Shelter from the Storm (Finley Creek Book 2)

by Calle J. Brookes

  “Are you for real? You don’t just ask a guy if he’s attracted to you.”

  “Sorry.” She couldn’t deny the embarrassment. She was just glad it was still too dark for him to see her face clearly. “I just... Sometimes I can’t filter what I’m thinking. And it comes out. Comes out.”

  “I get that. And for the record, I’m not a liar.”

  That didn’t make any sense at all to her. “Ok. I never said you were.”

  “I’m just saying, I can’t lie to you. Yes. I could be attracted to you. In a different time and a different place. Not when I’m busy trying to find a nest of vipers who may or may not be trying to kill the only people in this world I still care about. Including my brother and your Gabby. Hell, they are the only ones I’m concerned with besides myself.”

  “Not me? You’d let them kill me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Sorry. Sometimes I’m not very good at communication with people I don’t know all that well. Or even those that I do. Gabby just tells me, I don’t understand, Brynna. Try again. That works out well for us.”

  “Gabby again.”

  “Yes. We got each other’s backs, you know. We each have different issues, Mel calls them. Mel and Jarrod just get us, I guess.”

  “Jarrod again. He one of those guys you’ve had a relationship with?”

  She laughed at that. “No. I’ve never slept with Jarrod. I did kiss him once though.”

  * * *

  “REALLY?”

  “Yes. But while I enjoyed it—he’s a really good kisser, Gabby’s kissed him too and we’ve talked about it, how good he is at it—Jarrod is just too grumpy sometimes. I didn’t want to sleep with him. So I didn’t. He probably wouldn’t have objected. I think he enjoyed kissing me.”

  How many men had this little irritant slept with? Why did the idea of it piss him off? “I see. You compared.”

  “Not like that. We didn’t compare technique or anything. Just told each other when it happened. And said he was really good. Probably the best kisser yet.”

  “You know, guys don’t want to hear about other guys’ ability.”

  “Why would it bother you? You’re not attracted, remember? Not in this lifetime. I’m not sure I believe in more than one lifetime, but it does kind of make sense.”

  “I’m beginning to think nothing about you makes much sense. Let’s just keep walking.”

  Brynna pulled in a deep breath. “Ok. I can do this.”

  She took a single step. And then another. Chance started after her.

  He almost stopped breathing when she slipped a small hand into his.

  The girl-woman trusted him, didn’t she?

  Well, hell.

  All he could do was keep walking.

  CHAPTER NINE.

  * * *

  THEY finally saw it. A flash of gray in the woods. Chance pulled her behind him, while they hiked closer. Someone had dragged an old FEMA trailer to the middle of the forest. Chance figured it was a makeshift seasonal hunting cabin. He didn’t give a damn who had put it there, it was shelter.

  But that didn’t mean they were just going to walk up to the door and say, Hey pal, let us in. If it was just him, sure. Why the hell not?

  But with a beautiful woman, so damned vulnerable, there was no way he was risking her. He looked for a place to hide her while he checked the place out. There was a large tree, with a small hollowed out trunk. “Stay right here. I’ll be back for you once I take a look around.”

  “It said No Trespassing.”

  “Extenuating circumstances. Stay here. Take this.” He gave her his tactical knife.

  She took it hesitantly. “What for?”

  Seriously? “Protection, Brynna. Someone comes at you, you skin them with this. And scream really loud.”

  “Ok. Don’t take too long. I...have to pee.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The place was abandoned. It took him less than five minutes to figure that out. The lock was easily picked and he took a look inside. Dusty, old. But it had blankets. And clothes. He took a quick look around the outside again.

  There was a root cellar with canned vegetables—mostly outdated—and at least a hundred two-liter soda bottles filled with water.

  Pay dirt. Food, water, and shelter. Three basic ingredients for continued survival.

  Now for Brynna.

  He found her huddled right where he’d left her. “It’s old and dirty. But we’ll be warm. Get inside. I’m going in the root cellar to grab some food and water. Will you be ok?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. Get out of your wet clothes as soon as you get inside.”

  “What?” She looked at him like he was crazy as the wind sent the branches above them crackling.

  He almost said screw the trailer and dragged her into the root cellar. Food, water, shelter, protection from the storm—who cared that the root cellar was only half the size of the trailer? At least they wouldn’t have to worry about being crushed by a falling tree.

  But they needed blankets and a bed. Or two.

  Lightning flashed and thunder cracked. She screamed and leapt at him.

  “Fine. Then. Root cellar. We’ll stay there until after the storms.” He’d dump her in the cellar, then go to the trailer and grab some blankets and anything else they would need. Maybe he’d get lucky and there would be a lamp or something.

  “I don’t like the dark. Or wet cellars.”

  “And I don’t like tin cans on wheels crushed by falling trees. Just get inside and wait for me.” He handed her the small tactical flashlight he always carried, and his cell phone. “Hit the button on the left. There should be enough light to hold you until I get back.”

  “Where are you going?” He’d be a real idiot if he missed the panic in her words at that, wouldn’t he?

  “To grab some blankets and anything else we might need. Get down the stairs and wait for me. Go.”

  * * *

  BRYNNA went. She forced herself to think of it one way—safety from the storm. And Chance was right, the storm cellar would be much better than that old trailer. It was just...

  Brynna had never liked being underground all that much. And cellars were dark and scary and you didn’t know what else was in there with you. What if there were snakes in there? What was she supposed to do then?

  She used his light and checked every corner. She didn’t see anything bad. There were radios and weird shaped lamps—but no snakes, or anything else.

  There weren’t any blankets though, and she was absolutely freezing. And her side wasn’t just burning, it felt like razor claws had dug into her and were ripping, ripping, ripping her flesh.

  Weakness hit her near the bottom of the crude wooden stairs. She sank onto the plank bench in the center of the shelter and pulled her knees up to her chest. And waited, his cell phone clutched like a lifeline in her hand. There was no signal, but it was light. Of a sort.

  It seemed like forever before the shelter door opened and he hurried down the stairs. He carried a big black trash bag. He dropped it at her feet. “I put the blankets in a trash bag so they’d stay dry. And I found this. It’s a crank lamp. It’ll give us enough light while we’re down here.”

  She’d seen those types of lights before. He quickly cranked it up and after a few long moments, had a blue-tinted light shining between them.

  Brynna took a second to get a real look around. It was a sound little shelter, wasn’t it? It wouldn’t hold more than three or four people comfortably for too long, but there were canned goods along the back shelf, water, and if she wasn’t mistaken...a radio.

  But was there a power source? “Radio. Radio.”

  “I see it. I think it cranks like the light.” He walked past her, his big body brushing hers in the small space. Brynna shivered.

  He’d felt so warm—and she was freezing. “Can I get a blanket, please?”

  “Take off your clothes.”

  “Huh? I can’t get naked wi
th you.”

  “We’re both soaked. You’re hurt. Take off your clothes, dry that hair with one of the towels I found. I found some boy’s jeans and a sweatshirt in the trailer. They’ll be too big, but they’re clothes. I’ll turn my back, if you’re shy.”

  “You don’t have to make fun of me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You said you weren’t attracted. I don’t think you’ll peek.”

  “Honey, in spite of what you seem to think I am a man. A healthy one. I’m attracted. But I’m not asshole enough to act on it.”

  “Why?”

  “Are you for real? Because women like you are the kind that expect hearts and flowers and forever. I will never be a forever kind of man. So while I might want to strip that shirt off of you myself, and taste what’s beneath it, that’s something I will never do. Not unless we both agreed we knew the score. And I don’t think you even fully know what game we’d be playing.”

  “I’m not a virgin, you know.”

  “I don’t want to even think about that.”

  CHAPTER TEN.

  * * *

  NO. That was something he wasn’t going to let himself think about. Brynna in bed with a man, naked beneath him. Touching him. Being touched by him.

  He wanted to find that man and rip his fucking balls out through his nose. Just to start. “Just get changed. I’ll turn around.”

  “Ok.”

  He listened for a moment to the sound of her pulling the blanket out of the trash bag. Knew she was taking off her shirt. She gasped and keened, the sound filled with pain.

  He turned around.

  The white cotton shirt he’d used as a makeshift bandage hours ago was soaked completely through. Blood dripped from beneath the edge of it and down her flat stomach.

  Holy hell, he hadn’t realized she was bleeding that badly. And it had been going on for hours?

  Fuck. “Sit!”

  She sat. “I don’t feel so great...”

  “No wonder. I’m surprised you have any blood left.”

  “There’s about five and a half liters of blood in the average body. Adult, anyway. If I’d lost that much I’d already be dead—and we’d have noticed by now.”

  “Did you just make a joke?”

  “I’m not humorless, you know.”

  “Just bloodless. Hold still, baby.” He used his knife and cut the white cotton away. He moved the crank lamp closer. “It’s still bleeding.”

  “It should be clotting by now. Unless the rain water kept the platelets washed away.”

  “You a doctor now?”

  “No. Jillian’s a registered nurse, though. Or she will be when she finishes her program.”

  “Who’s Jillian?”

  “She’s my little sister. She’s eleven months younger than me. She was an oops! that my parents weren’t quite expecting. She’s the nice one of us. Although she is the one who bit your hand that day you dumped pancake batter on my head. I help her study for her tests sometimes. She has reading difficulties—she’s dyslexic. I read the books to her and she answers the questions.”

  It sounded so normal when she said it. So normal and so young. This girl hadn’t been out of college all that long, had she?

  “How many of you Beck girls are there?”

  “There used to be just four of us, until we found Carrie. I wish we’d had her forever. She gets me.”

  “And your other sisters don’t?”

  “Of course they do, but sometimes they don’t understand what it’s like. But they love me, and I love them. Like you love Elliot, I’m sure.”

  His brother. Hell yes, he loved his brother. He might not show it that often, but he loved him. He’d die for him, in a heartbeat, if that’s what was asked of him.

  Easily.

  “We’re going to have to get the bleeding stopped.”

  “With what?”

  “I don’t know yet. This should have had stitches hours ago.” There were two deep gashes he knew weren’t from car glass. Chance pushed the rage away. No one should have ever touched this girl. Hurt her.

  “He used his pocket knife.”

  And it was no doubt filthy. Stinking bastard was going to pay; as soon as Chance figured out who he was. “We’ll need to clean it and find either some glue or some thread and a needle.”

  “Glue?”

  “Superglue. It works well on shallower cuts. And we’ll need to make sure there’s no glass left.”

  “My shirt rode up when they pulled me out the window. I think I was dragged over what remained.”

  “I think you have bits and pieces still in your skin.” Shallow, and painful, no doubt. And probably covered with all kinds of filth from the road.

  They needed to get the wounds cleaned with some sort of antiseptic before something really nasty set in, didn’t they?

  He knew basic first aid, but not enough to reassure himself that she was going to be ok. “Stay here. I’m going to check the shelves to see what I can find.”

  She nodded and shivered. Something about the way she sat with such hopelessness stirred something in him.

  “Brynna?”

  She looked up at him. Chance couldn’t help himself; he brushed a kiss against sopping wet red hair. “You’ll be all right. This time tomorrow, you’ll be at home with your family. I swear.”

  She looked at him then shook her head. “Please don’t make promises you might not be able to keep.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN.

  * * *

  HE found what he needed on the back of the bottom shelf. A small discount store brand sewing kit. The needles were probably as weak as shit, and the thread was the cheap kind, but it would keep her from losing any more blood, wouldn’t it? They needed an antiseptic or disinfectant or something.

  He found nothing. Just canned food. Bottled water.

  And baking soda. It wasn’t the greatest antiseptic, but it could be used to flush some bacteria out, couldn’t it?

  Anything was better than nothing.

  He wished whomever had packed this little haven had thought to include whiskey or anything containing alcohol. He looked around. Nothing. They had water and an old box of baking soda.

  It would have to do.

  He found small scissors no bigger than his thumb in the sewing kit. And his Swiss army knife had small pliers.

  Chance opened one of the two liters of water and poured half the water into an old bucket in the corner. He cut the top off the bottle to use the bottom half as a bowl. He mixed a third of the container of baking soda in the water.

  He always carried a lighter with him, and he made quick use of it, sterilizing the pliers, one of the blades in case he needed to make any incisions to bring out debris, the scissors, and one of the needles. He dipped each piece in the water to let it cool after using the lighter. He arranged each tool neatly on a hand towel he’d found in the trailer.

  He just prayed the towels were as clean as they looked. He soaked another towel in the soda mixture and used it to wash the skin on her side.

  She still wore a bra. A simple little piece of red satin, no doubt picked out to be less visible under her red shirt.

  He forced himself not to wonder if she had on matching panties beneath the jeans. Now definitely wasn’t the time to think like that, was it?

  He picked up the two-liter and poured some of the water over the worst injury. Where that asshole’s knife had sank into her pretty skin. It wasn’t too bad of an injury, though the top two inches of the wound looked deep. And still bled. “I’m going to have to put in stitches. Just a few. Can you handle it without passing out on me?”

  “I’m not a wimp.”

  He thought of all she’d been through, how she’d yet to really crumble. Annoying and puzzling as hell, but he wouldn’t call her a wimp.

  Far from it. “I never thought you were. Dig your fingers into my legs if you need to. I’ll do this as fast as I can. But it will hurt.”

  “I know. Just do it.” She closed h
er eyes. Small hands clenched his knees.

  Brynna had small hands, even for a woman. Why did he find that so damned alluring? “Ok, baby, here we go.”

  Chance worked quickly. It wasn’t the first time he’d done emergency stitches; he’d sewn up a colleague or two during his time with the TSP and Texas Rangers—but it was the first time he’d sewn up a civilian woman.

  She might work for the TSP, but Brynna was no cop. Not at all. She was just an innocent girl-woman who’d fallen into some seriously evil shit.

  He finished with the needle and thread and tied it off. He trimmed the ends as close to the skin as possible. She would scar. That he had no doubt of. He’d put in ten small stitches. He’d cut up a third towel to use as bandages, and found more duct tape in the supplies.

  “Now let’s get the glass or whatever it is out of your skin.”

  She nodded, but didn’t say a word.

  She didn’t say anything while he pulled out more than a dozen shards of glass. Didn’t open her eyes.

  But he knew it hurt her. But she never complained. Not even when he put in six more stitches across three lacerations. She just...dealt.

  Wimp? There wasn’t a damned thing wimpy about her.

  When he was finished he grabbed a final towel himself and went to work on her hair. He wished he’d found her a brush.

  Something so normal, so ordinary. Something that she could use to control at least one thing about this situation. But he hadn’t. He’d found a high school sweatshirt and a pair of old jeans. Warm socks, too. No underclothes. She’d have to go without until her things dried.

  He stroked the top of her red head. She looked up at him from pain-filled eyes, a dirty and faded blanket clutched to her chest.

  Something in him cracked. Just right there, standing over her, something in him cracked. Some wall he hadn’t even known he had.

  He reached behind her and undid the clasp of her bra. “It’s wet. You’ll need to remove it and put on the sweatshirt until it dries. I’ll go back out to take a look around while you pull off those jeans. Unless you need me to stay.”