CHAPTER 4
Jeremiah
Slipping out the door, I stalk through the fading light. The mists on the mountain today are hiding a helluva lot.
Like how my heart pounds looking at her sitting there in pain and bloodied, dirty and yet so damn pretty that it makes my teeth ache from gritting them to keep from reaching out to pull her to me.
I have no business thinking thoughts like that. Not since I up and left ten years ago.
I knew she’d never leave me though. She needed to go. Needed to find something good for her, something to make her proud of herself.
Something that wasn’t a broken-down, has-been soldier with scars inside and out.
A man that woke up in the middle of the night screaming for his buddies. Screaming at remembered pain.
Screaming at the sad damn injustice of it all. That they were gone and I was still here. Still fighting my way out of the fog of war and shakily making my own way out here.
I bought my cabin and fixed it up, adding to the space and then getting solar panels on the roof, giving me a source of electricity that it didn’t have.
Then I made sure that the set-up would completely supply what I needed. And I put together a water system that was simple yet complex.
One that allowed me to have fresh water for my shower all the time. One that made sure I was as comfortable as possible.
All these little things I really thought that I did for me and now I’m not so sure.
Because she fucking looks right here. Like she belongs. To me, to the space.
To the future.
And that can’t fucking be right. Because she belongs with a man who’s not fighting demons all night. A man that can’t hear a fucking car horn go off without cringing and freezing like a little whipped puppy.
Yeah, she deserves a lot more than that. But from the looks of it, it isn’t what she found. I can see it in her sad, angry eyes. The ice in them locked in a frozen stare.
She’s hiding from something…running. And if I had to guess, I’d say it’s a man.
Which means that some fucker out there that she loved and trusted, and don’t that make me feel like hurting somebody, hurt her bad.
I want to punch a tree. Hunt him down and teach him in the worst way possible that he’s a complete fuck-up and he let the best thing he could ever have get away from him.
But one day he’ll know. He’ll realize that he did the unthinkable and let the love of his life get away and it will hurt so much more than anything I could do to him.
I know. I’ve already lived with the same thought.
“Slow down, Linc,” I grumble when the fucker goes chasing after some sound that only he hears. “We’re not hunting right now. Just slow the fuck down.”
But he doesn’t and I curse under my breath, swinging my long legs faster, trying to make sure I don’t lose the son of a bitch.
“You need better training, dammit! I knew that guy that said you were already trained was full of shit. That and the shots and everything else was just too much to ask for what he wanted. Lying sack of shit.”
Not that it really matters. I can train him. It’s just frustrating when someone lies to you.
Like she is. Saying she doesn’t hurt. Saying she’s alright.
I finally reach the drop-off and eye the car down the hill. Picking up my SAT phone, I call the Sheriff’s office.
“Hey, fucker. What the hell you doing calling me right now? Yes, the roads up the mountain are closed. Is that what you called to check on?”
Hissing under my breath, I growl, “There was an accident up here today. Woman went off the edge of the road about halfway up. Her car’s stuck on a downed tree and currently stable but you know how the ground up here is after this much rain.”
“It’s not gonna last.” He sighs. “I can’t do anything about it now.”
“You know we need to get somebody up here now to deal with it.”
“I know that I’m not risking anybody’s life for a car that’s already totaled most likely. So if that’s all you want from me, you’re gonna have to wait.”
“Well, I was hoping that you could pick the driver up too and get her down the mountain and back in town as well. Get her on her way while she figures out what to do with her car.”
“No can do. Nobody is going to be heading up there for at least three days. The water needs to recede. Right now we’ve had some rock slides too that have blocked other areas of the road and it’s too risky to try and clear that area until it dries out some more.”
“Yeah, yeah. There’s nothing you can do?”
“Unless that woman is hurt real bad. Then I can get a helicopter up there to get her to medical help. Is she hurt bad?”
“No,” I grumble under my breath, wishing like hell I could lie better. “I need to get her out of my hair though.”
“I’m sorry about this but it looks like you’re going to have a guest until the weather clears and the mountain road looks a helluva lot better than it does. Is she pretty?” he asks and I want to reach through the phone and strangle him.
Is she pretty?
Yeah, she’s a knockout. The most beautiful, tempting, terrifying woman I’ve ever met in my life.
But I don’t say that.
“She’s alright,” I growl. “But don’t think you’re getting anywhere near her, fucker. Her brother would break all the fingers on your hand if you touched her.
Like he should have done with me. I definitely deserved it.
I deserved all the nightmares and terror I’d been dealing with just for what I did to her.