Fatal Wild Child
by
Tracy Cooper-Posey
When Seth O'Connor pulls Gabrielle Sherborne out from under her wrecked car in the middle of an icy river high in the Canadian Rockies just before Christmas, he never thought someone might actually be gunning for the infamous wild child of the famous Hollywood director, Cameron MacKenzie Sherborne III, and the family that puts up with her antics.
Told by his superiors to insert himself into the Sherborne family and protect Gabrielle, Seth learns that the former film star is anything but a brat. She’s all woman, incredibly sexy and smart, with a vulnerability that eats right through the armor over his heart. That makes doing his job suddenly very tough for Captain Seth O'Connor, for the unfriendlies are closing in…
Other books by Tracy Cooper-Posey
Eyes of a Stranger
Chronicles of the Lost Years
Case of the Reluctant Agent
Dare to Return
Diana by the Moon
Forbidden (writing as Anastasia Black)
Red Leopard
Solstice Surrender
Heart of Vengeance
Dangerous Beauty (writing as Anastasia Black)
Silent Knight
Lucifer’s Lover
Black Heart
Thief in the Night
Masquerade’s Mate
Cameo Role
Ningaloo Nights
Betting With Lucifer
Dead Double
Dead Again
Blue Knight
Blood Knot
Writing as Teal Ceagh
Beth’s Acceptance
Mia’s Return
Sera’s Gift
Eva’s Last Dance
Carson’s Night
Kiss Across Time
Beauty’s Beasts
Destiny’s Trinity
Kiss Across Swords
See http://TracyCooperPosey.com for details on each title.
Fatal Wild Child
by
Tracy Cooper-Posey
A Stories Rule Publication
STORIES RULE PUBLICATIONS
A sole proprietorship owned and operated
by Tracy Cooper-Posey
This is an original publication of Tracy Cooper-Posey
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2011 by Tracy Cooper-Posey
Text design by Tracy Cooper-Posey
Cover design by Dar Albert
Wicked Smart Designs
http://wickedsmartdesigns.com
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
FIRST EDITION: April 2011
ISBN 978-0-9869064-5-9
Cooper-Posey, Tracy
Fatal Wild Child/Tracy Cooper-Posey – 1st Ed.
To my Mum and Dad
who toured through these mountains
less than a year ago.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to my fabulous beta readers:
Shannon, Desiree, Deb, Jennifer, Ashley, Stephanie, Fedora.
Thank you, Dar, for the wonderful cover and
for your ability to mind read. Again.
Chapter One
Seth O'Connor never thought he'd find himself crouched in a defensive posture against unknown armed aggression in the middle of Jasper National Park at ten in the morning on a knock-out December day, surrounded by the Canadian Rockies he'd grown up amongst. These peaks were childhood friends.
Something had triggered his instincts, though. Something had made him hunch over. He straightened up, trying to laugh at himself. In Canada? In December? Even the bears were deeply asleep. He threw the cross-country skis and poles into the back of his truck and climbed in behind the wheel. He paused, listening.
There. The squeal of rubber on the Yellowhead, coming from Jasper. Moving fast.
He got the truck going. Someone was in a hurry. Maybe that was what had spooked him, but he didn't think so. He eased the truck along the rough track of rutted, compacted snow and nosed it out onto the highway, then waited for the car to appear. There was no need to get in front of it.
He rolled down the window. The sun was gently warming, today. It was one of those perfectly glorious days when the tourists thought it was cute to strip down to bikinis and ski boots and take photos because the ambient air was above zero, even though the snow was still a good foot thick on the ground. He turned his face up to the sun, letting the truck idle.
God, it was good to be back home. He could actually pretend he was something like a normal person once again. Reassure Mom he was alive. Drink beer and watch the Oilers get creamed.
Then the Mustang rounded the curve—barely. He saw the face of the driver and everything changed.
Her eyes were wide, fiercely focused on the road ahead. Her hands were gripped on the wheel, the knuckles white. Her face was completely bereft of color.
That was all Seth saw of the driver before the teal Mustang flashed past him, the rear fishtailing down the steep gradient. His chest squeezed and his heart landed somewhere inside his stomach and gave out a protest.
No brakes. The Mustang was a stream-lined bullet building up speed with every second.
"Jesus Christ," Seth whispered, throwing the truck into gear, and ramming his foot on the gas.
Did she know enough to use the gears to slow herself down? The handbrake?
He pushed the truck into top gear. It rattled after the teal-colored runaway as the little car rounded a curve, brushing up against the reinforced outer wall of the curve with a metal scream. Sparks jumped.
"Good girl," Seth whispered. She was trying to slow herself down. But it was a risky move. Too hard a hit and she'd go into an uncontrolled spin and fly out over the inner edge of the curve.
She kept control and shot out the other side of the hairpin bend, her velocity slightly slower than before, but still scary.
Seth wrenched the wheel, sending the truck around the bend, gaining on her. He tried to make some fast mental calculations on what to do next. Then he heard the nauseating sound of grinding gears. She was trying to slow herself down with the gears. There was no perceptible check in her speed, but she was on a straight stretch of road, where the river ran parallel and the decline was almost three in one.
There was a truck passing lane where trucks would slow to a painful inch-per-second as they climbed. Her speed was going to pick up.
Seth could feel sweat breaking out on his forehead. At the other end of this straight stretch was a curve to the left, hard and sharp. With a big pick up in speed, she'd never make it.
He looked at the river on the right. The drop off from the roadbed into the river here was shallow. A meter or two at most. And water was a softer landing than mountains.
With his decision made, Seth could feel calm descending. He dropped the shift down a gear. The engine roared as the truck surged forward. He just needed to get ahead enough to nudge her sideways...
As soon as the truck had the necessary speed, he pushed it back into top gear and kept the gas pedal flat on the floor, despite the screaming motor. The square nose of the truck came level with the low-slung Mustang. Judging carefully, he waited unt
il they were at the place where the river was deep and the road was low.
Then he hauled on the steering wheel, turning the nose of the Mustang into the water. It shot off the tarmac bed of the road, floating across air for a second or two, the heavier nose end of the car dipping down.
Then the nose hit the rocky bed at the edge of the water, just as his heavier truck's wheels crunched down into the snow-covered stony ground edging the road. He braked hard and threw himself out of the truck.
The Mustang's engine was still running. The rear of the Mustang flipped up, showing the axle still turning, then the whole car toppled over into the icy water.
Seth stripped off his coat and sweater and pulled at the ties on his boots, moving fast. He tore off everything but his boxers, his heart pounding. The touch of the snow on his feet didn't even impact. He ran for the river and the now silent Mustang as it settled slowly into the raging water, sinking down.
* * * * *
Gabrielle realized she was still gripping the steering wheel, even though her knees were dangling against it. It took an effort of will to let go of the wheel. Even then her flesh stuck to the leather and she had to peel away her hands.
Her head hurt. Her heart was thundering her ears. And she could hear water.
Water!
With a gasp, she remembered exactly where she was and tried to sit up. That was why her head hurt. She was hanging upside down in her car, in the river. If she didn't get out, the water would push through the windows in a few seconds and she'd drown. Already she could feel the deep freeze chill from the water all around her.
She was going to have to move through it to get out. No choice. If she didn't, she'd die.
Tears gathered in her eyes. Why her? Why now? She'd tried so hard...
She pummeled her thigh. "Stop it, stop it!" she muttered.
First things first. Get rid of the seat belt. She reached for her hip and pushed the button. She crumpled to the roof of the car and realized that she now had to act fast, for she landed in six inches of ice cold water that had seeped in through the windows. "Oh my god!" She tried to lift her hands and knees out of it all at once, but that was impossible. The stuff was barely above freezing. Her jeans and scoop-necked sweater, which she had worn to keep the conservative members of the family happy now seemed like bikinis in a gale. Inadequate.
Her coat was in the back seat. Unreachable. And she couldn't feel her feet at all. Despite her boots, they were already blocks of ice. So were her hands. And she still had to open one of the windows, take a breath and swim for her life.
Gabrielle realized she was terrified. If she couldn't hold her breath long enough to reach the surface, or swim strongly enough to reach the bank, or find warmth and shelter once she got out of the water, she was going to die. That was the ugly truth. She had maybe fifteen seconds to pull herself together and do this.
She looked around the car. She'd faced several crises in her life. More than most twenty-eight year olds, she guessed. Why did they always happen when she was alone?
That was when the window next to her imploded and icy river water washed over her. She just had time to draw a deep lungful of cold air, then the water pushed her back against the other side of the car. She struggled against it, knowing she had to reach the open window. The water was so cold, she had to fight not to gasp at the chill of it and let go of her breath.
A hand was around her wrist, pulling. She opened her eyes and saw a pair of very blue ones staring at her. He had one hand on the window frame and was drawing her out of the car.
Gabrielle let him, knowing he would help her to the surface, that she didn't have to do this alone after all. She kicked for the surface. The cold was immense and her jeans were weighing her down. When her head popped above the surface of the fast running water, the air actually felt warm. She gasped.
The man with the fierce blue eyes and black hair was right next to her, his hand still on her wrist. "Swim for the bank," he told her, his voice sharp and commanding. "Hurry."
There was no question this time whether she would swim, even though the cold was sapping all her energy. She pushed for the bank and the white mounds of snow there. About three feet from the edge she felt rocks beneath her hands and knees as the water grew shallower.
The man's hands were around her waist, lifting her. Then under her knees. She was scooped up, steaming water. She was already shivering.
"Wh...where?" It was all she could manage to speak. Her teeth were chattering too badly.
"My truck." He was crossing the rocks nimbly despite carrying her and she could feel his body working against her hip and thigh and shoulder. For the first time she realized that what she could see of him was naked. It didn't alarm her. She had seen plenty of naked men in her life and right now, it seemed like a lesser concern. With this man, she was sure there was a reason for it beyond the obvious.
He was putting her on the ground. On her feet. "Can you stand?"
"Yes," she said uncertainly. She kept her hands on his wide, tanned shoulders. Where had he been at this time of year to get such a tan?
She shuddered violently and he leaned her back against the side of the Chevy truck they were standing next to. There deep teal-colored scratches along the sides of it.
He was tugging at her jeans. Undoing them. "We have to get you out of your wet clothes," he said. "You'll freeze, otherwise."
She registered the fact that he was wearing boxers and nothing else. It coupled up with the scratch marks on the side of the truck. "You pushed my car into the river," she said, as he pulled her sweater up over her head and threw it into the back of the truck.
His painted blue eyes locked with hers for a moment and she saw implacable will behind them. Then it was gone, and he was bending to deal with her boots. "Better than trying to take the curve at the bottom of this stretch, believe me."
But she was caught by the broad expanse of his back as he worked at the zipper of her boot. There was an ugly red splash mark, low down where his ribs began, over his kidneys. It looked like a recent wound, still healing.
Her bare foot was placed on raw rock and her other boot worked free. Then her jeans and panties were stripped from her without ceremony or comment. She was given no chance to even be coy about it. She gasped as the sodden garments were dropped into the truck with her sweater, and looked up at him as he reached around her and unfastened her bra.
"You want to die because of false modesty?" he murmured, and pulled the lace cups away and dropped them on top of her other clothes.
Naked, her hair running rivulets down her back, she shivered and held her arms against her chest. "Now what?"
But he was already reaching past her into the truck. He withdrew a tee-shirt, slipped it over her head and pushed her arms into it and held up her hair in one hand. "Don't let your hair drip on it," he said. "Here, hold it for a moment."
She held the sopping bundle of locks he'd gathered up and away from the cotton, while he tugged the hem down over her hips. The tee-shirt had to be his. It was still warm from a recent body. Scent stole into her nostrils, something spicy and masculine.
The hem came to mid-thigh on her.
"Hold out your arm," he said.
She held out her free arm and he slid a heavy winter coat over it.
"Drop your hair over the coat," he told her, "and slide your other arm in the sleeve."
She pushed her arm into the other sleeve and was enveloped in his scent completely. The coat covered her from knees to chin. As he zipped it up, she shivered—perhaps for the last time, she thought. Warmth surrounded her. The coat was still hot from his body.
He picked her up, literally lifting her with his hands under her arms. He plopped her onto the passenger seat of the truck. He picked up her feet and chafed them with his hands, warming and drying them. "Can you feel your feet? Can you feel what I'm doing to them?"
"Yes."
He wriggled her toes with his fingers, one at a time. She could feel all of them.
He was testing for frostbite, for numbness. Finally, satisfied, he slid thick socks over her feet. "I'll get the heater going. Keep your feet up against the air flow. Your hands, too." He turned her to face the windscreen.
"What's your name?" she asked.
His eyes widened, as if he were surprised. "Cap—" He grimaced, the expression pulling the corners of his mouth down. "Seth. Seth O'Connor."
"Thank you, Seth O'Connor."
He nodded. "I'm going to take you back to my cabin. It's closer than Jasper by forty minutes and you have to get warm and dry. And you probably don't want to arrive back in Jasper looking the way you do."
He shut the door, rounded the nose of the truck and leaned in to turn on the motor and get the heater running. He picked up jeans, boots and a sweater from the seat beside her and shut the door again, as warmth blasted out from the vents in the console, washing over her in welcome waves.
Gabrielle pushed her sock-covered feet up against the floor vents and watched as Seth O'Connor moved to the front of the truck again. He bent, stripping the wet boxers, she assumed, and donning the jeans and boots. She saw the ugly red scar on his back and the well-muscled, tanned shoulders and wondered again about Seth O'Connor. He wore no dog tags, but hadn't he been about to introduce himself as "Captain"?
He climbed into the truck, his long legs covered in denim and his torso covered by a green sweater that seemed to make his eyes even bluer by comparison. "Doing okay?" he asked.
"Better than," she said honestly. "You saved my life."
He shook his head. "You did a fair portion of that yourself. I followed you for about two miles before I found a way to get you off the road. You did a damned good job of staying alive." He put the truck into gear and steered it back onto the highway.
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