CHAPTER 6
Frankie
It’s still dark but I’ve given up on trying to sleep. It’s pointless. Not only am I freezing my nips off, but I’m hearing weird sounds outside the cabin. Snuffling sounds and cracking twigs.
I’ve known my share of wild animals. But I’m talking about the type who gets kicked out of Lynx for inappropriate behavior and lude comments to the dancers, not actual wild animals.
Like whatever’s out there right now.
“Prrraaaooow,” Pussy tucks her head under my chin and presses her fur against me.
“I’ll protect you,” I tell her, then immediately roll my eyes at my stupidity. I wish I hadn’t been bullshitting the smokin’-hot rancher when I claimed I have a gun. I don’t have a gun. Not on me, anyway.
I left it in the glovebox of my Toyota SUV, which is now buried under branches and dirt a couple of miles down the mountainside. At some point, I need to hike down in my stupid boots and get the weapon because I hate feeling like I can’t defend myself.
I’ve worked extremely hard to never put myself in a position of helplessness. I hate that feeling. More than anything.
But oh, man… what I wouldn’t give for a decent pair of shoes!
I close my eyes in frustration. Running for my life in the middle of the night meant that footwear wasn’t exactly a priority.
I drove away in my stilettos and cocktail dress, but lucky me—I found my white dancing boots in the back of the Toyota, along with a few T-back thongs, sequined pasties, a long dark wig, and an economy-sized bottle of body glitter, all of which is really going come in handy here.
In my new life.
In the mountains.
Surrounded by cold air, pine trees, and snuffling wild animals in the dark.
“All right,” I tell Pussy, unzipping the sleeping bag. “Let’s start our day, girlfriend. We got shit to do. There’s a lot on our agenda. Let’s get to it!”
In the darkness, Pussy stares at me through heavy-lidded, neon-green eyes. She hears the customary words—I say them to her nearly every morning—but she knows that on this particular morning, I’m full of it.
We don’t have shit to do and there’s nothing on our agenda—because we don’t have an agenda. I don’t know what the fuck has happened to me, where the fuck I am, or what I’m supposed to do next.
I throw off the warmth of the nylon sleeping bag and immediately regret my decision.
I’m already wearing my only pair of sweatpants and every one of the four shirts I threw in my duffel bag. I’ve got nothing else to keep me warm. So, I slip on my boots sit on the half-broken couch, and stare out the dirty window, waiting for the first hint of daylight.
The instant I see it, I crack open the door and look around for any sign of wildlife.
Seeing nothing, I snap Pussy’s leash onto her collar and slip outside.
I walk around the front of the falling-down structure, careful to stay close in case a snake or skunk or something worse makes me run back inside.
My breath hangs in the morning air. I see frost on the pine needles.
Oh, man. What have I done?
I stare up at the pale pink of sunrise and shake my head.
Pussy does her business, and I’m grateful that this is one of the many ways she’s unusual for a cat. She enjoys taking walks on a leash. I wish I had a dollar for every time someone in the neighborhood stops to ask how I trained my cat to enjoy going on walks like a dog.
My answer’s always the same. I tell them she’s trained me to go on walks like a cat.
They shake their heads in confusion and tell me to have a good day.
Suddenly, I stiffen. My breath catches. I’ll never walk those average neighborhood sidewalks again, will I? I’ll never return to my average little Las Vegas house. Because it’s all been taken from me.
Nikolai Koslov stole my life. And I let the bastard do it.
I grab Pussy and race back inside. I’m shaking—not from the cold. I’m shaking with fury and loss.
How could I have been so stupid? What was I thinking?
I yank off my boots and toss another log on the fire, still hoping that it will catch and throw off heat. Then I prop several more pieces of wood around the grate in an effort to dry them off a bit before I sink down onto the old couch.
My thoughts go back to Karl.
The night before my life went to shit, I did something completely out of character, something I’ve never even considered doing in my dancing career. A customer offered me a tip other than cash, and I accepted it.
I still don’t know why I did that.
It was the first time I ever made an exception to one of my rules because I set up those rules for a damn good reason. They keep me safe. They maintain a clear dividing line between my professional persona and who I really am.
But on that particular night, after Karl enjoyed his standard private dance, he told me that he was leaving town. He held out an envelope, explaining that he wanted me to have the land his father had left him fifty years before when he’d been a young man.
I stood there in front of my regular client, staring at the envelope in my hand. I don’t know what got into me—maybe it was simply knowing that I’d never see this sweet old widower again—but I nodded and said, “Thank you, Karl.”
I’m pretty sure that moment saved my life.
After work that night, I sat at the kitchen table and opened the envelope.
Inside were three sheets of paper. The first was a computer printout from Karl, attesting that the holder of the attached deed and map were rightful owners of the property.
He didn’t put my legal name on the deed—because he didn’t know it.
Karl knew me only as Fawn, my stage name. Nobody but my boss knows that I’m Frances Marie Lyles, and that’s only for payroll and tax purposes.
The second sheet of paper I pulled from the envelope was heavier and yellowed, dated 1932, and its message was hand-written in fountain pen. It was a deed to a cabin and one hundred acres on a mountaintop near Sweetbriar, Nevada. My mouth fell open when I saw it.
Paperclipped to the deed was an equally old hand-drawn map, smudged with barely readable descriptions of natural landmarks and back roads, things I never managed to locate on my drive up here.
No wonder I got so hopelessly lost.
Maybe those roads existed back in the 1930s but no longer do. Or maybe they had different names. Or maybe they never existed at all.
Could it be that this is some sort of scam? That I have no right to be here, just like the sexy rancher says?
“Well, shit.” I drop my head into my hands. In less than a minute, I feel the familiar touch of Pussy as she serpentines between my ankles, purring and rubbing against my too-thin socks. It’s her way of settling my nerves. Telling me I’m not alone.
“You’re such a good kitty.” I drop my hand to her fur and let my fingers stroke her from the top of her little cat head, down her back, and along the length of her entire tail. She loves that.
Then I reach down and grab my bag from the floor near the couch.
I check to make sure the envelope is still in there and close my eyes in relief.
Legit or not, the deed and map are why I’m here.
I’d be in a shitload of trouble without them.
Because “here” is smack in the middle of the wilderness, a place where Niko would never even think to look for me.
I remember that Karl said the one hundred acres of land was beautiful. He wasn’t lying. But that’s beside the point. Even if this spot was barren and ugly—but still managed to keep me out of Niko’s reach—I’d consider myself incredibly fortunate.
Except for one minor detail.
The super-hot rancher. Kevin MacLaine. He’s a wrinkle I did not expect.
“Mmmmrraaaooww.” Pussy’s eyes dart to the dirty windowpanes. I tip my head to listen. Great. More noises. What is it this time?
This better not be another wild animal. I grab my kitty and clutch her to my chest, now completely paranoid.
I didn’t think this through. What if there really are mountain lions and snakes and whatever else MacLaine said was up here?
Maybe I shouldn’t have brought Pussy. It’s dangerous for her here. But I couldn’t just leave her.
I could never just leave her somewhere.
I stand with her in my arms and walk to the window.
Oh, hell no.
I grab the door handle and pull it open. A loud creak cuts through the morning quiet. I stare as the hot rancher rides his horse right into the bare patch of pine needles out front.
I blink. I must still be half asleep because it looks like he’s got a pair of shoes dangling from around his neck.
“Morning,” he says. No emotion. No inflection in his voice. Absolutely zero sign of what the ever-loving fuck might be going on in that spectacularly handsome head of his and why he thought it was okay to just show up here at the crack of dawn like he owns the place.
Oh. Right. Maybe he does?
He dismounts, throws the horse’s reins over a tree branch, and pulls what looks like a coat from the back of the saddle.
And he walks right up to me.
Smooth. Sensual. All power and grace in such a huge male body. I can’t even handle the imagined perfection of his naked body. Over me. Under me. Lifting me.
This man is so fucking hot. If only things were different…
“Here.” Hiking boots swing from the laces he’s clutching in one hand while the other presses a coat toward me. “You look cold.”