by Roxy Harte
He’d never seen a storm claim the land so quickly. One minute there had been bright sun, blue skies, and the next, churning gray clouds and falling snow. He stepped out of the vehicle and sank into ankle-deep snow. “Shit, shit, shit!”
Snort.
With a painful grimace, he turned his head to see what it was. The red flare of taillights revealed a moose. Not a deer, but a very large angry-looking moose. The animal’s nostrils flared, and he emitted another loud snort. Brian’s concern over possible whiplash was quickly replaced with full-fledged panic, making him jump back into the Jeep. Hand on the gear shift, foot on the clutch, he had every intention of getting the hell out of Dodge, or at the very least off the side of a rabid-animal-infested mountain. The Jeep didn’t budge.
Moo-oo.
Brian’s head snapped to attention. The moose mooed? Well, maybe not rabid. Cautiously, he rolled down the window and said, “Shoo!”
The moose stepped closer.
“No! Shoo shoo. Go away.”
The moose blinked at him. Feeling around in his cup holder for his cell phone, he remembered belatedly he’d tossed it out of the car. That was brilliant.
“Nice moose.” He timidly cracked open the door and stepped slowly out, prepared to jump back in if the animal made any move to charge. His flip-flops promptly sank back into the snow. He hopped from foot to foot. “Ow! Cold cold cold. Nice moosey-moose.”
Circling the vehicle, keeping solid steel between him and the moose, he quickly discovered why the Jeep wasn’t moving. The right front tire sat at an unusual angle. Getting on his bare knees in the snow to wiggle his head under the frame was not the highlight of his day. Darkness was falling fast around him, but it wasn’t so dark he couldn’t determine he’d broken the axle. He was worse than stuck.
Pulling himself from the snow, he brushed his legs fiercely. “This is all your fault.”
He glared over the hood at the moose.
Moo-oo. Snort.
“Don’t you growl at me, Mister. I don’t like men very much these days.” God, what a magnificent animal. Not expecting an answer, he asked, “I don’t suppose you could point me to the nearest town?”
Beyond the moose lay miles and miles of pines. Brian turned, facing what he assumed was west. Miles and miles of snowcapped granite. He turned back to the animal.
The moose dipped his snout into the snow before flicking a fair amount into the air.
“Oh, give it up. Yes, it’s snowing and you almost got hit by a big yellow chunk of metal, but really, I’m having a worse day—forget day—I am having a worse year than you.”
The moose bellowed and rolled his eyes. Brian read, I doubt that.
“No, seriously. I have dibs on worst possible everything.”
The moose offered him what appeared to be a shrug before he turned and disappeared into the forest.
“Well, be that way!” he shouted after him, but a distant howl scared him into not saying another word. Wolves? Shivering, mostly from cold but also from fright, he scurried back into the Jeep. He had no intention of becoming dog food. What now? He could freeze to death and die on this mountain and no one knew he was here.
Brian woke with a jolt, realizing his toes hurt.
And his fingers.
“Pain. Is it frostbite?” he asked, panicking and struggling to pull the mask from his face. He didn’t want to lose his fingers or toes. Well, he didn’t want to lose his fingers, especially because he’d no longer be able to wield a paintbrush, but he was also kind of attached to his toes. He thought he had sexy toes for a guy. That was one reason he wore flip-flops most of the year. “I can’t lose my fingers. Save my fingers.”
The man stopped Brian from removing the mask and lifted a finger to his lips as he met his gaze. Brian shook his head with confusion when he got lost in the depth of his rescuer’s dark brown eyes and discovered as long as he focused on the flecks of gold in the deeper pool of brown, the painful fire wrapping his body disappeared.
“A few more minutes and I’ll take the mask off to understand what you’re saying, but right now the warm, moist air filling your lungs is the most important thing.”
Brian nodded, mesmerized by the man’s deep, lyrical voice, jumping when a big dog nosed in under the palm of his hand with a loud sniff.
“This is Shadow.” The man scratched the fur around the big dog’s neck. “Do you think you’ll be all right with her for a minute while I run down to the kitchen to get you something warm to drink?”
Brian nodded.
“Shadow.” Hawk said the dog’s name sternly when the dog kept pushing her nose under Brian’s hand. The big animal sat, her nose still under Brian’s hand. “I’m sorry; it isn’t like her to disobey. Shadow, go lay down!”
Brian sighed, suddenly exhausted. He lifted the mask off his face, realizing he could feel his fingers again and that they no longer tingled with the pins-and-needles sensation. “No. She’s fine.”
“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted then. Don’t take off that air mask; don’t mess with your IV tube, and don’t even think about standing up. I’ll get you some tea. Agreed?”
Brian wasn’t sure he liked the man’s bossy tone, but he nodded his agreement to the terms. Not that he believed he could manage standing. He knew better. It was only after the man left the room that he realized he was naked beneath the sheets. Well, almost naked. The black silk thong he was wearing didn’t exactly increase his comfort level.
A hundred worst-case scenarios filtered through his brain. It didn’t help that a small voice in his head kept reminding him he wasn’t in a hospital and the man who had just left the room was no doctor. The fact that he was utterly gorgeous didn’t go unnoticed but left him feeling no better. Handsome men could be even more dangerous than homely ones, and downright deadly to an unsuspecting heart. Unfortunately, he’d learned that lesson the hard way. Brian panicked. He ripped off the face mask and jerked out the intravenous needle. The dog sprawled over his legs whined, then yipped.
The man hadn’t seemed dangerous, but the truth was he could be a serial killer.
A voice in his head tried to reason with him. If he is a serial killer, would he take the time to get you warm first?
As he pulled his legs out from under the dog then threw them over the side of the bed, the dog pushed her muzzle into his gut and made a high pitched howling sound. Brian clutched his head and blinked rapidly. The room was spinning.
“Shh, shh.” He put his hand on the dog’s head to scratch behind her ears and ended up using the furry skull to hold his balance. “Good doggie. Don’t move.”
Standing, or trying to, he discovered his legs weren’t quite working yet and managed to fall facedown onto the wood floor. “Oh hell.”
Shadow howled louder before letting out a loud bark.
“Whoa, cowboy.” His caretaker pushed in through the door, carrying two steaming mugs. Brian looked up at him from his prone position on the floor, wondering if he’d already been drugged. He sure as hell felt weird. The man lowered the two mugs to a nightstand beside the bed and patted his dog on the head. “Good girl.”
He walked over to Brian, his boots inches away from his face. “You, on the other hand, don’t obey very well.”
Squatting down, he put his hands under Brian’s shoulders and hefted him to his feet. If Brian hadn’t been so afraid, he might have been impressed over the man’s brute strength, but as it was and not knowing the man’s intentions for bringing him home instead of to a hospital—
He joked, “You look a lot lighter than you really are.”
“Sorry,” Brian apologized, but then for the life of him couldn’t remember what for.
His rescuer got him tucked back into bed. “Hypothermia is a serious condition. I don’t want to scare you, but there can be life-threatening complications, and I need you to keep your ass in bed. You don’t want to die, do you?”
Brian’s fear fled. Knowing this man didn’t want him dead was a huge relief.
The man lifted a mug. “Tea?”
“Who are you?”
“Tobias Red Hawk, mountain rescue ranger, Glacier National Park.”
“How did I end up in your bed—naked?”
“I stripped you. The heat packs work better next to bare skin, and that isn’t my bed. Belongs to Sarah, the woman who owns the diner downstairs. She rents the upper rooms out sometimes, and tonight this was the closest, fastest shelter I could provide.”
“Diner? Downstairs?” Brian blinked, seeing double. “Hypothermia serious, hospital?”
The man answered his question, even the unvoiced ones. “My name is Tobias Red Hawk. I’m the park ranger who arrived to rescue you. I’m also a certified paramedic. The reason you’re not in a hospital right now is because the mountain is wrapped in the grip of a blizzard. The entire town is shut down.”
“Blizzard. Perfect,” Brian grumbled, savoring the first few swallows of warm tea that slid down his throat, but then as his taste buds woke up, he gagged. “Christ, what is this? It’s horrible!”
“Mostly herbs.”
“And?”
The man who’d identified him as Tobias Red Hawk chuckled. “Some things you just don’t want to know. So, what should I call you?”
Taking in the man standing over him, he decided he really didn’t believe the man planned to poison him. “My name’s” He stumbled over his name, Brian Caine. No, not Caine, not anymore. He’d gone back to Brian Van Zant. Not wanting to reveal too much, he finally said, “Brian. Just Brian.”
“Well, Just Brian, you probably should be in a hospital, but that’s not exactly possible at the moment. What’s the last thing you remember?”
“S-snow.”
Hawk smiled, pulling the blankets back up to Brian’s chin. He sat down on the edge of the bed beside him before saying, “I’m actually glad to see you shivering. It’s a good sign. Keep drinking, and I’ll try to fill in the blanks. Where are you from?”
“Ohio. Cincinnati.”
“So you’ve been on the road a few days?”
Brian nodded. “Drove straight through.”
Hawk was surprised. “Straight through? That’s got to be close to twenty-five hours on the road. Maybe you fell asleep behind the wheel and hit the tree.”
“No. I remember. It was a moose…” Brian knew he hadn’t fallen asleep, but he might be sleeping now, because only a dream could be responsible for the man staring into his eyes. God, he was gorgeous. His long, dark hair was held back in a ponytail, but even so, it reached almost to his waist. High cheekbones, dark eyes, bronze skin. He was a walking, talking wet dream. He wore a flannel shirt tucked into buckskin pants that molded to his hips and thighs, making it impossible for Brian to concentrate on what he was trying to remember. The man reached out and ruffled his hair. “Sleep. We can figure out what happened when you wake up.”
Chapter Two
♥
If Hawk ever experienced a more horrifying worst-case scenario in his life, he couldn’t remember it. One moment his patient was sleeping peacefully, and the next he was convulsing. Hawk knew without even taking a reading he’d experienced core-temperature after-drop, a condition that was often fatal even under the best medical conditions. And he definitely didn’t have prime conditions.
Hawk was determined to keep him alive. In the half hour they’d been talking, he had proven to be smart, funny, and full of spunk. He liked him. He wasn’t going to let him die. “Stay with me, Just Brian!”
Hawk lunged for the forced air warming unit. Seeing the dial read LOW BATTERY, he rigged up the AC adapter with a trembling hand and put the face mask over Brian’s nose and mouth. He grabbed his pack and rummaged. No heat packs were left. He’d already used them all. “Damn!”
I don’t have time for this. He won’t survive this.
A brilliant flash of white filled the room, followed almost immediately by a crack of thunder. The lights went out.
“No. No. No.” From past experience Hawk knew the town’s transformer had been hit. He waited for the backup generator, but it didn’t kick on.
“Shit!” He ran his hand through his hair. Having realized hours before that a power outage was not only a possibility but likely, he’d already lit several oil lamps and stoked a large fire. Thinking quickly, he prepared to do the one thing any medical professional would warn to never do under any circumstances. Except he’d passed through all likely versions of any circumstance to the scenario where this man would very likely go into cardiac arrest and die if Hawk couldn’t warm him fast. Battleground triage, take chances, do what has to be done, and keep doing everything possible until his patient recovered or passed.
Turning on the hot water valve, he drained the hot water heater of all available hot water before adding cool water to a comfortable level of warmth. Hawk returned to the room as a strobe of lightning brightened the room, and Hawk saw that his patient’s eyes were open wide.
Thunder rumbled through the Bitterroot Valley with ghostly echoes.
“Brandon?”
“No, it’s Hawk.”
“Why, Brandon? Why? How could you do this to me?”
“Hang on, pretty boy. Just hang on.” Hawk lifted Brian into his arms and ran through the dark room with him clutched to his chest. “Stay with me, buddy.”
As carefully as he could, he laid Brian into the tub of water and said, “I’m sorry; I’ve gotta do this, but it’s gonna hurt.”
Brian fought and clawed to get away from the water even before he was submerged, proving he wasn’t just a pretty boy. “Damn, how can a squirrelly guy like you, be so strong? Don’t fight me! I don’t want to hurt you.”
Hawk threw his weight against him as he closed his ears and heart to the man’s screams. He only had one goal to save Brian’s life. To him the water felt barely lukewarm, but he knew to his patient it felt like he was being fed into raging flames.
Hawk stayed strong against his struggles, but it finally took him climbing into the tub with Brian and straddling him to keep the man submerged.
Brian’s sobs racked his entire body. Hawk buried his face against his neck, saying over and over again, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
“P-please l-let m-me out-t. P-p-pleeease.”
“Oh, man, you’re killing me,” Hawk whispered softly, knowing he wouldn’t hear. It was so much easier when the hospital took over and he could put it in the hands of the doctors. This man’s life rested solely on his shoulders, and he couldn’t afford to lose his head now.
Another bolt of lightning struck, and the room shook.
“Shit!” The lightning had likely struck many of the rods rising from the roofline. He risked both their lives staying in the tub of water.
Brian shivered and chattered beneath him. Taking it as a good sign, Hawk sloshed from the tub. His clothing streamed a pool of water across the scarred wood floor. Brian lay shivering and wide-eyed against the back of the tub, too weak to move. In four quick moves Hawk was out of his wet clothing: shirt pulled over his head without unbuttoning, pants dropped, boots and socks ripped off. A second later Brian was back in his arms and carried back to the bed where Hawk rubbed his skin hard, drying and warming him at the same time.
Brian’s shivering and curses reassured him.
Finally he was dry enough to tuck under the covers. Hawk followed him in, wrapping as much of Brian’s body with his as he possibly could. As an afterthought he lifted the edge of the pile of blankets and called, “Shadow, here, now.”
♥
“Nothing can really end a marriage like finding out your husband is sleeping with your identical twin. Nothing quite puts a damper on perfectly good divorce negotiations like death.” Brian jotted his latest thoughts into his notebook before dropping it into his sweatpants pocket. He sat bleary-eyed in front of the TV, intent on the movie that had just started. His youngest sibling, Jake, kid number twelve in the line-up, effectively blocked the TV long enough to royally piss him off when he entered the room.
“I don’t know. I guess. Couldn’t sleep.” Brian sighed, he certainly wasn’t going to complain to his kid brother that every time he closed his eyes he saw Brandon kissing Michael. “Christ, Jake, you’re getting powdered sugar everywhere!”
“Do you have to watch this movie again?”
Brian ignored his sarcasm, owing Jake no explanation. The dramatic soundtrack drowned out his silent screams.
“Are you jerking off behind that pile of pillows? You’re just one sick mo-fo aren’t you? Fetishizing a race. You’re disgusting.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Jake?” He didn’t look away from the screen.
“Your Native American fetish, what else. You need help. Professional help.”
“I don’t have a weird race fetish! The movie keeps me calm.”
Jake moved in too close for comfort, sniffing the air around him. “Dude. Shower. Like seriously, you reek.”
Brian shoved him backward. He brushed crumbs off the couch, and pulled the pillow he had been leaning on out of crumb range. I don’t have a fetish. “Damn it, Jake. Get that thing away from me!”
Brian pulled his eyes away from the movie he’d memorized word for word over the last several months, The Last of the Mohicans, long enough to pummel Jake with the pillow. In retaliation Jake blew powdered sugar off the next bite of doughnut, efficiently covering his brother’s bare foot. Brian cursed and wiped.
“Go to bed, Brian. You look like hell,” Jake insisted. He lifted the edge of his brother’s robe and looked at his chest. “Daaamn, man, how much weight have you lost, dude”
“None.” Brian jerked the fabric back in place, but looking uncertain, admitted, “I don’t know.”
“Too much,” his father volunteered when he poked his head in to see what the commotion was about. With an aggravated sigh Brian pushed the POWER button on the remote, deciding it would be easier to watch television when the room was empty again. His father added, “You have to pull yourself together. Why don’t you get dressed and go into town today? I’m sure the natural history museum would love to have their favorite curator back.”