Corie watched him for a few minutes, and when she was certain he was peacefully sleeping, she rose from the side of the bed. She tossed another log on the fire and quietly left the room. A few logs and kindling, and soon the fire in the living room was blazing. Corie turned and saw the sofa silently calling out to her, as the full effect of this crazy night hit her. Quickly, she changed out of the wet sweats she was still in. Then she crept over and laid her totally fatigued body down on the soft cushions, wrapping the remaining blankets tightly around her.
Her eyes slowly drifted closed, but her thoughts were still quite alive. The night had been one that she would not want to experience again. Never in her wildest dreams would she imagine a night like this could be real. This was something more along the lines of a storyline plot that she would put in one of her novels. It was still unbelievable that it had actually happened.
It really was a miracle she had found Alek and another that they made it back to the house…alive. It seemed that every step forward, something pushed them back. But they did it. Somehow, together they made it back to the house. How she had managed to get a completely lost, injured Alek out of the car and through the deep snow was unbelievable. Faced again with the same situation, Corie still couldn’t believe it would end as well as it did. “Thank you,” she quietly whispered. “Thank you.”
Finally, the adrenaline rush that kept her going for hours vanished and Corie let herself be carried away into the darkness of slumber as the wild storm continued to rage outside. This was a storm she would never forget.
Corie woke up feeling chilled. She shifted uneasily in her warm cocoon of fuzzy blankets so that she could check the time on her wristwatch. The room was noticeably cold to her exposed arm causing goosebumps to pop up on her skin. According to her watch, she had slept for a mere three hours. Certainly not enough time to make up for the exhaustion of the previous night.
She sighed deeply as a glance over to the fireplace showed only glowing embers and no flames. Corie was already tired of having to keep the fire going, and it again needed more wood. A lot more wood. Winter had finally lost its appeal.
“Last night,” she mumbled as she slid further under the warm covers, “was completely unreal.” Before she found the energy to get up to toss another log onto the dying fire, Corie’s thoughts ran through the excitement of the preceding evening.
How could Alek have been out driving on a night like that? It was a full-blown snow-almost-up-to-her butt blizzard, and he was driving a car that was never meant to see a single snowflake, much less a storm of this severity. Was he stupid? Or just crazy? Or both? One thing he was, without a doubt, was drop-dead gorgeous even with the bruises. He certainly wasn’t the type of guy that she usually went for. Alek’s his hair went past his shoulders, and leather jacket was a big contrast to the perfectly styled business suit wearing men in her past. Who was he? Why did he look like a hoodlum? A hoodlum that drove a Mercedes Benz.
“Oh no!” Corie exclaimed as she sprang up to a sitting position. “What if he stole that car? What if he’s a wanted criminal? What if…oh good Lord, what have I gotten myself into!”
Suddenly very nervous, she popped off the sofa and started to pace the room. During one lap past the fireplace, she added the extra logs that were needed to heat up the room. “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!” she said over and over again as her very active imagination ran wild. Then she stopped dead in her tracks.
Corie cocked an ear in the silent room, waiting and listening for the sound that she thought she heard. Was it a real or just part of her crazy eventful mind? It wasn’t the wind nor the trees swaying in the storm, it had been more of a human sound, a moan or a groan maybe. Then abruptly she heard it again. Wide-eyed Corie turned toward the direction of her office. Then for the third time, she heard the sound, the low, soulful moan that was indeed coming from that room.
Wrapping herself in a blanket, Corie crept quietly towards the back room. For a moment she hesitated before looking inside. This stranger now frightened her. She was stuck completely alone with him and with the storm still violently raging outside. There was no way for either of them to leave.
To get out…to get away.
She took a deep breath to steady her frantic nerves then she slowly stepped into the room. While the light was dim, Corie could still see quite clearly. First, her eyes noticed that the fire had burned down, and then she looked toward the bed while her heart raced crazily in her chest. He was still lying there asleep, which was a great relief to her. Now the images of him jumping out to attack her could subside for a moment. In fact, he didn’t look capable of much at all.
Once again, her concern for him, outweighed her previous fear, as another moan escaped from Alek. Corie found herself at the side of the daybed peering down at her houseguest. His face was covered with a sheen of sweat, the meaning of which did not bode well for him. Her hand automatically reached out for his forehead, immediately realizing that he was burning up.
“Damn it! What else is going to go wrong!” she cried out in frustration. Her anger only lasted a quick moment, before her rational side took over. Corie quickly formed a plan in her head. Before she headed off to the kitchen, a few logs helped to rekindle the fire. Even though Alek was burning up with fever, she knew that she had to keep him warm and in a house with no heat, that was not going to be easy.
After a quick trip upstairs to try to find even more blankets, Corie went to the kitchen where she earlier had filled a pot with snow so that when it melted she would have water to use. She carefully carried a bowl of cool water and a towel over to his bedside. She placed it on the side table and sat down gently next to him.
His handsome face was bruised on the forehead and left cheek. The cut above his eye had closed, but dried blood was still matted in his light-brown hair and was streaked across his face. His left eye was swollen, and the skin around it was darkening. The dusky blue hues were marring his perfect features.
Corie pulled the layers of blankets down to his waist and saw that the shirt he had on was soaked through. There was no way she could leave him in that sweat, drenched shirt, so she grabbed a pair of scissors off her desk and cut the wet shirt off him. The tattered rag was dropped and instantly forgotten on the floor.
She then placed a soft washcloth into the bowl wetting it thoroughly. Starting with his face, she delicately washed him over and over again trying to cool his body temperature down. The dried blood was removed from his pale features as Corie did the best she could to get the matted mess out of his hair. She carefully placed a bandage over the cut on his forehead.
Only once did he stir and waken. His shiny fever-filled eyes met hers for a moment as he faintly asked for water. Corie ran for a glass and was able to get a few Tylenol down him also. He then sank back into the bed and immediately fell back into the oblivion of the fever.
After spending several long hours bathing his face and chest, she finally took a break. Corie was exhausted. His high fever had him alternating between hot sweats and cold chills. All she knew to do was bath him to try to lower his body temperature. It was hard to get him to wake up to take any Tylenol. She felt almost as lost as she did when they were out in the blizzard.
Still exhausted, Corie headed to the kitchen to make herself something to eat hoping that a bit of nourishment would invigorate her. Quickly she made herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Once again, Corie gave thanks for having a gas stove and not electric as she made herself a hot cup of tea. Then she took several minutes for herself and ate her sandwich at the kitchen table. While the interior of the house was silent, outdoors was full of howling winds and whipping snow. Mother Nature was having fun with this manic storm as she blew the still heavily falling snow almost sideways. The weather was positively frightening.
Refilling her mug with more hot tea, Corie went back to check on Alek. Much to her dismay, he did not look any better. In fact, he looked worse. Once again, she started the process of washing him down with the wat
er over and over again. The hours passed and the day darkened into night, but still, she stayed by his bedside trying to break the fever. During this time he did not wake up, so she was unable to get any fluids or Tylenol into him. She prayed he wasn’t dehydrated, but suspected he was
By the time night fell, she was past exhaustion. The only thing that kept her awake was sheer determination. Finally, around ten o’clock and after another bed bath for Alek, Corie could take no more. She dragged herself to the living room and grabbed her blankets from the sofa. Absently, she threw another log on the fire before she returned to Alek. Then she wrapped herself in the warm bedclothes and curled up on the floor next to the bed and fell instantly to sleep.
The floor was rock hard. The carpeting had done nothing to cushion her aching body. Corie woke up to stiff muscles and a seriously pounding head. The room was still completely dark, and the fire had died back down to embers. Slowly she untangled herself from her blankets and carefully stretched her tightened body.
Hours had passed, and while she was still notably tired. The sleep Corie had gotten did little to help to revive her exhausted body. She threw the last of the logs onto the fire and then turned her attention once again to Alek. He lay quietly in the small bed, his handsome face desperately pale under the bruises and sheets below him were drenched in his sweat.
Corie easily made her way through the dark house that she knew like the back of her hand. Soon she had fresh, clean sheets out of the closet and was ready to change the bed. This, however, was not something she had ever done before. Making the bed was easy, just not with a lifeless person still in it, but she could not leave Alek lying on the damp sheets.
It was hard work, and after a few false starts, Corie figured out the best way to get the clean sheets under Alek. It wasn’t the smoothest made bed, but it would do for now. She had also used her scissors to cut the sweat pants off him too. They were also too damp for him to wear. When she tucked him in again, he was wearing only underwear. During all of the moving of his unconscious body, there was not a sign of life from him except his labored breathing and the slow rise and fall of his chest.
Corie bathed his face over and over again. Then during an early morning hour, Alek began to get restless. Jumbled words started to slip out from his lips, very incoherent at first, and then Corie was able to make out a few disjointed phrases. She heard him mumble about someone named Ethan and then a Caroline.
“Get…away from me,” he murmured softly. “Caroline…go…away.”
The pain in his voice tore at her soul. Corie sat back a moment just staring at Alek. She had felt the agony that those few words had expressed. It was an emotion that she knew all too well. It took a very long time for a broken heart to heal and sometimes she wondered if it ever would.
Corie watched Alek’s eyes moving back and forth underneath his closed eyelids. She knew him to be deep in a dream with his unconscious demons. Whoever this Caroline was, Corie instantly disliked her.
After a little while, he seemed to calm down as he slept past his dream. The clock on the bookshelf showed that daylight was soon approaching. Since Alek appeared to be holding his own right now, Corie headed to the kitchen. As she heated up water for tea, a package of PopTarts became her breakfast.
Nibbling on the sweet pastries, Corie noticed that the weather did not seem as harsh as it had been. While it was still snowing, it was not coming down as hard as it had been and the winds seemed to have diminished.
“Maybe this is a sign of things to come,” she said to herself. “If the weather is breaking, then hopefully Alek’s fever won’t be too far behind. I’m not sure how much more of this I can handle. I am so damn tired.”
The whistling of the tea kettle had Corie moving away from the window and over to the stove. A mug of steaming tea was just what she needed right now. There was a lot of thinking to do. On the one hand, she was proud of herself for saving Alek. Never in a million years, would she have thought she could hike through a blizzard like she did. It was an insane thing to have done, but it saved a man’s life. Now she was stuck in her house, with a very sick stranger and she had no way out. At what cost to herself was this going to be? Until she got to know him better, Corie knew that she had to be always aware of him at all times. Was this something she was going to live to regret?
Chapter 7
The wind howled all through the afternoon, whipping the snow and dropping heavily laden branches to the ground. Corie napped for a while knowing that she had to recharge her body or fall victim to the consequences.
A couple hours of uninterrupted sleep had done wonders for her. While eight hours or more was what she really needed, the invigorating nap brought her back to at least a functional state.
She tiptoed into Alek’s room and noticed he didn’t look as flushed with a fever as he did before. Reaching over she felt his forehead and smiled, the fever was gone. Her diligence and care had worked. Corie tucked the covers in around him and left the room with a smile. As nervous as she had been the previous night about who this stranger was, she had a feeling there was a lot more to Alek than met the eye. The temporary notion that he could be dangerous was pushed back. She figured it was a product of her overactive imagination.
Even though he didn’t look like he should have been driving an expensive car, maybe she had been hasty to have judged him the way she did. Sure, his hair was long, and he was dressed totally wrong for the weather, but that made him stupid, not a danger. Corie had looked at his leather jacket and boots. Since she wasn’t sure if he had anything else to wear in the car, she hung up the jacket to dry and noticed that it was from a very expensive designer. She wondered, not for the first time, who Alek really was.
Sitting on her sofa watching the fire blaze in the hearth, Corie imagined what type of hero Alek would be in one of her novels. He could be one of those self-made billionaires traveling around without a care in the world. Maybe he got the jacket at a thrift shop, but that wouldn’t explain the rented Mercedes. Most people rent more moderately priced cars. Or what if he was royalty from some little country and he was trying to find out what life out of the spotlight was about. Corie ignored the fact that he spoke with a British accent. “Didn’t they all talk that way in those Hallmark movies anyway,” she giggled. Corie let her vivid imagination run with Alek being a runaway prince. Doesn’t the prince always fall in love with the lowly commoner and whisk her back to his castle? She grabbed the notebook she always kept handy and started jotting down ideas for another book.
Late afternoon came around, and Corie was curled up on the sofa reading by candlelight when she heard a voice calling out. She popped up off the couch and walked softly to her office. Alek was sitting on the side of the bed wrapped in a blanket.
“Hey, you’re awake,” she said with a smile. “How’re you doing?”
“I’m alive. I feel like shit, but I’m still here. Why’s it so cold?” he asked pulling the blanket tighter around him.
Corie tossed a couple more logs on the low fire. She already had to go outside to stock up on wood twice so far. “We lost power a long time ago, so the fireplaces are all we have for heat. I have a generator, but for some reason, I can’t get it to work. It figures the one time I really need it, it won’t start.”
“At least you have these to help keep the house from getting ice cold,” Alek said as he nodded towards the fireplace. “Would you have anything for a headache?” Alek hated asking her, but his head was pounding.
“Sure. Do you feel strong enough to come out into the living room?”
Alek wanted to get up, stretch his legs and move around. He wasn’t used to being idle for so long, but there was also one small problem. “Yes, I will come out there, but…umm, do you have my clothes?” He was wanted to get out of this room for a little while, but he was only in his underwear, and he remembered putting on some sweats that she had given him. “Didn’t I have more than just pants on?”
Corie was confused for a minute because sh
e knew she had cut the sweats off of him. He didn’t have pants on. “Ah, you don’t have any pants on. Your jeans are still wet, and the sweatpants you started with got too sweaty with the fever, so I had to cut them off,” she said blushing. Yes, she just admitted that she had seen this strange man in his underwear.
He chuckled to himself. “Sorry, Luv. Pants are underwear where I come from. You wouldn’t happen to have another pair of sweats I could use?”
“I’ll run upstairs and look. Give me a minute.” Corie flashed Laz a smile and headed out of the room to see what she could find for him. She was just glad that he didn’t say anything about her seeing him almost naked.
Alek sat there in the quiet of the room trying to get his head around what had happened. Somehow, he ended up in the middle of a snowstorm with the rental car into a tree. He knew he had no business driving in that weather. Hell, he hated to drive when it just rained. It rarely snowed in London, so what did he know about driving in it?
While he was still tired, he was feeling better enough to finally have a somewhat clear head. Alek had gotten his first good look at his rescuer just now. Even though she was in baggy clothes and her hair was in a messy bun, he could tell that she was still gorgeous. She piqued his curiosity, and he wondered what she was all about.
He didn’t think she had recognized him either. When Corie asked his name, he gave her the one that only his parents called him – Alek. Everyone else on the planet called him Laz. It only took a brief moment for him to decide that he didn’t want her to know he was a famous rock musician. He wanted her to get to know him for him, not who he was, how much money he had or what he could do for her. He wanted to be just a nobody for a change, and this was his chance.
It didn’t take too long before Corie reappeared in his room with a bundle of clothes. “Okay, I have a sweatshirt and socks that will fit, the pants are debatable, but they are all I have. I’ll leave you to try them on, while I’ll go fix you something to eat to go along with the ibuprofen for your head. Come out into the living room when you are ready,” she told him.
Pieces of Me (Midnight Steel Trilogy Book 1) Page 7