Chapter 7
seven
. . .
Mia
My memories kept returning to the handsome fireman who had saved my life. My mind had completely revised the night of the fire down at the club. Not a fireman at all, as it turned out. It came back to me slowly; my brain reconciled those strong arms with these.
I’d even blanked the scrap of paper I found afterwards, with his phone number, asking me to call him.
Marmot. The sheriff.
I didn’t know what he was after at the time. Evidence, I’d assumed. Testimony against Harvey.
Certainly not a date.
It had been one of the few moments in my professional life at Harvey’s club that I’d been treated like a person. That much stood out clearly in my mind. I remembered coming to in his arms. He’d set me down gently, checked my vital signs. Told me everything was going to be okay.
And I’d believed him in that disoriented moment.
I’d tossed the telephone number and forgotten all about it in the chaos that followed the club fire. I’d never connected the man who rescued me with the billionaire sheriff in the newspaper.
Could I stay?
He looked so damn scared right now. If I wasn’t hurting to high heaven, I’d reach out and put a hand on his arm. Try and comfort the man, the way he had comforted me.
Instead I said, “I’d like that.”
What was I going to do, rush back to the club? I wasn’t in any shape to move, not with this battered body. Plus with the blocked road, and the way the rain was still lashing against the roof of this little cabin, I didn’t know how we’d get out of here anyway.
I wasn’t about to trust any man on this Earth who was breathing and had a pulse, but I could tell that Marmot—Armin wasn’t a threat.
This way he’d get Harvey off my back. Money was Harvey’s only language. Well, that and sadism. If Armin paid enough, it might even get me off the hit list for deviating from the schedule.
I strained to sit up, but it was no use.
Everything in me screamed. Maybe I’d separated my ab muscles when I was hanging from my seatbelt and straining to reach the door.
While getting waterboarded by the pop-up waterfall.
I’d been in a lot of scrapes, but I’d never experienced anything as insane as that.
From zero to fatal in a matter of moments.
Back to reality. I shook off my new trauma, mentally, because physically it felt like I wasn’t going to be voluntarily shaking anything for quite a while. But I’d survived.
I was alive, thanks to Armin, for trailing me and rescuing me.
I searched my memories again for any scrap of info or gossip about him.
Was he one of the cops that frequented the club?
I’d never seen him, but he must have been.
Otherwise, how would he have ‘popped up’ at exactly the right time to save me from the fire?
I surrendered to the laying down position and reached out to the chair to nab the ibuprofen and glass of water.
But I was not in nabbing shape. An involuntary groan escaped me. I couldn’t lift my arm without a twisting hot pain shooting down it.
Armin winced, mirroring me. “Listen,” he said, his voice laced with concern, “I’m not so sure the ibuprofen is a great idea. What if you have internal bleeding?”
I sighed. He was right. “Got any whiskey?”
“I do, but I don’t know if that’s—”
“How about a bath? Some epsom salt?” Old school men always had whiskey and epsom salt. It was about the only form of medicine they’d use.
“Sure, I’ve got all that.”
I knew it. “So, get me a shot of whiskey or three and help me into a bath.”
His mouth dropped open, and it took a second for him to close it. It told me all I needed to know. Armin hadn’t hired me to murder me, like I’d originally thought.
Nor had he booked me for sex work.
This mountain man was all alone up here, and lonely, and he wanted a woman to go with him to some awful fundraiser and eat pie and drink coffee afterwards.
I had been hired to go out on a date. And that was the long and the short of what he’d bargained for.
The shock in his eyes and the quiver in his hands told me that none of this had been on his bingo card: rescuing me from a car crash, holding my naked body against his, all night, because I was unconscious and potentially hypothermic, only to be forced to care for and bathe me the next day.
I didn’t know if he was going to be able to hold it together. But I was going to find out.
“Yes ma’am,” he said.