That voice peeled me from my thoughts. Pulled me from my memories and reminded me of the present. My body shook uncontrollably as my back descended onto something. It was warm and soft, like a couch, or possibly a massive chair. I curled up into a ball as my teeth began to chatter, and I grunted with the pain in my stomach. It felt like my muscles were on fire even though they were encased in ice. It was as if someone was stabbing me with eight-inch icicles in every pressure point of my body
Tears filled to my eyes as a swelling heat began to beat down against my face.
“What the hell were you doing out in this kind of storm?”
It was a good question, and one I felt needed to be answered. The rain whomped the structure I was in. The fine hairs along my skin stood on end as lightning crackled across the sky. The windows rattled as the thunder cracked right above our heads.
The storm was getting worse, and I had no idea how the hell I was going to get out of it.
I saw a shadowy figure bent over an orange flame. The heat grew, warming the icy droplets of water on my skin. My body slowly uncurled, like a flower being released to the morning sun. My bones ached, and the tears wouldn’t stop falling, but somehow, I was alive.
Even though I had skidded off the road, I was somehow alive.
I could still remember the argument with my parents that morning. How angry they were that I wasn’t going on a date tonight. I told them I was done with their antics. That I had no reason to marry and that I wasn’t going to until I fell in love with someone. They chastised me and called me names. Told me that I needed to be grateful for the life they had provided me like my brothers were. I told them that my brothers were happy because they got to dictate their lives. They got to do what they wanted and work in whatever fields they wanted and make money for themselves.
My father told me that was what men got to do. Women, on the other hand, needed to be grateful that someone was willing to provide for them.
I’d had enough of that talk. My father’s words were like a slap to my face. He told me that I wasn’t able to rule my own life and run by my own rules simply because I was a woman. Because somehow, in my father’s mind, I was feeble. Unable to take care of myself. Incapable of surviving in the harsh world he went into everyday, so my mother wouldn’t have to. And maybe that was fine for some women. Maybe my mother was just fine with keeping a house, staying beautiful, and always keeping her makeup perfect.
But that wasn’t me.
I wanted more.
So, I packed up my stuff and left. I waited until my father went to work, packed up everything I could into the suitcases I owed, and tossed them in my car. My mother was too busy picking out my dress for my date tonight that she didn’t even hear me leave. I sat in my car for ten whole minutes, wondering if anyone would come out and look for me.
But they were all so preoccupied with the pathetic lives they had fallen into that no one noticed my absence.
It didn’t matter. I was going to set off and do my own thing. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life, but I knew I wanted to do something. I had enough business acumen from listening to my father ramble on to be of use to someone. Maybe I could open my own business. An independent business for independent women wanting to create a new life for themselves. I dreamed about it as I wove my way out of town. How I would decorate my store. What services I could offer women transitioning into a harsh world from a family who kept them from it. I dreamed of a life where I could walk onto stages and give lectures to thousands of people. How I could use my life story to inspire others and create easy-to-follow programs to help people reclaim their lives again.
But the daydreaming caused me to take some wrong turns, and I found myself trapped in an endless maze of nameless roads.
“Here. This should help.”
I looked up from the fire as my vision began to clear. I wasn’t even aware that I was still crying. The hope I had this morning when I ran away from home had quickly turned to fear. If my parents found out I had run away and somehow managed to track me down, I would be done for. I’d be under lock-and-key for the rest of my life. I would never hear the end of it and I would be married off to the first man who decided he could tolerate me. I would never get another chance to convince my family that I could make it in the real world. That I could make my own empire and create my own life and live it by my terms.
Because doing that just this morning got me a broken-down car and a near-imminent death.
A large pair of hands tucked the soft blanket around my body. The fire continued to roar in the fireplace while my vision slowly began to clear. I looked around the part of the room I could see and was dazzled by its beauty. I was lying on cherry mahogany hardwood floors and was surrounded by the softest furniture I’d ever laid eyes on. The cushions underneath me were as soft as clouds as I looked up at high-vaulted ceiling that would make my mother envious.
It was a beautiful home. Very reminiscent of a cabin.
“Where am I?” I asked.
But instead of the voice answering me, it stayed silent.
“Hello?”
I rolled over onto my back and caught the gaze of the man taking care of me. His amber-colored eyes took me by surprise with how guarded they were. His dark grown hair was shaggy around his forehead and his strong jawline caught my attention. Even with the lack of a smile upon his face, I could tell he had dimples. Deep-set dimples on both of his cheeks that probably lit up his eyes whenever he chanced to smile.
He was beautiful. Breath-taking even.
“Where am I?” I asked again.
“My home,” the man said.
“Where is your home?” I asked.
“Not too far from where you crashed.”
I watched him get up from beside me and venture over to a chair. For the first time since I had become aware that he existed, I got a full look at his stature. He was massive. Broad in his shoulders and strong in his legs. His chest was stacked with muscles and his neck pulsed with veins. Even though he sat down in a chair with his long legs spread, it felt like he loomed over me.
Except his presence wasn’t uncomfortable.
It was more… protective.
“Is my car okay?” I asked.
But this time, he didn’t answer.
“I just… had a lot of my stuff in there. Is it all going to be okay through the storm?”
And still… silence.
I was thrown off by it. He had been so willing to talk earlier when he didn’t think I was listening. Had he been talking to himself? I could’ve sworn he had been talking to me. Actually trying to hold a conversation with me. His voice had been steady and powerful. Commanding, but calm. I wanted to know more about him. I wanted to keep asking him questions. But I knew what it felt like to be forced to do something I didn’t want to do.
And if he didn’t want to talk, I wasn’t going to make him.
I rolled back toward the fire and curled up with the blankets he had afforded me. I allowed the heat of the fire to warm my bones, relieving the ache deep within my marrow stores. I sighed as I closed my eyes, trying to discard the discomfort my clinging clothes brought me. The cushions underneath my body cradled me like a child and it reminded me of innocent days. Days where I ran around with my brothers in apple orchards, throwing rotten apples at each other. Days where we would climb the trees and eat our fill before going home and begging our mother to make us freshly-made apple juice. I smiled at the memories. Times when life was simpler, and I wasn’t aware of the fact that I was any different. I was cherished, like one of my brothers. I was loved, like one of my brothers.
I was accepted. Like one of my brothers.
A tear escaped from the corner of my eye and dripped onto the pillow. I could feel the strange man watching me. The strange man with the strong frame and the amber brown eyes. His penetrating gaze burrowed a hole into the back of my head, as if he was trying to figure out what I was all about without ever asking a question.
&
nbsp; Most people would’ve felt uncomfortable in this situation. Threatened, even. But me? I was just happy he wasn’t trying to put me in a dress so I would look presentable during my cold spell.
To some, this was the stuff of nightmares.
But to me? This was a vacation.
Two
Travis
I never got any visitors on this mountain. It just wasn’t something that happened. My family owned most of the mountainous terrain on this side of Kettle, and we had chosen not to settle it. Many people over the years had tried to offer us money for it. Wild sums of money so they could have a piece of territory that hadn’t been developed yet. They wanted to build oil pipelines and string up power lines. Level mountains to create small-town cities with beautiful views so they could charge people exorbitant prices to live there. But my family and I never sold. Not once had we ever caved to anyone who wanted to take our land from us.
It didn’t just give our family solitude, it gave us a priceless thing of beauty. Undeveloped land meant it thrived with wildlife. Animals to hunt and birds to listen to in the morning. Families of bears that roared off in the distance and lush, green lands fit for those who wanted to explore.
But I enjoyed the silence. The silence of underdevelopment.
Not being developed meant there weren’t many roads. And the roads that did wind up the mountains were nameless. While most of my family lived in Florida and lived off the profits gained from the businesses they did run, I settled here. Me and my twin siblings each had a cabin we had built with our father’s money. My father considered it the least he could do if none of us wanted to live in Florida with them. And even though I protested, my father said I could pay it back if I wanted to by working some of the businesses in my spare time.
So, that was what I did.
I worked the couple of summer camps my family had set up in the mountains whenever I could. I helped keep up with who rented out parts of the mountains to hunt in during hunting seasons. I did it free of charge until I had paid my father back for the cabin, then I relinquished the work back to my brothers. They enjoyed all of that shit. Interacting with people and running the camps. They enjoyed getting on the phone and talking with people on what parts of the mountains were perfect hunting grounds for them to rent.
But I hated that kind of interaction. I wanted nothing to do with the people that flooded into these mountains for sports and pleasure.
No one ever traveled this far up the mountain. It was why I chose my cabin to be placed here. Which was why it was odd when I heard a car off in the distance. The lightning became sharper and the crackling thunder got louder. Any second now, I just knew this mountain would be struck by lightning and explode into millions of tiny little pieces. Rivers of water ran in places that had never been rivers before, taking along with it mud and pieces of rock that quickly painted my driveway brown. At first, I thought I was hearing shit. Making up sounds in my mind to distract from how powerful this storm was getting.
But then squealing tires and a loud crash gave me pause.
My mind tried to write it off as thunder, but my heart slammed in my chest. If someone had gotten lost and come up this mountain, they had their pick of ditches to run themselves into. And those ditches would quickly fill up with water, making conditions even more treacherous for them to stay in.
So, I wrapped myself up in as many layers as I could stand before I headed out toward the sound.
I walked for about a mile before I almost turned back. The rain was so thick I could hardly see my hand and it came down in sheets. I almost had myself convinced that I had simply concocted the bullshit in my head until I heard a shrill cry.
Whipping myself around, my eyes landed on a girl scrambling out of her car. She clawed at the dirt, trying to scale the ditch she had found herself in. Her car was tipped up at its nose and water already pooled in the ditch.
Her car would be waterlogged by the time this storm was done.
I was shocked to find anyone on this mountain, much less a shivering young woman. I ran across the road and fell to my knees as I reached for her. She was covered in mud from the waist down and her lips were already blue. I grabbed onto her wrist and pulled her from the ditch, then cradled her close to my body as I stood.
She shivered uncontrollably, and I knew I had to get her somewhere safe. I left her car on the side of the road and started back for my cabin, fighting the icy rain that battered against my face. I hiked us up the road and got us back into the cabin, and with every step I took, the young girl’s shivering got worse.
I set her down on an oversized chair so I could pull cushions off the couch. I laid them down onto the floor, then settled her body on top of them. I grabbed onto every blanket I could reach before I started a roaring fire, then I left to pull the comforter off my only guest bedroom.
It was a room that had never seen a visitor, even though I’d lived here for years.
If I couldn’t warm the young woman up, we would both be in trouble. No doctor would scale this mountain until everything was dry, and from the sounds of the weather reports, it didn’t look like it was going to dry up anytime soon. The last thing I needed was a dead girl on my hands because she got herself caught in some idiotic storm.
What the fuck was she doing up here anyway?
I bent down to tuck the comforter underneath her body, so her own heat wouldn’t escape. The fire was roaring now, blasting the cabin with heat. She rolled over onto her back and looked up at me, and that was when I noticed how beautiful she was.
She had dark brown hair that was plastered all the way down to her shoulders and hazel eyes that sparkled even though her lips were still the lightest shade of blue. She had soft features and porcelain skin that looked silken and warm even as she trembled. It took all the energy I had just to stand up and away from her. To get my body away from hers so she could warm up and get better.
I had been burned like this once before. By a woman with mesmerizing eyes and a thick gravitational pull. She wiggled her way beyond the bars of my heart and ran amok, draining me of my money and demanding so much more. She was a gold digger of the highest proportions, but I loved her still. I loved her with a flame that had warmed the deepest recesses of my mind. She had pulled me out of my hidey hole and had gotten me to explore the world. She convinced me to whisk her away to Italy so we could tour the vineyards and taste the most decadent wines the country had to offer. She begged me to take her to Germany so she could see her first-ever opera on the most prominent classical stage. She talked me into taking a three-week vacation to Bora Bora. All expenses paid with massages and spa services every day and night.
She drained me of my money faster than I could make it.
But still, I loved her. I loved her free spirit and her spontaneity. I loved the minx she was in bed and how I could throw her body around for my pleasure. I loved how tight she was around my cock and how she would let me wake her up with my lips between her legs.
All fairytales have an ending, though. And mine wasn’t a Disney rendition. She burned me hotter than the melting point of steel before she left me shivering in the barren wasteland of the murder scene she had left behind. My heart dripped blood by the time she was finished torturing it, and I vowed I would never allow myself to become that vulnerable again. I would never leave this mountain and I would never venture into town more than I had to. I would never allow my heart to love again after the treacherous ending she put me through.
But it was her eyes that started it all. Those dazzling hazel eyes that sucked me right in.
Just like this young woman shivering by the fire I had made.
That wasn’t going to happen again. I was going through too much now anyway to become distracted. Our family land was in peril again. A thriving Washington company, Breathline Energies, was ready to give us any offer we wanted so they could drill some dumbass gas line right through the fucking mountains. Profit was all they were after. More money to line their pockets with no
matter what they had to blast out of their way. My father tried his best to communicate that to the company, but they didn’t get the point. They harassed my father and sent scouts into the mountains as well as blasting our family to any media outlet that would listen.
My brothers and I were tasked with watching out, so we could pop off warning shots if we saw anyone.
It was why I had been more alert than usual. It was why I wasn’t so quick to write off the sound of a car. If that company was truly desperate, it was possible they would send some poor fucking soul into the mountain range in this kind of weather just to do some tracking.
Was it possible they sent this young girl? Was it possible she was some sort of a distraction? If she was, then this company was sicker than I thought. But the more I studied her as I sat down in my chair, the more I came to terms with the fact that she wasn’t. She was just an innocent girl who had gotten lost and trapped in a storm she could’ve never predicted nor expected.
The question was, what the fuck was I going to do with her now?
Three
Ava
I laid there in front of the fire as the silence of the cabin overcame me. The rain came down in sheets as the wind kicked up. It howled against the windows and whistled against the top of the chimney, sending bursts of cold air down that had me shivering all over again. I closed my eyes and tried to will my body to stop shaking, but it wouldn’t. No matter how hard I tried, it continued to expand and contract at a rate that was mind-boggling.
“Travis Benson.”
His voice took me by surprise and I jumped. Why did that name sound so familiar to me? I turned over on the couch cushions and looked up at the man in the chair, his eyes cast down toward me. His hands rested on the arms of the chair as his legs relaxed, spread wide for all to see. I felt this warmth overcome my entire body as it slowly stopped shivering, and I decided to blame it on the flickering flames of the fire.
Anything else made things much more complicated.
6+ Us Makes Eight_A Teacher and Single Dad Romance Page 45
