Defiant Mountain Man (Cold Mountain Nights 2 #8)

Kori

Somewhere South of Crescent Ridge, Colorado

The rental car's heater gives out halfway up the steep mountain road from Bramble, which is just the cherry on top of this entire trip.

I've got two hours of mountain driving behind me, and I’m over the snow and ice.

I have officially fucked up.

First by trusting the airline with my medicine. Every vial should’ve been in my carry-on. But that’s not all. Not immediately treating my shortage like the emergency it’s becoming was strike two.

And my life isn’t a fucking baseball game.

I skipped the pharmacy down in Bramble because the line was out the damn door. Now I’m thinking I should’ve stood in that line and then gone to a hotel instead of driving up this mountain. It seems like the storm is getting worse with every minute.

What started as a light shower of snowflakes has turned into a blizzard. The snow is coming down like a blanket, thick and heavy, obscuring my vision until I can only see about five feet of road ahead of me.

I’m cursing every decision that led me here.

My screenplay is due to my agent in six weeks, and I have exactly zero pages that don't need a complete rewrite, which is why I'm currently white-knuckling a steering wheel through snow that's coming down sideways instead of sitting in my LA apartment where the WiFi works and the roads don't actively try to kill you.

"You have got to be kidding me,” I mutter as my GPS recalculates again,

I pull over onto what I hope is a shoulder and dig my phone out to call the pharmacy in Crescent Ridge one more time.

It goes straight to voicemail.

"We are currently closed due to inclement weather. Please call back tomorrow during regular business hours."

"Fantastic." I toss the phone into the passenger seat hard enough that it bounces. "Absolutely fucking fantastic."

Four days of insulin. Maybe five if I stretch it, which I know I shouldn't.

But my options right now are stretch it or drive three hours back down a mountain in a blizzard to find a pharmacy that's actually open.

Neither of those is a good option, but one of them at least lets me get out of the cold and finish my screenplay.

I did not fly across the country, lose my luggage to an airline that couldn't find its own ass with both hands, and drive through what appears to be the setting of a horror movie just to turn around now.

Besides I’m closer to my rental cabin than the Bramble pharmacy and the one in Crescent Ridge will be open tomorrow once the winter storm simmers down.

By the time I actually spot the turnoff for the cabin, half-buried under snow, the little address marker is barely legible.

I've been driving for almost four hours and I've lost feeling in my toes.

The driveway winds up through pine trees thick enough to blot out what little daylight's left, and when the cabin finally comes into view I could actually cry from relief.

It's beautiful. Exactly like the listing photos, timber and stone, smoke curling from the chimney like whoever manages this place knew I'd need a warm welcome.

I have the key, and my fingers are shaking too hard from the cold to get it in the hole on the first two tries, but the third time it clicks open and I let myself in.

Warm air. God, warm air.

I drop my duffel bag by the door, kick off my boots, and just stand there for a second soaking in the fact that I made it.

The cabin smells like cedar and woodsmoke, and there's a fire already going in the stone hearth, which strikes me as slightly odd, but I'm too cold and too relieved to think hard about it.

I find the kitchen, root through my carry-on duffel for my insulin kit, and do my blood sugar check right there at the counter, sighing at the number on the little screen.

It’s higher than I'd like after a day of stress-eating gas station snacks, but manageable.

I do the math on my dwindling supply for what feels like the hundredth time today and decide not to think about it anymore tonight.

I'm halfway through peeling off my soaked socks when I hear the front door open.

"What in the actual hell."

I spin around so fast I nearly fall off the kitchen stool. Standing in the doorway, snow dusting his shoulders is easily the largest man I've ever seen in real life.

The size of him is ridiculous. Six foot five of solid muscle and flannel with a dark beard framing a mouth that looks like it hasn’t smiled in years.

When he towers over me, I have to tip my head all the way back just to meet his glare, and my stomach drops low and hot.

I notice the way his shoulders fill the doorway and the heavy outline of him against the front of his jeans when he shifts his weight.

One of his hands grips the doorframe so hard I swear I see the wood cracking.

"Who the fuck are you," he says, "and why are you in my house?"