Chapter 5 #2
I stroll, while eating my cookies, and the woods fold in around the track. That’s when a twig cracks behind me. I glance back, but there’s nothing there, and I finish my cookies.
“Okay,” I inform my nervous system, brushing crumbs off my dress. “We’re leaving the woods. Better be safe than sorry.”
I start back up the track at a pace I’ll generously call brisk, and that’s when I hear it behind me. Not a twig this time. A footfall, soft and deliberate and keeping pace, and my heart goes from bumping to slamming as I glance back over my shoulder without slowing.
Between two trunks, maybe forty feet back, a shape. Tall, dark, there and then gone, sliding behind a tree without a sound, the way nothing that big should be able to move.
Every horror movie I’ve ever yelled at floods back at once. Don’t run; running triggers the chase. Also, run, obviously; are you insane? I split the difference and power walk, breath high in my chest, eyes on the bend where the track turns for home, almost there, almost…
I come around the bend, and a man steps out from behind a pine directly into my path, at least ten paces away.
My sneakers skid across the pine needles, my heart lurching violently into my throat. Every muscle locks as I jerk to a stop, instinct screaming.
A man is standing beside a tree. He leans one shoulder against the trunk as though he’s been there all along, simply waiting for me to notice him.
He’s enormous, tall and broad enough to make the tree behind him appear smaller.
The black T-shirt he wears clings to a chest and shoulders carved from hard muscle, his forearms corded beneath short sleeves and marked with a scattering of old scars.
Dark jeans disappear into heavy work boots dusted pale with sawdust, and his dark hair stirs over his brow beneath the fading light.
A beard shadows his jaw, giving him the rugged look of someone who belongs out here far more than I ever could.
Every instinct tells me to back away, to run.
Instead, I can’t stop staring.
Those steel-gray eyes pin me where I stand, and somewhere between the panic hammering through my chest and the voice telling me this stranger could snap me in half without breaking a sweat, another feeling surges to life.
It’s hot, reckless, and completely inappropriate.
My stomach flips, my pulse somehow climbs even higher, and all I can think is that this might be the most attractive man I’ve ever laid eyes on.
Seriously?
I’m standing alone in the middle of the woods with a complete stranger, and my hormones choose now to make themselves known. Heat creeps through my body, my pulse fluttering somewhere far too low to have anything to do with fear.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“Dangerous,” he states in a deep, unhurried voice, “walking these woods alone.”
That tone does absolutely nothing helpful for my rapidly weakening knees.
He’s one of the lumberjacks, I tell myself. That’s the thought my brain finally assembles—and it calms the small part of me that was drafting an obituary—because Grandma and Ethan told me about three men living on the property.
The part they conveniently left out was that one of them looks as though he belongs out here more than the trees do.
“You’re the one lurking in them,” I say confidently as I plant a hand on my hip. “I’ve walked this track for years, so I can manage the last quarter mile.”
“Mm.” He doesn’t move from the tree. Yet his gaze drifts over me instead, going from my sneakers to lingering on the hem of my red dress, then catching on the bandage wrapped around my hand before traveling back up, and pausing just long enough at my mouth to make my pulse stumble.
“Five-year-olds usually have better sense than to head toward the mountain at dusk.”
“I wasn’t heading toward the mountain. I was visiting a creek. There’s a difference, and it’s none of your business.”
“Everything in these woods is my business right now.” He doesn’t elaborate. He simply tilts his head, studying me.
The silence stretches.
Gray eyes lock on mine.
I get the distinct impression that this is how he wins. Most people probably rush to fill the quiet just to escape it.
I don’t.
So I hold his gaze with my chin tipped high, even as my heartbeat pounds so hard I’m certain he can hear it. Somewhere in the middle of our silent standoff, the corner of his mouth lifts. “You’re Lucy,” he says. “Eve’s granddaughter.”
“And you’re the lumberjack.”
“One of them.” He pushes away from the tree, unfolding to his full height until he seems to swallow half the path. “Call me Wolf.”
A laugh slips out.
“Really?” He arches an eyebrow with more mirth than annoyance. “Is there a problem?”
“No. No problem.” I press my lips together, failing miserably to hide the grin. “Just wasn’t expecting someone to actually be called Wolf. It sounds more like the sort of name people whisper about around a campfire.”
“And what do they say?”
I meet his eyes again. “That depends.” I shrug. “Are you the hero…” I let the question hang, my gaze drifting over the breadth of his shoulders before finding his eyes again. “Or the monster everyone’s afraid of?”
His expression doesn’t change. He takes a step closer, boots silent against the pine needles. “Which would disappoint you more?” he asks quietly.
My heart gives one hard, traitorous thud, but my lips betray me with a grin. “I haven’t decided.”
“No?” He studies me for another endless second, his expression unreadable, the corner of his mouth threatening to lift. “So you’d rather I was the villain in your campfire story?”
“I didn’t say that.” I lift my chin another fraction, refusing to give him the satisfaction.
“You implied it.”
“I asked a question,” I press on.
“So did I.” His gaze settles on mine, steady enough to make the rest of the forest disappear. “Tell me, Lucy.” His voice drops, quiet enough that I have to focus to catch every word. “What exactly do you imagine happens next?”
My breath catches because my imagination, apparently determined to sabotage me, immediately supplies an answer. Not one, but several. Every single one ends with me making the spectacularly bad decision to follow this man deeper into the woods, despite every instinct telling me not to.
God. What is wrong with me?
A low chuckle rumbles from somewhere deep in his chest.
“What?” I ask, far too quickly.
“I already know.”
Heat crawls up my neck. “No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
“You absolutely don’t,” I insist, holding his gaze.
“I know enough.” He turns without another word and starts walking up the path toward the lodge.
I stand there for all of three stubborn seconds before following him. “So what’s the real story, then?”
He slips his hands into his pockets, sight fixed on the trail ahead. “The one where you hear someone following you through the woods…” His voice is calm, almost conversational. “But you don’t run home.”
I frown.
“You catch a glimpse of him between the trees. A stranger big enough to make your heart trip over itself.”
“I don’t scare that easily,” I blurt out.
“I noticed.” His gaze remains on the path ahead. “So instead of turning around and walking away,” he continues, “you stop.”
“I might.”
“You wait for him to catch up.”
I glance sideways at him.
“You ask him what he wants,” he continues.
“I do.”
“You argue.”
A reluctant smile tugs at my lips. “I definitely do.”
“And before long…” His voice drops another notch. “You’re strolling beside him, deciding whether he’s a villain or simply misunderstood.”
I huff a quiet laugh. “So far, your story’s pretty accurate.”
“It isn’t finished.”