She snorted. “Four whole words in under two minutes and not one of them a thank you.” Ignoring his rudeness, she leaned closer and studied his eyes. “Headache, nausea?”
Deadpan, his eyes flat, Stephen demanded, “Your name.”
“You can call me River.” She did not ask his in return.
Eyeing him uncertainly, she reached for a scrap of fabric hanging near the fire. “I washed your clothes, but they won’t be dry for a few hours yet.” River tossed him his underwear before turning to stoke up the flames. “Those were cleaned in the sink last night, princess. The bathroom is through the door behind you if you want to pull on your skivvies and wash up. Don’t be surprised when there’s no hot water. I didn’t have time to catch dinner and prep the heat pump before the few hours of daylight passed.”
With the beginnings of a better blaze growing, she looked over her shoulder. The man was staring at her skull, scowling as if all his worldly troubles she’d dumped in his lap.
When he made no move to stand, she frowned. “It’s not so bad, you know. You’re not the first to get lost. You won’t be the last. At least you’re alive... though not out of the woods yet.” She leered, mimicking a rim shot. “Get it? Out of the woods?”
His attention went to the fire, not at all impressed with her stupidity.
Snickering, she scooped up her catch. “I thought it was funny.”
Jacket hung on a chair, the woman’s exposed knit sweater and dirty jeans underneath were worse for wear.
He watched her yank the entrails out of a trout. “You claimed I was ill. For how long?”
Splat went another fish’s insides. “Just the night. You passed out at dawn. I would have stayed with you, but I lost my catch yesterday and canned food needs to be saved for emergencies.”
“You only caught three.”
Cutting a glare over her shoulder, River cocked a brow. “Sorry, I was busy cleaning the vomit you didn’t have out of my clothes... not to mention the blood that came down my nose when you clocked me for giving you aspirin and keeping you hydrated.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t kill you.”
The fillets were slapped into a waiting skillet, sizzling loud enough she had to raise her voice to spit, “No you just cried like a baby. I’m not a sadist. Don’t think I enjoyed it. In fact, don’t think of me at all, and sure as fuck don’t thank me!”
Shaking the skillet to keep the fish from sticking, River ignored the man, refusing to flinch when he stood and hobbled nearer. Whatever shyness had possessed him the night before was gone. He was ass naked, unabashed as he leaned against the wall to watch her.
His hostess looked exhausted, still filthy no matter her splashings in the lake. Throat raw, he pointed it out. “You haven’t slept?”
“No,” she snapped. “I haven’t slept, sunshine. Sit down, food’s ready.” Turning with two plates of burnt fish, she slapped them down on the table. “And for God’s sake stop flapping your uncut dick around in my kitchen.”
He seemed unsure. “Uncut?”
God help her, but a nervous giggle escaped at his lack of comprehension. The accent and foreign rumblings in his fever… she knew he wasn’t from her hemisphere, but that didn’t mean she was going to explain the concept of circumcision to him.
Never fully giving him her back, she uncovered day-old fry bread, put down silverware, and plopped into her chair. She was so fucking tired, and the man hobbling closer with his drawers fisted in his hand was making her uncomfortable. When he took a seat and shimmied into the scrap of clothing, the anxious pounding in her rib cage lessened and she made herself eat.
He eyeballed the unappetizing food, looking long and hard before beefy fingers moved to grab a utensil.
River pointed with her fork. “My cooking is pretty hit or miss. Twenty percent hit seventy percent miss.”
Stephen shoveled in as much as he could before swallowing the mass, shuddering at the disgusting taste. In a pained voice, he grumbled, “You are missing ten percent.”
“The ten percent is unmentionable.” She took another bite, following his lead and eating quickly to avoid the taste. “I would like to blame the gas range, but if I did, I would be lying.”
He’d finished it all in three more repeats of the face stuffing first bites. “Have you contacted the authorities?”
“I radioed the Rangers this morning.”
She was lying and it was painfully obvious to someone with his training. Her oversight was in his favor. Having his alias identified as the shooter, his face would be on FBI watch lists... sought by the CIA, Interpol. With none the wiser, he could kill the horrid female and no soul would ever know.
Just as death was not his yesterday, imminent incarceration would not be his tomorrow.
The way he stared, so cold, he could tell he made her nervous, but River warned, “Your tracks, stranger, were obvious. Your size, their depth, the fact you walk with a limp. You’d be noticed. This is small country. And, yeah, I’m lying to you. I couldn’t get through, but that doesn’t mean no one has their eye on me.”
She had a point. The open shelves were stocked with canned goods, and though she appeared to be athletic under the lumpy sweater, a woman of her size could not carry all that food here alone.
In answer to his further contemplative silence, River explained, “No trucks get this deep, you’re going to have to shelter and wait for snowfall. With more powder, I can take you on my sled. Or, if you want to try the hike, it’s two days to town. I’ll draw a map on the back of your hand and we can see if you have better luck than last time.”
“How far? Which direction?”
“Far. East.” She gave an apologetic shrug. “If you leave right now, you might make it before the blizzard hits. Clever guy like you did see the sky. You know a storm is coming, right? Options are limited.”
Stephen said nothing.
“You in a hurry to get somewhere?”
More silence, the dense naked chest across from her expanding in a breath.
“Your ankle, is it broken? Do you need to be airlifted? I’ll make the trip alone and notify authorities if that’s the case. While I’m gone you can keep trying the radio and might get them here sooner.”
“I do not require such a measure.”
Nodding, River said, “I scouted the area upstream from where I found you. I didn’t find a camp or a pack... nothing. Do you have friends I need to worry about?”
“I have no one.” Stephen stood, hopping to spare his sprained ankle and bracing against the wall on the way to use her facilities.
When the bathroom door closed, River mumbled, “I’m sure you can thank your charming personality for that.”
While he was out of the way, she hung up the laundry, cleaned up the fish guts, and left the couch for the wounded prick, slouching down in a shabby recliner instead. She was reading a worn paperback by the time he navigated all the hanging clothes and reclaimed his throne.
An hour passed and Stephen didn’t speak, but he did lean forward and tend the fire in her place when the time had come. When it was done, he grunted until she looked at him. “You’ve seen my face.”
If he was trying to rationalize whatever made him look at her as if ready to rip out her throat, it wasn’t going to fly. She winked at him, smirking. “It ain’t nothing to write home about, pretty boy. I like my men a bit more roughed up and craggy.”
He said nothing; she pointedly resumed reading her book.
When her eyes were back on the page, Stephen felt the need to say, “You believe you are superior to me.”
Annoyed he was interrupting her again, she muttered, “You think you’re the first renegade I’ve found skulking around these woods? I know your type, ex-military who think they can go it alone under the impression they’re so badass. You can’t. This place will kill a fool unwilling to understand just how dangerous it can be. So, yeah, out here I’m better than you.”
“My survival skills are excellent.”
Laughing was flat out mean but, by God, she couldn’t hold it in. The book went to her lap and she gave the idiot her full attention. “You’re delusional! You had no weapon, not even a knife... were dressed improperly for this environment, dumb enough to have considered walking anywhere without basic supplies. If I didn’t know better, if I hadn’t seen half a dozen men like you trying to go it alone as Mr. Survivalist, I would say someone dumped you in the wilds to die.”
And they had, she saw it written on his face. Rubbing her lips together, contrite, River leaned back into the old recliner. “I never could figure them out, you know. People.”
It was long minutes before a hoarse question came. “Is that why you live like this?”
“No, I’m on the run from the law.” The wicked teasing, her smile, she was toying with him. The look in her eye also said that she wasn’t going to ask him why he was where he was either. They could call it a wash. She didn’t want to know.
“River,” he tested her name on his tongue.
She nodded, a tired smirk showing relief that he’d used her name—humanized her. “There is a herd of caribou... I saw their tracks earlier. We’re going to need meat to get us through the coming storm. Tomorrow, you will help me carry back a kill.”
His ankle was still a pulped mess, swollen and ugly. They both looked to it in unison.
She spoke further, “I’ll manage most of the weight, give you a staff to lean on, but you need to find your footing.”
“Do you always talk like this, in layers? It is exceptionally irritating.”
“Your accent keeps slipping. English isn’t your first language. Perhaps you misunderstand and hear what you want.” White teeth flashed in a grin as she laid it out. “You looking to be nurtured or are you looking to survive? I gave you a night to laze by the fire, the rest you earn.”
Stephen had not been nurtured a goddamn day in his life. No, he’d been honed into what Mikhailov saw fit. In a swell of fury, he spat, “I don’t need your help!”
“You damn well fucking do.” She settled back, tired, the book cast aside so she might sleep.
“Your vulgar language is completely repellent.”
River peeked out one eye and nodded. “There’s the spirit. Feel free to call me ugly and disparage my clothes next. Get it all out, big guy.”
“Women are supposed to be clean and soft spoken! You stink of the burned fish you mutilated with your lack of cooking skills. I have never seen a free thing so low... so mud caked and unconcerned. Of course no one wants you! I DON’T NEED YOUR CHARITY!”
Her black eyes were languid all through his rant, patient until he raged to the point he stood and towered over her. The man was practically chewing off his lips, howling so severely at her lack of anything reeking of humanity, she thought he might cry, and waited still, counting the pulses of the veins standing up in his neck.
He did scare her, he was scaring her, but a point needed to be made. The risk she’d taken saving a stranger bigger than a linebacker and as grateful as a psychopath put her in a bad position. Someone had left him to die... good men didn’t get dumped in the cold. If he was going to kill her, she’d rather see it face on than wait for him to strangle her in her sleep. But a strange thing happened. When he leaned down, screaming another language in her face, she flinched and it seemed to wake him.
Staggering back, he put distance between them... and those strange eyes looked... sorry.
There was no word of apology, just the sounds of a panting animal and the silence of a woman pretending she was not frightened of it.
He spoke in a whisper, confused, “I don’t think I am going to hurt you.”
Fuck... “That’s reassuring.”
“You should have let me drown.”
Perhaps he was right. It didn’t change the kind of woman she was. “I could never do that.”
“...a noble woman.” He said the words with more disgust than admiration.
“You forgot to add dirty.”
“It’s a wonder you have survived this world.”
River asked an honest question, “Are we having an actual conversation now, or is this the precursor to something terrible?”
“The only thing I know how to be is terrible.” He was not disparaging himself. The man was, in effect, alluding to some sort of assumed twisted greatness—greatness that dripped with fresh insecurity.
“Seven hikers I have saved when I found them wandering, or hurt, or about to be eaten by nature they didn’t respect as they should have. Twice that number were dead before I came across their tracks. Survivors always have one thing in common—they wanted to live more than they wanted to wallow in their stupidity. If you don’t want to live, walk outside right now. Take all that anger with you. It’s dark, you won’t last long, but your rage might make you think you’re warm as you freeze to death.”
He paused before slowly retaking his seat on the couch. “Who would help you carry the caribou?”
Snorting, she admitted, “I’d just cut it up and make more than one trip. When I’m lucky, the smarter wildlife doesn’t get to it before I get back.”
“I will carry the animal, alone.”
She gave him a soft look, a look that said she understood he lacked the capacity to apologize. “You can’t. As you are, you can’t carry a caribou by yourself. You shouldn’t even try. You don’t know the way. There is no point in posturing. Not out here. Out here you’re nothing... brand new.”
The weight of his elbows rested on his knees, the man turning his attention back to the hearth and ending the conversation.
Stephen didn’t think sleep would come, not like it did for the woman breathing softly in her chair. He was weary, too tired to rest. But sleep did come, and when he woke, she was gone and didn’t return until past dark, banging through the door with a brace of rabbits and a bulging pack full of meat that could have only come from one animal.
“Don’t look at me like that, jerk. Your ankle looks like shit. You can’t carry shit. All you would do is get in my way stumbling around and scaring off dinner.” She was surly... her hair wet as if she’d dunked her head in the river to scrub out the dirt he’d found so offensive. “And you snore!”
The food was stowed and she built up the fire, sending hate filled glares at the man while she leaned her hair closer and tried to keep her teeth from chattering.
“I left the heat pump syphoning and wasted wood so you might take a cozy shower, pretty boy, so stop staring at me and get to it. You reek of sick guy and I’m sick of smelling you.”
She’d been so unresponsive the prior evening, so still when he’d grossly insulted her. Now she was all claws and hissing. Unsure why, Stephen offered, “I should not have said those things.”
“Fuck off.”
Chapter 3
He needed her.
Assassinations, infiltration, warfare, violence, and a lifetime of training would not see him through in her wilds. That became clearer when Stephen took to the porch, looking for a vantage. Her house stood on high ground, but there was nothing... not even a line of smoke marking the sky in the direction River claimed civilization waited.
Since telling him to ‘fuck off’ she’d been far less vocal, busy preparing the house for what the swollen green clouds were bringing. Locking her shutters tight, River looked through the fur lining her hood and asked, “Can you clean a rabbit?”
He could clean a human corpse, break it down into parts too tiny to identify. Rabbits could not be much different. “Yes.”
Pointing at what she’d dragged home, River ordered, “You take care of that while I check the traps I missed.”
“Lingering outside in this weather with wet hair is unwise.”
“Oh lah-de-dah.” River banged a fist against the shutters, testing their tightness. “So is shaving your head in the arctic.”
The stranger was a master at pointing out the obvious. “You are angry with me.”
“I don’t much like you.” She threw hi
m a look. “And there is no need to point out that the feeling is mutual.”
“Then I won’t.”
River chuckled, black eyes shining as if he’d finally succumbed to humor. “When you’re done with the rabbits, you need to bring in wood. See these piles. One is green, one is seasoned. Don’t mix them. Separate stacks each side of the fireplace. As much as you can manage.”
With an elk rifle across her back, she left him, moving easy and light over the frost in a way he couldn’t with his sprained ankle. When she returned with only a few squirrels, her teeth chattering, River opened the door to find she wasn’t losing her mind. The appealing scent in the smoke was rabbit, her houseguest having spit one to roast over the fire.
It smelled good. Really good. And the noise of her stomach made it clear her body approved.
Stephen watched her entry ceremony, the way she kicked her left boot clean before the right, the tell-tale flakes of snow on her shoulders. All her movements led with the left, including her left hand wiping her running nose, but her gun hung from the opposite side. She was a novice to wear it so wrongly.
But she’d killed a caribou...
All River cared to notice was the juicy rabbit, not the oversized idiot who’d prepared it.
Stephen turned the spit, juice dripping to sizzle in the flames.
“Oh my god, please tell me it’s ready.” Outerwear was shed, River less interested in heating up than stuffing her face with something she hadn’t ruined on the stove.
“We may eat.”
She was grinning, kneeling at his side to pick at the animal with her fingers and eat straight from the spit.
In the woman’s enthusiasm, Stephen ignored where her arm kept brushing against him, priding himself in his offer. “As you gave me the greater portion of your fish—”
Scoffing, mouth full, River said, “You’re about twenty times my size.”
He finished as if she had not interrupted, “—you may have most of the rabbit.”
Hero Undercover: 25 Breathtaking Bad Boys Page 140
