Chapter 10 Calder
Calder
“Saint!”
My voice tears through the night, raw with panic and anger I haven’t felt since, I can’t even remember when.
Fear isn’t something I allow myself to feel.
Fear gets you killed in my world. This is different, though.
It isn’t fear for myself. It’s terror for her.
I stagger out onto the porch, blood trickling down the side of my face. I don’t give a fuck if I’m bleeding.
My concern is Saint. The blizzard has intensified. The wind howls through the trees like something alive and angry. Snow falls so thick that I can barely see ten feet in front of me.
Somewhere out there, wearing not nearly enough, is Saint.
If I don’t find her soon, she’ll die.
It kills me to think that, but it’s true. I need to do something.
I grab my coat from the hook by the door, shrugging into it as I scan the ground. There, barely visible in the rapidly accumulating snow, are tracks leading away from the cabin. Small, desperate prints heading straight into the tree line.
Stupid. So fucking stupid.
I can’t blame her for trying.
Wouldn’t you do the same? Wouldn’t anyone choose the possibility of death over the certainty of captivity?
The thought doesn’t make the fear any less visceral.
I rush out into the storm, following her tracks. My head screams in protest with every step, my vision still swimming. I push through it. Pain doesn’t matter. The blood running down my neck doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is finding her before the cold does.
A gust of wind cuts through my coat like knives, and I grit my teeth against the cold. Snow stings my face, making it nearly impossible to see. I can’t imagine what it’s like for her—exposed, vulnerable, already hypothermic?
How far could she have gotten? Two hundred yards? Three hundred?
Not far enough to escape, but far enough to die trying.
Her tracks are already filling in, the storm working to erase every trace of her.
I move faster, my breath coming in harsh clouds.
The trees close in around me, dense and dark.
This part of the forest is treacherous even in daylight.
In these conditions, a fallen log hidden under snow could be her end.
“Saint!” I roar, calling out to her. the wind steals my voice. “Stop running!”
Nothing. No response. Just the howl of wind and the whisper of falling snow.
I rush deeper into the trees, following what’s left of her trail. The pounding in my head intensifies with every heartbeat, a sharp reminder of the pan connecting with my skull. She got me good. Real good. If I weren’t Bishop-bred, that hit might have done more than knock me out for a few seconds.
Maybe minutes.
Her tracks veer left suddenly erratic. She’s stumbling now. Good, it means she’s slowing down. Also bad, since it means she’s losing coordination. Hypothermia is most likely setting in, stopping her from thinking clearly.
I’m closing the distance between us. I can feel it.
ThenI spot her.
A small figure in the white, moving with jerky, uncoordinated movements. She’s maybe fifty yards ahead, weaving between trees like she’s drunk. Every few steps she stumbles, catches herself, but keeps going, fueled by pure stubborn will.
Even now, even dying, she’s still fighting.
An unrecognizable emotion cracks through my chest—pride mixed with terror, and something else I don’t want to name.
“Saint!” I call, pushing harder through the snow.
She doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t even seem to hear me. Just keeps putting one foot in front of the other. I eat up the distance between us in long, powerful strides. Ranch work has made me strong, made me capable of exactly this kind of pursuit.
She never stood a chance.
Thirty yards.
Twenty.
Ten.
She stumbles again, going down hard into a snowdrift, then struggling to push herself up, her movements sluggish. She’s shaking violently, good, that means her body’s still trying to warm itself. Once the shaking stops, she’s in real trouble.
“Saint,” I say again, softer this time, closing the last few feet between us.
She gets to her knees and looks up at me with eyes that struggle to focus. Her lips are blue, skin pale as death. Snow clings to her hair, her eyelashes. She’s so cold she’s not even shivering anymore. She’s past that stage, entering the danger zone.
“N-no,” she tries to say, but the word comes out slurred. “L-let me—”
“You’re dying,” I tell her bluntly. “Another ten minutes out here and you’re dead. Is that what you want?”
“B-better than—” Her teeth chatter so hard she can’t finish.
“Better than what? Being my wife?” I crouch in front of her, reaching out. “You’d rather freeze to death than marry me?”
“Y-yes.” The word is barely a whisper, but it’s filled with so much defiance, so much raw honesty, that it hits me harder than the pan did.
She means it. She’d actually rather die than be mine. Maybe that’s what I should do. Let her go. She’s made her choice, clearly. It would be the right thing to do, the merciful thing. But I didn’t go through all this trouble for nothing, and I’m done pretending I’ll ever let her go again.
“Well, you don’t get that choice,” I tell her, scooping her into my arms despite her weak attempts to fight me. “I’ve already risked everything to keep you alive. I’m not letting you throw your life away now.”
She tries to struggle, but her body won’t cooperate. The cold has taken her strength, leaving her helpless in my arms. She makes a sound that might be a sob or might just be her body’s response to being moved.
“I h-hate you,” she manages.
“I know.” I walk back toward the cabin, holding her tight against my chest. “And you’ll hate me even more tomorrow when we get married. Because you’re smart enough to choose survival, even when survival looks like surrender.”
She doesn’t respond. Might not have even heard me. Her head lolls against my shoulder, consciousness slipping. That’s bad. Shit.
I move faster, retracing my steps the best I’m able. The cabin isn’t far, but in this storm, with visibility nearly zero, it feels like miles. Blood from my head wound drips onto the snow, leaving a trail. My head still pounds, but I ignore it. Pain is nothing. Fear for Saint? That’s everything.
The trees thin, and suddenly, there it is—the cabin, warm light spilling from the open door. I climb the porch steps and kick the door shut behind us, sealing out the storm.
The warmth of the cabin hits like a wall. I carry Saint straight to the fire, setting her down on the floor in front of the hearth. She’s not shaking anymore. Not moving at all except for the shallow rise and fall of her chest.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
I strip off my coat first, then start on her clothes. Her flannel shirt is soaked through and frozen stiff in places. Her skin underneath is ice cold, lips and fingernails blue. I peel off everything until she’s down to her underwear, then grab every blanket in the cabin.
But blankets won’t be enough. Not for hypothermia this severe.
Body heat. That’s what she needs—direct skin-to-skin contact.
I strip off my own wet shirt and jeans, leaving me in just boxers, then pull her against me. She’s so cold it’s shocking, like holding a corpse. I wrap us both in blankets, surrounding her with my warmth, trying to will heat back into her frozen limbs.
And that’s when my brain catches up with my body.
Her skin against mine. Soft and cold and everywhere.
Her breasts pressed against my chest, with only the thin fabric of her panties and my boxers separating us below.
The curve of her hip under my hand. Her thighs tangled with mine.
The sweet, vulnerable length of her body aligned perfectly with mine.
Christ.
This is not the time. She’s dying—hypothermic and needing medical attention—not, fuck, not whatever my body thinks is happening right now.
But biology doesn’t care about timing. My cock is already stirring, responding to the feel of her nearly naked in my arms despite the fact that she’s blue-lipped and barely conscious.
I’m going to hell. Definitely going to hell. Not that there was ever a question.
I adjust my hips, trying to put some distance between us without stopping the heat transfer she desperately needs. But there’s nowhere to go. We’re tangled together, skin to skin, and every breath slides her body against mine, making my jaw clench.
“Come on, Saint,” I murmur against her hair, trying to focus on keeping her alive rather than how good she feels pressed against me. “Don’t you dare die on me. Not after everything.”
Her breathing is shallow and irregular. I hold her tighter, one hand rubbing up and down her back, trying to generate friction, heat, anything. My palm slides over the smooth plane of her spine, the curve of her lower back, the soft skin that’s slowly losing its corpse-like chill.
Stop noticing. Stop feeling. Just keep her alive.
It’s impossible not to notice. Impossible not to feel every inch of her against every inch of me. The soft weight of her breasts. The smooth skin of her stomach pressed against mine. The way her legs are tucked between my thighs, so close to—
I close my eyes and focus on counting my breaths. On the crackle of the fire. On anything except the growing pressure in my boxers and the fact that I’m holding a nearly naked woman who hates me.
A nearly naked woman I’m going to marry.
A nearly naked woman who will eventually be mine in every way.
The thought doesn’t help. At all.
This is my fault. I pushed her too hard, too fast. I should have given her more time to process everything. Should have been less brutal with the threats. Should have—
Should have what? Let her go? Told her the truth about why I can’t kill her?
That my obsession and need have grown out of control. That the fiasco with Martin gave me the perfect opening. Admitted that somewhere between the night in my truck and the night at her door, she stopped being a witness and started being something else entirely?