by Sybil Bartel
My stepmother had been drilling into me since I was little that I needed to either work or go to school or do something like she did with her charity. And until this very moment, I hadn’t seriously considered how I looked to the outside world.
If I was being honest, I’d always taken growing up wealthy for granted. I’d even despised it sometimes, especially in the first days of rehab when the counselors wouldn’t shut up about my easy access to money and drugs.
But standing in front of a man who’d spent years defending our country so he could afford a hideaway at the top of the mountain away from all the people he’d served to protect, I felt every one of those zeros in my bank account, and right now it wasn’t feeling good.
“I’m not going to do drugs anymore,” I blurted.
“Good.” Using a match, he lit the newspaper and stood to his full height.
The fire quickly caught, and a warm glow filled the living area.
I’d never made a fire in my life.
Walking past me, Shade went toward the front door and hung his coat on the same peg he’d retrieved it from, and for some reason that made him seem even more human and me even more spoiled. I didn’t hang my clothes up. I didn’t even do my own laundry. I had a housekeeper who did all that. I didn’t even cook for myself.
Opening a hall closet and pulling out a shotgun, Shade checked the part where bullets or shells or whatever you called them went, then he set the gun upright by the front door.
“I thought you said no one was following us,” I accused, feeling small and spoiled and inadequate.
“Never said that.” Short and dismissive, his response felt like the beginning of a wall going up between us that I didn’t know how to stop or, worse, why I thought there’d never been one to begin with.
“Yes, you did,” I argued. “You told André their cars wouldn’t make it up the mountain.”
He spared me a glance as he walked toward the kitchen. “Doesn’t mean they won’t follow us.”
“You said no one knew about this place.”
“Did I?” He opened a door that looked like a cupboard but was actually a small pantry. Stepping inside, his height and width barely fitting, he pushed on the back wall that had narrow shelves with canned goods, and it opened. He stepped into a larger space, and the lights automatically came on.
“Whoa.” I felt like I’d stepped onto a movie set.
A desk with three monitors, two TV screens on the wall, a desk chair, a couch and a small kitchenette took up most of the space, but on the back wall was a floor-to-ceiling cage that was loaded with weapons and ammunition and what looked like every kind of tactical gear you’d need if you were walking into a war zone. “Is this like a panic room?”
“I’m a Marine. I don’t panic.” He turned on the three monitors. “Bedroom is upstairs. Shower has toiletries. Help yourself.” Dismissing me, he sat down in the desk chair.
For some reason, it felt shittier than when my own damn father ignored me. “And don’t let the door hit me on the way out,” I muttered as I turned to leave, not even bothering to point out the difference between a panic room and actual panicking.
“You got a problem?” he called after me.
Only a six-foot-whatever one. I glanced over my shoulder. “How tall are you?”
His dark eyes took me in for a second before he answered. “Six five. Why?”
A six-foot-five-inch problem. Fantastic. “No reason.” I took a step.
“Halt,” he barked as if issuing a military command.
Nerves shot up my spine and feathered across my neck. My stupid self so needy for attention from him, even my body betrayed me and reacted to his hostile tone as if he weren’t snapping out an order but luring me to bed.
This time I turned to face him and crossed my arms, but I couldn’t even manage the universal body language of disdain. The sleeves of his jacket too big and too long, they just flopped around me like extra skin. Not that it mattered anyway because he wasn’t even looking at me.
I told myself I didn’t care and dished out attitude anyway. “What?”
“You’re sleeping upstairs.” He typed on a keyboard in front of the middle monitor on his desk, and images of the winter wonderland surrounding us began to pop on the screens. “Help yourself to whatever you want in the kitchen.”
“Let me guess, you’re all out of Fiji water,” I replied snidely, behaving exactly like the trust fund brat he’d accused me of being, because I didn’t know what was happening and it felt shitty.
“The cabin has a water filtration system.” Using his feet to push his chair back, he wheeled over to the cage. “You can drink water from the tap.”
I held on to sarcasm like my life depended on it. “Gee, you’ve thought of everything.”
Unlocking the cage, he stood from his chair and stepped inside. “Your attitude’s showing.”
No princess, no woman, why yes, it was. “So what?”
“I pulled over and ran you on the access road on the side of the highway earlier today because physical exertion is a natural anxiety and stress reliever,” he stated unemotionally as he grabbed a phone from a pile of them on a shelf. “If you need to run again, there’s a treadmill in the downstairs gym.” He stepped back out of the cage, shoved the chair over to the desk and sat.
I felt like I’d been slapped in the face. “Wow. Good to know.”
He powered on the cell, then glanced up at me with a completely locked expression. “What else do you need?”
“Did I say I needed anything?” What an asshole.
“Simple question, Summer.” With the phone in his hand, he laced his fingers around it and rested his elbows on his knees.
“Summer,” I mocked my own damn name. “Well, that’s the kiss of death.” I hated him like this. I hated it more than I ever knew he had the capacity to not be like this.
His expression still vigilantly locked, his eyes on me, he didn’t reply.
Out of nowhere, a rush of jealousy hit me, and I was spinning down a sinkhole.
Did he ever bring his psycho ex here? Did he fuck her in the bed he said I was supposed to sleep in? Did he shower with her in the damn bathroom he’d told me to use? Did he ever give her his smile before he told her she was nothing to him?
Did he ever treat her as coldly and detached as he was treating me now?
Because all I’d seen was heat and anger from him toward her, and that wasn’t the mark of a man who didn’t give a damn.
Dropping my crossed arms, I shrugged out of his jacket and let it hit the floor. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
I turned and fled before he saw the tears in my eyes.
FUCKING NINETEEN.
Nineteen.
That was the shit that should’ve had my dick recoiling. Attitude, immaturity and insecurity. Not fucking hot.
But tell that to my cock.
The second she’d dumped my jacket on the floor, I wanted to come between her huge tits. I didn’t give a shit that she’d called me an asshole. She was right. I was being a grade-A dick to her. On purpose. Because I couldn’t be in this goddamn cabin with her for two hours, let alone two days if she was going to look at me like she’d looked at me when I carried her across the driveway.
I’d wind up fucking her. Then I’d shred her cunt and the naiveté she acted like she didn’t have. I’d probably fuck her sobriety up too. Assuming neither of us got taken out by a Vincenzo contracted sniper first.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I muttered, kicking the door to my security room shut.
Forcing myself to refocus, I dialed Luna as I held the burner between my ear and shoulder and typed a couple commands into my monitoring system.
Luna picked up on the first ring. “I can’t talk right now, babe. I’m with a client.”
Fuck. Luna never said babe, and he didn’t answer the phone when he couldn’t speak. I read between the lines. “Vincenzo’s there?”
“I’m not in the office, babe. S
tart dinner without me. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Luna hung up.
“Goddamn it.” I scrolled through the camera feeds for the property, but only half of them had visibility because of the snow, and even those angles were useless. By the time I’d see someone, they’d be on top of me.
Spending the next few minutes switching the cameras to pick up heat signals, I waited for Luna’s call back, but when it didn’t come, I dialed Ronan.
“You make it?” he asked immediately.
“How’d you know it was me?” Fucker could’ve blown my location.
“I bought you those burners.”
Goddamn. “And you what? Memorized the numbers?”
“Just the prefixes. Luna was trying to get a hold of you. Took you longer than we expected. Any problems?”
“Besides the weather?” I snorted. “No. Just watch the road coming up.”
“I’ve got chains I can put on if I need to.”
“You’ll need them.” I heard the water upstairs turn on. “What’s going on with Luna? I just called to check in and he was with Vincenzo.” I thought about her tits getting wet, and my cock pulsed painfully.
“I’m not sure, but I got a text from him saying to head to you for backup and bypass retrieval of Vincenzo’s wife.”
Fuck. That wasn’t good. “Did she show up at the motel at the base of the mountain?”
“No. Neither did the vehicle from the parking lot at the Japanese restaurant.”
“That’s good. That means they don’t know where I was heading.” Maybe whoever tossed my place didn’t figure out the location of my cabin.
“Negative. The wife’s vehicle was spotted at a gas station off your exit an hour ago. I think it’s too much of a coincidence to assume she doesn’t know where you are or at least the general location.”
Fuck, it was going to be a long night. “Any sightings since the highway patrol camera feeds Luna told me about?”
“None, and no sighting of the other vehicle.”
Goddamn it. “If they’re not at the hotel, where the hell would they have gone? Driving conditions are shit up here now.”
“I’d say the backside of the mountain. It’s less steep.”
“And four times as long. But they’d both still have a problem the last few miles without four-wheel drive.”
“The reinforcements Vincenzo ordered are in a four-wheel drive.”
“Fucking great. How far out are you?”
Ronan paused. “GPS says oh-two hundred. But radio reports are saying Georgia is going to shut down the highways due to ice. If that happens, it’ll be closer to oh-four hundred.”
I glanced at the time. It was only twenty-two hundred now. “Copy that. We’ll be fine for a few hours. If you’re not getting up here any time soon, hopefully no one else is either. You can use this number to check in.”
Ronan didn’t reply.
Fucker sometimes checked out when you were talking to him. I didn’t know if it was PTSD, TBI or if he was just thinking, and I never asked. Except tonight my instinct was telling me something was off. “You there?”
“Did Luna tell you he didn’t recognize who was on the feeds when your place got tossed?”
What the fuck? “He lied?” Luna didn’t lie. Ever.
“No.”
“Ronan,” I warned.
“He didn’t recognize them,” he stated in the same goddamn even tone he said everything else in.
“What are you getting at?” Ronan could give a goddamn politician a lesson in caginess. “Did you recognize them?”
“No.”
Jesus fucking Christ. “Spit it out.”
“I recognized their walk.”
My shoulders tensed.
“Luna missed it,” he continued.
This wasn’t good. At fucking all. I knew where he was going with this, but I hoped to God I was wrong. “Russian?”
“Military trained,” Ronan confirmed.
“Vincenzo’s upped his game.” Goddamn it.
“Candle has cold weather training. Harm’s living it.”
“I know where you’re going with this, and I’ll tell you the exact same thing I told Luna. Fuck no.”
“Game’s changed,” Ronan stated. “They could secure the perimeter.”
“I don’t have a perimeter up here. I have fucking mountains.”
“Russian Armed Forces trains snipers same as the Marines and Rangers,” Ronan calmly pointed out.
“Goddamn it.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Has it really come down to this? G.I. Fucked-up Joe and a loose cannon?”
“Tactically, it’s the smart call.”
“Tactically, the less people who know my location, the better,” I argued.
“Your location’s already blown.”
“Jesus fuck.” I hated that he was right, but upstairs in my shower was a nineteen-year-old trust fund brat with probably a six-digit social media following and a penchant for selling people out. Rehabbed or not, she now knew the location. My place was already blown.
“Should I make the call?” Ronan asked.
Fuck. “Yeah.”
“Copy. I’ll call back with ETAs.” Ronan hung up.
I hung my head.
I PATHETICALLY CRIED IN THE shower.
Acting like the teenager he accused me of being, I had a newfound sympathy for the insane woman stalking him. I hadn’t even slept with Shade, and he had me stupidly crying in the shower.
Damn it, Summer, pull it together.
I didn’t need to care what an infuriating bodyguard thought of me or what he even said to me. I was Summer Amherst. I was untouchable… unless some mafia guy I’d never met decided to shoot me because I’d mouthed off to his wife. Then maybe I wouldn’t get to spend my life living off a trust fund.
Whatever.
I washed my hair in the shower that was tiled in all dark slate and was as imposing as its owner. Using shampoo I never would’ve dreamed of using a year ago because it didn’t come from a salon, I prayed he had at least a hairbrush in one of the drawers of the vanity.
I was rinsing off the last of his sandalwood-scented soap when, all of a sudden, the lights went off and I was thrown into complete darkness.
“Shit.” Quickly turning off the water before it ran cold, I reached for the towel by feel that I had thankfully left hanging over the top of the shower door.
It hadn’t been very warm in the cabin to begin with, but without power, I feared it would get super cold, super quick.
Towel drying my hair, then my body, I pushed the shower door open but tripped as I stepped out.
“Summer,” saying my name fast and clipped, Shade’s voice carried up to the second floor right before his footsteps echoed on the stairs.
“I’m okay,” I called out.
“You decent?” he asked, his voice now coming from the other side of the door.
I wrapped the towel tight around me. “Yeah.” Sort of.
He pushed the door open and his dark eyes cut from my face to the towel, then he quickly looked away as he set a small lantern on the counter. “My generator didn’t kick in when the power went out. I’m going to see what’s happening. Stay here and lock the bedroom door after me. Get under the covers in the bed. It’s going to get cold in here quickly.” He turned to leave.
Panic hit me. “Maybe you shouldn’t go out there.”
He glanced back. “If the power lines were damaged because of the storm, it’ll be days before someone gets up here to look at it. I need to check the generator.”
“What if it’s not the storm that did it?”
The lantern casting heavy shadows across his face, he gave me a hardened stare. “Even more reason to check it out.” He tipped his chin at my clothes on the counter. “Get dressed and get under the covers to stay warm. I’ll be back.”
Visions of the SUV going over the mountain replayed in my mind followed by those guys shooting at us in the parking lot, and my skin prickled with fear. “How
long will you be gone?” I called after him.
“As long as it takes. Lock the door.” He walked out of the bedroom and went down the stairs. A few seconds later, I heard the front door open and close.
The quiet of the cabin became overwhelming with no power, and my ears were suddenly ringing from lack of ambient noise. Reaching for my clothes, I pulled on leggings, the long-sleeved thermal tee that I used for sleeping, and a clean pair of socks. Running the towel over my head a few more times, I searched his drawers for a hairbrush, but only found a comb. Cursing the male species and how easy they had it, I dragged the comb through my long hair just to get the tangles out. Using an elastic I had on my wrist, I twisted my hair up in a messy bun.
With the small lantern in tow, I made my way into the bedroom, but I couldn’t bring myself to get in his bed. Turning off the lantern because the reflected light in the windows overlooking the view was making me feel like I was in a fishbowl, I stared out at the winter wonderland.
The side of the mountain dropped steeply a few yards past the stilts that held his house up, and all I could see were treetops and more mountains. The mountainside we were on, mountains in the distance, a mountain range stretching from as far left to as far right as I could see, it was endless.
And almost serene… until I spotted what looked like tracks in the snow thirty yards away, weaving in between the snow-heavy trees.
My imagination in overdrive, I stepped back from the window and shivered.
“Damn it, Shade,” I whispered into the darkened, impersonal bedroom that didn’t feel like it belonged to Shade without him in it. How long did it take to check on a generator?
I hated him out there.
Not just because he was my only lifeline up here, but I didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. Despite him being a completely cold jerk earlier, I still liked him. More than I should.
And oh my God, that kiss. Another chill ran up my spine.
I grabbed the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around myself as the sound of an engine starting up broke the silence, and a second later the one lamp I’d switched on in the bedroom came back on.