Captured By Her Mountain Man

1. Avery

AVERY

Ice, hail, and wind that threatens to blow my car over.

Even with the windows up and the heat on max, the windows are freezing up, and my body is turning to ice. Why, oh why, did this storm have to happen today?

“Goddamn you!” I scream, pounding the steering wheel. “Fuck you, Dad!”

I know he can’t hear me. I’m miles away from his house now. But I can’t keep the words back. I mean, what kind of father sells his daughter to a gangster to pay off his gambling debts?

“Rot in hell, scumbag.”

This is not how today was supposed to go. I had a nice night planned for myself. A new cozy mystery with a nice mug of tea and the entire evening to myself. Then the news came.

I’m sorry, honey, but I’ve got no choice. That’s what he told me. The audacity. No other choice? How about, uh, going and working off your debt? Or maybe not being such a degenerate in the first place? I really hope we can still maintain some kind of relationship. I do love you.

Yeah, I’m going to maintain a relationship with my father who sold me off like a dressage horse.

I smiled, nodded, and listened as he told me that Damon Vale’s men would be coming in a half hour to pick me up and take me away. Then, when he went back downstairs to drown his own personal sorrows in a bottle of scotch, I grabbed his car keys, stole his car, and headed up the mountain.

No storm’s going to stop me.

I grab my scraper again, and keeping one hand on the wheel, go to work on the ice that’s building up on the inside of the windshield. It works for shit. The glass is curved, and so is the scraper, so all I end up with are streaks that I can barely see out of.

Suddenly, my wheels slip and the car starts sliding. I choke out a gasp as I grab the wheel, hold it straight, and let off the gas. Just like they taught me in driver’s ed. And like they said, the car stops sliding just before I pitch off the side of the road and over the edge of the cliff.

“Wow, okay. That was close.”

My heart’s going a mile a minute, which is how fast I’d like to be going right now. Away from my dad’s house, away from Damon Vale, and out of this godforsaken storm.

My fingers are so cold I can barely feel them. I didn’t have time to grab a pair of gloves when I ran out of the house. In fact, I didn’t have time to grab anything. I’m wearing a pair of flats, some skinny jeans, a T-shirt, and my faux-leather jacket, which is absolutely not qualified for winter.

You’re not going to freeze to death, I tell myself sternly. You’re going to start a new life. Somehow…

As I round the next turn, there’s a brown flicker through the glass. In the space of a heartbeat, I realize I’m about to run over a baby deer. Panic takes over, and I yank the wheel to the right just as it jumps in the opposite direction.

The car spins and slides right toward the snow bank. What happened to my cool, calm, and collected driving habits?

I scream a death rattle as I hurtle toward a massive tree protruding from the ice. I yank the steering wheel hard the other way, but it’s no use. The impact nearly takes my head off.

My nose slams into the steering wheel, and I hear the windshield shatter.

Glass rains down on me, followed by a torrent of hail and snow.

I groan as my vision darkens. There’s a sting on my shoulder, and I feel something hot and wet dripping down on my leg.

Opening my eyes, I manage to peer through the blur and see blood.

“No, not like this…”

Somehow, I manage to get out of the seatbelt. The driver’s side door is missing, and I spill out onto the frozen ground.

I have to get away, I tell myself, forcing myself to my feet. I won’t be sold. I won’t.

My head is spinning, and my mind goes to the miserable excuse of a life I’m leaving behind. If I die now, no one’s going to miss me. Not my mother who abandoned me at thirteen, not my dad who just tried to sell me off. I don’t have a boyfriend. I’ve never had one.

I’m twenty years old, I’m leaving behind no friends and no family, and I’m going to freeze to death on the side of the road without ever having known a man’s touch.

Like a tragic poem, I think sadly as I fight my way through the snow, larger and larger chunks of hail beating against me like marbles.

I gasp for breath, and the cold air burns my lungs. My right foot slips, and I plunge into the snow. I try to get up, but I can’t. It’s too cold, my muscles are frozen, and I’m losing blood.

This is it. This is how I die.

But then I hear what sounds like thunder or the roar of a monster.

The ground itself shakes beneath me, and I look up to see a plume of black smoke coming toward me.

I must be hallucinating, because as I look through the snow, I see the head of a massive cat rushing toward me. Its eyes glow hot white like lightning.

The thunder crashes, nearly deafening me. The smoke billows, clouding the already dark sky. And then I see the truth.

It’s not a monster. Not a wild cat. It’s a snowmobile with bright headlights, and it’s speeding down the mountain straight at me. And standing tall, with both hands on the handlebars, is him.

My God…

The man racing through the snow, carving between trees, is somehow shirtless, his teeth bared and his sparkling blue eyes gleaming like they’re filled with electricity.

His chest and arm muscles seem impossibly huge and chiseled with not an ounce of fat.

They’re covered with tattoos, and his veins pulse as he skids to a halt beside me.

I open my mouth to speak, but no sound comes. My lips are cracked and frozen. I can barely feel my body. Ice clings to my eyelids, forcing them to close. But just before they do, I watch the man leap from his snowmobile and rush to my side.

I feel like I’m being carried up into heaven as his massive hands curl around my waist and lift me like a feather into the air. I’m set on my back onto something soft, and then I feel his hot, muscled legs wrap around me.

“You’re gonna be okay,” a deep voice growls.

Despite being almost frozen, a tiny spark of warmth blazes in my chest. That voice…it does something to me.

The snowmobile roars, and we start moving. And then the world goes black.