It occurred to him that she might be hurt. For all he could see in the dark, the car hadn’t sustained any heavy damage. The side closest to the wall was probably scraped up, given the screeching noise he’d heard, but it wasn’t bashed in. It appeared as if she’d just lost control at the bend of the road and ended up sideways up the other side of the gully. Maybe she had knocked herself a bit senseless during the spin-about. What other reason would there be for just sitting there? She had no seat belt on, so maybe she’d hit her head on the steering wheel or side window. Of course, the fact that she had the little convertible roadster out in a storm, racing along single-track highland roads, didn’t speak well for her being all that safety-minded in the first place.
She jumped suddenly and looked down, then began squirming in her seat. He couldn’t see into the gloomy interior of the car well enough to know for sure, but he’d bet the water had just found its way in. She looked back at him, then down at her feet, then back at him, clearly panicked if the terror etched on her face was any indication. She seemed to be wriggling about enough to indicate she wasn’t too severely injured. Surely she could get the damn top unlocked. If she’d been worried about what the rain might do to the exposed leather seats, the water coming in through the bottom of the car should erase that concern.
Again he pointed to where the windshield and canvas met and shouted, “Pop the locks!” He made flicking motions with his fingers, putting them right next to the glass in hopes she could see clearly what it was he meant for her to do. He was hip-deep, freezing cold water rushing around him, literally freezing his balls off, and the adrenaline punch that had sent him racing out here in nothing more than a damp towel knotted around his hips was beginning to level off to the point that he was well and truly feeling the effects of it. He was starting to tremble from the exposure, and his hands rattled a little against the windshield.
Lightning strikes continued to rain down at alarmingly close range, with the accompanying thunder reverberating through the ground moments later. And he was rapidly losing patience with his rescuee. If her antics were any indication, the water level in the car was rising rapidly. There was only one thing to do. He waded back through the gully, slipping in the mud and muck several times before getting back up onto the bank, losing his towel completely as he scraped his way to a stand. He didn’t bother trying to get it back—there was no time. It was risky leaving her as it was, even if only for the minute it would take to get to the house and back. But he didn’t see where he had much choice. He could hardly break into the car bare-handed.
He raced bare-assed back up the lane to the croft and let himself into the mud room, never more appropriately named as he was covered in it, and snatched his wet pants off the floor.
Jinty, excited by his sudden reappearance, barked in excitement, dancing around his legs.
“Aye, girl, aye, a bit of excitement out there.” He gave her head a quick scrub, then grimaced at the muck he’d matted in her fur. He tried to pull on the pants, but they were so wet and his body so muddy he didn’t have time for that battle. “Bollocks.” He unclipped his knife from his pants before tossing them back to the floor, then grabbed his boxers instead and yanked them on, shivering as the wet material clung to even wetter skin. He’d catch his death saving her from her own. Idiot woman. Jinty raced to the door ahead of him.
“No’ this time, sweet. I’ll be back in a flash.” And with that he took off around the croft and back down the lane. If she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—save herself, he had no choice but to do it for her.
Bree slumped down in her seat and let out a long, shaky breath when the lunatic banging on her window suddenly ran off into the night. Where the hell had she landed that naked men ran around in the middle of a storm? She immediately regrouped. She had no idea if he was going to come back, but she knew she had to get the hell out of this car. When he’d shown up, any thoughts of rescue had quickly fled with one look at him. He was clearly deranged. She’d thought maybe she’d be safer in the car than out. Her heart had about stopped when he’d tried the door, then banged on the window.
Then the water had come rushing in over her feet. Drown in her car ... or escape into the clutches of a madman. Honestly, it was like a bad suspense novel. Who’d believe this? The storm and high winds raged on unabated, as did the lightning and the thunder. Even having nowhere to run, and a possible raving lunatic on the loose, staying inside the stranded car was no longer an option as the water level was rapidly rising.
“Calm down, take deep breaths. And think, dammit. Think.” But all she could picture was the wild man outside her car, banging on her window and making obscene hand gestures. He’d kept stabbing his finger at her and shouting something she couldn’t hear. She turned the key in the ignition to trigger the battery, hoping to get the windows to roll down, but nothing.
She pounded her fists on the steering wheel, frustrated, scared out of her mind, beyond fatigued. Not just from the storm, but from ... well, her entire life. She let her head fall back. “Think, Bree. There’s got to be a way out of this.” She didn’t have anything heavy enough to break the window with ... except maybe her laptop. The water crept higher—it was up to seat level now, and she tried to pull her legs up, but she was trapped in the deep bucket seat with the steering wheel, stick shift, and door keeping her penned in. Why-oh-why had she listened to Dana and rented a damn convertible hot rod?
“Shit!” She looked up. “You fucking idiot!” She was sitting here, drowning ... in a goddamn convertible. How had she let herself get so freaked out that she’d somehow become the embodiment of every stupid heroine she’d ever read about and hated? Christ, she deserved whatever fate was in store for her.
She reached up to release the locking mechanism ... right as the wild man’s face reappeared in the passenger window. She froze. Shit, shit, shit! But it wasn’t until he pulled out the knife that she screamed.
A flash of lightning outlined him in a sudden burst of light, creating a strobe effect just as he swung his fist up, blade clenched in his grip, and brought it down, plunging it into the canvas roof.
She screamed again and fought to climb out from behind the steering wheel but she was well and truly trapped. The blade of the knife came through above the passenger seat, preventing her from reaching for the other lock. Not that she was interested in opening the top now ... although he was coming in one way or the other, if the look on his face was any indication. The only weapon she had was her laptop. One good crack to the head ...
Except it had been flung to the floor on the passenger side and was currently under water. Plus there was the little matter of a knife blade between it and her. Her attacker pulled at the blade and began sawing with it, ripping at the canvas. Bree plunged her arm into the water swirling up to her lap now and tugged off one of her shoes. Shaking hard with both the cold and an overdose of adrenaline, she took the sopping-wet shoe and began beating at the knife, hoping to make him drop it. Not that this would slow him down much, but then she’d at least have the weapon.
“Hey!” he shouted angrily, loudly enough so she could hear him clearly. Or maybe that was because there was now a gaping hole in the roof of her car. “What the bloody hell is wrong with you?”
What, she was supposed to let him destroy her car and attack her? Wasn’t she already having a bad enough day? She just kept beating on his hand until he pulled it back out. With the knife, unfortunately. “I’m trying to rescue your wet, ungrateful arse and giving myself a nice case of pneumonia doin’ it,” he raged. “Maybe yer tryin’ to kill yourself and I’m just getting in the way. So fine, fine.” He lifted his hands as if in surrender.
“Saving me?” she shouted, her nerves so badly frayed at this point that she simply snapped. “Saving me?” With the knife safely removed, she reached out and popped the other latch, then pushed the top back far enough so she could climb out.
Freedom!
She used the steering wheel to pull herself onto the awkwardly
angled seat, having to clutch at it to keep from falling. The rain beat down on her head and the heavy wind snatched at her hair, but she hardly cared at this point. She was already soaked to the waist, anyway. Standing up a little made the car list dangerously and sent her would-be attacker scrambling out of the way. He slipped and slid in the muck, so soaked and covered in mud already that she could hardly make him out. She glanced around, trying to figure out what her best bet was to get safely out of the car without sending it all the way over.
“Climb out the high side,” he called out.
She looked over to find he was on the edge of the swollen gully. It appeared he wasn’t entirely naked after all, but close enough. He had to be completely insane, regardless. Trying to save her. Right. Probably some dotty nutcase that lived in a cave in the hills or something and had seen her go off the road, figured she’d be ripe for the picking. Why else was he out in the middle of the night in his boxers?
“Are ye comin’ down or are ye going tae stand about in the storm all night? The water didn’t get you but the lightning still might.”
Now that Bree knew she wasn’t going to die, at least not immediately, she realized that once out of the car and on solid ground ... then what? Where was she supposed to go? And what the hell was she going to do about the nutjob Scot, who, despite his claims, hadn’t left her to do as she pleased? Even if he meant her no harm, and she certainly wasn’t sure of that by any stretch, she didn’t really fancy whiling away the nighttime hours with him until daybreak rolled around and she could see some sign of life she could hike toward. Maybe she could run, just flat-out run, find something to hide behind, or whatever. It was so dark now he’d never find her. Except he likely knew this area far better than she did.
“Come on, jump!” he shouted, pacing the side of the gully. “We could be inside and dry by now. Just wade around the front and I’ll help pull you up the bank. You’ll get yer clothes muddy, but there’s no hope for that now, so no sense in worryin’ about it.”
He thought she was worried about her clothes? And why, suddenly, did he actually sound almost ... normal? Wait. Had he said they could be inside? And dry? She swung her gaze around, looking for lights or a nearby house, but from her crouched position, clutching the steering wheel, the wind plastering her hair into her eyes, she couldn’t see squat. She swung her gaze back to him. Did she dare even allow herself to contemplate—
“I’m no’ leaving until you get out, but I’m not so sure what good I’ll be other than gettin’ in the way. I can’t get around to that side, but if you get in and make your way around the front of the car, the water’s only about waist-deep. Just take your time, go slow. I’ll pull you out. But you need to get away from the car. Upstream.”
He’d gone from raging attacker to cajoling rescuer. A new ploy, perhaps? Or had her fertile imagination just taken one look at a naked wild man and run with it? She could hardly be blamed, given the extreme circumstances ... Could it be he really was a Good Samaritan? The whole situation was too surreal. Whatever the case, he wasn’t going anywhere, and he seemed a great deal calmer now. And she had nowhere to turn.
What she couldn’t do was stay crouched on the seat of her sportscar in a raging electrical storm one moment longer. So she made the split-second decision to work with him. If he thought she was being agreeable, maybe he’d let his guard down. She could use him to help her out, then take off at the first opportunity. She hadn’t forgotten he was armed with a knife, but there wasn’t much she could do about that at the moment. Maybe if he thought she wasn’t a threat of any kind, he’d be lax enough so she could snatch the knife.
It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all she had at the moment.
“Okay,” she called through the howling wind. “I’m climbing out the high side.”
“Jump clear, use the car for leverage,” he instructed, sounding tense but remarkably sane all of a sudden.
Balancing her weight by holding on to the windshield frame, she propped her foot on the skinny edge of the raised window, which was harder than it looked. She silently counted to three, then hoisted herself up and leaped into the rushing gully waters. The car rocked dangerously as she pushed off, but she didn’t—couldn’t—look behind her to see if it had rolled or not. She was too busy finding her footing in the water and muck. You should have taken your other shoe off, she thought as she stumbled and fought her way around the front of the car—which was still upright and partially wedged on the stone wall framing the opposite side of the gully. And she’d left the other one back in the car. Along with her backpack and her purse ... and well, everything else she’d taken with her when she’d fled this morning. Smart. Real smart.
But there was no way she could retrieve anything at the moment. She was stuck out in the middle of nowhere, in a storm, with a half-naked man who may or may not be completely mad. No identification. She tried not to think about her laptop, presently in the watery grave of the car. Everything gone now. Not that there was anything to lose, really. She shuddered and it was only in part because of the murky water rushing around her waist as she continued with her painstakingly slow, slipping, sliding progress around the front of the car.
It struck her, though, even in the midst of her current situation, that instead of being horrified by the loss of her accumulated hard work, as she should have been, given the enormity of the consequences ... she felt strangely freed.
There was a sudden large splash, and she looked up from the slow, deliberate pace she was attempting, trying hard not to slip and go under ... thinking maybe the car had come loose ... only to find her rescuer presently wading toward her. As he drew closer, a particularly violent lightning strike illuminated his features.
She’d been so overwhelmed with her predicament, all she’d noticed before was that he was wild-looking ... and mostly naked.
The unearthly white flash of light cast him in a rugged, harsh relief. His face was angular, his jaw a hard, square line. His eyes were bottomless pools of black, his long, dark hair plastered to his head and neck, reaching all the way to his shoulders. Broad shoulders, she noted. Muscular, in a lean, defined way.
He reached a hand toward her. She’d expected something broad, with blunt, work-roughened fingers. So the refined hand with the long, almost elegant fingers surprised her.
“Come, lass,” he said, his voice roughly cajoling but impatient. He beckoned her with his hand. “I dinnae know about you, but I’ve had all of this wet I can stand for a night.” He braced his weight, squared his hips, and reached for her.
She looked from his hand to his face, and back to his hand.
Then he grinned. And it changed everything.
“No’ to worry. Ye’ve had me in this water so long anything I have that might do ye harm is frozen.”
She couldn’t help it. She laughed. Not because he suddenly looked harmless. Far from it. No matter the fact that he was standing thigh-deep in water, bedraggled and shivering ... this man would never look harmless. Not with a smile like that.
She laughed because this whole episode was so absurd that there was nothing left to do but laugh. “And if I don’t get out of this water, I’ll be too frozen to care what you do.”
“Now that’s the smartest thing you’ve said all night.”
She could only hope so. She reached out and took his hand.
Chapter 4
Her hand was slender and cold to the touch. Not a surprise, given the circumstances. What was a surprise was the strength in her grip. Thus far, she’d struck him as an entirely helpless female—and somewhat flighty as well.
“Grab on to my wrist,” he said, reaching past her hand to take firm hold of her arm. “Our fingers are too slippery.”
Once he had a good grip, he didn’t waste time. He turned away from her and began to guide her out. The sheeting rain and heavy winds hindered his forward progress, forcing him to duck his head down, barely able to see his way to the bank. The water was running higher and faster now, and i
t was so slippery and muddy he wasn’t sure how he was going to get up and out again, much less pull her up behind him. But that was all he allowed himself to focus on. Not the droll tone in her voice just now, one that hinted that she was someone of far greater intellect than he’d originally assumed. Nor did he let himself think about her face, all pointed chin and angular cheekbones, with a veritable waterfall of hair billowing out about it, dwarfing her narrow features, even with the rain quickly reducing it to a heavy, wet mop. No, no point in thinking about her as anything other than a major pain in the arse. And an unwelcome intruder into his solitude.
It would only be for the night. He’d survive. By morning the flash flooding would have abated and they’d haul her car out of there and see what was what. He’d get Alastair to come take a look at it, tow it in for him. And yes, he’d offer to replace the canvas top, if the rest was salvageable. How was he supposed to know she’d finally figured it out? He’d apologize later. They’d almost reached the bank. Now that the car wasn’t providing a breakfront for them, they were in the narrow section of the gully where the water was rushing unabated. With the wall lining the other side, there was no other choice but to find a way to crawl out this side. He scanned the edge for the least-steep angle out, but visibility was well limited ... and it really didn’t matter much at this point. He did look back then. “I’m going to lift you out first.”
Her face was set in determined lines as she braced herself against the current, but she didn’t argue. She simply nodded instead.
He braced himself as best as he could, then pulled her closer. “Hold on to my shoulders, and I’ll give you a leg up and out.”
She nodded again, then turned so the water came at her side and bracketed her legs in the muck before tentatively putting her hands on his shoulders. At no time did she so much as look at his face.
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