by Snow, Jenika
The door flung open, the wind and gravity making it almost brutal as it nearly knocked me over. I held onto the edge and braced myself, bracing my body as I looked inside. I saw a very large body hunched over the steering wheel. It was a man. That was clear by his size.
His arms hung on either side of him, his head turned away from me. I didn’t touch or move him right away but instead reached inside my coat pocket for my cell phone and flashlight.
I clicked on the light and pointed it at him, running my fingers along his neck, his short dark hair smooth under my fingertips. I didn’t see any blood, but his face was turned away from me, so I didn’t know what I was dealing with. I also didn’t want to move him until I properly looked him over, making sure I wouldn’t do any irreparable damage by shifting him around.
I looked in his vehicle to see if I could find anything that would be of use, and aside from a couple water bottles, a blanket haphazardly thrown in the backseat, and a black duffel on the passenger side seat, I couldn’t find much else. I reached across him for the duffel and unzipped it, seeing nothing much but clothes. I pushed the bag back on the seat and heard something hard bang against the inside of the door. I was about to reach for the duffel again and see what was inside that had made that noise, but a gust of wind had me nearly being pushed back.
I gripped the edge of the car, my fingers really starting to hurt from the cold. The bag could wait. I needed to get us out of this weather.
I looked at my cell phone. Of course there was no service, but then again, I was on backroads, and with the storm most likely knocking out the towers temporarily, I was shit out of luck right now. After shoving my cell back in my pocket, I stood there for a moment, the wind whistling around me, my hair blowing in all directions. I had no idea how I was going to get him out of the vehicle and into mine. I couldn’t leave him here though; that was for sure. There was no chance of getting any help, not with the way the weather was, and who knows how long it would take me to get into town?
My house was closer than town anyway. The best bet was for me to take him to my place, get him situated, and check him out fully. We could wait for the storm to subside, and hopefully cell service would be back and I could call for help.
I didn’t see any outward injuries, didn’t feel any broken bones. I didn’t know about internal injuries, but I wouldn’t know more until I looked him over properly. I might not be a doctor, but then again, I was an ER nurse and had seen plenty, learned tons of shit on the job. I was confident in my ability to properly diagnose something in an emergency situation.
When I was pretty sure I wouldn’t do any more damage by moving him, I braced the flashlight between my neck and shoulder as I reached out and grabbed his wide arms as gently as I could. I pulled him back. He was big, tall as he filled the seat, and very muscular. I could feel how hard he was underneath my arms, his muscles all but tearing through the material of his shirt and jacket. Even unconscious, his strength was unsurmountable.
I could see tattoos peeking out from under the collar of his shirt and sneaking up his neck, and I swallowed roughly. I knew nothing about this man, and for all I knew, he could be dangerous. But I was a healer first and foremost, and my only objective, my only priority in this moment, was making sure he was okay.
Once he was resting back on the seat and I got a good look at his face, I reached for the flashlight again and pointed it on his features. He had short dark hair slightly mussed and falling over his forehead. Twin dark slashes were over his eyes, and his lashes were long and thick, dark and resting against his cheeks. He had a five o’clock shadow and a strong nose, masculine. And his lips were full, his expression relaxed. He had a nasty cut above one of his eyes, no doubt from his face meeting the steering wheel. A trail of blood, already dried on his temple, smeared along his olive-colored skin.
He had one hell of a bruise forming around the area of the cut and underneath his eye, swelling already setting in, and no doubt it would be even worse come tomorrow.
I started feeling around his face gently, palpating to make sure nothing was broken. Aside from the cut, which would most likely need stitches, and what I could do back at my place with my suture kit, he seemed unharmed, probably knocked out from the collision of his head against the steering wheel.
I took a step back, closed his door, and walked quickly toward mine as much as I could. My feet slipped out from under me from the fast-forming snow on the ground, and my palm landed on a partially hidden rock. I cried out and looked down, seeing a gash on my palm and blood starting to form.
I pushed the pain to the back of my mind and made my way to the car. Once I was back in my vehicle, I turned the engine on and cranked the heat. I pulled away from the curb and moved the car toward his, parking parallel with it. I put it in Park and opened my door. I made my way toward the driver side door again and opened it, working as quickly as I could.
After making a trip to put his duffel bag in my front seat, I unbuckled his seatbelt and slid my arm under one of his. I shifted his big body on the seat and now had both my arms wrapped around his waist. God, he was a big guy. Even as he was unconscious, I felt the strain coming from him. It took a good twenty minutes of me dragging him out of his car and up the trench to my vehicle, stopping constantly to catch my breath and readjust my hold on him.
When I finally had him next to my car, I leaned against the side and caught my breath, my arms aching and my palm screaming in pain.
I got back to work though, opening the passenger back door and hauling him in. It was an awkward maneuver, but I finally got him in and stood outside the car to just stare at him.
Sweat formed along my brow, between my breasts, and along my spine. For a moment, I thought of how insane this was. He took up the entire back of my vehicle. I checked my cell phone again, seeing there was still no signal, and I prayed I’d have better luck once I was at home. The weather started to lighten up a bit wind-wise, but the rain had turned into full-on snow and came down harder.
I could make it home, although I’d be going slow as hell. I had a first aid kit back at my place, medical supplies I kept on hand. I’d check him out, tend to his wound once I was there.
Once in the driver seat with the door shut and my seatbelt on, I curled my fingers around the steering wheel and looked into my rearview mirror. I could see him lying there, his chest rising and falling in even intervals, the bruise on his face looking even darker in the shadowy interior of my car.
“This is insane, Kimber,” I muttered and shook my head, focusing back in front of me and reaching out to put my car into Drive. And then I pulled back out into the road, heading home and hoping I hadn’t just made one massive error in judgment by bringing a stranger back to my place.
Chapter Three
Cullen
I was coming in and out, flashes of light and darkness moving behind my eyes, bits and pieces of sound flowing in one ear and out the other. I felt warmth and coldness, pain mixed with this comfortable sensation. It was sight, sound, smell, and touch all coexisting inside me at the same time, waging war with one another for supremacy.
The sound of water trickling had me trying to open my eyes, but the pain was sharp and fierce, and I groaned.
“Shhh.”
Who was that? One of my brothers? Was I at Dom’s place?
I couldn’t open my eyes, couldn’t even move. I felt hazy, drugged. My arms and legs felt like they were held down by lead weights, their hard and violent pulse moving throughout me.
“You’re okay. Don’t try to move though.”
I didn’t know the voice, but as soon as I waded through the muddled mess of my head, I realized it was definitely a female. Dom’s woman?
I tried to move, tried to push those heavy weights off my arms and legs, knowing I had to move past this, had to get through it. I couldn’t let something keep me down, even if I couldn’t remember what that something was.
I tried to sit up, my eyes feeling fused shut.
&nbs
p; “Hey, easy now,” that voice said, and then I felt someone touch me on my shoulder, this light, warm feeling moving through me.
That weight had me stilling instantly.
“That’s right. That’s better.”
I turned my head toward the voice, my eyes feeling heavy as if coins covered them. Maybe I was dead? The pain, the inability to move… the weakness was all reminiscent of hell, right? And I certainly earned my place next to the very devil himself.
“Once the storm lets up, I’ll call for help, an ambulance, the police.”
I was shaking my head, groaning, trying to open my eyes. Why couldn’t I fucking open my eyes?
She started talking again, but I couldn’t understand what she said, her words starting to become one, strung together so they started sounding like a melody, a note on a chord.
“No help,” I finally managed to say, but my voice sounded garbled, thick, and unintelligible. I cleared my throat, and it felt like I’d swallowed rocks. “Don’t call anyone. No help. No police.” That’s the last fucking thing I needed.
Had she heard me? Had I said the words out loud? It didn’t really matter, because I felt that darkness wrap around me again, it’s icy, sharp fingers digging into my throat. And I let it take me under, because right now, I just didn’t give a fuck to fight harder.
Chapter Four
Kimber
I sat in my recliner with a cup of tea resting on one of my thighs, my fingers wrapped around the ceramic, the warmth from the mug seeping through my skin. But I was still chilled, and it had nothing to do with the weather outside.
For the hundredth time, I felt how stupid this was. I wasn’t a doctor despite the fact that I was confident in my medical abilities.
I should have taken him into town even with the shit weather and dangerous roads.
But just thinking those things over and over, a part of me knew I’d made the right call.
I checked my cell phone again. No bars of service. No signs of Wi-Fi or data. It was worthless at this stage.
I stared at him as he lay on the couch, his big body dwarfing the piece of furniture. It had been a pain in the ass getting him into my house, and after a scraped-up hand, banged-up knee, and my shoulder smacking into the banister on the porch as I tried to maneuver him inside, I’d finally got him where I could.
I preferred to have him in a bed, but even though I was fairly certain he didn’t have any life-threatening injuries, no broken bones or internal bleeding or anything like that, continuously moving him around wasn’t good. So, the couch it was.
He’d been in and out for the last couple hours, mumbling and groaning in his sleep, trying to move, even though he needed to be stationed for a time so he could heal.
I looked over by the door to where his black duffel bag was. Once I got him inside, I went back out and grabbed it but had forgotten all about it until just this moment. I stared at his face, at the gash I’d stitched up. The bruising and swelling were even worse now.
I set my mug down and went over to the door, picking up the duffel and bringing it over to the kitchen. I set it on the table and sat down, still able to see him from my spot. I gripped the little silver zipper and pulled it open, looking inside at the contents.
He’d had no ID on him, and I’d been so focused on getting him out of the car that I hadn’t checked the SUV more thoroughly to see if he had one in there. But maybe he had something in the duffel that could give me more information on who and what I was dealing with.
I pulled out a couple pairs of jeans, three white T-shirts, socks, and boxer briefs, a bottle of sleeping pills, and then... jackpot. His wallet. I set that close to me to look through it as soon as I was done.
When I reached my hand in to see if there was anything I’d missed, my fingertips brushed up against something cold and hard. My heart stopped and my body froze. I knew what it was before I even pulled it out of the bag.
A gun.
As I held that gun in my hand, the weight substantial in my palm, the overhead lighting glinting off the silver and making it shine almost ominously, I felt my heart jump into my throat.
I wasn’t a stranger to violence or weapons, not just within my employment, but also in my personal life. Guns and abuse were an everyday occurrence that came through the ER. The violence had also been an everyday occurrence with my father coming home drunk and angry because he’d lost even more money gambling and using me as his punching bag.
I shook my head and pushed those toxic thoughts away. They had no place in my life anymore.
My instinct was to drop the weapon right away, but I set it down gently and pushed my chair back, just staring at it and then glancing over to where he lay.
He breathed out evenly, a relaxed expression on his face. He was running a fever, a pretty high one at that, and I worried about infection setting in. Hell, maybe he’d been sick before he’d gotten into the accident. I wouldn’t know anything until he woke up, but I still took measures and even gave him some antibiotics one of the times he’d been awake.
I looked in his bag once more and saw an orange envelope lying flat on the bottom. I reached for it and realized it had some substantial weight to it, and as I ran my fingers over the edges, I already knew what would be inside before I opened it.
Money.
I opened the flap and looked inside, seeing two stacks of bills. I pulled each one out and held them in my hands, realizing they were all hundreds. I wasn’t even able to guess how many were in each stack, but it was a shitload. I swallowed and put the money back in the envelope then put that back in the bag.
I glanced down at the gun but ignored it for the time being. I reached over with shaky hands, picked up the black leather wallet, and opened it, seeing his driver’s license right away and pulling it out.
His picture was frighteningly intense, his expression stoic, his dark eyes trained at the camera with this almost dead look in them. It looked like he was ready to kill something, like they were pissing him off just by being alive.
PREACHER
CULLEN
564 CLARKMILL RD
STANSBURG, WASHINGTON
LICENSE NO. BIRTHDATE
FG88694 04-26-1983
SEX: M Ht: 6-03 Wt: 215
Eyes: BLU Hair: BRO
I looked at his address again. He was about an hour away from home. “Where were you running to?” I whispered those words, although I was just assuming, guessing. I didn’t know if he’d been running to or from something, but the gun in his bag, the envelope filled with cash, had me thinking he was probably running.
Without Internet, it wasn’t like I could look him up. I also hadn’t found a cell phone on him, and I’d been so focused on getting him out of there that I hadn’t even bothered checking the floor of his SUV, which might’ve produced the phone, giving me some numbers and names. Anything.
I looked back at him. Cullen Preacher. The name suited him, with this dark and kind of dangerous quality to it.
Maybe he was a criminal. He had a gun, a bag packed with clothes as if he were going away. He had a shitload of money. He looked intimidating and scary, with tattoos and his big, muscular body. I opened up the billfold, and all I saw was hundreds upon hundreds of dollars inside. I closed the wallet again and put everything back in the bag the way I’d found it.
I stood and walked toward him, stopping when I was by the edge of the couch, looking at him, seeing his face, wondering who he really was. I’d covered him up with a blanket, removed his shoes and jacket, and couldn’t help but stare at his arms that rested on top of the fleece. His biceps were huge, his hands big and masculine.
I walked around the couch and stood right next to him, looking down, staring at his relaxed face, the bruise I could see creeping out from under the bandage I’d placed over the sutured wound above his eye. I grabbed the thermometer that sat on the little table by the couch, the lamp on it casting a warm yellow glow. I ran my palm over his temple, his fever still prevalent, but it had lo
wered since I’d given him something to reduce it.
I didn’t like seeing him this way, despite the fact that I had no idea who he was, and I had this very strong feeling he wasn’t the type of man who liked being this vulnerable either. I looked over at the table at his duffel, knowing the gun was inside, a stack of cash right under that. Had he killed someone? Had he robbed a bank?
All I knew was that despite what may or may not be, I had to take care of him. And once he was conscious and able to tell me who he was, only then would I find out the truth and know if bringing him here had been the right call.
Chapter Five
Kimber
I heard him rouse and sat up straighter, pushing my reading glasses up the bridge of my nose and looking over at him. His huge body took up my couch, his strength in even his relaxed state overwhelming. After I set the book I’d been reading aside, I found myself holding my breath as his eyes opened. He was lying on his back so now he stared at the ceiling. I could see the confusion on his face, watched as he grunted when he shifted and lifted his hand to touch the bandage on his forehead. He was about to pull it off when I cleared my throat.
“Please don’t do that,” I said softly, and he froze, his eyes darting to me. “I had to give you stitches, because you hit your head pretty hard on the steering wheel.” I swallowed, feeling very nervous in this moment.
He sat up a little too quickly and groaned, but that sound vanished as soon as it had emerged. It was very clear this man did not like to show any kind of weakness.
“Where am I?” His voice was harsh and husky, a mixture I was sure from not speaking for an extended amount of time, and because he was all male.
“You’re at my home in Franklin Township.”
His brows knitted and he looked down at his lap, now sitting up straight. His body was so big, his shoulders wide. “What happened?”