Chapter 3
Aspen
It tookme an hour and a half, and multiple breaks, to lug the dead weight of my mystery patient back to my cottage.
Another half an hour went by until I could get him up the porch, through my front door, and across the floor so I could heft him up and on to my bed.
Breathing heavily, I sighed while wiping the sweat off my forehead. Not once during my entire trek back had I heard or seen sign of life from him, and that had me worried.
Staring at the stranger in my bed, I began to doubt my capabilities. Perhaps I shouldn’t have moved him, and then my mind went there…
This hadn’t been the way I envisioned having a male in my space; and what a man he was.
Shaking the thought away, I proceeded with taking his boots off, setting them by the nightstand, and then moved to the kitchen to grab a bowl, filling it with warm soapy water.
After fetching my first aid kit and a cloth from my bathroom, I eased myself to sit next to him and started cleaning him up. I couldn’t very well do much to help him on his healing journey until I knew exactly what I had to work with.
With my rather pitiful relationship with blood, I said a short prayer that I wouldn’t have to stitch anything up.
Having to do so would surely throw me over the proverbial edge.
Cade
Motherfucker!
My head felt as though someone tried to run it over with a Mack truck.
Rex.
The cliff.
Fall.
Son of a bitch!
Running water.
Humming.
Sweet voice.
A dog whining.
I tried to open my eyes, but the mere speck of light had me clenching them closed as daggers stabbed at my brain.
Where the hell am I?
Forcing a single eye open, I briefly took in my surroundings, closing them once more. A cottage of sorts. Rustic yet quaint and definitely touched by a female hand. The smell of dog…soap…and was that lavender?
Whatever it was, it was soothing, and I found myself inhaling the relaxing fragrance.
Tilting my head to the side, I opened a single lid once more and a flash of skin whooshed by the doorway to my left.
Huh?
More humming, then an Amazon appeared before me in nothing but a white tank top, see-through where the droplets from her long, wet fiery hair had landed, and a pair of black hip-hugging shorts that showcased her long legs.
Mmm…Amazon…
No longer worried about my whereabouts, and pretty sure I was safe, I gave in to the darkness, letting it consume me once more.
Aspen
Throughout the day, I looked in on my patient who still had yet to wake.
To say I was worried would be an understatement.
Renegade refused to leave his owner’s side for more than necessary, and thus Molly had lain at her new friend’s side, holding vigil most of the time; the rest of the time, the duo spent either eating, drinking, or taking care of business.
With the house so quiet, I settled in my lounge chair with a cup of chamomile tea and a few oatmeal cookies I’d whipped up that afternoon and fired up my laptop. First, because I had no cell reception—things were spotty in my piece of the woods, and seemed to work whenever the wind blew just right—I had a message to send out to notify the authorities of the man I’d found and the cadaver in the woods, and then I’d get to the fun stuff. Work beckoned and my brain was filled with new ideas to write down after today’s adventure. It was time for Penny to come out of her shell again.
“Make it stop,” the hoarse voice startled me.
What?I looked up.
“Make the banging stop,” the man lying in my bed grumbled anew as an arm flew up to ruffle his hair, causing him to wince. “Fuck.”
I wanted to ask him if he was okay, or if he needed anything, but the flex in his bicep was so distracting, my tongue thickened and got itself stuck to the roof of my mouth.
Tsk. Tsk, Aspen.Maybe I should have focused on the action scenes instead of my characters getting it on if a simple contraction of a series of muscles had me practically melting into a puddle.
“Ren…”
Renegade released a whimper, then slowly climbed onto the bed to nuzzle his owner’s face.
“He found me,” I managed finally.
“Mmm.” He basked in the love his pet offered him, then turned to face me, his eyes finally opening, but only slightly, and it was enough.
Blue.
No, that’s not right. Midnight blue. Dark and beautiful, and I found my gaze fastened to his.
“Name.”
“Huh?”
“Your name,” he rasped. Something told me he sounded like this every day and not just when he woke.
“Pen…uh, Aspen,” I stuttered.
“How’d I get here, Pen?”
A heated shiver coated my arms, making the hairs stand at attention. Oh, that deep rumble.
“I c—carried you,” I answered. “I mean, Renegade found me, then brought you to me…or rather me to you, and there was this large bear…uh…a man who was dead not only twenty feet from you, and I bandaged you up with my favorite nightgown, and—” Deep breath. “And then I got the dogs to help me pull you back here. It wasn’t easy. You’re a big guy, and?—”
A low rumble of laughter broke me from my bout of verbal diarrhea, causing me to bite my lip with jumpy nerves.
The man gave me a warm smile that did something to my lady parts.
Seriously, Aspen, get a hold of yourself! Haven’t you heard of stranger danger?
“Thank you, Pen…or Aspen.”
“You’re welcome?” I squeaked out.
“I’m Cade.”
“Is that short for something?”
“Albert,” he divulged. “Albert Caden Summers. I prefer Caden or Cade. Have you seen my phone...or my radio? I need to call the guys and let them know I’m okay. And I need?—”
“It was crushed,” I interrupted. “It was by one of your hands when I found you. I tried to charge it because we have the same phones, but it wouldn’t work…and there’s no reception this far out, well, today anyway. I didn’t see a radio, I’m sorry.” I looked down toward my laptop and bit my lip again.
“What are you doing?”
Feeling as though I was caught in some sort of act I shouldn’t have been performing, I quickly snapped the lid of my laptop shut and put the device on the side table, next to my empty mug of tea and a plateful of crumbs.
“Work.” There was no way I was explaining to this stranger what I did to make ends meet. As successful as I was, I still wasn’t comfortable divulging the details of my job to a mere stranger, especially a gorgeous one of the opposite sex.
“Work?” he eyed me suspiciously.
“Work,” I repeated.
He smirked. “You’re not going to give me more than that, are you?”
I simply shook my head from side to side.
Nope. Not happening.
Cade
She saved me.
Aspen had sheltered me, cleaned me up, and bandaged me.
I have my certification in first aid training, so I’m no slouch in giving medical assistance, but what the woman had done to me—for me—was beyond what I could have done for myself, or anyone else, out in the middle of nowhere in the state I had found myself in: concussed, sprained ankle but otherwise on the mend.
Who was this woman?
After our earlier exchange, she’d finally explained she was certain I had a concussion—I wouldn’t argue with that, recognizing the nausea and marching band inside my head for what they were—a sprained ankle, a couple of bruises and a few scratches. When I’d looked at her questioningly about my bandaged finger, she’d practically gagged, telling me I’d lost a nail somehow. Trying to convey my gratitude had her looking uncomfortable. She’d run out of the bedroom, coming back with painkillers and a glass of water, which I took promptly because the percussion going on in my cranium was slowly driving me mad.
Next thing I knew, I’d faded into sleep.
I didn’t want to come off as a creeper, but when I woke up next, I couldn’t help but watch my savior as she typed away like a madwoman. Seriously, she could rival Brycen and Devolin—my coworkers at NSI and my boss’s woman—for typing speed. She had to be a writer of some sort, or that was my guess.
Aspen was so enthralled in whatever it was she was working on she never saw how fixated I was on her. Every now and again, she’d take a moment to pause, play with her long mane of red hair, or sometimes chewing on her thumbnail, mumbling nonsensical words I couldn’t make out from across the room, then went back to her typing.
I’d lost count of how many times I’d been in and out of consciousness, or how long I’d watched her when a “I know you’re awake,” broke me from my musings.
What gave me away?
“Your dog’s tail starts its frantic wagging whenever you’re conscious,” she explained, a subtle smirk quirking the side of her lips, but her eyes never left her screen.
Fuck.
She giggled; the sweetest sound I’d heard come from her yet.
“Dinner?” She cleared her throat, then looked up from her computer. “Would you like something to eat?” She shut the top, then placed the laptop to the side, getting up. “I made enough for you in case you were hungry when you woke next. I’m sorry I’ve already eaten, but I can warm your bowl of stew up for you, if you’d like.”
“You made stew?” I looked at her as if she’d lost her mind, then attempted to sit up.
Big mistake.
The room began to spin, I could feel the color draining from my face, and Aspen charged toward me, settling her hands on my shoulders, steadying me.
“Easy now,” she said, reaching over me to grab a pillow, “that knock to your head was a solid one. Let me help.” She stood up, shifted the pillow to her right hand and from the side, offered her left for me to take.
“I can do it,” I mumbled, trying to get the spinning to stop with deep breaths, seeing as closing my eyes made it worse.
“Just take my hand for some stability, will you?” she huffed.
I didn’t bother nodding, thinking it would make things worse for me, and simply grabbed hold of her hand as she quite aptly pulled me forward, tossed the pillow behind my back, then eased me backward.
“Better?” she asked after I’d had a chance to settle back.
I stared at her. “It is. Thanks.”
“I’ll just go…” She threw her thumb in the direction of the door, then scampered off, leaving me baffled.
She worked a job where she can live in the remote woods where no one would dare doing so.
By herself.
She clearly knew her way around medical care.
And damn! Judging by the smell wafting my way…she surely knew how to cook.
But how does she find…
“It’s been in the crockpot since before I baked the cookies earlier,” she explained, making me jump at her stealthy reappearance.
My eyes widened. The woman knew her way to my heart, err…stomach, and had no idea. I had a sweet tooth of epic proportions and a voracious appetite for all things that came before dessert. “You bake too?”
She nodded, biting her lip, then proceeded to hand me the bowl of stew she held, then backed toward the bedroom door. “I forgot your water. Please eat. You can’t get better if you don’t get some sustenance in you.”
She was right. What I hadn’t expected, despite all the sleeping I’d already achieved, was I’d fall into a food coma shortly after I’d scarfed down the food, when I would have rather preferred to talk with Aspen and gotten to know her better.
I had to go—like something fierce—but I could barely sit up, let alone think about making my way to my feet.
“What’s wrong?” Aspen asked, looking up from that laptop of hers. “You’ve been fidgeting for the last fifteen minutes. It’s distracting me from my work.”
I rolled my eyes. I couldn’t believe I was about to ask for that kind of help.
“Cade?”
“Facilities,” I mumbled, hating the words forming on my tongue. “I need the bathroom.” I could feel the blush climbing my neck, heading toward my cheeks.
Within seconds, she was at my side, helping me to my one good leg like the no-nonsense woman I’d gleaned her to be. Like before, the room began to spin.
“Right. Up with you and slowly,” she ordered, “then back to bed. You’re not hurting yourself worse on my watch. Take it easy on that ankle, too. I’m sure it’s quite tender.”
As we stood, I realized the top of her head was just above my chin. “How tall are you?” I blurted.
“What’s it matter?” she questioned, tongue sticking out as she used her strength to keep me stable, the look altogether laughable.
“I’m six three. I’d put you at five nine.”
“Close. Five ten,” she said, then squeezed my waist, supporting my weight even more. “Now, let’s go before you soak my floor with…well, let’s just go.”
This had me chuckling, then her pinch to my side had me moving.
Spitfire.
I liked it a whole lot.