Chapter 2
CAL
Icarried the woman into the cabin and laid her on the bed.
She didn’t wake.
I found a clean blanket and covered her, then checked her breathing again. Beyond that, I left her alone. I’d learned battlefield first aid, but that didn’t make me qualified to diagnose a head injury.
The club phone found one bar on the porch.
TK answered immediately. “You just left.”
“I found a woman beside the road.”
Silence.
“She’s alive,” I added. “Beaten, unconscious and dumped inside the gate.”
“I’ll send brothers.”
“Send Dana first. Quietly.”
Dana Price was a nurse practitioner who’d been patching up Kentucky Skulls for years. She knew when someone needed a hospital and when an injury could be handled without questions from law enforcement.
“You think whoever did it is still there?” TK asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Fuck. Okay. Dana’s about ninety minutes from you. I’m sending two brothers behind her,” TK said.
“Have them wait down the mountain. I don’t want six Harleys announcing we found her.”
He didn’t like it, but he agreed.
While I waited, I unloaded my handgun and checked every room, window and lock. Then I walked the perimeter with Tommy. We found no one, but there were tire tracks near the cabin that didn’t belong to my truck.
Dana arrived in an SUV just under two hours later.
She examined the woman while I waited on the porch. When she finally came outside, she pulled off her gloves.
“She has a mild concussion, dehydration and a lot of bruising. Nothing feels broken. No obvious signs of internal bleeding, and her vitals are stable.”
“Why isn’t she awake?”
“Exhaustion, mostly. She started coming around while I examined her, then went back to sleep. That’s different from being unresponsive.”
“Does she need a hospital?”
“Not right now. Wake her every hour. If she vomits, gets confused, has trouble speaking or her pupils change, you take her in immediately.”
I nodded.
Dana glanced toward the bedroom. “Someone worked her over, Cal.”
“I figured that out.”
“She might be terrified when she wakes. Try not to loom.”
“I don’t fucking loom.”
She looked me up and down. “You’re six foot four, armed and wearing a Kentucky Skulls shirt. You loom standing still.”
I walked her to the SUV.
“Call me as soon as she wakes properly,” she said. “And find out her name.”
I watched until Dana disappeared down the road.
Then I went back inside and sat beside a woman nobody knew was alive.
Lauren
I woke in a strange bed with a man sitting beside me.
I screamed and shoved myself backward until my shoulders hit the wall. Pain exploded through my head.
The man shot to his feet.
“Easy.”
“Don’t touch me.”
“I’m not.”
He stepped away from the bed and raised both hands.
He was huge, with broad shoulders, a flaming skull tattooed on his arm and a black T-shirt stretched across his chest. A gun sat in a holster at his hip.
His hair was dark, cut short, and he had a trimmed beard.
He looked like Rambo’s prettier brother.
I grabbed the metal flashlight from the nightstand and held it like a weapon.
His eyes dropped to it. “That’ll work if you aim for the temple.”
“Who are you?”
“Cal Mercer. This is my cabin.”
I looked around the rough wooden walls. One window and an open door behind him.
My clothes were dirty and stiff with dried blood. Bruises covered my arms, and both wrists hurt.
“What did you do to me?”
“Nothing. I found you beside the road and carried you in. A nurse examined you.”
“A nurse?”
“Her name is Dana. She left about an hour ago.”
I tried to remember arriving there. All I got was trees and a burst of pain behind my eyes.
Cal reached slowly for a bottle of water on the dresser.
“I’m going to put this on the floor,” he said. “You can pick it up after I move back.”
He did exactly that.
I waited until he was several feet away before lowering the flashlight and reaching for the bottle. My hands shook so badly I spilled water down my shirt.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Lauren.”
“Last name?”
“Dane.”
“Do you know where you live?”
“Lexington.”
“Do you know how you got here?”
I closed my eyes.
“I went camping.”
“Where?”
“Daniel Boone National Forest. I needed a few days alone.”
His expression shifted, but I couldn’t tell why.
“I remember setting up my tent. I made coffee the next morning and went hiking.”
“What happened after that?”
I tried to push past the blank space. Pain stabbed through my skull, and my stomach rolled.
“I don’t know.”
A large dog appeared in the doorway and walked straight toward me.
“Tommy,” Cal warned.
The dog ignored him and rested his head on the edge of the mattress.
I kept one hand on the flashlight and placed the other on his head.
Cal watched me carefully.
“Lauren, somebody beat you and left you on a private road.”
I tightened my fingers around the flashlight.
“I don’t remember any of it.”
Cal waited until I’d finished the water before saying, “We need to call the sheriff’s department.”
“No.”
The word came out too fast.
His expression hardened. “Lauren, somebody assaulted you and dumped you on club property.”
“I heard you.”
“Then you understand why this needs to be reported.”
My heart started pounding. The room suddenly felt too warm.
“I don’t want the police.”
“You don’t know what happened.”
“That doesn’t mean I want them here.”
“Were you doing something illegal?”
“I was camping.”
“Then what are you afraid of?”
“I don’t know.”
Cal stared at me. I could hear my own breathing getting faster, but I couldn’t slow it down. The thought of a uniform walking through that door made my stomach twist.
Tommy climbed halfway onto the bed and pushed his nose beneath my hand.
“Look at the dog,” Cal said.
“What?”
“Focus on Tommy. Feel his fur under your fingers.”
“I’m not having a panic attack.”
“Sure looks like one.”
I glared at him, but I did what he said. Tommy’s fur was soft around his ears and rougher across his neck.
“Keep breathing,” Cal said.
He moved to the wall opposite the bed and lowered himself to the floor, making himself less intimidating.
It almost worked.
“Why do you know how to do this?” I asked.
“Practice.”
I looked at him, but his face gave me nothing.
My breathing gradually settled. The fear didn’t.
“I know this doesn’t make sense,” I said. “But when you said sheriff, every part of me screamed not to trust them.”
“You remember a cop hurting you?”
“No.”
“Do you know any cops?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That isn’t very convincing.”
“My head feels like someone took a baseball bat to it. Nothing is convincing right now.”
Cal rubbed a hand over his beard. “I don’t like this.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
His eyes narrowed, but I wasn’t going to apologize.
“If whoever did this realizes you’re alive, they may come looking,” he said.
“Then calling the police could tell them exactly where I am.”
That stopped him.
He looked toward the window before returning his attention to me.
“I won’t call them tonight,” he finally said.
I felt immediate relief from those words.
“But you give me your home address and someone we can contact.”
“Fine.”
“If your condition gets worse, I’m taking you to a hospital whether you like it or not.”
“Fine.”
“And tomorrow, we talk about the police again.”
I rested my hand on Tommy’s head.
Cal hadn’t agreed with me, but he’d agreed to wait. That was enough for now.
Cal
Lauren made it two steps out of the bedroom before her knees buckled.
I caught her around the waist.
“I had it,” she said.
“You were heading for the floor.”
“I was changing direction.”
I kept one arm around her until she was steady, then let go. I didn’t know where I could touch without hurting her. There seemed to be a bruise everywhere.
“Bathroom?” I asked.
“Kitchen.”
“You need to rest.”
“I’ve been doing that most of the day. I’d like to sit somewhere I wasn’t examined by a stranger.”
I offered my arm. She looked at it like it might be a trap.
“I can walk.”
“I can see that.”
She gave me a hard look, then wrapped her fingers around my forearm.
I shortened my steps to match hers and helped her to the kitchen table. Tommy followed so closely his nose bumped the back of her leg.
“Your dog is trying to kill me,” she said.
“He’s never been subtle.”
I heated a can of chicken soup while Lauren sat wrapped in one of my flannel shirts. It hung past her knees, and she’d rolled the sleeves several times to free her hands.
When I put the bowl in front of her, she took one bite.
“You make this yourself?”
“Yes.”
She glanced at the empty can beside the sink. “Very impressive.”
“You want dinner or a cooking show?”
Her mouth twitched before she winced and touched her swollen cheek.
It pained me to think someone had done this to her.
She was so fucking pretty. Dark brown wavy hair brushing her shoulders, soft brown eyes and lips made for kissing.
My shirt couldn’t hide the curves beneath it, and my thoughts went somewhere they had no business going while she was bruised and frightened. I shut that shit down.
I shook my head hoping the inappropriate thoughts would go with it.
Tommy sat beside her chair, staring at the bowl.
“Don’t feed him,” I said.
Lauren picked out a piece of chicken.
“Lauren.”
“He looks hungry.”
“He ate an hour ago.”
Tommy accepted the chicken and rested his head on her thigh.
She scratched behind his ears. “Maybe he doesn’t like you.”
“It’s my food he’s eating.”
“He can appreciate your groceries without enjoying your company.”
I’d known her for less than two hours, and she’d already insulted my cooking, my personality and my relationship with my dog.
She had a great sense of humor. I needed to know more about Lauren other than why someone had beaten her and dumped her on the side of the road.
She kept glancing at the gun on my hip. Every time I moved too quickly, her shoulders tightened.
So I moved slowly.
When she finished eating, I helped her back to the bedroom and placed water, painkillers and the flashlight within reach.
“You’re taking the bed,” I said. “I’ll be on the couch.”
“I’m not throwing you out of your room.”
“It wasn’t a discussion.”
Tommy walked past me and settled beside her bed.
“Traitor,” I muttered.
Lauren’s eyes closed as she stroked his head.
I’d come to the cabin because I wanted nobody near me.
Now a bruised stranger had my bed, my shirt and my dog. And my thoughts.And the thoughts were what I was worried about most.
Lauren
The woman in the woods was dead.
I knew it before I saw the blood beneath her head.
I stood behind a thick oak tree, afraid to move. Twenty feet away, a man in a tan sheriff’s uniform leaned over her body. His back was turned, but the word SHERIFF stretched across his shoulders.
A branch snapped beneath my shoe, and he straightened.
I woke screaming.
Tommy jumped onto the bed as Cal appeared in the doorway with his gun drawn. The bedroom lamp was still on, along with the light in the hall.
Cal checked the window and the empty room before holstering the weapon.
“What happened?”
I pressed myself against the headboard. My heart was pounding hard enough to hurt.
“I remembered something.”
He stayed near the doorway. “Tell me.”
“There was a woman in the woods.”
“Alive?”
I shook my head.
Tommy pushed against my side, and I wrapped an arm around him.
“There was blood,” I said. “A lot of it.”
“What else?”
“A man was standing over her. He was wearing a sheriff’s uniform.”
Cal went still.
That uniform explained the fear I’d felt when he wanted to call the police. I still couldn’t remember everything, but my body had known what my mind didn’t.
“Did you see his face?” Cal asked.
“No. His back was to me.”
“Did he see you?”
“I don’t know. I stepped on something, and he started to turn. That’s where the memory stops.”
“Where were you?”
“Somewhere near my campsite. I’d gone hiking that morning.”
“Was he helping her?”
I pictured the way the woman’s arm lay across the leaves and the dark blood beneath her hair.
“No.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He wasn’t calling for help. He was just standing there.”
Cal walked to the window and looked outside again.
“Do you think he killed her?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
But someone had beaten me and left me miles away on a private road.
Cal turned back toward me.
“We’re not calling the sheriff’s department,” he said.
“What if he was the sheriff?”
“Then we don’t call anybody wearing a local badge until we know who we’re dealing with.”
He dragged a wooden chair into the hall and placed it outside the bedroom.
“You should sleep.”
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure nobody gets through that door.”
He sat down with his gun within reach. Tommy settled across the bedroom threshold between us.
When I closed my eyes again, I listened to them breathing instead of the man turning toward me in the woods.