Chapter Nine
It was the light that woke her.
The morning sun, so bright it hurt her eyes, poured in through panes of glass. She blinked several times, turning away from the window to an empty pillow beside her. And her eyes flew open.
“Sinjin?”
Breanna sat up, glancing around the one-room cabin. His clothes were gone from the rack, but a fire was roaring in the hearth, so he had to have just tended to it. Figuring Sinjin went back outside to shovel, she set a pot of water on the stove, then bathed and got dressed for the day.
She fixed herself a cup of coffee and peered out the window. Pine trees soared into a cloudless blue sky beneath a blanket of pristine white, but there was no sign of him.
Oatmeal congealed into a glob of wet cement.
Her coffee grew cold.
“He went for help,” she told herself.
Sinjin would never leave her here all alone.
Hours passed, the sun was high in the sky. Fearing something had happened to him, Breanna stepped out to the porch and screamed his name.
The silence that followed mocked her.
He left me.
Wrapped in a blanket, her head on her knees, she sat staring at the flames through her tears when she heard the knock on the cabin door. Not believing it at first, Breanna ignored the sound. Then it came again.
“Hello?” And again. “Hello?”
He’s back…Sinjin!
Still wrapped in the blanket, she jumped up from the chair and ran to the door.
It wasn’t Sinjin.
A portly man wearing some kind of uniform—a sheriff or maybe a ranger—and a cowboy hat on his head, stood on the porch. “Breanna Dalton?”
“Yes, that’s me,” she answered, somewhat baffled by how he knew her name.
Sinjin told him. Duh.
“Thank God.” He stepped inside. “We’ve been searching for you. You all right?”
“Yeah.” She smiled, the tension draining from her shoulders. “I’m fine.”
“Got a nasty-looking bump on your head there.”
Her fingers felt along her forehead. She’d forgotten all about it.
“C’mon, I’ll get you up to Dalton House.”
“Okay.” Taking her coat from the wall, she stepped into her boots. “Where’s Sinjin?”
“Ma’am?”
The man looked at her like she was speaking a foreign language.
“Sinjin. He brought me here.”
“Don’t rightly know.” He shrugged.
“Then we have to find him.”
Extending his hand, the man nodded, but Breanna could tell he was just placating her. He helped her into a big pickup truck with a plow fixed to the front. “It’s a miracle you found this place in the storm. When we found your car and you weren’t in it…”
“But I already told you, Sinjin brought me here. He was taking me to Dalton House, but there was a tree blocking the road and…I had a fever. He took care of me.”
“What does this Sinjin look like?”
“Tall—over six feet, dark hair, beard.” Sitting across from her, he lifted his brow. “Wait, he drives a black Ford Raptor. We’ll pass it. My things are inside.”
Reaching into the seat behind him, he held up her duffel bag. “This?”
The fuck?
He pulled her phone from his pocket and handed it to her.
“Where’d you get that?”
“From your car before they towed it.”
“I don’t understand.” Breanna slowly shook her head. “How did you know where to find me, then?”
“I didn’t. Saw smoke coming from the chimney and took a chance it was you.” He reached across the seat and squeezed her hand. “Look, honey, you hit your head pretty hard, and you said so yourself, you had a fever.”
“You were there.”
“Fever dreams.”
“I’m sure he seemed very real.”
“He was real.” Tears welling, she bit her lip. “I met him at Hank’s—that place right off the highway. He was making fun of my girly car. Said I’d slide right off the mountain in it.”
“You almost did.” The portly sheriff chuckled. “You’ve seen The Wizard of Oz, haven’t you?”
“Of course.”
“You know how Dorothy wakes up at the end and recognizes her friends were the scarecrow, the tin man, and the lion?”
“You think that’s what happened to me?”
He patted her shoulder. “Makes sense, don’t it?”
No.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Static came over the two-way radio. Pushing a button, he spoke into it, “Yeah, I got her. Heading there now.” He turned his head toward her and gently smiled. “He’s been so concerned about you. Ready?”
Breanna nodded, and the truck pulled away from the little cabin.
A tear slid down her cheek.
You were real.
She wiped it away.
Hidden from view in a thicket of trees about thirty yards from the cabin, Ian watched her get into Jordy’s truck. The husky sat sniffing at his feet.
I’ll be looking out for you, princess.
“C’mon, girl. Let’s go.”
He turned around, the dog faithfully following him up the mountain.