the flames, trying to enjoy the way they warmed her numbed toes and trying not to think about Knox warming her in a different way. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. The Knox she had known would have soaked up her attention, would have smiled in that cocksure way that had always made her roll her eyes. Something about him had changed.
An answer flickered through her mind and even though she tried not to, she latched onto it.
Did he have someone else?
Oh God. Was that why he hadn’t contacted her? Was he married? Had he cheated on his wife with her? Her mind ran at a million miles per hour, racking up the questions, spiralling into a deep, dark rabbit hole of hurt.
“You okay?” Knox’s voice coming from right beside her startled her and she whipped to face him, tripped on her foot and almost fell, but he snagged her wrist and kept her upright. His blue gaze leaped to his hand on her wrist and he was quick to release her. “Something on your mind?”
“No. Yes. What makes you say that?” She grimaced.
He frowned and eased closer, and God he smelled good. The black long-sleeved T-shirt he had pulled on did nothing to hide his muscles from her, seemed to emphasise every damned one.
“You look… I’m not sure. Maybe like you were ch
ewing on a wasp. Or a bee.” He glanced away from her, his face hardening, and grumbled under his breath, “Fucking bees.”
She got the impression he really hated bees. “You allergic to them or something?”
He glanced at her and frowned, and then his brow relaxed. “No. Just hate how they stop me from getting their honey. Got a few bad experiences with bees under my belt.”
“It’s easier just to buy honey. I mean… who tries to take honey from a hive? Unless you keep bees?”
“Keep bees,” he murmured thoughtfully, his eyes lighting up, as if that thought had never crossed his mind before but he liked the idea of it. “Honey tastes better fresh from the source.”
They were getting off track. She tried to think of a way to get their conversation back on topic and then decided she didn’t want to go back to thinking about the fact he might be married.
Her mouth had other ideas.
“Are you married?” she blurted and grimaced.
Smooth move.
He jerked backwards as if she had slapped him and frowned at her. “Married? Hell, no. I’m not married. Why are you asking me that—oh.”
His eyebrows rose.
He swallowed hard.
“Skye…”
She shook her head and turned away from him, not wanting him to see that she was relieved to hear that he wasn’t married. That relief was quick to dissipate when she considered he might have been married.
She pushed the words out. “When we… were you married then… or maybe you cheated on someone?”
“Where’s all this coming from?” He reached for her and she moved a step forwards, stopping him from touching her.
He sighed and walked past her, ran a hand through his hair, tousling it as he went to the kitchen. He stopped near the island and pivoted to face her.
“I didn’t cheat on anyone with you. Skye…” He huffed and frowned, drummed his fingers on the black stone counter, and then abruptly turned away from her again. “I’ll get you a warm drink.”
“I’ll take a cold one.” She held his gaze when he paused and looked back at her, surprise in his blue eyes. “I need something a little stiffer than coffee… and I’m also a little afraid you’ll try to give me what you think passes for coffee. I’m not sure I can stomach another dose of whatever that was you gave me back at that cabin.”
He half-smiled.
“I warned you it was awful.” He shrugged and looked off to his left, out of the front window above the stove. “Lowe got all the cooking genes. He could have made even that out-of-date crap taste good.”
This wasn’t the first time she had heard him talk about his brother as if he was superior. It struck her that he measured himself against his twin and that deep inside, beyond all the armour he wore around his heart, he felt he was lacking. She was sure there were things he could do that Lowe couldn’t. She walked over to him, drawn to him, needing to be close to him because despite his armour, she could see he was hurting and she wanted to know why.
She stopped close to him and angled her head up, her gaze colliding with his again. “About that drink.”
He smiled easily this time.
“I have just the thing.”
Chapter 14
Knox rounded the kitchen island, tugging the long sleeves of his black T-shirt up at the same time, revealing toned forearms that flexed and had those damned biological urges Skye was finding harder and harder to ignore growing stronger within her.
He stooped and opened a cupboard in the corner of the kitchen, near the sink, and when he turned and straightened, revealing the bottle he held, she smiled and shook her head.
Whiskey.
He grabbed two glasses from the cupboard above the one he had found the whiskey in and came back to her, choosing the other side of the island to her. He set the glasses down and pulled the stopper from the bottle.
She stared at the amber liquid as it sloshed into the glasses. It was strange having him being the one to serve her whiskey this time when she had done it for him so many times in the past. She lifted her head to tell him that and froze as her gaze caught on his face, as a feeling ran through her and had her thoughts shifting course.
Knox finished pouring two strong glasses of whiskey and looked up at her, still clutching the bottle. “What is it?”
“Nothing. I mean…” She stared at him, that feeling growing stronger. “It just hit me and… Well, I can’t believe it’s you… that you’re really here… or that there are men after us. Everything just seems so… crazy. Surreal. Like a dream. Or a nightmare.”
Knox set the whiskey down and offered his other hand to her, reaching across the black granite counter, his blue eyes earnest and open as he held her gaze. “I’m real enough.”
She looked at his hand, tempted to take it. He had big hands. Strong, capable hands. They were as rugged as the rest of him, looked as if they could handle lifting logs and chopping wood with ease, or knocking a man out with a single punch, yet whenever he had touched her, they had been soft and gentle, applying just the right amount of pressure to make her burn for him.
Skye shifted her hand towards his. Stopped herself at the critical moment and reached for one of the glasses instead. She drew it to her and lowered her gaze to it, and Knox sighed and took his hand back, snagging the other glass on the way.
“This is…” Knox sighed again, making her want to look at him to see whether he was as conflicted as he sounded. “This is strange for me too. It’s been a while since I last saw you, but it feels like only yesterday. Like the years just disappeared the moment I set eyes on you again.”
She felt that too, but kept it to herself. She didn’t feel it all the time. Sometimes, like now, she felt every day of those two years, the hurt she had felt in the weeks following their night together echoing inside her.
He glanced at her as she looked at him again, guilt flickering in his eyes before he looked at his whiskey.
“Don’t worry about it.” She tried to keep the bite from her tone but failed, couldn’t hold back the hurt as it surged through her, the bitterness that had plagued her for months after he had left without a word. She called herself on that. The bitterness had lingered in her far longer than mere months. It had been festering inside her the entire time they had been apart. She had tried to forget him, but it had been impossible. Knox wasn’t the kind of guy a woman could just let go. Or at least he was the kind of guy she couldn’t just let go. “So you seduced me, left before I woke and I never heard from you again. There’s absolutely no need for you to apologise to me.”
“I did just save you.” He frowned at her and regret crossed his features, softening them in an instant.
“That’s debatable.” She swirled her whiskey, lifted it and sipped it, but couldn’t savour it as acid scoured her insides raw and her blood burned and chilled at the same time. The fear she had felt when she had been around Karl hadn’t gone anywhere and she doubted it would while she knew he and his men were out there. She looked at Knox again, needing to hear him tell her that everything was going to be all right and needing him to confirm her suspicions. “They’re going to come up here, aren’t they? They’re going to come for us.”
He closed his eyes and nodded, and when he opened them again, steely resolve darkened his blue irises, that look in them all she needed to feel safe again. “When they get here, I’ll be ready for them.”
The part of her that couldn’t let go of her hurt, that wanted to punish him, had her mouth moving before she could stop it. “Can you think of any reason why four armed men just happened to be heading up your valley? Maybe you slept with their sister or something and forgot to call her?”
He pulled a face.
“Ouch. Low blow.” His handsome features smoothed, turning serious again. “They’re after a woman. Cameo.”
“Cameo, huh? Your girlfriend?” she bit out.
He frowned, the corners of his lips turning downwards as his head tilted slightly to his left, someth
ing she had noticed it always did when he wasn’t impressed with someone. Fine, she was being difficult, but she couldn’t stop herself even when she wanted things to be calm between them again.
“Cameo isn’t my girlfriend.” He twisted his glass in his fingers. “She’s my brother’s girlfriend.”
She believed him as she sipped her whiskey again, enjoying it this time as her mood evened out and she shut down the part of her that kept wanting to lash out at Knox. Mostly because he looked close to answering some of her questions, ones that had been bothering her since she had found herself at a trailhead with four armed men.
“They mentioned a woman, and something about two men.” She lowered her drink to rest on the counter.
“The two men are dead. Cameo is with my brother.” Knox glanced at his whiskey, stared at it for so long she thought he might not say anything else, even when she could see the war in his eyes. He was debating whether to tell her something. What? It only made her want to know even more. He swigged his whiskey and huffed. “I wish you hadn’t gotten involved in this.”
Because it meant their paths had crossed again?
The look he gave her, one laced with pain and a hint of fear, told her that wasn’t the reason. He was worried about her, afraid something might happen to her, and that touched her, softening her mood further, making it easier for her to ignore that part of her that wanted her to be angry with him.
“Cameo… she’s a ranger and Karl is her ex. Apparently, when they were together, he was a decent man.” Knox rubbed a hand over his damp blond hair and frowned as he shook his head slightly, his blue eyes telling her he found it hard to believe Karl had ever been a good man. “She left to become a ranger and her brother got caught up in some bad shit and Karl was apparently at the centre of it.”
“What kind of bad shit?” She frowned and leaned closer, curious now. “Just what is it Karl and those men are involved in? Is it the mob?”
“The mob?” He looked as if he wanted to chuckle at that so she scowled at him. “He’s a drug dealer. Some kind of boss or something. Cameo’s brother skimmed money off his area’s takings and Karl found out… and killed him… after he had told Karl that Cameo had the money.”
Saved by her Bear (Black Ridge Bears Shifter Romance Series Book 3) Page 11
