by Mazzy King
Suddenly, the sounds of nature that blurred into a pleasant hum during my walk have gone silent.
Do the birds and bugs know something I don’t?
Time to head back.
I whirl on my heel, forgetting I had to climb a little to reach the point I’m on, and promptly slip off. My right ankle pops and a shocking wave of pain courses over me, knocking the air from my lungs.
Panic envelops me.
I can’t breathe. Can’t speak. Can’t call for help.
Can’t scream.
Yes, you can. Open your mouth.
Open. Your. Mouth.
I don’t know if anyone can hear me. I’m probably stuck up here by myself in what I suspect are tornado conditions. It’s probably futile and ridiculous and nonsensical.
But nevertheless, I open my mouth.
And I scream.
“Help!”
Chapter 2
Loch Holmes
The morning and early afternoon were bright and sunny, but I’ve been standing on my back porch and watching the storm creep nearer for two hours now.
The clouds have grown heavy and dark, forming a wall. Almost like an army advancing on an unsuspecting enemy. Thunder cracks in the distance. Stunning bolts of lightning flare and fizzle in the blink of an eye.
I’ve always loved storms, even the ones that threaten to cause destruction. Hawk Valley has been known to get its threats of tornadoes, but a cyclone hasn’t touched down here in decades. That sort of cocky “it’ll never happen here!” attitude might one day come back to bite us in the ass, but for now, watching the growing tumult in the sky brings an odd measure of calm to my soul.
I glance over my shoulder toward the guest bedroom. Inside the closet is the huge, black duffel bag of gear I always bring on my missions. I always keep it down here and not in my bedroom. My clothes, boots, weapons, and other necessities have been washed or cleaned, wiped down, and packed away, ready to go the next time I get called up. I’ve been home for a couple of weeks now, and normally I take my time putting my gear away, but this time, I stayed up until three in the morning the night I got back cleaning it all and putting it away. I was exhausted, but I just couldn’t look at it again.
To say my last assignment was difficult might be the understatement of the year.
I’ve been out of the Navy SEALs for over five years now, but the drive to serve my country has never left. I started a security consultancy business which I planned to run out of my isolated cabin in the Hawk Valley mountains. But eventually, clients wanted me to come to them. And then government security officials contacted me for my services, which came to mean I traveled back to the parts of the world I swore to myself I’d never see again, training US and allied foreign troops, setting up security tech, and, eventually, tagging along with SEALs and Rangers teams on high-risk missions. It was like I never left.
Now, I have small, satellite offices in a few locations around the US. I even have a small, unmarked, top-secret office in the Pentagon. Business is very good.
The cost?
A normal life. My ability to sleep well.
Loneliness.
I sigh. There it is again—that pervasive feeling of despair that’s clouded my mind since I got back from Baghdad.
Shaking my head to clear it, I walk back into the cabin to put on some shoes. Physical activity is always a great—albeit temporary—relief when I start feeling like this, and with the oncoming storm and the chill in the air, it’s probably a good idea to replenish my low supply of wood for the fireplace.
A few swings of the ax later, and my stress melts away little by little. I know it’ll be back, but for now, I welcome the rush of clarity and the good sweat I’m working up. Goosebumps popped up on my skin when I first stepped outside, but now I’m hot. I strip off my flannel shirt and continue my work. My muscles burn, my hands are sore, and I’m pouring sweat, but focusing on how I feel is better than focusing on my thoughts.
I set another log up and heft the ax.
A scream pierces the air.
“Help!”
I freeze, blinking. Did I really hear that, or is my mind playing tricks on me, calling up that last horrible night in Baghdad—
“Help me! Please!”
My mind is definitely not playing tricks on me. That’s a woman, screaming for help.
I drop my ax and break into a dead run.
A hiker on the trail. Please, God, not a bear.
I want her to keep screaming so I can follow her voice. I don’t want her to stop screaming because of what that could mean.
I run faster.
“Please,” the woman calls again in the distance, but closer now. Her voice breaks a little pathetically as a sob follows. “Please help me, somebody…”
I run another hundred yards or so, shoving through some brush to get back onto the trail, round a bend, and skid to a halt. There she is, sitting on the trail, her legs sprawled to one side. An expensive-looking camera rests on the ground beside her.
A young woman. Really young. I peg her as early twenties. A college student. Light-brown hair pulled into a ponytail. Fiercely bright blue eyes.
Beautiful. Angelic, actually.
Except when she whips her head toward me, those pretty blue eyes are full of animal fear. And then on the end of that, fierce rage. She throws out a hand as if to stop me with some invisible force.
“Stay back!” she yells. “You stay the fuck back!”
Well.
This “rescue” sure as hell went differently in my mind.
Chapter 3
Ava
The guy holds up his hands, trying to catch his breath. “Whoa. It’s all right. What’s wrong? I heard you screaming.”
A man. Who just so happens to be in the area. Wearing that.
He’s wearing a snug, ribbed tank top, jeans, and boots. He has well-developed muscles, broad shoulders, and even through his tank top I can see the ridges of his abs. His hands are large and look like they can rip a human to shreds.
I curse myself for my moment of insanity. Screaming was a terrible idea!
“Get away,” I say in a trembling voice, scooting backward. My ankle hurts and I’m pretty sure it’s swollen.
“You called for help,” he says calmly. “You screamed for help, actually. I thought you were being attacked by a bear.”
“Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?” I demand.
He glances down at himself as if surprised. “I was chopping wood.”
I sneer. “Sure. A man in the mountains all alone chopping wood!”
He tilts his head, and for the first time I notice how hot he is. He’s older, probably early thirties, and has sandy-brown hair and light-colored eyes. There’s a little scruff on his face, like he hasn’t bothered shaving in a few days.
“Yeah,” he says with a mixture of patience and confusion. “I am a man in the mountains all alone, and I was chopping wood. I mean, I live here. Why are you on the ground? Are you hurt?”
If I admit that I’m hurt, does that make me even more of a target? “I tripped and twisted my ankle a little,” I say loftily, like it’s no big deal. “Do you have a cell phone? My signal is weak out here.”
Weak is a nice way of putting it. It’s completely obliterated.
He pats his pockets. “I left it back at my cabin. If you want to come back with me, you can call whoever you want. You’re from the city?”
“Why?”
He shrugs and takes a step closer. “I know pretty much everyone in town. Never seen you before.”
“Where I’m from is no concern of yours.”
He blinks. “Listen, my name is Loch Holmes.”
“Lock? Like, lock-and-key?”
“Loch with an H. As in a Scottish lake.” He smiles. “What’s your name? Just your first name. You don’t have to tell me your last name.”
“Ava,” I say grudgingly.
“Ava,” he says gently, and something about that makes me shiver, and not from
the wind that suddenly picks up speed.
Loch shakes his head. “Listen, this is tornado weather,” he says loudly over the gust. “We need to get out of here.”
“Take me back to the inn,” I yell back. “That’s where I’m staying.”
A sudden, thunderous crack splits the air and I yelp. Loch rushes over to me and lifts me to my feet like I weigh nothing at all. I forget about my ankle for a second and put weight on it, then cry out in pain.
“You can’t walk anywhere,” he says sternly. “Twisted your ankle a little, my ass.”
“I want to go back to the inn,” I say again.
“I know, but the inn is two miles away. My cabin is much closer. I can give you a piggyback ride.”
“I don’t know anything about you!” I exclaim, shoving him away. “You could be a criminal. A rapist. A killer.”
He gives me a surprisingly sympathetic look. “I’m none of those things, but I can appreciate your wariness. Look, Ava, I want to help you. What can I do to—”
Lightning splits a tree not fifty feet away.
I scream and throw myself into his arms without even thinking about it.
His arm tightens around my waist. “It’s all right,” he says soothingly. “Look, climb on my back. We have to get out of here.”
And as the rain starts to pelt down on us, I decide to listen to my gut, telling me I can trust this man, and climb onto his back, my camera on the strap around my neck.
With surprising speed considering I’m not exactly a twig, he actually runs back the way he came, breathing in sharp bursts like an athlete or something. I cling to him like a baby monkey on its mother’s back as he sprints. His arms hook around my thighs, hands gripping the back of my knees.
Goddamn. He’s strong…
I hate the fact that a shiver of arousal goes through me.
Now that I’m, er, riding him, I can feel how strong his body is, how well-honed those muscles are. He smells like a mixture of sweat and fresh rain.
Another shiver.
We arrive at the front door of a cabin-style house a little while later. Loch opens the door and gently sets me down on the floor. I blink. It’s not like a little prairie cabin. This is a log house, and it’s nice as hell. There’s a loft area above, and the windows stretch from the floor all the way up to the ceiling. The wood floors are a cool gray but obviously true hardwood. The furniture is dark and masculine, but also inviting—the sectional couch looks cushy and has several furry throw blankets draped along the back. The open concept features the kitchen on the opposite side, and there’s a big island and lots of warm lights. I wonder if he can cook.
I hobble a few steps away to lean against the wall, shivering. As fast as he ran, it wasn’t fast enough to keep me from getting soaked.
“That was…impressive,” I say.
He ticks his chin at my ankle. “Can I take a look at that?” He reaches out for my hand.
Cautiously, I slip my hand into his.
He steps backward, leading me to a chair at a big, wooden dining table. Crouching before me, he unties my tennis shoe and slips it off my foot. His hands, so strong and veined and sinewy, are so gentle as they touch me and press on my ankle—and yeah, it’s swollen.
Loch rises and grabs a cushion from the couch, a dish towel from the island, and an ice pack from the freezer. He walks back over to me and gently lifts my ankle, placing it on top of the cushion. He wraps the ice pack in the dish towel and sets it on top.
“Keep it elevated,” he says. “Alternate ice and heat. And stay off it.”
I wince at the ache of the cold, but nod. Another mighty clap of thunder from outside makes me jump. The wind howls and somehow, it gets even darker outside.
“Do we need to like, seek shelter or something?” I squeak.
Loch frowns outside. “We probably should. Listen, stay here and keep your foot up, all right? I need to finish chopping wood, then we can go down to the shelter.”
“Do we have time for that?” I demand.
He smiles down at me. “Don’t worry, Ava. I’ll keep you safe, all right?”
Without waiting for me to speak, he heads back outside.
I squirm in my chair. His voice is buttery and low, and his promise to keep me safe speaks to every older-man fantasy I’ve ever had. And that’s all I’ve ever had—fantasies.
Sighing, I squirm some more in my seat. He’s got to have a bathroom down here, right? I can’t wait for him to finish chopping wood, so I remove the ice pack and towel, ease off the chair, and limp off in search of a bathroom.
There’s a bedroom down here with a bathroom inside. It has no personal touches, so I’m guessing he doesn’t sleep down here. The bathroom is absolutely spotless, suggesting it rarely gets used, either. I pop inside and relieve myself, wash my hands, and limp out.
And catch a glimpse of Loch chopping wood right in front of the bedroom window.
He doesn’t see me, too focused on his task. He’s removed that flimsy tank top and is—holy shit—shirtless. The rain drips off his golden skin, and all of the muscles in his back tense and flex with every swing of the ax.
This is like something out of a romance novel, and my mouth literally waters.
Great. Of all the times for my raging, virginal hormones to kick in, it had to be now. He could still be a murderer, but he’s got the hottest body I’ve ever seen and I want to dry off every inch of his skin with my tongue. So it’s fine. This is all fine.
I whirl around, totally forgetting about my ankle, then grunt in pain and stumble as I try to shift my weight off my screaming joint as fast as possible. The movement sends me careening into the nightstand beside the bed and I knock it over.
The drawer pops out, and something dark tumbles out onto the carpet.
This is probably the first time in my life I ever wanted it to be a spider.
Gun. Oh my god, gun gun gun—
I’ve always been terrified of handguns. All guns, actually. They scare the shit out of me. My dad took me to the range once when I was younger, thinking it’d be fun for me. He thought wrong. I had a panic attack so severe he had to carry me out to the car and take me back home.
But nothing was worse than staring down the barrel at two of them, held by two very large masked men demanding I hand over my bag, or they’d shoot me. I see that image over and over and over, whether I’m sleeping or awake, and in the three months that have passed, I can’t shake it.
Why does he have a gun oh my god he’s a killer oh my god get me out of here oh my—
Mindless with soul-crushing fear, I hobble out of the bedroom, through the living room, out the back door, and down the porch as fast as I can.
I’d rather get swallowed up by a tornado, I think, then be murdered by this mountain man.
Chapter 4
Loch
When the last of the wood is chopped, I scoop up a huge armful and carry it inside the house to place it in the wrought-iron log basket beside the fireplace.
“Couple more loads,” I say over my shoulder, “then we should get down to the shelter. In fact—maybe I should help you down there now.”
No answer.
Frowning, I turn to look toward the table where I left Ava. “What the—”
The cushion is on the floor. The icepack is melting on the dish towel. Her camera rests on the table beside them.
And there’s no curvy, beautiful young woman anywhere to be seen.
I take a step toward the bedroom, wondering if she might have gone to use the bathroom, and see the nightstand overturned on the floor. The drawer and the Glock I keep there are on the carpet.
Shit.
She already thought I might be a murderer. At the very least, she probably finds it creepy that a thirty-two-year-old man lives by himself in the mountains. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened.
She saw the gun somehow, freaked out, and left.
I pivot on the ball of my foot and rush back to the livi
ng room. A cold gust of air blows toward me, raising goosebumps on my naked upper body. The back door is standing open.
Fuck!
A young, injured city girl who might be accident-prone is rushing around in the mountains, unfamiliar with the landscape in the middle of a severe thunderstorm that might just produce a tornado.
I waste no time racing out the back door and down the patio steps after her.
I follow my instincts to the left, my anger growing with each step. She’s from the city, for Christ’s sake. She can’t be oblivious to the creeps and assholes who live there. I’ve only tried to help her. Why would she put herself at risk this way?
The path loops around and will eventually link up with the main path people usually hike. She might have thought—again, foolishly—that she could make it back to the inn on an injured ankle. But even if she didn’t have a bum ankle, you can’t outrun a tornado.
In another fifty feet or so, I come across her sitting on a large rock, bent over and clutching her ankle.
Annoyance and relief pour over me. “Are you out of your mind?” I yell.
Ava lifts her face. She’s been crying. Remorse swiftly replaces my annoyance.
“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice breaking. “I feel so stupid. I-I panicked when I saw the—when I saw your—”
“Never mind.” I step toward her. “We have to get to the shelter now, all right? Will you come with me, please?”
She looks so young suddenly as she nods. I turn and kneel, and she climbs on my back. I race back the way I came. The feel of her soft body locked around me distracts me from my urgency. It’s been so long since I was with someone… Since I could take care of someone.
The shelter is an in-ground cellar I converted to a livable space shortly after I bought the place. Instead of a dank, dark room, there’s drywall and an epoxied floor. I put an old couch down there, a rug, an old TV with a DVD player, and there’s even a mini-fridge and a microwave. We should be comfortable for an hour or two.