Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
A s soon as the words left her mouth, Janelle felt like an idiot.
I need you.
What was she, four years old?
“I’m sorry,” she murmured against the brick wall that was Schwartz’s back. “I heard a noise.”
She felt him stiffen, then roll toward her. He turned onto his side so they faced each other in the darkness, and she caught a glimmer of moonlight in his eyes.
“A noise?” he asked.
“Outside my window. It sounded like someone or something trying to get in.”
He was silent for only a second, but in the silence, she heard the noise again.
“That!” She gasped, scrambling toward him so fast her legs tangled with his under the covers. “Oh my God, what is that?”
“The scratching sound?”
“Yes! Someone’s out there!”
Schwartz cleared his throat and nodded toward his bedroom window. It faced the same direction hers did, and Janelle could see weird, ghostly shapes moving out there in the darkness. She closed her eyes, hating how helpless she felt.
“Tamarack trees,” he murmured, and she opened her eyes again. “Also known as the western larch. When the wind kicks up, the branches sometimes brush the windows.”
“Oh.”
The noise sounded again, less terrifying now that she knew what it was. “Not a lot of trees scraping buildings where I live.”
“You don’t say.”
He fell quiet again, and Janelle wondered if she could still get up, slink back to her room, and pretend none of this happened. Maybe he’d think he dreamed the whole thing. Maybe she could convince him she’d been sleepwalking.
But then she felt his massive palm settle against the curve of her waist, and leaving was the last thing on her mind.
“Want me to go check it out to be sure?”
“No.” She swallowed. “You’re right—it was just the trees. Sorry I got scared. I feel dumb.”
“Don’t.”
She thought that might be the extent of his words of comfort. It was enough, really. Then his hand stirred in the hollow where her waist met her hip, and Janelle found herself holding her breath for fear he’d move it.
“You witnessed something terrible,” he said, and she knew he wasn’t talking about trees anymore. “What your ex did.”
“Yes.” She didn’t need to ask how he knew. She’d assumed when she agreed to this plan that the Patton family had investigated every aspect of her ex-husband, from his business dealings to his taste in jockey shorts.
“You saw something brutal and bloody and awful,” Schwartz murmured. “That sort of thing can mess with your head.”
He spoke like a man intimately familiar with the experience, and Janelle wanted to ask how he knew. But something told her not to. She might be lying half clad in his bed, but he was still a stranger.
A stranger who felt really, really warm.
She sighed, enjoying the heat seeping from his palm through the thin cotton of her cami top and the elastic waist of her satin sleep shorts. “I thought I was doing okay, you know?” she whispered. “I mean, I’m safe here, right?”
“Right.”
“So why do I feel like a scared little girl?”
His palm curled tighter around her waist. In the darkness, the lines in his face shifted to something resembling a grimace. “You most definitely do not feel like a little girl.”
She laughed, snuggling closer to all that heat and strength. “Thanks. I think.”
Her shifting under the covers made his palm drop from her hip to the small of her back. She might have been imagining things, but she could have sworn she felt his fingertips stroke the top of her sleep shorts, dipping ever so lightly under the waistband. Probably shouldn’t read too much into that.
She wasn’t sure what to do with her hands, and found herself awkwardly folding them against her chest. That felt weird. She unclasped her fingers, hesitating.
To touch or not to touch?
Touch.
She slid her hands forward a few inches to splay them across his chest. He stiffened at first, then relaxed beneath her fingertips.
Better. Much better.
He wore no shirt, and there was a soft dusting of fur across his chest. His muscles felt taut and massive beneath her palms, and he didn’t move to push her hands away. Good Lord, what did this guy do for exercise? Wrestle bears? Bench-press fallen trees? Do bicep curls with boulders?
She tipped her head back to look at him, and found him studying her with an expression of frank interest. “What?”
“I sleep alone. Always. This—this is new.”
She bit her lip. “I can leave if you want.”
“It’s okay. You can stay for a minute. You’re still shaking.”
She was, but it had nothing to do with fear anymore. She hesitated, wondering how rude it might be to ask the question that was on her mind. It was probably much too intimate.
You just crawled into bed with him. That’s not intimate?
“Schwartz?”
“Yeah?”
“You said you sleep alone. And you’re way out here in the middle of nowhere. I was just wondering?—”
“If Sherman starts to look sexy to me every now and then?”
“What?” She laughed and swatted his chest. “No, that’s not what I meant. Well, not exactly.”
“You’re wondering if I’ve taken a vow of celibacy out here in the Montana wilderness.”
“Well, yeah. Kinda. If it’s too personal, you don’t have to answer.”
“Honey, you’ve been rubbing your thigh on my hard-on for the last five minutes. I think we’re past the point of personal.”
She gasped and started to pull back, mortified. “I thought that was your hip bone. Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. This is the most action I’ve seen since the night Sherman and I?—”
“Okay, okay, stop. Anyone ever tell you you’re crude?”
He grinned. “Nope. The benefit of living alone.”
“Good point.” She was conscious now of every point where her body touched his. Her fingers were still spread on his chest, and her thigh had somehow slipped forward again to brush against the hip bone that wasn’t a hip bone. She bit her lip. “So bestiality jokes aside, have you uh—dated much these past ten years?”
“Dated? No. Scratched the occasional itch? Yep. That wasn’t an STI reference, by the way.”
“I wasn’t suggesting?—”
“There’s a town about an hour from here. Lotsa lonely female ski instructors and raft guides and ranch hands end up there to grab a drink or meet people.”
“And you’re one of the people they meet?”
“On occasion.”
“Good. That’s good.” Most of her meant that. She was glad to know he wasn’t lonely and sex-starved out here in the wilderness alone. But a faint flicker of jealousy flared in her chest, and she wondered what those other women looked like. How they moved beneath him or on top of him or?—
“You’re rubbing my hip bone again.”
“What?” She blinked. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.”
In the darkness of his bedroom, Janelle felt her cheeks heat up. She should probably stop touching him. Any minute now she’d do that. Very soon.
His hand slid lower to cup her ass through her sleep shorts, and Janelle felt her whole body arch to press against him. “Here’s the thing,” he murmured, his voice low and somewhere between lust and menacing. “I’d fucking love to roll you on your back right now and make you scream my name.”
“God,” she whispered. "Okay?”
“But I won’t.”
She blinked in the darkness. “What?”
“You’re here because you’re scared, and I’m here to protect you. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have my limits. And if you keep touching me like that, you’ll be treading dangerously close to them.”
She nodded, too stunned to form words. Too aroused to break contact. His face hovered inches from hers, and the heat in his eyes lit the darkness. He leaned forward and Janelle closed her eyes, expecting a kiss.
She didn’t expect it to land on her forehead.
And she didn’t expect it to be so gentle.
She opened her eyes as he drew back, giving serious thought to screaming. In frustration or pleasure, she wasn’t sure.
“You can stay in this bed if you want,” he said. “Or you can take that sweet ass back to the rollaway. Either way, I’m going to need to keep at least a foot of space between us. Understood?”
Janelle nodded in the darkness. “Yes.”
“Good.”
He slid his hand from her hip and rolled away, turning his back to her again.
“Understood,” she mouthed silently in the darkness.
It was the biggest lie she’d told in months.
Because the truth was, she understood very little about what she was feeling right then for Schwarzkopf Alexander Patton.
And that terrified her more than ghosts or tree branches or anything else out there in the shadows.
Schwartz woke up alone in his bed, which is pretty much how he’d done it every morning for the last ten years.
So why the hell did it bug him this time?
He threw off the covers, grumbling to himself as he lumbered out to the living room in his boxer shorts. Sherman raised his massive, shaggy head from the dog bed in front of the fireplace and thumped his tail on the hardwood floor.
“Some watchdog you are,” Schwartz muttered. “You couldn’t have warned me about the crazy woman prowling around the house trying to crawl into bed with me last night?”
The wolf-dog yawned, then stood up and stretched before trotting to the door. Schwartz unlocked the bolts and pushed it open, letting the beast out to do his business. A chill seared the air, and bright yellow needles on the tamaracks signaled that summer had given up her fight and let autumn bend her over. He breathed in the vanilla scent of ponderosa pine bark, and the muddy, grassy perfume of the creek just over the hill.
Sherman came bounding back inside, leading the way to his dog dish in the corner. Schwartz shut the door and followed, still groggy with sleep.
“There you go, boy,” he muttered as he dumped a pile of kibble into a dog dish the size of a hubcap before turning to fill his water bowl at the sink. “Sorry, we’re all out of Perrier. Tap water will have to do.”
A soft laugh behind him made Schwartz whirl around so fast he nearly smacked his head on the cabinet. Janelle stood in the doorway of his office looking sleepy and tousled and so fuckable he nearly groaned. She wore a familiar sweatshirt that came all the way to her knees, and she hugged the arms of it around her like a security blanket.
She smiled. “So you take breakfast orders from your dog?”
“You steal clothing from strangers?”
He probably sounded like a dick, but she just grinned and stepped into the living room, pushing up the sleeves of the sweatshirt as she padded barefoot toward him. “I got cold, and this was hanging on the back of your office chair. It’s cozy, thanks.”
Schwartz grunted and tried not to look at her legs. God, they were great legs.
“Yep,” he said. “Montana’s damn cold.”
“Did the fire go out?”
“It dies down to embers at night. Gotta rebuild it every morning.”
“That sounds like a nice metaphor.”
“Yeah, I’m a regular fucking Longfellow.”
“Hmm,” she said, and he could have sworn she glanced at his crotch.
Probably should have thrown on some pants before coming out here. Probably should have done a lot of things differently, starting with not letting her in his bed for even a minute last night. What the hell had he been thinking?
You weren’t exactly thinking with your head. Not that one, anyway.
He had to get it together. He was supposed to be keeping her safe, not mentally undressing her. Mac, Sheri, Grant, Grant’s fiancée—they’d all trusted him to watch over her out here. The last thing he needed was to get distracted by pointless shit when everyone was counting on him.
He’d done that before, with tragic consequences.
Schwartz turned away from Janelle and bent to check the woodstove for any remaining embers. There was still a faint glow there, which should make things easier. “Get dressed,” he said over his shoulder.
“What for?”
“Because your shoes don’t match your fucking handbag. Besides that, your outfit’s not exactly ideal for splitting wood.”
“Splitting wood?”
“You think it splits itself?”
“No, I just—you mean before coffee?”
“You turned your nose up at my coffee, remember?”
“It’s six in the morning. I’m having second thoughts.”
He glanced over his shoulder to see her gazing longingly at his rusty old coffeemaker. He shut the door of the woodstove a little too loudly, making her jump.
“Get dressed,” he repeated, then stalked off to his bedroom to do the same.
He had his jeans and thermals and flannel shirt and wool socks on in a matter of minutes, and was sitting by the door lacing up his boots when he heard her footsteps. He looked up to see her standing in the doorway of the office with her hair loose around her shoulders and a pink sweater that looked pussy-willow soft.
“You didn’t bring any tighter jeans?” he grumbled. “Those aren’t quite cutting off all your circulation.”
“These?” She looked down at her legs, forcing him to do the same. Not that he needed a fucking excuse. “They’re skinny jeans. Gucci. Very practical, since they tuck into the top of my boots.”
“Practical. Exactly what I was going to say.”
“Grouch.”
“What? Maybe I’ll order a pair for myself.”
She laughed and flounced into the room, looking entirely too cheerful considering what a jerk he was being. “Look, I even have gloves,” she said, pulling on a pair of black leather gloves that looked more suited to lifting a champagne flute than splitting logs.
“Got eye protection?” he asked.
“Eye protection?”
“Right. Something to protect your eyes.”
“Thanks for clarifying. Thought maybe you wanted me to put goggles on my ears.” She turned and scurried back into the office. “Hang on,” she called.
Schwartz finished lacing his boots and stood up. He reached for the doorknob as she emerged into the room again looking like a goddamn movie star.
“Ray-Bans,” he muttered. “Perfect.”
She pulled the glasses off and grinned as she tucked them into her pocket. Then she pulled on a bright pink knit cap with a tassel on top. “I’m surprised you can identify Ray-Bans at a glance.”
“I’m related to Mac, remember? The guy removed his sunglasses maybe twice during our entire childhood.”
“That’s so weird to think of you and Mac sharing a childhood.”
“Why’s that?” he asked, not sure where the sudden prick of defensiveness came from.
“I can’t picture either of you as kids. Both of you seem like guys who leaped fully formed from the womb and started marching in military formation.”
The thought that he had anything in common with one of his siblings startled him so much he dropped the goggles he’d just grabbed off the shelf by the door. He picked them up, annoyed by how awkward he felt having a female presence in the house.
Not just any female. Her .
He pushed open the front door and stepped outside, conscious of Janelle following closely behind him. A hint of her flowery bath oil hovered in the air around them as he led her to the woodshed on the east side of the house. He pulled a key from his pocket, shoved it into the padlock, and yanked open the small storage box.
“Let’s start with the basics,” he said, running his fingers over the neat row of wooden handles. “I like mauls.”
She beamed at him, the sunlight catching the caramel-colored strands in her hair. “I like malls, too! I didn’t realize there were any nearby. I’m more partial to locally owned boutiques with fashions from up-and-coming designers, but if there’s a mall we can visit?—”
“No, not malls— mauls .” He pulled one out to show her. “This is a splitting maul. I prefer using this, as opposed to an ax.”
She reached out and touched the handle, and Schwartz tried not to think about how great those pink-tipped fingers looked stroking the wood shaft.
“What’s the difference between an ax and a maul?” she asked.
“An ax has a narrow, sharp head, and it’s used for chopping.”
“We’re not chopping?”
“No, we’re splitting . Chopping wood means you’re cutting across the fibers. You end up with a lot of small chips, which isn’t what we want for firewood.”
“Okay.”
“Splitting wood is different. You’re dividing a piece of wood in two by forcing the wood fibers apart parallel to the grain. That’s why you use a maul. The head is blunt and fat, and the larger size of it forces the crack to split wide open with pressure.”
He didn’t realize until the words left his mouth how filthy he’d made it all sound. Maybe she hadn’t noticed. Maybe his sex-addled brain had started processing everything through a filter of smut.
Maybe it all sounded perfectly innocent to Janelle.
“So you’re saying it’s better to have a big, fat head at the end of your shaft, as opposed to a smaller one?” The smirk on her face said she hadn’t missed a thing.
Hell.
Schwartz tugged at the collar of his flannel shirt. “Let’s split some fucking logs.”
He stalked over to the table-sized stump he used for splitting firewood and grabbed a bolt of mountain ash. He slammed it onto the stump with more force than he probably needed, prompting Janelle to jump back.
“I used a chain saw to de-limb the tree and cut the trunk into logs,” he explained. “Now we need to split the logs into smaller pieces that fit in the woodstove. Understand?”
“Yes. So I don’t get to use a chain saw?”
“The idea of you with a chain saw is something that’ll haunt my nightmares for months.”
“But you trust me with a maul?”
“Just barely. Okay, so what you want to do is stand like this.”
He demonstrated the position, and Janelle nodded, then arranged her body into a pose that looked more like she was bracing herself to be bent over and taken from behind. Then again, she could stoop down to tie her shoe and he’d probably think that.
“Like this?” she asked.
“No, not like that. Like this.”
She made a face, tried again, then frowned. “I don’t understand. Show me.”
“I am showing you.”
“And I’m doing what it looks like to me. If I’m not doing it right, you have to show me what I need to do to get it.”
“Fine,” he muttered, leaning the maul against a tree. He moved to stand behind her and caught the back of each elbow in one of his palms. She felt tiny and soft and smelled fucking incredible. He tried to press her arms out straight, but only succeeded in pressing his own body over hers.
He was starting to get dizzy.
“Your arms need to be like this,” he muttered. “And you’ve gotta spread your legs.”
“All right.”
“Spread them wider.”
“Okay,” she said faintly.
“Good. Now arch your back.”
“Uh-huh. Hey, Schwartz?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you always talk this dirty when you’re chopping wood?”
He stepped back, wondering if he had any blood left in his brain. “We’re not chopping. We’re splitting.”
“Got it.”
He put some distance between them and grabbed the maul again, figuring it was a safer thing to grab than Janelle.
“Okay, so this is a nice chunk of hardwood—” Hard wood. Really hard wood.
Fuck!
“It’s mountain ash, is what I’m saying,” he said. “But we still have to inspect it carefully before we start splitting.”
“What are we looking for?”
“Knots. This shouldn’t be too knotty, but?—”
“Wait, why is naughty wood a bad thing?”
He glanced at her face to see if she was smirking again. She wasn’t, so it was just his goddamn brain hearing things wrong. He cleared his throat. “Knotty wood is hard to get through, especially if it’s green. You can hurt yourself, or stand there all day whacking the wood.”
Oh, for the love of all things holy.
“Whacking the wood. Got it. Okay then.”
She’d started smirking again. Schwartz grimaced and held out the maul. “Here. Let’s see you lift that.”
She reached for it and nearly fell over when he handed it to her. “Holy cow! How much does this thing weigh?”
“Uh, I’m not sure.” He hadn’t actually thought about it, but now that he watched her trying to lift the heavy implement, it occurred to him she’d have an awfully tough time hefting the damn thing over her head. Why hadn’t he considered that before?
You’re the king of not thinking things through, dumbass.
“Want to know something cool about chopping wood?” she asked, still wrestling with the maul.
“Splitting,” he muttered, only half listening at this point.
“Whatever. Did you know that one hour of chopping wood can boost male testosterone levels by almost fifty percent?”
“What?”
“It’s true. Researchers from UC-Santa Barbara determined that when they studied a tribe in Brazil or Bolivia or someplace like that. I forget. Anyway, wood chopping is one of those activities that has a crazy effect on testosterone. I learned about it when I was designing an infographic for Men’s Health last year.”
Great. That’s exactly what he needed right now, more testosterone coursing through his body, more blood pumping to zones beyond his brain, more reasons to lose his fucking head around Janelle Keebler.
Schwartz cleared his throat. “You know, it’s not all that cold out right now. Maybe we should skip the fire today.”
Janelle frowned. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. Why not?”
“You’re kidding, right? It’s freezing.” She puffed out a lungful of frosty air. “You can see my breasts.”
The last bit of blood in his brain headed south. “What?”
“Breath. You can see my breath. What did you think I said?”
She wasn’t smirking, so clearly he’d lost both his hearing and his mind. Either way, there was no way he could keep this up.
Oh, you keep it up just fine when she’s around.
“Why don’t you go back inside and make some coffee?”
She stared at him oddly for a few beats, then shrugged. “Suit yourself. Want me to make you a Pop-Tart?”
“Yes. Please.”
“Okay then. See you inside.” She turned and practically skipped back to the cabin.
It was all he could do not to stare at her ass.
Breakfast was a tense affair, a far as Janelle could tell. So was the impromptu lesson Schwartz gave her on how to build a fire.
So was pretty much everything, if Janelle stopped to think about it. She wasn’t sure if Schwartz hated her or wanted to have sex with her. It was possible the two weren’t mutually exclusive.
You just have sex on the brain, her subconscious told her.
How could she not? She was sharing nine hundred square feet of space with a lumberjack who looked like a Greek god. Maybe sleeping with him wouldn’t be the worst thing. Maybe they were even compatible. Maybe?—
Right, because your taste in men has always been so stellar?
The thought made her feel glum. Okay, so she’d had no idea Jacques was a heroin importer. He’d told her when they’d first started dating that he managed a pharmaceutical company. Later, after she’d found out what he really did for a living, he’d pointed out that he’d never actually lied.
Nope. He dealt pharmaceuticals, all right. Janelle had just been too blind to notice what kind.
“Your picker is broken,” her sister had told her a long time ago when she’d gone crying to her about some silly boy who’d broken her heart.
Janelle eyed Schwartz from across the desk in his office and remembered those words again.
“What?”
She blinked, and realized she’d been staring at him. “Nothing,” she mumbled. “Sorry. I just stare off into space sometimes when I’m brainstorming a project.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
It was the most they’d spoken all day, ever since Schwartz cleared a spot for her laptop at the end of his long desk and grudgingly agreed they could share his work space. She knew he designed security systems for government buildings, but she wasn’t entirely sure what that entailed. Apparently it was something he could do out here in the middle of nowhere with minimal human interaction, which was probably the big selling point for him.
Her job as a graphic designer meant she could work from just about anywhere, too, though she was accustomed to doing it with a little more traffic outside and the option to pop down the block for a latte every few hours.
“Don’t you ever get lonely out here?” she asked.
The words were out of her mouth before she had a chance to consider whether it was a smart thing to ask. Schwartz’s quick reply suggested he’d given less thought to her words than she had.
“No.”
“No?” she asked. “Not ever?”
“Nope.”
“Don’t you miss your friends? Your family? Creature comforts like Thai takeout and fast taxis and French flea markets?”
Something dark flashed in his eyes, and Janelle felt pretty sure it wasn’t a longing for French flea markets.
“I said I don’t get lonely,” he said. “What part of that doesn’t make sense to you?”
“The part where you’re a good-looking guy with a certain unique charm and a basic human need for companionship. I don’t understand why you’d want to be out here all by yourself, cut off from civilization, your friends, your family, your?—”
“I’m not alone. There’s Sherman.”
Janelle glanced down at the floor, where the big wolf-dog had made himself at home on the cushioned bed Schwartz had dragged in from the living room. The beast had been snoring for the last hour, but his ears pricked at the sound of his own name.
“Sherman’s good company, I’ll give you that,” Janelle admitted.
“This, from the woman who ran screaming from him less than twenty-four hours ago.”
“Yeah, well, being trapped in a cabin together has a way of breeding fondness and intimacy.”
“No shit.”
He sounded annoyed by that, and Janelle figured they weren’t talking about the dog anymore. Better remedy that.
“So how did you and Sherman meet?”
“I was in this dimly lit saloon, and I’d had a couple drinks, and?—”
She laughed. “Come on, be serious. Enough with the bestiality humor.”
“I was being serious. And you’re the one who brought up bestiality. Anyone ever tell you that you have a very dirty mind?”
“Constantly.”
He looked pained, but she ignored him and began using the point of her sock-clad toes to massage the sweet spot behind Sherman’s scruff. She’d discovered earlier how much he loved it, and the big creature groaned with pleasure and closed his eyes.
“So you met Sherman in a bar?” she prompted.
“No, that’s just how I started the story before I was rudely interrupted by a woman with her mind in the gutter.”
“You’re one to talk, Mr. Let Me Show You My Log.”
“Touché.” He drummed his fingers on the edge of his desk and looked out the window. “I’d gone to town to pick up supplies and have a beer or two. I don’t like to drive if I’ve had anything to drink, and that’s especially true when a blizzard moves in.”
“And that’s what happened?”
“Yep.”
“So you shacked up with one of your lonely female ski instructors or ranch hands or river guides?” She kept her tone light and tried not to notice the jealous pang in her chest.
“No, I went to the little B&B across the street. It’s a place I stay sometimes when bad weather sets in before I can get back here.”
“So then what happened?” This whole story was the longest string of words she’d ever heard Schwartz utter, and she wanted to keep him talking. She savored the glimmer of nostalgia in his eyes, the animation in his face as he told a story she imagined he hadn’t shared with too many people.
“Sometime around four in the morning, I heard something yipping outside,” he said. “At first I thought it was coyotes off in the distance. Then I realized it was right outside my door. I looked out the window and didn’t see anything, so I opened the door and this little ball of fluff came tumbling inside.”
“Sherman?”
“Sherman.” He nodded. “He was no more than six weeks old. Half frozen and half starved and walking kinda funny. I figured out pretty quick he had a broken leg.”
“That’s horrible! What did you do?”
Schwartz leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out in front of him, and Janelle tried not to stare at that massive chest and massive hands and massive?—
“I brought him in and dried him off and got him warmed up by the fireplace. I had some leftover meatloaf I’d brought back from dinner, so I broke it up into little pieces and watched him gobble it up like he’d never seen food in his life. By that time, it was getting to be daylight, so I went back to the saloon and found the vet.”
“How on earth did you know there’d be a veterinarian at a saloon?” Janelle asked. “And that early in the morning?”
“Well, he lives there, for one thing. The town is tiny, and the saloon’s not really a saloon. It’s basically just a room in the basement of a house where people go to drink sometimes.”
“You’re kidding me,” she said, thinking of the trendy cocktail bars and craft beer pubs and snooty bistros back home. “So the town’s veterinarian runs a bar in his basement.”
“Yep. And the town accountant does tax returns in his hardware store. And the town dentist also owns the only restaurant in town, which probably explains why he makes the most sugar-filled blueberry pie you’ve ever tasted.”
Beneath her toes, Sherman rolled over, then nudged her with his paw until she started rubbing circles on his belly. She smiled and complied with his demands.
“So the vet took a look at Sherman and said he’d been abused,” Schwartz continued. “No shit, right?”
“Right.”
“He set the leg and gave me some meds and some special food for him. Turned out Sherman was a cross between a husky and a wolf, which isn’t all that common. Didn’t take me long to figure out who he belonged to.”
“Who?”
“Auto mechanic. He’d just started breeding them, thought he could make a bunch of money selling wolf hybrids on the internet.”
“Why on earth?—”
“But it turned out to be harder than he thought. A lot of states have laws about wolf hybrids, so his out-of-state buyers started sending the pups back. Sherman was one of those, and he had the added disadvantage of a bum leg. Made it pretty much impossible to sell him again.”
“How did you learn all of this?” She was trying to wrap her brain around this new version of Schwartz. The one that had a wide social circle of friends in this cozy little town only an hour away. Something about it seemed comforting.
“The vet told me about the mechanic,” Schwartz said. “First time I’d ever talked to the guy. Either one of ’em, actually. Probably the last time, too.”
“Wait, you mean you aren’t buddies with all of them? The accountant? The dentist? The mechanic? The vet?”
“’Fraid not. I mean, they might recognize me if they see me around, but I’m not one for a lot of chitchat.”
Okay, maybe he didn’t have a social circle. “Why on earth not? Everyone needs friends.”
“Sure,” Schwartz said, glancing down at his dog with an expression of fondness that nearly broke Janelle’s heart. “That’s why I have Sherman.”
Janelle shook her head, still making toe circles on Sherman’s belly. The beast groaned and closed his eyes, clearly in canine nirvana.
“How long ago was that?” she asked. “I mean, how old is Sherman?”
Schwartz thought about it a minute, closing one eye as he counted something out in his mind. “Eight years.”
“Eight years,” she repeated. “So you lived out here all alone for two years, had some brief social interaction with a veterinarian eight years ago, enjoy periodic hookups with women passing through town, and have avoided friendships and connections beyond that.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Thank you for the recap of my social life. I trust this is going on Page Six?”
She shook her head, not sure whether to throttle him, feel sorry for him, or admire the hell out of him.
She settled for interrogating him again. “So what happened to the mechanic?”
“The one who left Sherman to die?”
“Yes. Did you find him?”
“I had a few words with him.”
“Words? That’s good. I mean, I guess that’s one more conversation to add to your roster.”
“Sure. If you count my fist to his face as conversation.”
Janelle felt her jaw drop. “You punched him?”
“Of course I punched him. He left a puppy to die in a blizzard. He’s lucky that’s all I did.” Schwartz stood up, apparently done with the conversation. “I’m grabbing another Pop-Tart. You want one?”
“No thank you,” she murmured, her brain still reeling with the idea of this mountain man who’d spend ten years avoiding contact with his family and friends and all other humans, but came to the rescue of an injured pup, and devoured Pop-Tarts with the glee of a little boy.
Who the hell was this guy?
And why did she suddenly care so much?
Schwartz slammed the door behind him as he stalked away from the cabin like a man running for his life. He had to get out of there.
He’d muttered some excuse to Janelle about grabbing firewood, though he’d already stocked the rack next to the door with more wood than they’d need all day.
He didn’t need firewood. He just needed to get away.
His breath was coming hard by the time he stomped to the top of the hill and turned to look back on the little cabin. The doors were locked tight, and he could reach it in two minutes if she needed him.
But for now, he needed something else. Space. Fresh air. Peace of mind. A single moment where he wasn’t going quietly insane at the sight of Janelle sitting at the end of his desk with her hair falling over her eyes and the tip of a pen sliding back and forth between those perfect pink lips.
Dammit. He could still smell her. He lifted the front of his faded flannel shirt and drew it to his nose, breathing in the sweet, flowery scent of her. His heart twisted, and he closed his eyes, his brain echoing the sound of some cheerful pop song she’d been humming while she worked.
She probably thought he was insane. When her leg had brushed his under the desk, he’d bolted up so fast he’d knocked over his chair.
“Christ,” he muttered now as he kicked a tree and yanked his phone out of his pocket.
He hit the speed-dial number for Grant and waited, annoyed to realize how eager he was to hear his brother’s voice.
Grant picked up on the first ring. “Hey, how’s it going?”
“Fine.”
“She’s settling in okay? Not too homesick or scared or?—”
“I said she’s fine. Jesus, you want a minute-by-minute account of her bathroom habits?”
“Paying that close attention, are you?”
“Fuck off.”
Grant just laughed. “Seriously, everything’s okay?”
“Sure. Any word on her asshole ex?”
“Yeah. Mac’s been pretty intense with the surveillance. Sounds like Jacques and his guys are still going nuts trying to track her down. No luck, obviously.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“For now. You’re not letting her online or anything, are you?”
“Hell, no. No email, no phone, no outside contact of any kind.”
“That’s gotta be driving her nuts.”
“Not my problem.”
“She’s a social girl. You’re at least talking to her, right?”
“Sure. We sit around all day sipping espresso and discussing our feelings.”
Grant laughed again, and Schwartz resisted the urge to kick the tree.
“Just don’t ignore her, Schwartz.”
“Ignore her?”
“Right. I know you don’t need anyone else for company, but she’s different.”
“Yeah, she is.”
The words left his mouth before he had a chance to think them through, and he wanted to kick himself instead of the damn tree. Luckily, Grant didn’t seem to notice.
Hell, that wasn’t true. Grant noticed everything. The guy was a counterintelligence expert, for crying out loud. A fly could take a shit with its left rear leg lifted and Grant would notice it lifted the right one last time.
Which meant Grant was just being kind. Schwartz tried to decide whether to be annoyed or touched.
“I really appreciate you doing this, man,” Grant said. “Seriously, I sleep better at night knowing you’re looking out for her.”
“No problem.”
“You’re sure I can’t do more to help? It only takes a day to reach your place from Fort Lewis. I could drive over on the weekend and?—”
“No.”
“What about Sheri? Or Mac? Or Mom offered to?—”
“No.” His voice was more forceful this time, and he hated snapping at his brother like that. But dammit, he needed to stop this now. He had to keep his distance from the family. “Look, I gotta go.”
“Okay.” Grant cleared his throat. “We’re all here for you, Schwartz. The whole family, you know. If you need anything?—”
“I don’t.”
Lie. Fucking stupid lie. He swallowed hard and looked back at the curl of smoke drifting from the cabin’s chimney. He thought about smoke and ashes and fire and mangled metal and closed his eyes against the onslaught of memories.
“If you change your mind, we’re here,” Grant said. “Always.”
“Got it.”
“Tell Janelle hi, okay?”
“Sure.”
“And Schwartz? Don’t ignore her.”
Schwartz grunted and disconnected the call. Then he stared at the phone, wondering what delusional world his brother lived in if he thought there was any way he could possibly ignore Janelle Rebecca Keebler.
It was after midnight again, and Schwartz lay sleepless in bed.
Again.
The sleeplessness was nothing new.
What was new were the thoughts now keeping him awake. Instead of twisted metal and the screams of dying men, he pictured Janelle’s face over dinner. She’d insisted on doing her share of the meal prep, so he’d let her boil spaghetti while he opened the jar of sauce.
Real fuckin’ gourmet. Hardly the sort of thing she was used to eating in the cafés and fancy restaurants in San Francisco, but she gobbled it up like a champ and asked for seconds.
“Glad you’re not picky about food,” he’d said as she practically licked the plate clean.
“No, but I am picky about coffee. Seriously, Schwartz—that stuff tastes like someone soaked rusty nails in muddy water.”
“That’s a familiar flavor profile for you?”
“Come on—when can we go to that town you were talking about and get some real coffee?”
“We’ll see,” he’d told her, fighting to keep his expression stern as she pantomimed choking and gagging on another sip of the potent brew.
Schwartz rolled over in bed and tried not to think about her easy smile or smell the floral notes in her hair or hear the lilt of her voice as she said his name. God, how long had it been since a woman had said it aloud like that? Or moaned it? Or screamed it?
A long time. Too long.
He rolled over again and punched the pillow. No. That wasn’t going to happen.
Protecting someone meant not getting involved. Not like that, anyway. More than anything—certainly more than sex—he needed to be someone people could count on to do a job. Not to fuck things up with people’s lives at risk.
He closed his eyes and listened to the swish of tamarack branches outside his window. It was a soothing sound, something he’d grown used to. A lullaby of sorts.
He was almost asleep when he heard the scream.