by Anna Hackett
Shit. Lock it down, Caldwell.
“So, you’re from Colorado?” she asked.
“Rocky Mountain born and bred.”
“I could tell from your accent.”
“You don’t have any other family close by?” he asked.
Ari shook her head. “I was close to my grandmother, my mother’s mother, but she was in Perth.” Ari swallowed. “She was Noongar. Aboriginal Australian.”
Nate guessed that was where Ari had inherited her golden-brown skin from.
“I used to love going to see Nan for the summer holidays.” A smile lit up her face. “She used to teach me about the six seasons, and take me to King’s Park to learn about all the native plants and what you could use them for.” Ari’s smile vanished. “I heard there was a lot of bombing in Perth, and Nan was in her seventies.”
“I’m sorry.” He finished treating her other foot. Then she reached out and grabbed his wrist. Her fingers looked tiny against the thickness of his arm.
“Thank you, Nate. For rescuing me.”
He nodded.
They stayed there a beat, staring at each other, and his muscles tensed up. He saw awareness flare in her eyes.
A part of Nate wanted to tumble her into his lap and hold her tight. He forced himself to stay still.
“I need something else,” Ari murmured.
“What?”
“A hug.” She nibbled her lip. “It’s been a really long time since anyone held me.”
Shit. The last thing he needed was to get any closer to this young woman. Then she moved, sliding off the chair. She slammed into him and he caught her against his chest. Her arms went around him and he shifted until she was sitting in his lap. She burrowed against his chest, her head tucked under his chin.
God, it had been a long time since he’d been hugged too. He tightened his hold, closed his eyes, and held on.
He had no idea how much time passed as they sat there, their hearts beating together, but finally she stirred.
“Sorry, I must smell terrible.”
“Would you like a shower?”
Her head snapped up. “A shower? A real shower?”
“Not a hot one, sorry. I have an outdoor one rigged up. I get my water from the nearby creek.”
“Yes.” She scrambled up, flashing him more of her legs that he tried desperately to ignore. “A hundred times yes. I don’t care if it’s ice cold.”
He rose. “I’ll also see if I can find some clothes that’ll fit you. My aunt left a few things here.”
Ari smiled. “Thanks, Nate.”
With a nod, he grabbed another lantern and headed outside. It only took him a few minutes to fill the shower and then he showed her how to operate it. He left her smiling and went back inside, trying not to think of her naked, and wet, and…naked.
He rummaged around in the bedroom closet, and came back with a towel and some clothes. He’d found a T-shirt and some sweat pants that must have been his aunt’s. He set them just outside the cabin door.
He could hear the splash of water, the sound of her happy humming. Images cascaded through his head.
Dammit. He locked them down. She’s a young, traumatized woman. Get your shit together, Caldwell.
Inside, he kept busy, trying not to think of this young woman who’d exploded into his quiet, solitary life. Blue watched him with solemn, gold eyes, and he couldn’t help but think his damn dog was judging him.
The door opened and Ari came in, finger combing her wet hair. It looked shades darker around her fresh, smiling face. Her borrowed clothes were too big for her, swamping her frame.
His gut cramped. God, she was even more gorgeous than he’d guessed.
She watched him, curiosity in her gaze. Then, a growling sound filled the air, and she pressed her hand to her stomach, her cheeks turning pink.
It jolted him out of his daze. He headed into the small kitchen area. “You’re hungry.”
“Starving.”
“Sit.” He nodded at the old, wooden table. He quickly made a plate of food and set it in front of her.
“Oh, my God.” She fell on the simple fare of homegrown vegetables and meat. “Fresh food! The aliens fed us, but it was horrid.”
Nate leaned back against the old, scarred countertop. “How did you end up in the lab?”
She finished chewing. “I was at university in Sydney. After the first wave of the invasion, I ran. Trying to get out of the city. I survived with some others for a while, but we eventually got rounded up.” She hunched her shoulders. “They moved us around a lot. I was in the city at first, then they brought some of us here to the mountains a few months ago.”
He didn’t want to make her relive what she’d been through. “You escaped. You’re free.”
She swallowed. “Yes, but they might come after me.”
He cocked his head. “Why?”
She tucked some wet hair behind her ear, fear moving across her face.
“They hurt you?” The thought of those bastards hurting this sweet, young woman made him want to pick up his carbine and storm their fucking lab.
Ari nodded. “They kept us in cages. Did experiments.” Her voice trailed off to a pained whisper.
Then she rose and lifted her borrowed shirt. Nate’s muscles locked as she bared her stomach. She was thin, and her stomach was slightly concave, but his gaze zeroed in on the mass of scars across her belly.
Anger hit him in a molten rush and he ground his teeth together. They’d hurt her, bad.
“I was just another test subject in their lab of horrors.”
“So why would they come after you?”
She sucked in a breath. “Because of what I saw.”
“What did you see?”
“Some sort of bomb,” she said. “Big, black, octagonal-shaped. They were working on it, and it was heavily guarded. It was important to them.”
Fuck. Nate shoved a hand through his hair.
“Nate, I think they’d do anything to protect it.”
He pushed away from the counter. “We need to go.”
The color drained from her face. “You think they’ll come for me.”
“Yeah, and we aren’t safe here.”
Fear lined her face. “I can’t go back there.” A raw, harsh whisper.
He grabbed her hand. “I’m not going to let that happen, Ari, I promise.”
Ari watched Nate fill a huge backpack with gear and food. He shoved several cans in, then some clothes.
Guilt was like a noose around her neck. He was losing his home because of her.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
He looked over his shoulder, his crystal-blue gaze catching hers. “It’s just a place.”
“It’s your place.” He’d clearly been holed up here since the invasion. It was his home.
He walked over to her and tipped her chin up. “Ari, it’s more important that the aliens don’t touch you again.”
“You don’t even know me,” she whispered.
His fingers gripped her jaw, and she felt the calluses on them. Heat poured off his big body.
“It’s you and me against those scaly bastards. I won’t let them have you.”
A protector. She’d sensed it in him from the moment she’d first seen him. It was a deep part of his inner core. The people who became soldiers, police, firefighters…they were warriors at heart, driven to protect.
She nodded. As she put on the shoes he’d found for her—which were two sizes too big, but with a second pair of socks would have to do—she grabbed the smaller bag that he’d packed for her.
With a nod, he ushered her out the door. God, it was so dark. As they headed into the trees, Ari rubbed Blue’s head. The dog was excited for an adventure.
“Here, take this.”
Nate held out an axe and she took it. She tried not to stagger under the weight of the thing. She watched him heft his own axe up on his broad shoulder, and mimicked the move.
The trees engulfed them.
It was dark, and she had no idea where they were going, but Nate didn’t seem to have that trouble.
“Do you know if there are any other survivors around here?” she asked.
“There was a base close by.”
Her pulse leaped and she looked at his broad back. “Was?”
“Aliens attacked it a while back. Whoever was left alive, they fled south.”
Her gut tied into knots. Were those survivors still alive? Or had they run and been killed?
“There are soldiers who are fighting back,” Nate said. “I see Hawk quadcopters go over sometimes.”
Ari gasped, faint stirrings of awe and bewilderment rolling through her. “They’re fighting back?”
He glanced at her. “Yeah.”
“So, they must have a new base somewhere.” She ran her tongue over her teeth, staring at Nate’s red hair. “How come you aren’t fighting? It’s easy to see that you’re military.”
There was a long, tense silence. “Former military. I did my fighting before the aliens got here.”
He didn’t say anything else, and his stony tone said he didn’t want to talk about it.
She got it. Whatever he’d experienced, it had left scars. She knew all about scars. Her hand dropped to her belly, rubbing the marks that had been put on her against her will. A part of her liked the idea of going far away from the aliens, of being alone.
But despite what she’d been through, and the gut-wrenching fear of being put back in a cage, a part of her was angry. Volcanically angry. That part of her wanted to fight back. That part of her had her life stolen, had been strapped down and sliced open, and that part wanted revenge.
Her throat went tight again and she dragged in a deep breath. She looked at the dark trees around her. Free. She was free now, and she was staying that way.
She glanced at Nate again. Thankfully, she was no longer alone anymore.
Suddenly, Blue growled, and Nate froze. Ari went still, her chest going tight.
Nate stepped back and grabbed her arm. He shoved her into a nearby bush. “Down, Blue.”
The dog slid in under a bush. Nate shifted into the vegetation, pulling Ari into the curve of his body. It was quiet, no night animals making any sounds.
Her heart thumped hard in her chest and she fought to stay calm. She peered through the leaves, saw movement.
An alien dog came into view, sniffing the ground.
The ugly beast had tough skin, spikes along its back, and a mouth filled with wicked fangs. It sniffed, drool dripping from its bared teeth. Ari grabbed Nate’s hand and his fingers squeezed hers.
Then she saw the humanoid alien soldiers appear behind the dog. They held weapons and scanned the trees.
Memories hit her—harsh and horrible. Claws biting into her skin as they cut her open. Her screams and the screams of others echoing off the walls.
A strong hand turned her chin and she looked into Nate’s eyes—steady, calm eyes. He stroked his thumb across her cheek.
The connection gave her something to grab onto. She stayed locked on Nate and finally, her heart rate slowed.
She barely knew him, but she trusted this big, muscled loner. Trusted that he’d take care of her.
They sat there in silence for several moments, and finally, the aliens moved on.
In the direction of Nate’s cabin.
“Come on,” he whispered in her ear. “Let’s move.”
They rose and he pulled her deeper into the trees. They kept moving and time blurred. Finally, Nate pulled her to a stop, and she realized the yawning darkness ahead of them was a large valley. The trees spilled down the side of the cliff to the valley floor below. In the moon-drenched dark, she took in the gorgeous view and sucked in a breath. She’d been in a cell for so long that she’d forgotten about beauty like this.
Nate’s firm hand pressed to her back and she glanced up at him. The moonlight turned his hair bright copper.
There was beauty in him, too—raw and intensely masculine.
They headed down a faint path cut into the side of the cliff. She guessed that it had once been well used, but it was now overgrown. She focused on following him and not tripping over something in the shadows.
Eventually, Nate slowed and stepped aside. Ari gasped.
“My backup accommodation,” he said.
“It’s…stunning.”
The small cabin was cut into the cliff wall. Two arches of glass looked over into the valley.
They walked toward the round, wooden door.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“A high-end holiday rental.”
He pushed the door open, and Blue trotted inside. The place looked like a cave, with hewn stone walls and an arched roof. Ari moved down the steps. It was gorgeous. A king-sized bed with fur covers looked to the huge windows. A tiny kitchen was tucked in one corner, and when she rounded a rock wall, she spotted a huge tub set into the stone floor in the bathroom. A wood-fired stove sat against one wall.
Nate moved to the floor-to-ceiling windows and pulled over some blanket that had been strung up to cover the glass.
“Sorry to block the view, but we don’t want any unwelcome company. This glass is tinted from the outside, made to blend into the rock, so it won’t reflect and give us away to the aliens.”
She nodded, moving to the window that he hadn’t covered yet. She stared at the silhouette of a mountain across the valley.
“You’ll be safe here.” He stopped behind her, reaching for the blanket to cover the window. “It’s hard to get down here, the trees are thick, and I’m certain our scaly friends don’t know this place exists.”
“I know. Thank you for everything, Nate. You had to abandon your cabin—”
He rested his hands on her shoulders. “It’s okay, Ari.”
She let out a breath. “Nothing’s okay. It hasn’t been okay for a long time. We need to find those survivors and tell them about the bomb.”
His rugged face closed down. “I have no idea where they are, but wherever they holed up, there are a fuck load of aliens between us and them. We’d never survive.”
She lifted her chin. “Sometimes surviving isn’t enough.”
His face looked like stone. “Sometimes survival is all we have. I need to feed Blue.”
He walked away, and Ari realized that Nate had been surviving so long, he’d forgotten how to live.
Chapter Three
Ari woke up slowly and stretched her arms above her head.
She blinked her eyes, looking up at the rough stone on the ceiling above her. Sunlight streamed through the now-uncovered windows. She rubbed her face against the soft pillow. It still felt totally weird to be lying in a comfy bed. The bed under her was huge, and she’d gotten lost in it the last four nights.
She’d slept late again, mostly because the damn nightmares woke her up a few times during the night. She was free, but her brain hadn’t caught up with her change of circumstances.
Ari swallowed, thinking about the horrible sensations of waking up on a scream, fear eating her insides. Every time, Nate’s voice would come from the darkness, assuring her that she was safe.
Sitting up, she glanced around the unique cave cabin. Nate had insisted she have the bed, and he’d been sleeping on the couch. It was currently empty, a blanket folded neatly over the back of the it.
They’d been here three days. Nate kept busy outside, while she rested and regained her strength. He hunted and chopped wood. The man sure chopped a lot of wood.
There hadn’t been any sign of the aliens.
Thank God.
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, looking out at the sea of green trees outside. They would come. In her gut, she knew the aliens would come for her.
Ari climbed out of the bed and padded across the stone floor to the bathroom. Nate had filled a large bowl and jug with water. There was a bore well nearby, and he collected water for them daily.
She’d also found some clothes in the closet.
She pulled off the T-shirt she’d slept in, and slipped on some short-shorts and a baby-pink tee.
She wondered where Nate was.
Then she heard a rhythmic sound—someone chopping wood. She pushed one of the concertina glass doors open, the warm breeze ruffling her hair. Outside, a natural stone ledge formed a small balcony that wrapped around the cabin. She wandered along it, spotted Nate, and froze.
He was swinging an axe, and he had his shirt off.
Holy cow.
She’d been with him for several days now, so she knew that he was big and strong, but as he slammed the axe down, it made the muscles in his body flex. The man was beyond ripped.
He had a defined chest with a smattering of red-brown hair, brawny biceps, and his abs… She swallowed. So many abs. Each ridge was well-defined.
Ari felt a tingle between her legs, her breasts growing heavy. She rubbed her thighs together. She’d always had a thing for redheads.
Nate sliced the axe into a hunk of wood, then left it there. He grabbed a bottle of water and then poured it over himself.
She whimpered and pressed a hand to her belly. Dear God.
She’d dated at uni. She’d had sex. Okay, she’d had sex twice and it had been uninspired, nervous fumbling. After that, she’d been too busy with her studies to bother, and then the alien invasion had happened.
Desire had been missing from her life for a long time, but now it came roaring back like a tsunami.
She nibbled on her lip and watched Nate. Was she attracted to him because she was lonely and scared? Because he’d rescued her?
He rose and she watched the way his body moved. That hard, sexy body. Her belly spasmed. No, she wasn’t thinking about loneliness or gratitude when she looked at him. Her gaze snagged on that chest again. She wanted to bite him.
Her breathing quickened, heat curling through her.
Nate hefted his axe once more and disappeared from view. Ari quickly stepped back inside and, a second later, the door opened and he stomped in. The axe was gone, and he had his shirt back on, but it was sticking to his wet skin.
