Chapter Seven
“Eat this.”
A thud registered against her low belly, jarring Lettie out of such a deep sleep, she didn’t realize the sun had broken from the east. The shock to her nervous system spiked her heart rate as she tried to orient herself. Outside. Cold. Rome.
His outline shaded her from the oncoming sunrise, hiding his facial features, but she’d know that telltale morning scowl anywhere.
Out of the two of them, he’d threatened to kill her and anyone else who dared to wake him too early more than she could count.
Sometimes withholding sex for days until he felt she’d been thoroughly punished for interrupting his beauty sleep.
“Am I about to die? I didn’t wake you up.
I swear.” Scrubbing at her face, she tried to sit up, but the weight of the sleeping bag held her back.
The missing puzzle pieces of her current situation slid into their slots as she groped for whatever he’d dropped on her.
Oh, hell. She’d slept with her ex-husband.
Well, not slept slept, but slept beside. Next to. In the same sleeping bag.
Heat flashed up her neck and into her face as he stared down at her.
She might not have gotten through the night without him, and yet the idea of him seeing her so…
weak flustered her more than the rejection she’d received for her last journal article submission.
This was not how she’d imagined confronting Rome after he’d sprung news of his desire to divorce.
They were supposed to meet at an agreed-upon location, maybe that coffee shop she liked back home, or even coincidentally run into each other when she was on a date.
She’d wear that dress he’d always liked, have her hair done, her makeup perfect and a revenge body to show him what a huge mistake he’d made.
He was not supposed to save her life.
Rome’s laugh soothed the abrupt change in consciousness as he turned back with a steaming mug in hand. “No. You’re not about to die, but you need to eat. The noises coming from your stomach are going to start attracting wildlife. Predators know hungry prey when they hear it.”
Prey? Jerk. She managed to sit up, more than heated through with the combination of the thick layers of his sleeping bag and the residual heat he’d left behind.
He’d changed his clothes, dressed in what looked like a favorite pair—or only pair—of jeans a little more worn at the knees and back pockets and a button-down shirt that maybe had once belonged to a lumberjack.
The dark red plaid only added to the illusion with thick ropes of corded muscle along his forearms and the boy-next-door gold streaks in his eyes.
It was a crime for him to seem so put together in the morning when she was sure she looked like something along the lines of a cross between a feral animal and roadkill.
Lettie grabbed for the protein bar he’d dropped on her. “How long have you been up?”
“About twenty minutes.” Taking a seat across the clearing, he settled on his very fit back end in the middle of a pile of leaves as though he belonged to the wilderness.
In a way, he did. It’d taken a while to get him to tell her about his childhood over the years they’d known each other.
He’d never been big on sharing that part of his life, but Rome Foster had practically been raised by wolves.
His parents had left him with his uncle from the time he was barely four years old and disappeared off the face of the planet.
Right up until his uncle had died from a hunting accident when Rome was only thirteen.
But living out in the middle of nowhere Montana with no other family, friends or neighbors didn’t present a lot of opportunities for someone to realize what’d happened.
Leaving her husband—ex-husband—to hunt and fend for himself for almost two years before someone noticed he’d been alone all that time.
“Gotta tell you. Can’t say I miss your snoring. ”
The reminder of what Rome had been through drained in an instant. Peeling back the wrapper from the protein bar, she bit into it with more spite than she’d planned, nearly cracking a tooth in the process. “I don’t snore.”
“Sure. Then it must’ve been the chain saw I stashed in my pack that I heard right next to my ear.
” That damn smile she’d set out to make appear as often as possible during their tutoring sessions all those years ago hiked at one corner of his mouth.
To anyone who didn’t know him, it would’ve looked like he’d planned to go on a murder spree.
To her, it sucked the oxygen straight out of her lungs.
Which made it hard to swallow.
She choked on a small bit of granola, doubling over to grab for her water bottle. Cool water did nothing to ease the tightness in her throat and chest before she managed to suck a big gulp of air down.
And still that damn smile cut through the harshness of his features.
As though he knew exactly what kind of effect he’d had on her.
The tightness eased after a few seconds, but bruises still ached beneath her rib cage.
Ones that might not ever heal. She’d lived with them for the past six months, but being this close to him…
Sleeping in the same sleeping bag as him and not being able to reach out or press herself against him as she’d done so many other times falling asleep in their bed hurt.
Lettie finished the protein bar. She’d packed her own food.
She didn’t have any use for eating up his rations, but she wouldn’t complain either.
They were in for another long day of navigating through the wilderness in pursuit of a bear that may or may not have murdered a bunch of hikers.
Her heart stuttered for a different reason now.
She’d watched Sam over the past six months after escaping the empty life Rome had left her with.
She’d learned his habits, his preferences, his moods and routines.
Of course, black bears were dangerous, but she knew him through hours of sitting a hundred feet from him, letting him get used to her scent and presence.
She knew him through tosses of strawberries—his favorite—and a tennis ball he slobbered all over when he batted it back to her a hundred times.
She knew him through hours of surveillance footage, GPS tracking and scientific study.
To think he might’ve been responsible for the violence she’d witnessed at that scene twisted her insides until it hurt to take her next breath.
The superintendent had every right to call in a hunter to put Sam down.
If she was being honest with herself, there was no other choice, but she couldn’t sit back and let Rome put a bullet between those big black eyes. She wouldn’t.
She stashed the protein bar wrapper in her bag and peeled herself out of the sleeping bag.
They’d need to get moving soon if they wanted to catch up to Sam.
Cool air slipped through the oversize sleeves of her hockey jersey, and a shiver worked down her sides.
She’d worn two layers of socks, a pair of tight-fitting leggings and a sweatshirt beneath the jersey, but having Rome’s attention centered on her from his position across the clearing chased back any semblance of relief.
“I’ll be ready to go in about ten minutes.
I just need to take care of some personal business. ”
“Pick any direction and walk about thirty feet past the tree line.” His gaze danced with amusement as he took a long pull of what smelled like fresh-brewed coffee. How in the world had he managed to heat water out here? “I promise not to look.”
“Well, that certainly makes me feel better.” She took that initial step.
And nearly whimpered. She’d forgotten about the blisters from yesterday.
Curling her lips between her teeth, she bit down to keep from making a single noise that might garner his criticism.
He was good at that. Considering he’d needed a tutor to graduate with his degree, Rome made a killing at cutting her down with the least amount of words.
“Problem?” Another pull from his tin mug. Utterly and completely devastatingly handsome with his back leaned against his pack and his feet crossed at the ankles. Bastard.
“Nope.” Pain flared across the bottoms of her feet with every step, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her break.
Ever. Larsons didn’t show weakness, they didn’t give up and they sure as hell didn’t let someone else have the upper hand.
The family belief system had been drilled into her since she’d learned to talk and allowed her father to run one of the most successful dental manufacturing companies in the world, her mother to build her own career as a lawyer and for Lettie to develop the first GPS tracker that didn’t rupture a subject’s skin.
Shoving her feet into her boots, she bit through the one hundred and twenty—yes, she counted every single one—steps to feel comfortable enough to take care of her personal needs.
Once upon a time it might’ve been awkward to do her business in the middle of the woods, but that was one of the perks that came with marrying Rome Foster.
Camping trips, hunting trips, wilderness survival training—she’d signed up for it all in an attempt to align her interests with her husband’s over the years.
Only to have him leave her.
What had he done to try to relate to her?
Where was his effort to spend time with her other than the obligatory holiday celebrations with her family, birthdays and important anniversaries?
Where was the interest in redoing the flowerbeds on the weekend or that time she wanted to train for a marathon?
What about the couple’s dinner they kept having to cancel because he didn’t want to get to know the new neighbors?
Where was his support during her ongoing difficulties with her parents and the fact that everything she worked hard for in her career was met with pushback from every male colleague above her?
When had he ever shown an interest in something that mattered to her?
The festering resentment she’d managed to swallow down over the past eighteen hours surged at the opening her thoughts had given it, cracking through her composure.
He might’ve saved her from hypothermia last night, but that sure as hell wasn’t going to make up for years of disregard.
A weak growl rumbled in her chest as she hiked her leggings back around her middle and made sure she hadn’t made a mess of her clothes and boots.
A very inhuman growl responded.
Every cell in her body froze.
She knew that sound. Air stuck in her chest as Lettie straightened. Heavy footsteps dragged through the dead leaves and broken twigs from behind. Moving slower than she wanted, she turned to face the threat.
“Sam.” His name caught in her suddenly dry throat. She licked her lips, but it was as though her entire body had dried up in the night.
The black bear stood little more than twenty feet away, his thick coat matted and crusted with brown flakes. Blood. His snout, too. He looked tired, almost feral as he tracked her every move. She couldn’t run. Couldn’t scream. All she had the mind to do was stay as still as possible.
“You know me? Remember? We’re friends. I give you strawberries.
Though I don’t have any on me right now.
” Her fingers twitched to find something—anything—she might have to use as a weapon against him.
Her soul would fight tooth and nail not to harm him, but no matter how much time they’d spent together over the past six months, she couldn’t discount the danger that came with a hungry bear.
And Sam looked hungry. She took a step back, trying to add distance between them, but the bear growled a warning again.
She raised her hands in surrender, as if he would understand the gesture, and hoping like hell he didn’t consider her a threat. Or breakfast.
She didn’t get the chance to find out.
Before Sam charged straight for her.