Chapter 11
ELEVEN
WILLA
I wake slowly, the kind of deep, bone-warm sleep that makes the world feel soft around the edges.
The quilts are heavy on my bare skin, tangled around my legs from the way Colt and I moved together earlier—slow and deep and filthy and perfect.
My body still hums with the memory of him: the stretch, the heat, the way he growled “breed you” like a promise while he filled me until I overflowed.
I stretch one arm across the empty side of the bed, expecting to find his solid warmth, but the sheets are cool.
The shower is running.
I smile into the pillow, eyes still closed.
The faint hiss of water through the pipes is steady, comforting.
He must have slipped out a few minutes ago, careful not to wake me.
My heart does that stupid, fluttery thing it’s been doing since the moment I realized I love him.
Not just want him—love him. The forever kind.
The kind that has me already picturing waking up here every single morning, driving down to teach third grade in Iron Peak when the roads are clear, coming home to him and the horses and this quiet life we just decided on tonight.
I burrow deeper into the quilts, letting the smile linger.
The cabin smells like us—woodsmoke, sex, his cedar-and-leather scent on my skin.
My thighs are sticky with him, and the dull ache between my legs is the best kind of reminder.
I’m safe. I’m his. Tomorrow we hand the flash drive to Sheriff Hank and this nightmare with Matthew ends for good.
Then I’m staying. No more running. No more fear.
Just Colt and me and the life we’re going to build on this mountain.
I close my eyes again, drifting, the shower a gentle lullaby.
A soft creak cuts through the water sound.
Not the usual groan of the cabin settling in the cold.
This is deliberate. Floorboard in the main room, right by the front door.
My eyes snap open. The bedroom door is still cracked the way we left it—four inches of darkness beyond.
The shower is still running, steady. Colt’s in there.
Naked. Unarmed. Singing? No, he doesn’t sing, but sometimes he hums low under the spray.
I strain to hear it. Nothing. Just the water and my own heartbeat suddenly loud in my ears.
Another creak. Closer.
My stomach drops.
I sit up slowly, quilts pooling at my waist, bare breasts tightening in the chill that’s seeping under the door.
I’m naked except for the faint sheen of dried sweat and Colt’s cum on my inner thighs.
No time to grab clothes. I reach for the lamp on the nightstand—click.
Nothing. Power’s out? No, the shower’s still going.
Maybe just the bulb. My hand shakes as I fumble for the flannel I dropped on the floor earlier.
My fingers brush denim instead—Colt’s jeans.
I yank them toward me anyway, heart hammering so hard it hurts.
Footsteps now. Two sets. Heavy boots on pine boards, trying to be quiet and failing. Snow crunching faintly outside the window—someone on the porch.
Oh God.
They found us.
Matthew.
The name slams into me like a fist. I scramble off the bed, legs tangled in quilts, nearly falling.
My ribs twinge where the bruise is still fading, but the real pain is terror, sharp and electric, flooding every nerve.
I open my mouth to scream—Colt’s name, a warning, anything—but the bedroom door flies open before sound can leave my throat.
A black-gloved hand clamps over my mouth so hard my teeth cut into my lip.
Another arm bands around my waist, lifting me clean off the floor.
The flannel I was reaching for flutters uselessly to the ground.
Cold air hits my naked skin. I kick wildly, heel connecting with something solid—shin, maybe—but the man holding me only grunts and squeezes tighter.
“Shhh, baby,” a voice I know too well murmurs against my ear. Matthew. That sickly-sweet cologne he always wore—something expensive and chemical that used to make me gag even when I was trying to love him. “Miss me?”
I scream against his palm. The sound is muffled, pathetic. My nails rake down his forearm, drawing blood, but he just laughs low, the sound vibrating through my back.
“Feisty as ever. Knew you’d fight.”
Another man—tall, ski mask, black jacket—steps into the room, eyes raking over my bare body with open hunger. “Nice view, Matt. You didn’t say she was this fine.”
“Shut the fuck up and help me,” Matthew snaps. “Get her arms.”
I thrash harder, twisting, trying to bite the hand over my mouth.
The second man grabs my wrists, yanking them behind my back.
Plastic zip-ties bite into my skin with a zip-zip sound that makes my stomach lurch.
Tears burn my eyes. Colt’s in the shower.
He can’t hear this. The water’s too loud.
He’s humming now—I can just make it out, that low rumble he does when he’s relaxed.
My big, strong, protective cowboy is ten feet away, naked and happy and completely unaware while they drag me away.
I buck violently, knee connecting with Matthew’s thigh. He hisses, spins me around, and backhands me across the face. Pain explodes across my cheekbone. Stars burst behind my eyelids.
“Stop fighting or I’ll put a bullet in your mountain man’s head right now,” he snarls. His breath is hot on my face, sour with whiskey. “You think I didn’t see his truck? His rifle by the door? One word from you and he dies bleeding on the bathroom floor. You want that?”
I go still. Tears spill over, hot on my cold cheeks. No. Not Colt. Not after everything—the way he held me in the shower this morning, the way he whispered “I love you” while he came inside me, the way he smiled all day teaching me about the horses. I can’t lose him. I won’t.
Matthew nods like he sees the surrender in my eyes.
“Smart girl.” He yanks a black hood over my head.
The world goes dark, fabric smelling of motor oil and fear.
My breathing turns ragged, too fast. I can’t see.
Can’t scream. Bare feet drag across the cold floorboards, then the rough porch wood.
Snow bites my soles like needles. I’m naked.
Completely naked. The cold wind slaps my skin, tightening my nipples, raising goosebumps everywhere.
My thighs are still slick with Colt’s seed.
The humiliation burns worse than the cold.
They wrap me in a flannel, thankfully. I think it’s more of Matthew not wanting his friends to see me naked.
They half-carry, half-drag me down the porch steps.
I stumble, knees hitting snow. Someone laughs—low, cruel.
A van door slides open with a metallic screech.
Hands shove me inside. My shoulder slams into metal flooring.
The zip-ties cut deeper as I land on my side.
The door slams shut. Engine roars to life.
We’re moving.
Down the mountain.
I curl into a ball, trying to cover myself with my knees and bound arms, but there’s no blanket, no mercy.
The van bounces over ruts, snow crunching under tires.
Every jolt sends pain through my bruised ribs.
I can hear them up front—Matthew and at least two others.
Their voices are muffled through the hood but clear enough.
“…didn’t think the storm would let us up here so fast.”
“Paid that plow guy double. Worth every penny.”
“Judge’ll have this buried by morning. Flash drive’s probably in his safe anyway.”
Matthew laughs, the sound I used to think was charming. Now it turns my stomach. “She thinks she’s so smart. Duplicated everything. But once we get the original and she disappears… problem solved.”
Disappears.
The word lodges in my throat like a scream I can’t release.
They’re going to kill me. Or worse—take me somewhere no one will ever find me.
Colt will wake up from his shower to an empty bed, my flannel on the floor, drag marks in the snow.
He’ll know. He’ll come for me. But how fast?
The pass is still half-blocked. Cell service is dead up here. By the time he gets to Hank…
Tears soak the inside of the hood. I bite my lip until I taste blood to keep from sobbing out loud. I can’t let them hear me break. But inside I’m shattering.
Colt.
His face flashes behind my closed eyes—green eyes soft in the firelight, big hands gentle on my wounds, then rough and perfect on my hips while he claimed me.
The way he said “you’re staying” like it was already decided.
The life we mapped out tonight: me teaching in town, coming home to him, babies someday, horses, quiet nights by the fire. It was so close. So real.
Now I’m naked in the back of a van, zip-tied, hooded, freezing, with Matthew’s voice drifting back like a nightmare I can’t wake from.
“Should’ve stayed gone, Willa,” he calls over his shoulder. “But you had to come crawling back to the mountains, huh? Found yourself a big dumb cowboy to hide behind. Cute. Real cute.”
I flinch at every word. My mind races in frantic circles.
The flash drive. Colt locked it in the drawer by the bed.
Did they find it? Or is it still there? If they don’t have it, maybe Colt can still get it to Hank.
Maybe the evidence survives even if I don’t.
The thought should comfort me. It doesn’t.
Because I want to live. I want the future we whispered about while he was still inside me.
I want mornings with coffee and his grumpy-not-grumpy smile.
I want to brush Stamp and Whiskey and learn to ride. I want Colt’s babies. I want forever.
The van hits a deep rut. My head cracks against the wheel well.
Pain blooms white-hot. I taste copper again.
Nausea rolls through me. I’m going to be sick.
I swallow hard, breathing through my nose, the hood fabric sticking to my wet face.
My bare skin is ice now. Shivers rack me so hard my teeth chatter.
Every bump presses my breasts and hips against the cold metal floor.
I feel exposed in a way that goes beyond naked—violated, small, helpless.
I think about screaming anyway. Maybe Colt will hear if they’re still close enough. But the engine’s loud, the mountain’s vast, and Matthew’s threat echoes: one word and Colt dies. I can’t risk him. I won’t. So I stay silent, body curled tight, mind screaming instead.
Colt, please notice. Please be okay. Please come after me.
I replay every moment of today like a lifeline.
His patient hands guiding mine while I brushed Whiskey.
The way he laughed—really laughed—when I got hay in my hair.
The way he looked at me by the fire tonight, soft and certain, saying “I love you” like it was the simplest truth in the world.
The shower this morning, slow and loving, his voice in my ear: “You’re mine. Never letting you go.”
I cling to those words. They’re all I have now.
The van turns sharply—probably onto the county road.
The snow sounds different under the tires, packed instead of deep powder.
We’re lower. Closer to town. Closer to whatever Matthew has planned.
My heart pounds so hard I’m dizzy. What if they take me to the judge’s house?
What if they hurt me first, make me tell them where the copies are?
I don’t know if I’m strong enough. I want to be.
For Colt. For the kids I teach. For the life I almost had.
Tears keep coming. Silent. Endless. The hood is soaked. My nose runs. I can’t wipe it. The humiliation mixes with terror until I feel like I might shatter apart.
I love you, Colt.
I say it in my head over and over, a prayer, a promise.
I’m coming back to you. Somehow.
The van accelerates. The mountain falls away behind us.
And all I can do is shake, and pray, and hold onto the memory of his arms around me like it’s the only thing keeping me alive.
Because right now, it is.