Chapter 1 | Cole

Sitting in my darkened car, between lamp posts, I watch him slip out his front door from half a block away. He pulls one knee up to his chest, then the other. He shrugs his shoulders toward his tousled hair a couple of times and then puts his earbuds in before running out of sight.

He does this every night. I’ve been watching.

Waiting.

The handle of my Glock 26 is warm. It’s been in my hand for almost an hour now, my body heat has transferred to the cool steel. I get out of my car and tuck it into my waistband. A quick look in each direction shows me that this sleepy little subdivision is clear.

I refuse to run. Each step that I take toward his house is measured. Like a man out for an evening stroll. Nothing to see here, folks. Nobody important to remember.

Walking up the driveway, I reach his front door and turn the handle, walking inside without hesitation. He always keeps it unlocked on these nightly jogs. I’ve kept tabs.

My footsteps sound like thunder, echoing off the sparsely decorated walls. Not that the art hanging from them is cheap. Nope, Mommy and Daddy have provided only the best for their baby boy. I guess when you’re a Senator’s son, that is one of the perks.

Only the best. Until the best bores you.

My mouth tugs downward as a vivid memory of her face washes over me. Now isn’t the time for sentimentality, I remind myself, pushing the emotions down into a lead ball buried in my gut. There is only one thing I have time for right now: revenge.

I cut my tour short and make my way upstairs two at a time. Squinting, I let my eyes adjust to the darkness. I can’t go turning on lights, warning him or his neighbors that I’m here. Nothing is going to screw this up. I’m taking care of this tonight.

The details of his bedroom are easy to make out, even in the dark. Stepping inside makes a flurry of images from the video shuffle through my mind. The same nightstand with the same lamp perched upon it sits beside his bed. Even the comforter on the bed is the same.

Rage boils the blood in my veins and I grit my teeth together.

I hear the front door open. He’s home. He’s panting. The noise makes another flash of the video pop up in my mind. I push it down with the others. I force it all from my mind.

Tilting my head, I listen to him fill a glass with water downstairs. It clinks as he sets it down on the counter. His feet stomp heavily on the stairs as he races up here. I pull out my gun and aim the lengthened barrel due to the octane K45 silencer I’ve attached to it, to keep nosy neighbors at bay.

I’m ready.

I take shallow, steady breaths and hold the Glock up at the ready, but he goes into the bathroom instead. Water sprays into the tub and the distinctive squeal of the shower curtain fasteners scraping across the metal bar lets me know he’s stepped inside to rinse off.

Lowering my gun, I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding and wait.

Her blue eyes watch me in my memory. Her slightly crooked smile squeezes my heart.

When I got back from my military deployment overseas, that smile and those eyes had already been taken from me. Used up and thrown away by him. Now, I’ll never get her back.

My mind snaps back into the present as I hear the shower turn off. Again, I lift my gun with a steady, experienced hand and wait.

The switch on the wall snaps as the light overhead floods my vision, but I quickly blink away the spots blurring my vision and he comes into focus.

My target.

“Fuck! Jesus, who are you? Oh, my God, don’t shoot,” he holds up his hands and drops his towel. I’m tempted to shoot his wilted pecker clean off. Instead, I rush him. The fucking coward doesn’t even try to move. They say when you’re facing danger there are two responses, fight or flight. They forget about the most common one: freeze.

“Get down on your fucking knees,” I bark out the order but he stands like a deer in the headlights. A swift crack of my gun across his cheek seems to do wonders for his listening ability. He sinks down and starts to cry.

Poor baby.

“Why? Why is this happening? Who are you?” He sobs, his hands are trembling by the sides of his head.

“Don’t worry about who I am,” I snarl, pulling my phone free from my pocket as I keep my gun level to his head.

I open the phone and press play. I can’t look at the screen. I’ve already seen it. My stomach twists into a knot as I hear his moans over the cell’s speaker, “Remember her?” I jam the phone against his nose and his eyes go wide.

“Man, it’s not what you think. She didn’t even mean anything to me, it was just one night. We were both drunk! It was just a mistake,” he blurts out his words as tears flow over his cheeks.

“Well she meant the world to me, you fucking prick! I’m going to make sure it’s a mistake you never make again.”

I push the muzzle into his temple and he twists away, wincing. Trying to escape the fate I’ve decided for him. Cramming the phone back into my jeans, I grab his hair and dig the tip of the gun into his flesh.

“I’m so sorry, okay? I’m sorry,” he blubbers.

“You can stick your sorry in a sack, bud. Sorry don’t change a fucking thing.”

BANG!

Fragments of shattered bone, brains and a streak of blood hit the wall as his naked body slumps over on the floor. I quickly step over him, carefully avoiding the pool of blood pouring from the gushing hole in his skull, and race down the stairs.

Even with a silencer, the distinctive sound of a gun being fired is easy to identify. It’s not like a movie where it practically whispers a tiny ‘pew-pew’ like a schoolgirl pointing her finger and thumb during recess. I don’t know if his neighbors heard the noise over their television shows, and I’m not about to stand around and find out.

I hurry out the front door and try not to run as I retreat to my car. I’m all ready to go. I’ll need to toss the gun, of course, and stop to change my clothes somewhere. I’ll need to make sure none of that fucker’s blood splattered on my skin.

I turn the keys in the ignition and drive away. I’ve already got the car packed and my passport in the glovebox. Stay calm. Stay cool. You still need to get past border patrol, I remind myself. Taking a deep breath, relief washes over me as I realize that piece of shit is dead.

Now I just need to get to Canada and I’ll be free.

Chapter 2 | Abbie

“Just look at all those woods down there! All those mountains! That bastard is hiding out there somewhere. And we’re gonna find him,” Mr. White yells over the tiny plane’s engine.

For something so small, it sure makes a lot of noise. I nervously cling to the armrests of my uncomfortable seat, it’s only one of eight in the entire cabin. I’ve never seen a plane where you could lean over and have a conversation with the pilot if you felt like it. But then again, until today, I’d only ever seen airplanes on television. The commercials of smiling, gorgeous flight attendants serving people in luxury lounge chairs is very similar to the two jumbo jets we took to connect here, but a far cry from the reality of this flight.

The turbulence of flying over the mountain range has been terrifying. It’s not hard to imagine your fiery death when the plane rattles so hard you’re left wondering if the wings are going to stay attached. However, apparently, I’m the only one worried. From the placid look on the bored attendant’s face, I can see this is all normal.

And the only thing getting Mr. White worked up is the idea of tracking down and capturing our target, Cole McAllister. I meet his pale blue eyes, brought back to life with the idea of tracking down a known killer. He’s so animated, so boisterous, you’d never guess that he’s almost fifty years old. Right now, I can almost see the whispers of the handsome man he must have been long before age chipped away at him. The ghost of his youth hovers around his wispy, white hair as this private investigation case reinvigorates his soul. I honestly don’t even think it’s the million dollar payday he stands to cash in on that’s got him so excited. The idea of tracking down a murderer in the Yukon wilderness like some kind of episode of Man Hunter has him buzzing like a kid who ate too much sugar.

“I’m sure with your expertise we will find him, Mr. White,” I answer with a smile.

The truth is, I have no idea if we’ll catch Cole or not. I have no experience with tracking people or any of this. With the sheltered existence that I’ve lived so far, I barely have any experience with life. The thought brings me back to my mother. Back to the hours I spent sitting on the side of her bed, watching cancer steal her beauty, then her words, then her mind. Until, it finally stole her from me forever. As a single mother, it was just her and me growing up. Over the course of my life she had to be a mom and a dad to me. A mentor and a friend. I lost everything the day she finally passed away.

I swallow hard to push away my sadness and my ears squeak. The pressure in the cabin is changing as we begin to descend on the Canadian Yukon. I fight back the tears that are always just under the surface, threatening to spring up, like a never ending geyser of mourning, every time I think of Mama.

“I told you, call me Cecil. We could be tracking this perp for quite some time, you don’t need to be so formal.”

I nod, “Cecil,” I repeat, but it doesn’t feel right. I was raised to call my elders by their last names, and that goes double for my employers.

I look past Mr. White’s unnerving icy stare, I mean, Cecil’s icy stare, and glance out the window at the sprawling woods below. They look much larger and much more intimidating than when we were just in the planning phase of this operation. Luckily, there have been rumors from locals that Cole has been spotted getting supplies from time to time in Whitehorse. I would think that means he’s not living too far inside the perimeter of that forest. It can’t be easy to haul goods through there under the best of conditions.

“You sure you’re ready for this? This is the big time. You don’t know how lucky you are. For a newbie like you to assist me on a big case like this,” Cecil sounds off on his favorite speech. He’s told me this before. Many times. I know he’s right, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying to listen to.

“Of course I am,” I give him a tight-lipped smile and go back to staring out the window as he blathers on about how I’ve been handed the opportunity of a lifetime on a silver platter.

I get it. I’m young. I’m inexperienced. This isn’t news to me.

Two years ago, if you told me I’d be doing this, I would’ve choked on my Chai latte laughing. Back then, I was in the thick of my political science degree at Midwestern State University. Life was predictable, stable and safe. Just how I liked it. I had a five-year plan. Hell, I had a ten-year plan and it was all unfolding exactly how I envisioned.

Mom couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes when I would tell her about my comparative politics courses and my plans to someday work in government. She would always say, “As long as you think you’ll be happy pushing paper, I guess.” It never bothered me. Not until she was dying and I dropped out of university to tend to her. As the cancer spread, her pleas began. She dropped the passive-aggressive acceptance of my career choice and began campaigning for me to live my life. To spend my youth living an adventure. To learn about life outside of the confines of a classroom. To explore many paths so I could find the right one. I still remember her frail hand holding mine and her oxygen machine whirring louder than her weak voice, but she still persisted. She still begged me to explore. To let myself be wild. She was convinced that I would never know myself until I was really challenged by life.

“You can’t go changing the world until you know who you truly are,” she pleaded her case, “and you’ll never learn who you are from a textbook.”

A month after I spread her ashes off a cliff she told me that her and her friends spent summers jumping from into the lake below, I was standing in Cecil’s office asking for a job. Never in a million years did I expect to have the luck of landing a position as his assistant on such a huge case. But life has a way of tearing up all your plans of what you expect to happen and throwing it up in the air like confetti at a wedding.

So, here I am. Nervous. Unsure of myself. But here. And for that, I know Mama would be proud.

“Thank you for this opportunity, Mr. White. I mean Cecil,” I quickly correct myself before he has another chance to. “I won’t let you down,” I meet his pale blue eyes and he stops me mid-sentence.

“I know you won’t, Abbie. You’re a good girl, I can see that. When I catch this guy, I’m gonna make you famous. Just the news coverage alone will be phenomenal. And the camera is going to love a pretty face like yours,” his gaze travels over my mouth slowly and then keeps sliding down my body, slithering over me like a snake until I wrap my arms over my chest and turn away.

The overhead speaker system crackles as the pilot’s voice fills the cabin, “We’ll begin our descent here, folks. We should be touching down at the Whitehorse airport in no more than twenty minutes,” he formally announces, as if he couldn’t just yell it over his shoulder at us.

“Perfect,” Cecil claps his hands together and I jump. He hunches over the plane window and watches as the landscape below appears to come up and meet us.

I drift deep into my own thoughts. I hope this isn’t all a mistake. I want to be brave. I want to experience adventures like my mother pleaded with me to do. I just can’t quiet the uncertainty. That tiny but powerful voice that whispers persistently in my ear, telling me that I’m in way over my head.

Chapter 3 | Abbie

“You’re telling me that you’ve never seen this guy in here?” Cecil holds up a picture of our target to a stranger in the store.

It’s not like any store I’ve ever seen. Not that Whitehorse has a wide array to choose from, with a scattering of restaurants and bars on one road, this Trading Post is the closest thing to a supply shop we could find. With fourteen-dollar jars of peanut butter piled on a shelf right next to shotgun shells, it’s not exactly a conventional grocery or hunting shop.

“That’s what I’m telling ya,” an elderly Native man with long, smoky wisps of hair falling from his neat braid around his deeply lined face replies. The man grabs some cooking oil from the shelf beside Cecil’s head and walks away from us.

“S’cuse me,” I jump and wheel around to face a burly beast of a man glaring down at us. His dark eyes are just slits in his face almost matching the crescent shaped scar on his thick jaw. I tilt my head back to try to meet his gaze, but he must be almost seven feet tall and built like a bull. I’m not sure how he got that scar on his chin, but I’m guessing it wasn’t a fight. If it was, I’d put money on the other guy being dead.

“Yes?” Cecil looks like he’s trying to stand taller, but the more he stretches his spine, the more he looks like a child next to the huge stranger. Although, if he looks like a child, I must look like an infant. Compared to me, Cecil is tall. And this guy is practically a giant.

“I’ve been getting complaints that you’re harassing my customers,” the man’s voice booms like claps of thunder.

“You own this place?” Cecil looks around the store.

“That’s what I said,” the lumbering man frowns at us. I shiver involuntarily, and it’s not from the cold.

“Perfect, just the man I’d love to talk to!” Cecil lights up, like this guy just extended him a warm welcome instead of a warning. “I’m Cecil White, I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” he waits for the man to fill in the blank.

“That’s because I didn’t give it to you,” he answers with no humor in his voice whatsoever. He looks from my boss’s face to mine and sighs deeply, “The name is Dave. Now I’m going to have to ask you and your daughter to quit bothering my customers with a bunch of questions, understand? You’re making people uncomfortable,” Dave folds his large, muscular arms over his chest and it reminds me of the huge X on a barn door.

“This is Abbie. She’s not my daughter, she’s my assistant. Sure, sure, I won’t bother anymore customers,” Cecil nods and pulls the picture back out of his pocket. “Hey, you probably know just about everyone around here, right? Do you recognize this man?” He holds the picture up in front of Dave’s face.

“I don’t see how who I know is any of your concern,” Dave narrows his eyes and pushes Cecil’s hand down from where it hovers.

“The thing is,” Cecil steamrolls over him, “this guy is a dangerous man. He’s a bad guy. He’s a murderer,” he lowers his voice. Dave’s face doesn’t change. If the idea of a killer living in his town frightens him, his face would be the last to show it.

I pull my long brown hair over my shoulder and begin to twist the ends nervously. I can’t help but feel like I’m watching Cecil poke a bear.

In its den.

Protecting a cub.

From the size of this guy, he could easily pass for a shaved bear.

“Listen, I’ll tell ya what,” Cecil stuffs the picture back in his coat pocket and tugs his wallet from his pants. The Velcro rips open loudly and he tugs a hundred-dollar bill out. “How about this? I would be happy to compensate you for any information you might want to share,” Cecil dangles the money in front of Dave’s face like a carrot on a line.

“It’s time you go checkout,” Dave answers through his teeth.

“Pardon me?” Cecil blinks in surprise. I’m starting to wonder if all the stories that he’s told me about his great people skills and detective work aren’t bullshit. It’s hard to imagine how someone who clearly has no idea about how people operate could have the tremendous success hunting them down that he’s prattled on and on about.

“Listen, I don’t know if you’re deaf or stupid, and I don’t care. You said this girl is your assistant, well maybe she can assist you in pulling your head outta your ass, ‘cause no one here is interested in some outsider snooping around and tryna dig up dirt. Now get your supplies and get the hell outta my store before I pick you up and toss you out!” His voice rumbles. I can’t help but feel like I’m supposed to run for shelter, like his baritone is as powerful as an earthquake. And just as dangerous.

Cecil drops his hand and shoves his bill back in his wallet before stuffing it back in his jeans. His face drops to look at the things in the cart we’ve gathered for our hike. “Fine,” he mutters, without meeting Dave’s intense glare.

I follow him to the checkout and watch as Cecil keeps his eyes downcast on the items being rung in, like a puppy that was scolded for peeing on the floor.

Over my shoulder, Dave is still standing like a Paul Bunyan statue, arms crossed, eyes narrowed, forcing us out the door without moving a muscle or uttering a single word.

Cecil yanks the bag of supplies from the cashier's hand and stomps toward the exit petulantly. As he approaches the door an elderly lady blocks his way out. Clearly, she’s struggling to make her way into the shop. I gasp as Cecil shoves her aside, nearly knocking her to the ground.

“Get outta my way,” he sneers.

I rush behind him and offer the poor woman a hand as she struggles to maintain her balance. I can’t believe the nerve of this guy. He gets told to leave and he takes it out on an old, defenseless woman?

Mama used to tell me that people don’t really show you who they are when everything is sunshine and roses. It isn’t until life gives them a squeeze that you really see what they’re made of.

As we make our way out of the store, I don’t like what Cecil is showing me. This entire mission is beginning to look doomed. Between the entire town stonewalling us and Cecil’s tantrum-like behavior, I’m starting to think this whole thing might be over before we even take our first step into the woods.

Chapter 4 | Cole

“You might want to lay low,” Big Dave told me. He pulled me aside this afternoon as I was grabbing some whiskey and food.

When I first arrived in the Canadian Yukon, I knew this was the place. With a backdrop of nature so beautiful, you’d swear it was a postcard come to life, it felt serene. Then, once I met the locals, I knew I’d found my new home.

Almost everyone here who isn’t a native is running from something. We all have something in our past we’d rather not have exposed. We know that about each other and we have a silent agreement to live and let live. When I showed up here, bleary eyed from exhaustion and carrying nothing but my old army rucksack with me, it didn’t take long for people in this town to realize I was one of them. I wasn’t some tourist looking to take a rafting tour up the river to Dawson City. I clearly wasn’t here on any kind of government business.

They say wolves know each other by scent, well they could smell it on me that I was one of them. And, lucky for me, they accepted me into their pack.

“You should hang back for a few days, you can stay with me if you need a place,” Big Dave continued.

I knew this day would come. It didn’t take a genius to realize that the authorities would eventually search for me around here. When I first arrived, I spent months building my place. Even though it was the dead of winter, I fought through the blistering cold days and created the perfect little spot for myself.

With town less than a half-day’s hike, I thought I’d scouted the best of both worlds, a cabin with complete seclusion and privacy, but with civilization only a few hours away. It made supplies easy to manage and if I ever got too squirrelly from spending so much time alone, company wasn’t far. I knew the bag full of old army rations I brought with me wasn’t going to last forever. Tinfoil pouches of beans and wieners and toothpaste tubes of peanut butter would only stretch for so long before I’d need to top up.

“Nah, I’m good. I’ve got a plan,” I answered Dave and grabbed a pair of binoculars to add to my cart.

It was nice of him to make the offer to stay at his place. The truth is, I’m not afraid of many men on this earth, but Big Dave is one of those few. He’s a great guy to know and his store is an essential part of the community, but he’s not someone I’d want to share quarters with.

“Suit yourself,” he shrugged.

Instead of making myself comfortable on Dave’s couch, I’ve been following the dynamic duo who have come to the great white north to track me down. I’m hunting the hunters.

Not that there’s any challenge in it. These two make their way through the woods like a couple of drunk moose. It’s been easy to stay on the periphery and keep tabs on them, except for when they got turned around and spent forty minutes walking back toward town. I already knew from the looks of them that they weren’t law enforcement, but their shitty navigation skills sealed it. There’s no way any self-respecting officer of the law would be trudging around in the forest in figure eights all day.

Once they decided to set up camp for the night, I scouted a suitable tree and climbed up under the shelter of the branches and leaves to hide out for the night.

I’m not sure if these two jokers have the skills to find my place, but if they do, I’ll be watching them from a safe distance. Then, once they clear out, I’ll grab the supplies I need and move on out. Now that the weather is warm, it’s not a problem to explore the woods deeper until I find another place to call home. Not that I think I’ll ever find anything more perfect.

I watch the middle-aged man and young lady through my binoculars as they sit by a Coleman stove. Neither of them could make a fire to save their lives, so they finally decided to use their propane camping stove for heat. Brainiacs. Next, they’ll cut open their backpacks to use them as blankets.

They’re drinking. From the looks of it, they’re swigging back vodka. Well, he is. She’s been politely declining and holding onto the same glass he poured her hours ago. I know because I’ve been watching her.

Closely.

It’s been months since I’ve spent a night with a woman. Not since before I shot him. Sure, I could’ve hit up some random chick in Whitehorse, but I don’t think the best way to stay in a community’s good graces is by burning through their women. Of course, I always have the option of hiring out by the hour for my needs, but even on my longest, loneliest deployments I never scratched the itch with hookers. Plenty of guys did, and that was fine for them, I’m not judging, it just wasn’t for me. What’s the fun in fishing when they just jump in your net?

Anyway, this girl is much prettier than any woman I’ve encountered in town. Any girl I think I’ve ever seen, to be honest. She’s striking in her natural beauty. Her long brown hair hangs loosely over her slight shoulders. Right now, she has her back to me, which is a damned shame, because when I did see her face it was a sight for sore eyes.

Her creamy skin has a light smattering of freckles, and she’s been too far away to see the color of her almond shaped eyes, but it’s been easy to see how expressive they are. She looks like she’s a lot more in her element out here, easily jumping over fallen logs and bounding up hills with her toned body. Unlike her partner, who has been thumping and bumping into everything, signalling his presence to every living creature within a fifty-mile radius.

I stuff my binos in my pack that’s hanging from the branch beside me and lean back against the trunk of the tree.

Calm washes over me as I let my heavy eyelids droop down and settle in for the night. I love the familiarity of sleeping like this. When I was a sniper, I hated being bugged out like this. Clinging to tree limbs, or laying on sizzling hot roofs for hours or even days at a time. My muscles would be exhausted from lying in prone position, tensed up, ready to fire. Birds would shit on me, the heat would bake my skin and I had to endure it all as I waited for the perfect moment. For the perfect shot.

Then, when I came back to America, I would always struggle to sleep in my own bed. It felt so much larger than the cots in the barracks. It felt so much more exposed than the blinds I would shoot from. As if a queen-sized mattress was a vast, open field I was standing in, with a target on my back.

It took some time to learn that if I piled pillows around my body at night and imagined seeing the world through the scope of my rifle, watching targets pass over the crosshairs, I could drift to sleep peacefully. Old habits are hard to break, I guess.

“No! Don’t. Please stop!”

My eyelids snap open as I hear the girl screaming below. I don’t need to retrieve my binoculars, the terror in her voice is enough to make me grab my bag and scramble down the tree.

I reach inside my pack and pull out my hatchet, then silently maneuver through the woods toward her cries.

“Please, don’t do this,” she cries. “Stop! Mr. White! Cecil! Don’t,” her voice hitches and she begins to bawl.

My fingers tighten around the handle of my hatchet until my skin is pressed so tight it feels like it could burst open. As I close in on them, I can see the girl is frantically trying to push that old fucker off of her. He’s got her shoved up against a tree and his pudgy hand is stuffed up her torn shirt. Fucking piece of shit. There’s no fucking chance in hell this is happening. I’m not going to let some human shit stain rape this girl.

I circle in from the shadows, narrowing my eyes as I focus on him, taking a huge breath, I lunge inside the boundary of their camp.

Chapter 5 | Abbie

“Please, stop,” I nearly choke on my words as tears streak down my face. He doesn’t listen, his eyes are dancing wildly as he roughly paws at my breasts. I don’t know what happened. One second, I was scurrying back from peeing in the woods and the next my head thumped against this tree and his hands were all over me.

“You’re such a pretty little thing, aren’t ya. I’ve seen the way you’ve been looking at me. You’re a tease, you know that? Walking around here wiggling your ass at me and batting your eyelashes. I know what you want,” his boozy breath billows over my face and I gag.

“No, you’re wrong. I don’t want this!” I squirm to the side, desperate to break free but he’s too strong. Too big. I can feel his erection pressed into me as he pins me in place.

I try to claw his face, but he grabs both my hands and holds them over my head with one of his and starts unbuckling his belt with his free hand.

“Aww, don’t be like that. I’m gonna take good care of ya,” he pants as he struggles to open his jeans.

“Cecil, please don’t do this. Just let me go and we can go our separate ways. Please. Please, I don’t want this to be my first time,” I beg.

“I knew it!” His eyes light up and I cringe with how much more excited he just got. “Don’t you worry, if you just stop acting like you don’t want it, I’ll try to go slow on ya,” he finally manages to pull out his dick and starts working on my pants.

I thrash my feet, kicking him in the shin and scream, “Help! Help me. Please, can anyone hear me?” I know it’s useless. I know we’re miles away from anything resembling civilization.

“Get the fuck off her!” A violent roar rips through the air and suddenly Cecil drops like a sack of potatoes to the ground. I’m stunned, I stare down at him bleeding from his head. Is he… dead?

I look up at the man snarling down at him, holding a hatchet in his hand. The dull side is dripping with Cecil’s blood. I open my mouth to scream, but no noise leaves my lips.

It’s him.

His brown hair is longer now, and he has scruff covering his jaw, but there’s no mistaking those piercing blue eyes.

It’s our target. The killer. It’s Cole fucking McAllister.

“Let’s go,” he grabs me by the wrist and wrenches me toward him roughly.

“Did you kill him? I’m not going anywhere with you! I need to get out of here. Please, just let me go,” I dig my heels into the dirt and try to make myself into a human anchor.

“He’s not dead. I knocked him out. I don’t have time to discuss this with you, we’re both in danger if we hang around here. Let’s go!” He barks his command and I cringe.

I still try to pull back from his grasp. I’m grateful he stopped Cecil, but being saved by a known murderer isn’t exactly a happy ending.

Cole comes toward me, hunching down, and flips me over his shoulder. His hand is still holding my arm while his other arm is holding me secure over his shoulder.

The world is upside down as I dangle over his back, feebly kicking my feet and pounding my one free hand against him.

“Let me go! Please, just let me go. I’ll leave the woods and I promise I’ll never come back. Just let me go,” I try to yell, but as he thumps through the woods, every time he jumps over a log I bump against him and struggle to breathe.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

First I’m almost raped by my boss and now the killer we were supposed to be hunting is kidnapping me. I can barely breathe as terror grips my chest. Tears and snot flow from my face and I try to scream. I won’t give up. I keep squirming, wrenching, twisting and kicking, but I’m outmuscled. I’ve never felt so weak.

Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire. I’m fucked. I’m worse than fucked.

I’m dead.

Chapter 6 | Cole

“Put me down! Someone help me!” She squirms over my shoulder as she begs to be let free. No matter how hard she twists or flails, she can’t get away. I easily navigate the dark woods, wary of the underbrush and careful not to let any tree branches I push past snap back to whip against her.

I’ve walked through these tall evergreens so many times that my body has formed a muscle memory. It’s almost become a reflex to know when to hop or duck. The night makes it more difficult to navigate, but after countless operations carried out in darkness in the military, my body and my eyes have gotten used to it.

I don’t know what my plan is. I’m just trying to put as much distance between her and that rapist as possible. The helplessness I saw in her eyes as he tried to strip her, the desperation I heard in her voice as he tried to force his cock on her, it awakened a sleeping beast inside me. One I thought I’d left behind. That fucker is lucky I struck him with the dull side of my axe. I’ll admit, I briefly considered letting my sharp blade bite into his skull, ridding the world of another terrible man it would never miss.

I step under some low hanging branches, twisting easily so that she isn’t struck by them. Her feeble attempts to break free from my grasp are a minor inconvenience, barely registering in my senses. The only way she’s going to reach the ground is if I put her there. After years in the military doing exercises where I had to carry men of my own weight and size over my shoulder like this, she’s like a feather.

“Let me go!”

A loud feather.

She punches me between the shoulder blades weakly.

A pesky feather.

“Please,” she sobs, sniffling loudly.

A scared feather.

I stop in my tracks and realize how terrified she must be. First some asshole tries to rape her and then I whisk her away into the forest. I know she saw my face, and if she’s here to track me down, it’s a face I’m sure she’s spent hours studying. I don’t know if she has seen photos of the crime scene. I don’t know what kind of psychological profile she’s been given. She probably thinks I’m going to do a lot worse to her than he was going to.

Sighing deeply, I gently set her on her feet and grab her arms as she attempts to dash away like a frightened doe.

“Listen to me,” I hold her tight and she meets my eyes with pure terror, “I’m not the bad guy here, okay? I’m trying to save you. You think that guy was gonna give you a big kiss and call it a night? You wanna be back there with him?”

“No,” she sobs, her body is shaking as big tears stream over her cheeks. “I don’t want to ever see him again,” she manages to form barely coherent words as her body convulses with fear and tears pour out of her. “I just want to get out of here.”

My heart squeezes as she brings herself to meet my eyes. It’s hard not to feel like a monster when you see yourself reflected that way. Her eyebrows reach skyward as she blinks her eyes. I can see now that they’re green. They’re so bright, it startles me. They’re the hopeful green of a spring bud exploding into the first leaf of the season. That green that breathes life back into your slumbering soul after the Arctic wasteland outside your door almost made you give up hope. The green that lets you know better days are ahead as the ice and snow melts away and taking the oppressive winter gloom along with it.

She looks so terrified, I instinctively want to wrap my arms around her and tell her she’ll be okay, but I know that would do nothing to calm her down. In fact, it would make everything much, much worse.

“Listen, there’s no way you can get back to the town without me taking you there. I’ve been watching you guys all day walking around in circles, it was pathetic.”

“You... you were following us?” She swallows hard and looks up at me. Her eyes just barely flicker over my face, moving faster than a hummingbird’s wing before she looks away.

“Yep, wasn’t too hard with all the thrashing and loud talking. If you two ever had to hunt to live you’d both have starved a long time ago,” I roll my eyes.

She trembles violently as I hold her and I know from the warm summer night that it has nothing to do with being cold. Her shoulders shake as the tears she can’t contain anymore fall from her face.

“Hey, listen to me, I won’t hurt you. I’m a good guy, okay? You can trust me,” I try to look into her eyes, but she won’t raise her head. I can see her chin quivering as even more tears spill over her face.

Fuck, I hate when women cry. There’s something about it that makes you feel like you’ve failed as a man. Just watching their soft features streaked with tears makes the biggest, toughest guys feel helpless.

“I won’t go with you,” she whispers, but her voice is crystal clear. “You’re not a good guy, you’re a murderer,” her voice steadies and she meets my eyes finally. “You killed an innocent young man in cold blood! He had his whole life ahead of him and you shot him. That’s not something a good guy does,” I can hear her trying to quell the fear overtaking her as her voice cracks.

Innocent?

The word burns across my mind like the lapping orange flames of wildfire. My body tenses up and my grip on her shoulders tightens as I see the image from the video in my mind. I see him fucking her, humping her like a dog. Rage boils up from my belly, blistering up to the back of my throat.

“You’re right, I fucking shot him! And let me tell you something,” I lower my face only inches from hers and can feel my lips pull back into a snarl, “he deserved much worse than that! If I had more time to plan it out, I would’ve been more fucking creative with that asshole, you understand?” my voice roars and her eyes grow wide.

In the dark, I can see her leg move, but it takes me too long to register what she’s doing. Not until her foot hits my nuts and the first sickening wave of pain drops my hands from her shoulders. I hunch over, wincing and fall to my knees as the dreaded second wave of pain builds up over me, like I’m a surfer riding a wall of water as tall as a building, hoping somehow the wave won’t break and crash over me. But it does. It always does.

Every man has taken a shot to the balls at some point in his life, whether it was when they were a clumsy boy awkwardly falling onto his bike seat, or as a teen missing a football pass. We’re all familiar with the debilitating agony. It doesn’t matter how many times it’s happened, nothing can prepare you for the intense, stabbing fire underlined by the dull, throbbing ache. It’s been a long damned time since I’ve taken a direct shot like that.

The girl is off and running through the darkness, stupidly she’s heading toward my cabin, not towards town. I knew she couldn’t get out of here without me. As the beads of sweat build on my brow, I have more than half a mind to let her run off until she runs into a bear or dies of starvation.

As the awful sensation begins to quell, I know I won’t let that happen. She’s in survival mode, I can’t blame her for trying to protect herself, no matter how misguided her instincts may be.

Finally the agony dissipates in my gut and, sucking a deep breath through my nose, I get my feet back under me. I can’t let her die out here. She doesn’t deserve that.

Taking off in the direction that she ran, I follow her once again, through the forest.

Chapter 7 | Abbie

I tear through the trees blindly, trying to put as much distance between myself and Cole the killer as I can. I stumble through branches, reaching like the long, bony fingers of the witch trying to throw Gretel into the oven. Twigs smack against me and I hold my hands up in front of my face to stop them from lashing my skin. Gracelessly, I stomp through the brush in the dark.

The beats of my heart are in a race with my feet, and my heart is winning. I can feel my pulse thud in my neck as panic wells up inside me, making it hard to breathe. It’s like I’m drowning from the inside as the fear squeezes my lungs and I struggle for air.

Is he behind me? I can’t tell if he’s following me. I can only hear blood rushing in my ears and the sound of my own frantic feet crunching over the sticks and pine needles.

Where am I going? Is this even the right direction? I’m lost in the woods with a murderer and a rapist. This is like something out of a horror movie. How could I ever have been so stupid? Why did I think I was cut out for any of this? Like a girl who is two years deep in a political science degree has any business pretending to be a private investigator’s assistant out in the vast Canadian north.

I stop running and swallow hard as I desperately try to breathe quieter. It’s damned near impossible when my body is convinced that every ragged breath could be my last. Tilting my head like a puppy learning a new command, I listen intently for sounds of him following me. Each silhouetted tree feels like him looming over me. Every creepy shadow is a potential killer in my mind as I try to adjust my eyes to the dark and hone in my senses.

What was that?

I close my eyes, hoping my ears will work harder and listen better. I can hear footsteps. I pray for them to be a deer. Hell, I’d take a bear at this point. It’s not though.

I know it’s him.

Judging from the sound, he’s not very far behind. It’s only a matter of time until he finds me.

I begin to scurry back through the woods. This must be how a hunter’s prey feels. Except they at least have reflexes and senses born into them to instinctively flee. I pull oxygen deep into my burning lungs and lunge forward, pushing past more whipping tree branches and the air swirls around me as my body falls. For a moment, I have no idea which way is up as I feel weightless in the darkness.

Crunch!

“Ahhh!” I shriek. My ankle folded under me. I curl up on top of it, trying to be quiet as a halo of pain radiates around my leg. Tears that I wish I was strong enough to hold back slide down my face as I struggle to stand back up.

“Fuck!” I drop back to the ground in a clump as white heat sears through my ankle.

Now what? I can hear his footsteps get closer and my body begins to tremble. I’m shaking like I used to when I was a child and I stayed out playing in the snowbanks with my friends until my mother had to physically drag me back inside.

“Your lips are blue!” She’d exclaim. “What were you thinking?”

My breaths are quick and shallow like I’m hyperventilating as I whimper and try not to move.

The footsteps get louder.

Closer.

Then they stop.

I keep my head tucked down. I can’t look up. I can’t face him.

“Jesus,” he mutters. “What are you doing? Are you trying to hide?”

I don’t answer. I know he can see me, but there’s some small part of my brain that’s telling me if I don’t move or make any noise maybe I’ll become invisible. I know it’s stupid but I’m going to cling on to hope where I can find it.

“Listen, after that shit you just pulled I’m just about done here,” his voice booms making me shudder. “If you don’t want my help then you can wait here until sunrise and try to navigate your own way back to town, ‘cause I’m done with your shit!”

I don’t respond. I try to imagine getting out of here even if I wasn’t hurt. Apparently my imagination has limits because I can’t picture it.

Cole sighs deeply, “Fine. Have it your way, I’m going home.” I can hear his feet crunch as he turns away.

Would someone who wants to kill me just leave me like this? Wouldn’t he pounce on this opportunity? Everything I know about Cole McAllister is summed up in his crime. His cold-blooded murder of the twenty-three-year-old son of Senator Turner. With nothing stolen and no known connection between the men, it seemed to be a senseless crime. And yet he was intentionally targeted.

Tonight, when he saved me, I didn’t see a monster in his deep blue eyes. I saw concern.

Compassion.

Caring.

“Wait!” I call out, finally raising my head from the earthy smell of the decayed leaves and mud. “I can’t get up. I’m hurt.”

Cole turns and quickly closes the gap between us. I wince as I hope with all my heart I’m making the right decision and haven’t just sealed my fate in the hands of a murderer.

“You’re hurt?” His tone grows soft and he slides down the small embankment that I fell down. “Where?”

I sit up and my ankle flashes with pain as if to remind me of exactly where I was injured. “Here,” I point and Cole kneels in the dirt before me. His large hands are gentle as he maneuvers my foot from side to side.

“Can you bend your toes?” I can see in the dark that his eyebrows are furrowed together.

I slowly curl my toes over and the pain builds. “I can,” I wince, “but it hurts. A lot.” I answer through gritted teeth.

Cole stands up and holds out his hands to me. “I don’t think it’s broken, but I can’t be sure. I can take a better look at my place, but you need to let me help you,” he looks into my eyes and my fear slides away.

I bite my lip. If I stay here, there’s a good chance I’ll die. The only person who knows to look for me, besides Cole, tried to rape me. Not exactly a knight in shining armor. I meet Cole’s gaze, my trembling subsides and I reach up to his hand.

“Yes.” I whisper. “Please help me.”

It’s like being between a rock and a hard place. Go with him and possibly die at his hands. Although, when I look at him, it’s hard to believe he could ever execute someone like the pictures showed. Or, I can stay here and most likely die in the woods.

Cole wraps his arm under my back and my feet, hauling me up toward his chest. I instinctively slide my arms around his neck to steady myself and I see a small smile pull at the corners of his mouth. He looks handsome when he smiles. Not like the stony-faced pictures I’ve been looking at with Cecil all month.

“Just relax,” his voice rumbles in his chest as he holds me close, “I’ll do my best to get you fixed up, okay? You have my word, I won’t ever hurt you,” his tone soothes me somehow. Despite common sense, despite the file I’ve studied, despite everything my mind keeps screaming about why I shouldn’t believe him, I know that for some unexplainable reason, my heart does.

“Thank you,” I mumble into his jacket and cling on to him tight. My mother always said that the brain is smart, but the heart is wise.

“If you want to know the truth, you don’t read it from a book,” she’d say. “You feel it, here,” I remember how she tapped two fingers above her breast. Before the mastectomies took them both. Before the cancer spread and left my heart no wiser, but certainly more broken.

I tilt my head back against Cole’s arm and look up at the stars above. Up to her. I hope you were right, Mama.

Chapter 8 | Cole

My breathing is getting heavy, but I’ve got a good hold on her as I carefully carry her through the brush. This reminds me of when I first escaped across the border and made my way up here. I bought a shit-ton of supplies so I could hide out in the woods for as long as possible without needing to go back in town and risk being arrested. In the military, I’ve hauled heavy rucksacks in blistering heat and skin freezing cold, but those marches had nothing on that first hike I took out here.

I must have weighed myself down with well over two hundred pounds of canned goods and supplies. Hauling that much is always taxing, but especially when it’s not packed right and is digging into your flesh the whole way. When I finally found a place to set up camp and call home I was completely exhausted from maneuvering through pines and trudging over tree roots and uneven ground for hours.

This girl probably weighs a fraction of those supplies, and this time I only had a forty-minute walk to get to my cabin instead of a three-hour death march.

“Okay, here we are,” I try to keep my voice soft and even. I know she’s terrified of me, and based on what she knows, I can’t blame her.

“What do you mean?” She twists her head and looks around.

“Home sweet home. This is where I’m staying,” I answer.

“But,” she squints, “all I see are trees.”

“You’ll see,” I hold her close as I make my way to the small clearing among the large pines. To the untrained eye, it can be easy to miss my place. From this side, it appears to be nothing more than a hill between two trees. I carry her around to the other side of the hill, the side I dug into and built my cabin in. From the back my little place is hidden, and even though she can’t see it in this darkness, the cliff face that jaggedly falls down the other side provides a spectacular view of the canyon below.

She looks around with wide eyes, “Wow, this is amazing,” she murmurs. “It’s completely camouflaged. You could be standing right in front of this and never even realize…”

I open the door and carry her inside. “That was the idea. On one side I’m hidden by the hill and on the other side it’s sheer rocks that drop off about two hundred feet.”

My gut knots up as she twists her head around like a barn owl, trying to soak it all in. It was a mistake to grab her and a fucking fatal flaw in my plans to bring her here. Now I’m compromised, just as I finally got everything set up and running smoothly. Now I’m stuck with a gimped up girl who came here to hunt me down. And her partner is going to wake up with an angry lump on his head and even more motivation to find me.

I carefully sit the girl in a chair I put together and grab a flashlight along with a first-aid kit. What else could you do? Leave her injured and alone? No, I know I did the right thing, but I can’t help but wonder, at what cost?

Kneeling in front of her, I try not to notice her full lips or her mesmerizing eyes. I refuse to let myself look at her that way. Right now, the only thing I care about is her injury. The sooner I get her patched up, the sooner I can get her out of my hair.

“Hey, so you probably know my name, right?” She nods and her eyebrows scrunch together. “So, what’s your name?”

“Abbie,” she answers simply and tries to push her mud caked hair from her dirt streaked face. “Abbie Hart.”

Even covered in grime, she’s irresistible. “Abbie Hart,” I repeat. “Well that was one hell of a tumble you took, so let’s check out the damage, okay? I’m gonna take a look at your ankle.” I don’t wait for her to answer and unlace her hiking boot.

“Okay,” she tenses up as I try to ease the leather down over her heel and off her foot. “Oww!”

“I know. I just need to see if it’s broken or bleeding,” I put the boot down beside me and begin to roll her sock down her leg and expose her swollen ankle.

Abbie breathes in sharply, but she doesn’t cry out again. I can tell by glancing up at her that she’s putting on a brave face. I refuse to acknowledge her beautiful features, instead letting my anger about this intrusion on my life guide me.

“So, you and your friend obviously aren’t cops, right? Why are you guys trying to find me?” I peel the sock down and tug it off her toes.

“He’s, oww! He’s not my friend,” she answers through her gritted teeth.

Regret washes over me, “You’re right, sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. He’s obviously a piece of shit,” my anger swells back up like ocean waves in a storm. “Why are you out here with him?” I try not to sound accusing when I ask, but the anger I have for the man that tried to rape her spills over into my tone.

Abbie’s eyes grow about two sizes and she freezes in place. I scared her, again.

Fuck.

I’m really not off to a great start here.

I fill my lungs and breathe out slowly, “Listen, I meant what I said about you being safe with me, okay? Would I be trying to help you right now if I had bad intentions?” I let myself meet her eyes. How can she be so beautiful? How old is she? From the looks of her supple, vibrant skin, she can’t be too old. I force myself to look back down at her injury, no good can come from studying her beauty.

“No, we’re not cops. Cecil is a private investigator and I am, I mean I was, his assistant.” She finally answers.

I nod and push my thumb into the fleshy part of her big toe. The color returns immediately, so the blood flow in her foot is good. “Private investigator? He doesn’t have any legal authority then,” I gently rock her foot to the side, no grinding noises.

Abbie flinches but she doesn’t cry out, her ankle seems to be growing by the minute, inflating like someone slipped a party balloon under her skin. “No, he wasn’t here to arrest you,” she squints up her eyes as I tilt her foot to the other side. “He was hired by Senator Turner to track you down. Cecil was supposed to get pictures of you and send back your GPS coordinates.”

“I see,” my lips twist down as I frown. My anger boils back up. I’ve spent countless hours over the past several months finding this perfect spot and turning it into my new home. As soon as the ground thawed, I began digging into this hillside, pulling out rocks with my bare, calloused hands until I hollowed it out. I built this entire place and almost everything in it, working eighteen hour days only to drop with exhaustion and soak in the amazing view off the cliff side each night.

My cabin isn’t perfect, but it’s my home. And now I have to abandon it. Abandon all my hard work, dedication and craftsmanship because these morons decided to try to find me. You need to control your temper, I remind myself. Scaring this girl is only going to make the entire gong show, worse.

I grit my teeth and push away my thoughts about the cabin. About my home. “You have a bad sprain, from what I can tell. You need to stay off your foot for a couple of days and it should start getting better. Wait here, okay?”

I stand up and grab a stainless steel thermos. It’s nice and cold. “Here,” I hand it to Abbie, “hold this against your ankle to help with the swelling, it’ll be best if we can fit your foot back in your boot. The laces give nice support for your ankle, the only shitty part is you’ll have to sleep with it on,” I shrug.

“That’s okay, I’m just glad it’s not broken,” she tenderly holds the thermos against her ankle and looks up at me. For a second I can easily picture her looking up at me like this from her knees as I slide my cock into her wet, warm mouth.

I close my eyes and twist my head away opening them only after I know she isn’t in my line of vision anymore. Fuck! I never asked to get stuck playing nurse to this girl. Now I’m here with someone whose presence makes me tense up with anger as her every movement seems to set my nervous system on fire with temptation.

“Okay, hold that on your ankle. I’m going to get the bed ready, you’re probably tired. We’ll get your boot back on and hit the hay. I’ll take another look at it tomorrow,” my words are too loud, too abrupt. I sound like I’m barking orders at a platoon instead of talking to a stunning young woman.

“You want me to sleep in your bed,” she swallows hard and looks across my modest cabin to the bed. It’s easy to spot since the bedroom, living room, dining area and kitchen are all in one big, open space. When I built this place, I wasn’t exactly planning to entertain houseguests so separation between spaces and privacy were never considerations.

“Trust me, it’s not what I want either, but I don’t have a sofa to crash on.” I sweep the flashlight over the corners of the room as if to prove that I’m not secretly hiding other sleeping accommodations in the shadows. “This way you’ll stay warm and safe until the morning. Then, maybe we can figure out something better. Let’s just deal with one crisis at a time, okay?” I nod at her ankle.

“Umm, I can just sleep on the floor,” she whispers and fidgets with the ends of her hair, nervously twisting them around her fingertips.

“That’s stupid, you’re not a dog. Besides, it might be June, but it still gets chilly in the middle of the night.”

“No, that’s okay,’ she insists. “If you can spare a blanket, I’ll be fine.”

I sigh but don’t argue. I’m not going to force her to do anything she doesn’t want to, including sleep next to me. I don’t blame her for her skepticism. Actually, I admire it. “Okay then, suit yourself,” I kneel back down. “Let’s see if we can get that boot back on now,” I grab her sock and ease it back on to her injured foot. Opening the top of the boot as wide as my fingers can stretch it, I slowly pull it on her foot. It’s snug, but her ankle fits back inside.

“Perfect, this should help give you the support you need,” I lace it up for her and stand back up, holding out my hand. “Let’s not make this weird, okay? I’ll help you into bed and we’ll both sleep in our full clothes on opposite sides.” I try one last time to talk some sense into her. “I understand that you’re shook up and you don’t exactly have a good reason to trust me, but you can,” I wait for her to reach up, but she doesn’t. Instead, she sits like a statue, like she’s catatonic.

“No,” she finally answers.

“Okay,” I hold up my hands in surrender. Crossing the cabin, I peel a blanket from my bed and bring it to her. If she wants to lie on the floor all night and try to catch some z’s with her teeth chattering, then that’s on her.

“Goodnight Abbie,” I walk away and climb into bed.

It’s been a long day. Carrying her through the woods has been exhausting. I only hope she heals up well enough to get out of here soon. I glance down at the foot of my bed and watch as she settles down on the floor and pulls the blanket over her. Survival skills don’t exactly seem to be her strong point. Oh well, I’ve done enough for her for one night, if she wants to be stubborn, that’s not my problem.

I let my eyelids droop closed. Now that I’m living here, my cabin flanked by nature’s protection, I never need to surround myself with pillows and pretend to be in a sniper’s blind anymore. I’ve been sleeping like a rock every night since I built this hidden place. I begin to drift into sleep when I hear a thump.

My eyes snap open and I see Abbie hopping on one foot across the floor, dragging my blanket behind her. I have half a mind to give her a hand, but don’t want to jump up and startle her. She makes her way over to the side of the bed and I squeeze my eyes shut. I can hear her breathing as she watches me. I pretend to sleep peacefully and listen as she carefully slips into my bed and pulls the covers up over her.

A smile spreads over my face as I let myself drift off into my dreams. I’m glad she finally came to her senses. Maybe there’s hope for her after all.

Chapter 9 | Abbie

My eyes flutter open and it takes a couple of seconds of staring at the wood ceiling to remember where I am. I’ve heard about people waking up and being confused about where they are. Not just because they spent the night before drinking or going home with some one-night stand, but because they travel so much. Jet-setters and adventurers who aren’t sure what country they’re waking up in, let alone what bed.

That’s never been my life. I’ve always started each predictable day in my predictable bed and lived my routine life until the sun predictably sets again. I’ve never woken up confused about where I was. Definitely not from traveling too much. Not even from drinking too much.

This is a first.

I pat the empty bed beside me. He’s gone. I sit up and tilt my head to the side as I try to listen for him. Did he leave? I’m surprised by how disappointed I am by the thought.

My mind flickers to last night. The tender way he looked after me. Then, how like a man of his word, he didn’t try anything when I finally decided to lie down next to him rather than shivering on the floor. At one point, I did wake up to find him curled up to me with his arm draped over me, but it was innocent. If I’m being honest, I liked how it felt to lie in his strong arms. I felt safe. Ironic since he’s on the run for killing a man.

I twist on the bed and let my legs dangle over the side. Carefully I put my feet on the ground and a shot of pain radiates through my ankle, reminding me to keep off of it. I place my weight on my good foot and hobble to the entrance of his little cabin, expecting to see him just outside.

When I look out the window, I don’t see him, but I’m am overcome by an absolutely breathtaking view. Last night I could see the mountains and river below the scraggly cliff his cabin is perched beside. I’m greeted by the chirping of enthusiastic birds in the distance. But, besides them and the occasional rustling of wind in the trees, the silence is so peaceful.

“Hello?” I call out, instantly cringing and hoping that Cecil isn’t within earshot of this camp. When I last saw him, he was knocked out on the forest floor looking like the perfect entree for a hungry bear. After the shit he pulled last night, I hope a bear did find him. Hopefully it just mauled his dick off. That’s what he would get for trying to use it like a weapon.

A shiver runs over me as I rub my hands over my arms. Cole was right about the temperature here. Back in Texas, the start of June is already sweltering. Here, however, it’s gorgeous and sunny in the day and then still frigid after the sun sets. I remember reading up on the Yukon about how, by the end of this month, the sun stays up longer and longer until summer solstice when it circles around in the sky for twenty-four hours straight. They call it the land of the midnight sun. Though, I doubt I’ll be here long enough to see it. Then again, with my return plane ticket in the hands of an attempted rapist and any hopes of getting a paycheck dashed, I can’t help but wonder how I’ll leave.

As I sit back down on the edge of the bed Cole has put together, I soak in my surroundings in detail. Last night, I couldn’t make out much in here. It was all shadows and blurs and the pain in my ankle made it hard to think about anything else. In the sunlight, however, I can see the sparse shelter that Cole has called home for months now. I slowly check out the room, impressed that he built all of this alone.

He's definitely well stocked with supplies. My eyes trail over the shelf of stacked canned goods and the hunting gear against the other wall. My gaze drifts across the cabin to the end of the bed. I see a small stack of books. My curiosity is overwhelming. What could he be reading out here?

Shuffling down the edge of the bed, I keep my weight off my foot as I get closer to the pile. As I lean over them, I can see that the top book isn’t a novel, it’s a journal.

I guiltily look up to the door. Should I?

My hand hovers over the moleskin cover and my eyes snap back down to the book. I can’t help but wonder what kind of guy kills a man in cold blood, but then goes out of his way to save a woman he doesn’t know. Cole doesn’t seem like the stereotype of a murderer or psychopath, yet the crime speaks for itself. Is there insight on these written pages? Is there an explanation for the sexy walking contradiction that swooped in last night and carried me away in his arms?

I lean over the end of the bed and my fingers graze the cover. My skin tingles with excitement and nerves. I shouldn’t do this. I pull my hand away, but can’t help it from creeping back to the book, as if moving by its own quest for knowledge. Just for a flicker of a second, I imagine getting back and reporting his whereabouts to Senator Turner myself. A million dollars would change my life forever. And taking it away from a man who thinks it’s okay to force himself on a young woman in order to bring another man who executed a college boy, seems like a good way to earn it.

My fingertips touch the soft book cover and I crack it open, I breathe in deep as I see a picture of a young, gorgeous blonde in a wallet sized photo smiling up at me.

Who is she? Is this his girlfriend? His wife?

I study her delicate features, she looks young, but it’s impossible to guess her age. I lift up the photo and get absorbed in a story I create in my head about this girl I’ve never met. How he loves her and had to break her heart when he left for the Canadian border. I put the photo down with a shaky hand and a twisted gut. I think I’m actually feeling… jealous of her.

This is crazy.

I almost close the cover when I see a handwritten letter folded inside the book. I lift the beautifully embossed stationery and hold it against my chest. I want to read it, but it feels so wrong. Like a line that shouldn’t be crossed in the sand. I close my eyes and try to find the inner strength to put it back down. The self-control eludes me and I unfold the page.

Dear Cole,

“Find anything interesting?” My eyes snap up to Cole standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips looking down his nose at me. Literally.

I jump and drop the letter on top of the book and Cole lunges across the room, snatching it up. He lies it back down in his book and slams the cover shut, tucking it under his arm.

“So, let me get this straight,” he glares at me, “I protect you, bring you to safety, fix you up and you repay me by ransacking my personal belongings the second you think the coast is clear? Does that sum this up?” He clutches the notebook tight in his hand.

I swallow hard, my tongue feels thick and I can’t find my words. Hot tears spring to the corners of my eyes as I look down to the ground. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Everyone is always so sorry! After they get caught,” his voice rumbles making me tremble. “So, let me ask you again,” I can’t face him, but I can feel his eyes burning a trail over my skin, “find anything interesting?”

Chapter 10 | Abbie

“Is this more of your top-notch detective work? Huh, Columbo? You think you’re gonna rifle through my stuff and find what? Details about the murder? Maybe a signed confession?” He sneers.

I keep my eyes on the ground. Cole is blocking my path to the exit, not that I’d make it far on my ankle if I tried to run anyway. I never should’ve gone through his things. Why couldn’t I leave it alone?

“Cause if you want to know anything you just need to ask,” his voice claps like thunder in my ears as his broad frame hovers over me. “You already know I killed him, so what more do you want? A play by play about how I stalked him, learned his routine, waited to sneak into his house to take him out? I’m an open book sweetheart, you don’t have to go poking around through my stuff to find out what you want to know.”

I swallow hard, I can hear the anger blooming around his words like a nuclear mushroom cloud. The heat of his rage bursts from him like a radiation blast. I don’t want to say or do anything that’s going to make this worse. He doesn’t exactly sound remorseful about what he did, if anything, he sounds proud. Not that I’m about to call him out on it. I don’t want to become his next victim.

“I was just trying to get a better sense of who you are,” the fear in my heart trembles in my voice. “I know I shouldn’t have looked, but after you helped me last night I guess I was looking for a reason to stop being so scared of you. I’m sorry,” tears spill onto my cheeks and I sniffle as I wipe them away quickly. I’m definitely not confessing my brief thoughts about selling him out and taking the money. I may not have much life experience, but I’m no idiot.

Cole doesn’t speak. His silence is more terrifying than his words. At least when he was yelling at me I knew what was going through his head, now, I’m left guessing as he stands perfectly still keeping me prisoner of his gaze.

“You’re right,” his voice is so soft that I can’t help but raise my head and peer up at him just to make sure it’s still the same man standing there.

“I, I am?” I hold my breath, hoping the compassion and understanding I see in his softened features is real.

“Yes, I didn’t think about your point of view, okay? I’m sorry. I was so focussed on getting you back here and mending your ankle that I never took the time to really imagine how scared you must be feeling. I know that from what you know about me it must be difficult to think I’m not some kind of monster, but I’m not. I’m not a bad guy at all. Look, if you think it’ll give you peace of mind to read through my stuff then go ahead,” he holds out the journal to me but I don’t move.

Is this a trick?

“Take it,” he insists and I reach my hand up to gingerly pluck it from his broad hand.

“It’s okay, I don’t need to read anything. I didn’t see anything anyway, well, just the picture of that beautiful girl,” I admit tilting my head as shame floods me.

“That’s April,” his voice is flat and his thick lips pull down.

“Is she your wife? Or your girlfriend?” I don’t mean to blurt out the questions, but like a curious cat that falls from a balcony and walks away only to do it all again a week later, I don’t learn my lessons easily.

“No,” he runs his hand through his sandy hair and rubs the back of his neck. He looks at the book in my hands and then meets my gaze. In his deep blue eyes I can see the agony twisting inside him, “That’s my sister. And thanks to Trent fucking Turner, that entitled asshole Senator’s son, she’s dead.”

Chapter 11 | Cole

“What?” She shakes her head slowly, “he killed her? I never read anything about that…” she squints off into the distance, like she’s trying to read the details in an invisible file she’s probably poured over a hundred times.

“No, not directly,” I grind my teeth together as the pain of her loss stabs my heart. I look down at the dust clinging to my boots, trying to stop the tears pricking my eyes. I take a deep breath, sucking air deep into my lungs like a diver about to plunge into the ocean. That’s how I feel about my memories of her, like they could drown me with sadness.

“What does that mean?” She asks softly, and I look back up at her. She’s searching my face for answers that I’ve still never spoken out loud about.

“Trent Turner raped my sister,” I answer flatly. “She was seventeen and she decided to sneak into a frat party on campus. You know, sometimes I’ve thought about that, about how she snuck in and was drinking underage, and I’ve gotten so angry. Like, if she just would’ve stayed home and acted her age instead of sneaking into a party full of booze and college kids… why did she have to go out that night at all?” My voice cracks, and the tears I’ve been trying to keep inside fill my eyes. I wipe them away with the back of my hand, “but I’m not angry at her. How could I be? It’s not her fault that Mr. Fucking Prep School decided to roofie her. It’s not her fault he took her back to his place slobbering and almost unconscious. It’s not her fault he recorded himself fucking her while she was passed out like he was some kind of hunter taking pictures of his prized gazelle,” I swallow hard but my throat is raw.

Abbie jumps as I make my way to the side of the bed. “I’m just grabbing this,” I point to the water bottle beside the bed.

“Oh, okay,” she watches me intently as I lean over and pick it up. My throat is parched and I take a huge swig of the cool, refreshing water.

“Listen, I wish you’d just relax. I’ve already told you I’m not going to hurt you. Don’t you think if I was some kind of crazed serial killer I would’ve shown you that by now? Don’t you think I would’ve made my move?”

“You’re right,” She nods and her long hair swings around her face. “I’m just nervous, like, only twenty-four hours ago I had a much different picture of who you were in my mind,” she explains.

“Yeah, well, you were wrong. I wasn’t even going to kill Trent until he destroyed my sister’s life. I found out about the rape when I was on deployment, and I always knew I was going to come back and teach him a lesson, but with these,” I hold up my fists, “not a gun.”

I remember how angry I was when I first found out about the assault. I went back to my barracks and ripped my room apart. I flipped the bed, tore the hangers out of my locker, kicked the door and dented the metal with my steel-toe boot. Did I want to kill him then? Absolutely. But I knew that I wouldn’t.

I run my hand over my grizzly jaw and snap back to the present. Abbie is looking up at me and I hold out the water bottle to her, “Here, have some,” I offer.

“Thanks,” she takes a sip, never moving her eyes from my face.

She still doesn’t trust me.

“I didn’t find out until I came back that he had recorded her. I guess that fucker spread the video around to his buddies and it leaked to the kids in her school. From what I’ve found out, she couldn’t get away from it. She’d go to school and kids would play it on their phones in the cafeteria, laughing at her. She stopped eating at the school. Then she just stopped eating, period. Her friend told me she would hide in the bathroom between classes and cry. Before that happened, she had the same dreams most high school seniors have, to have an epic graduating year. He took that from her too.”

I lean down on my haunches so I’m not towering over Abbie on the bed. I realize I’m probably intimidating her.

Her eyes are soft and her full lips twitch downward and she grabs my hand, “I’m so sorry. My heart hurts for her,” she blinks quickly.

“I am too. The thing was, when I was in the desert, I didn’t know all that shit. I didn’t find out until I came home for her funeral. I got word from my commanding officer that I was being sent home because she died,” my voice breaks and I can’t stop the tears from falling this time. The pain is still fresh. The loss still doesn’t feel real. It hurts too much to wrap my mind around. “I couldn’t believe it,” I choke out the words and force myself to keep talking because I know if I don’t I’ll end up losing it. “They didn’t want to tell me it was suicide, but I pushed him. I mean, she was just a kid. A healthy kid with her whole life in front of her. Anyway, he told me she took her own life and I felt like he gutted me. I couldn’t breathe. My ears stopped working. I was numb as I walked back to pack up my bunk.” I squeeze Abbie’s hand as I remember the helplessness I felt. How it hurt to breathe.

Abbie doesn’t interrupt, but tears are forming in her eyes. She gives me time to get some control without pushing me to continue. “I don’t know if you’d call it fate or shitty luck, but when I got to my bunk I missed mail call and someone left a letter that was sent to me on my bed.” Tears slide over my cheeks. “It was from my sister. She still didn’t tell me about the video or the kids in her school, but she told me life was feeling out of control. She said she was finding it harder and harder to stay optimistic that she didn’t know if she could ever get her life back to normal. That she didn’t even know what normal was supposed to feel like anymore. But,” my voice cracks and a tremble runs through me as I remember her words written on the page I’ve read a hundred times, “she ended it by saying she had one thing that still gave her hope.” I breathe in a shaky lung full of air, “That she still looked forward to when I was coming home. She said she couldn’t wait to see me,” hot tears splash down my face and I pull away from Abbie’s hand to wipe them away.

“Trent Turner took that away from me. He might not have put a bullet in her, but he still killed her. What he did was much worse, because he killed her soul long before he ever took her life.” My chin trembles and I try to get my emotions under control.

Abbie moves forward to the edge of the bed and throws her arms around me, “I’m sorry Cole,” I look up at her and she’s crying too. I wrap my arms around her and let my tears fall as I hold her against my chest.

“Me too,” I agree. “Me too.”

Chapter 12 | Abbie

I sniffle and nuzzle my head against his broad, hard chest. His arms feel like a stone wall around me, guarding me from danger. I can’t imagine his heartbreak, his pain. Even considering the hell his little sister went through springs fresh tears to my eyes. I try to swallow the lump growing in my throat as I wrap my mind around what he told me. This man that I thought was some kind of sociopath, is really a hero. He knew he would be sacrificing his career, leaving his family, his friends and living in isolation forever after killing Trent, but he did it anyway. For her. His seventeen-year-old sister who would never grow up to have any of those things.

Just like he did for me.

He stopped Cecil from stealing what wasn’t his. If he hadn’t knocked him out and taken me to safety, I could have suffered the same fate as his sister. I don’t want to think about how a brutal attack like that would’ve shaped the rest of my life.

Cole runs his heavy hand through my hair and I close my eyes letting the calm wash over me.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble against his shirt.

“For what?” Cole moves back, holding my arms in his hands and peers into my face. When he looks at me like that, I feel like he can see everything I try to hide inside. My fears, my dreams, my desires…

I shake my head and try to push the feeling away as my cheeks flush with heat at the thought. Especially the last one. I hope he can’t tell how my body tingled when we held hands, or how an unfamiliar warmth rushed over my skin as he held me.

“I know I don’t understand what you’ve been through, I won’t pretend I do, but I know what it’s like to lose someone who means so much to you.” The lump in my throat grows as my mother’s face floats through my memory. Not how she looked at the end, when the cancer spread through her like wildfire, but how she looked when I was a little girl. When she would smile down at me as she pushed me on the swings or how beautiful she looked when she used to sing me my bedtime songs as a child. That’s how I like to remember her now, in our happiest moments together. In a time before I ever understood the word cancer, let alone had my life ripped apart by its hands.

Cole engulfs my hands in his palms. He watches me patiently as I sort through my thoughts.

“I lost my mother to cancer a few months ago,” I squeak as I strain to keep the endless flow of tears I have for her, contained. “She raised me alone, I don’t have any brothers or sisters. We just had each other.” I take a shaky breath, “I know it’s not the same as your sister, but when I buried her I felt like a wind blew out the fire in my soul.” My chin trembles and fat tears betray me, sliding slowly over my cheeks.

Cole nods and squeezes my hands, he leans into me and softly drags his thumb over the tracks of tears. “I’m sorry you lost your mother,” he leans forward and places his forehead against mine. His comfort soothes my aching heart as I listen to birds tweeting outside and the wind rustle through the pines. It’s such a simple gesture, but it speaks volumes.

Cole pulls back and clears his throat loudly, “I should get you some breakfast,” he turns his head and wipes his face quickly with the back of his hand. “Let me help you up,” he holds out his hand as he stands back up. I watch his face transform as he pushes his sadness down, forcing it away. He juts out his scruffy jaw and his blue eyes grow more determined. I wish I could do that. I wish I could just compartmentalize my feelings the way he seems to be able to. I wish my mother’s death didn’t always feel like a gaping wound pumping out blood with each heartbeat.

“Yes, please,” I grab his hands and let him pull me up. Throwing my arms around him, he supports me as he guides me across the room.

Hopping on my good foot, I follow him to the single chair he has set up next to a small table. He eases me down and I can’t help but smile at how someone so big and so strong can be so gentle.

“Okay, I’ve got instant coffee and oatmeal, the flavored kind, does that work for you?” He doesn’t really wait for my answer, busying himself with getting a pot filled with some water from a jug.

“Sounds perfect,” I agree, tilting my head back into the streaks of sunlight breaking through the window. As the sunlight kisses my skin I enjoy a sense of peace washing over me.

I couldn’t be happier to be so wrong about someone. Tilting my head, I watch as Cole busies himself in his kitchen and realize, I haven’t felt this content in a long, long time. Not since the days before Mama told me she got the diagnosis. A smile spreads over my face and tension I’ve been holding in my shoulders rolls away as I settle back in the chair, enjoying every second of this moment.

Chapter 13 | Cole

“Okay, let me just pour us a couple of coffees,” I lift the bubbling pot of water from the woodstove with a gloved hand and fill two metal mugs. “I know it’s not Starbucks or whatever, but it’s caffeine,” I open the lid of the instant coffee and tap two fingers along the edge until the crystals swirl into the water and turn black.

“Thank you,” Abbie stops picking at her hair and smiles at me. She’s managed to make quite a mess of her locks from the tumble she took in the mud last night. She’s managed to get torn leaves and pine needles braided into her long hair. As she runs her hands over the mess with her face contorted in dismay, I can tell she’s not too happy about it.

“Hey, what flavor oatmeal do you want? I’ve got apple cinnamon or maple and brown sugar left,” I hold up the Quaker packets shaking them.

“Umm, whatever you want is fine,” she scrunches her nose and paws her long locks, distracted.

“Great,” I rip open the last of the maple and brown sugar and dump them in the remaining water, giving them a quick stir before I throw the lid on the pot. “Abbie, don’t worry about that, you’re gonna go cross-eyed trying to pick all that stuff out. We’ll get you fixed up after breakfast, I promise. First things first though, how’s your ankle?”

I walk over to where she’s sitting and kneel down at her feet, carefully lifting her foot.

“It’s, ahhh,” she breathes in sharp as I loosen the laces and open her boot wide to look inside, “still sore.” She does an unconvincing job of trying not to flinch.

“You did a number on it, that’s for sure.” I can see the bruising beginning to stain her creamy skin.

“I’ll be okay,” she puffs out her breasts and sits up straight, but I can see she’s not going to be putting real weight on this foot for at least a few days. Will we be safe here that long? Or am I sitting here with a bullseye on my back, risking my freedom and possibly my life for a woman I barely know.

“You will be, that’s true, but it’s going to take some time.” I just hope time is something we still have. I shake away the thought. Her partner probably went back into town anyway. I’m guessing he’ll be alerting the cops when he does. That is, if he can find his way back. After following them yesterday, I have my doubts. I can’t risk carrying her into town right now, not if there’s a posse of officers trying to track me down. We have no choice but to wait until she can hike. Then I can lead her a little way and send her in the right direction on her own. In the meantime, I’ve gotta hope that fucking P.I. doesn’t get the law swarming in on me. And if they do start nosing around, hopefully the way I set this place up will make me hard to find. I look at Abbie, she’s watching the thoughts flit over my face. I need to stop worrying about this shit. I’ll deal with whatever happens.

“I made something for you,” I stand up and make my way outside, picking up the branch I’ve been transforming for her.

Abbie twists her head to watch me, “What is it?”

The bells I attached to the top jingle like an old ice cream truck as I hand it over to her. “It’s a walking stick, I made it while you were sleeping.” She takes it from my hands.

“Thank you,” she looks at it like I just gave her the keys to a new car. There’s something so refreshing about the wonder in her face. I watch her green eyes twinkle and try to remember the last time I saw the magic in anything. When was the last time I let the world amaze me? It’s easy to tell myself that I haven’t had time, not when I’m out here trying to survive. However, I know that lustre wore off years before any of this became my life.

“No problem. It should help you keep your weight off your ankle until it heals up better. Once you’re swelling goes down we can figure out a plan to get you out of here. Right now, we’ll have to lay low and wait it out. Trust me, I know it’s not ideal, but you’re in no shape to make that kind of hike.”

“I understand. I’m not in a big hurry to get back and run into Cecil again anyway. I’m not even sure how I’m going to get back home. He has my plane ticket and he hasn’t paid me yet, so I’m kinda stuck.” She runs her slender fingers over the stick where I peeled the bark off in a spiral design. Her face transforms in awe.

“You decorated it for me?” She meets my eyes and I’m frozen in place. The way her plump, pink lips are slightly parted makes me want to run my thumb over them before marking them with my kiss.

Shrugging, I look back to the pot of oatmeal, “I had time to kill,” I lie. There were other things I could’ve spent that time on other than making her a pretty cane, but I couldn’t help myself. I guess someone as beautiful as her inspires beauty in everything.

“Ready to eat?” I don’t wait for her to respond, with the way she’s looking at me right now I need the distraction. It’s not my job to notice her lips or think about all the ways I want to enjoy them. It’s my job to keep her safe for a few days and then get her back. That’s it. I stand up and begin portioning the sweet smelling breakfast into a couple of bowls.

“Why did you put bells on it?” Abbie shakes the stick and fills the air with the twinkling sound.

“For bears,” I answer simply and hand her the bowl with a spoon.

“Bears?” She looks out the window like she expects a grizzly bear to wave at her from outside.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. They don’t want any more to do with you than you do with them,” I grab my own bowl and drop it on the table, realizing I have no place to sit. Quickly, I go back outside and grab the big stump I use to cut my firewood on and heave it up, carrying it back in. With a thud, I drop it on the floor at the other side of the table and dig into my cooling breakfast. “Those bells give any animals in the area a heads up that you’re around,” I explain as I eat. “That way you don’t end up between a cub and its mom,” I empty my bowl in a couple of bites. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I took the first taste.

I watch as Abbie slowly eats her breakfast. I let my gaze travel over her supple skin, down over her perky tits and slide down between her legs. My cock aches with a deep desire I didn’t realize I was fighting. Just like my breakfast, I didn’t know how starved I was until the temptation was there.

And just like my breakfast, I want to eat her all up.

I stand up abruptly and start gathering the dishes. You’d think it was the most complicated job in the world with how much forced focus I’m putting into it.

“Oh, let me do that,” Abbie protests from behind me.

“No, stay put and eat. I’ve got it. I’m gonna get this stuff tidied up and then I’ll help you get cleaned up. Normally, I just sponge bathe with a cloth and a pot of water, but when I get as dirty as you are I’ve got a place I go clean up. I’ll take you so you can wash your hair,” I keep my back turned to her. Until I get my appetite under control, it’s the safest option.

“Really? Thank you!” Her voice is as musical as the bells I attached to the top of her walking stick.

“No worries,” I turn and let myself watch her. My hardened features soften as I soak her in. It hits me, that sense of wonder that I thought I lost, the one that has been buried under years of boredom and cynicism has returned. I can feel it stir from its deep slumber when I look at her.

Chapter 14 | Cole

“I think that’s just about everything.” I pat my bag with soap, empty water bottles and a clean towel inside. “Ready to get moving?”

Abbie looks down at her dirt stained clothes, “I don’t have anything clean to change into,” she pouts.

“No problem, I’ve got some drawstring pants you can cinch onto ya and I’ll lend you a clean shirt until we can get your stuff sorted out,” I watch as her mouth tugs down further at the corners. “What? Is there something else?”

“No, well, it’s just,” she looks down at her hands, “I don’t have any clean underwear to change into,” her voice is so soft it sounds like she’s straining just to whisper.

I can’t control the laughter that escapes my lips. I can’t help as it bubbles up and overflows from inside me. I don’t mean to laugh at her, it’s just so cute that she’s all twisted about, well, not having any panties to get in a twist.

“Just do what I do then,” I chuckle, “go commando.” Her eyes grow wide, and for half a second, she lets them drift down my torso to my package. I can’t help but smirk as her cheeks burn bright pink and she quickly diverts her eyes.

I don’t want to let my body register the look. I don’t want to let my mind explore the possibilities. Instead, I walk over to my bed and pull a plastic bag out from the side of my bed where I keep my clean, dry clothes. Stuffing them inside my pack, I quickly zip it up.

“Good to go?” I offer my hand to her to help her up off the chair.

“I think so,” she grimaces as she stands, but finds her balance with the walking stick.

“Here, let me help you,” I tug her arm around my waist and slide mine around hers, helping to ease some of her burden.

“Thanks,” she murmurs. I can feel the heat radiating from her body. I can smell her hair, caked with mud on one side, but the smell of fresh peaches still lingers. I set my jaw and forge ahead. Opening the door for her, I help her through. I try to give her as much support as I can as I guide her around the cabin. I need to shut down my senses when it comes to her. I can’t trust them. Everything about her makes me want more. To feel more of her body against me. To smell the natural perfume between her thighs. To taste her.

Abbie limps beside me, biting her lip hard.

“Hey, you okay?”

“Mmhmm,” she nods, but I know she’s putting on a brave face.

“No, you’re not. Stop.” I order her and she doesn’t move a muscle. “I’ll carry you,” I sweep her from her feet and her walking stick jingles as I hold her in my arms.

“You don’t have to do this, I can walk,” she looks up at me from under those long, dark lashes, her lips inches from mine.

Stop staring and walk.

I don’t second guess the order from my brain. Lord knows I can’t trust my other instincts right now. I march through the woods with purpose, only letting my destination consume my thoughts. Not the beautiful woman looking up at me with that fuck-me stare. Not her sexy body. Just get to the water. Just focus on each step if you have to.

I know I can’t touch her. Not when I plan on making her leave as soon as she’s physically able. I don’t know much about this girl, but I can tell she’d be crushed if I fucked her and then gave her ass a slap and sent her on her merry way. After what she’s already been through, I’m not going to add any more stress or sadness to her life. If that means a case of blue balls for me, well, I’ve got a hand, I can take care of myself.

Luckily, I can hear the roar of the water not far off and Abbie stops looking up at me and turns to listen to the noise.

“What is that?” Again, that wonder fills her voice. To see the world through her eyes must be amazing.

“You’ll see,” I can’t help but smile, knowing how much she’s going to love this. I carefully make my way down a hill toward the stream below.

As we get closer the rush of water fills the air. It explodes on the rocks at the end of the stream into a million sparkling dew drops. I watch Abbie’s face as she looks up, letting her green eyes follow the flow up to the top of the small waterfall above.

“Wow,” she breathes.

“We’re here,” I help her down to her feet. “To your own personal shower.” I help her hobble over to the edge of the cold, clear water and she leans back against my chest as she takes it all in. I don’t mean to wrap my arms around her, but they just feel so natural holding her close. If she minds, she doesn’t show it, simply enjoying the moment. This little waterfall in the woods, with no one around for miles. It feels perfect.

“It’s so beautiful,” she murmurs.

“You’re beautiful,” I breathe. Clamping my mouth shut, I realize the words came out too late. Abbie turns and looks up at me, tilting her head to the side, locking me with her gaze.

“Thank you,” she looks away shyly, as though I’ve said something she won’t let herself believe.

“Don’t thank me for telling you the truth,” I answer. Clearing my throat, I try to let some of the spray from this waterfall dampen the flames of desire I have burning for her inside. “Let’s get you set up here.” I push past my scorching need and try to keep doing the right thing.

Chapter 15 | Abbie

Cole guides me up the edge of the stream to the rushing waterfall. “Here’s a good place,” he stops and points to how the riverbank juts in, close to the spray. “Do you think you can manage by yourself?”

I gulp at the idea of him helping me, naked, under the water. The idea is nerve-racking and… exciting. I can’t deny the flush of heat that’s racing through my veins right now.

I bite my lip and nod, “I’ll be fine,” I hope it’s true. The last thing I need is to fall down, naked and splayed out in some awkward way. Nothing says sexy like that.

I push the thought away. Who said anything about being sexy? I wouldn’t know how to be sexy if I tried.

Sweet - sure.

Funny - I have my moments.

Cute - all day long.

But sexy? It’s not me. When the other girls at college went out on Halloween dressed as ‘sexy’ versions of everything, I dressed up as Pikachu. I mean, in hindsight it was a terrible idea, but Pokémon Go was all the craze and… yeah, not sexy.

Cole leads me as close as he can without getting us soaked. I can feel the mist of the waterfall on my face and a chill runs over me.

“It’s cold,” I shiver.

A slow smile spreads over his thick lips and my body warms back up, “It really is. But, it’ll get you clean, and that’s the main thing, right?”

As another spritz of dew hits me, I’m not so certain. Are globs of mud in my hair really that bad? Maybe I can learn to live with them.

I sigh with resignation and begin to peel off my jacket. Cole turns around and busies himself with his hiking bag. He keeps his back to me as I strip from my filthy clothes and try to build up the courage it will take to get me under that glacial water. I peer back at Cole but he still hasn’t moved. Not a muscle. He really is a gentleman.

I start to move forward and he holds up his hand, but keeps his head facing away from me, “Here’s some soap. I’ll leave the backpack here and fill up some water bottles downstream. It’s got the clean clothes and a towel for you inside. Holler when you need my help, okay?”

“Thanks, I got this,” I try to convince myself it’s true, but as my body breaks out into gooseflesh, I know it’s going to be harder than I imagined to convince myself to stand under that freezing stream of water.

I creep to the edge of the waterfall and look up at the misty rainbow the droplets are making over the side. It would be amazing, if it wasn’t so damned cold. Inching forward further, I lean over and let the waterfall pour over my head.

“Ahhh! Oh my God! That’s painful!”

“Are you okay?” I hear Cole call out.

“Yeah, just might get frostbite, that’s all,” I yell back.

I can hear him laughing over the water rushing around me. “It’s not funny!” I cry out, but I know if the shoe was on the other foot I’d be laughing too.

Leaning forward again, I force myself to keep my head under the stream until I don’t see any more debris or dirt fall from my hair. I quickly lather my hands and run them through my locks and over my shaking body. It’s the moment of truth. I’ve gotta rinse off. I take a deep breath, “Okay Abbie, on three,” I mumble to myself, “one, two, three!”

I don’t budge. Not an inch. Nope.

Instead, I watch the water endlessly fall from the sky and tremble. All right, standing here is just prolonging the inevitable, let’s do this! With a gulp of air, I step under the icy blast and scream. The water is so cold it feels like little razor blades nicking my skin. I quickly step back, and lose my balance. Stumbling backward I put too much weight on my sprained ankle and my legs crumple under me. I fall back toward the ground. Oh no! It’s happening! I really am going to end up naked and splayed out on the ground!

Strong hands catch me and pull me back up to my feet. I’m too grateful to feel self-conscious about my nudity.

“Thank you!” I instinctively press my forearms against my breasts to cover them up and Cole lets me go, only to pick up the towel and cover me up. He hovers over me, and I lean into him, telling myself it’s to keep me warm, not because his body feels so amazing against mine.

Cole looks down at me, he drags his thumb down the side of my face and slides a thick strand of my wet hair from my cheek, behind my ear.

His eyes travel my face and settle down onto my lips, I don’t move, I don’t breathe, I just feel my pulse radiating through me as I wait. Is he going to kiss me?

Crunch! Snap!

“Oh no!” I yelp as we both jump and twist around toward the noise behind Cole. Is that Cecil? Did he track us down? My heart is pounding faster in my chest and has nothing to do with Cole’s mouth almost covering mine.

A doe and her baby step out from the forest and watch us carefully as they reach the river’s edge. The mama never takes an eye off us as she and her baby quickly lap up some water from the crystal clear stream. I’ve never been so close to deer before. Growing up in an apartment in the city didn’t bring a lot of wildlife into my life. They’re so magical. Suddenly the mother deer lifts up her big ears and the two of them bolt off, springing through the woods and out of sight.

“Wow,” I breathe the word. I look up at Cole, but he hasn’t been watching the deer, he’s been watching me. I can’t help but squirm under his half-cocked smile. “What?” I feel like he’s looking into me. I feel so vulnerable, so exposed, and wearing nothing but a towel and wet hiking boots isn’t the reason.

“Nothing,” he finally answers, looking like I’ve ripped him from a deep sleep. He runs his thick hand through his sandy hair and looks down at where he’s scuffing his boot into the dirt. “How about we get back. I think we’ve got everything done here, right?” He won’t look at me. It makes me feel like I’ve done something wrong, but I have no idea what.

“Um, okay, sure,” I agree. “Just let me get dressed.”

This time Cole doesn’t just turn his back and wait for me, he turns his back and walks away. “Okay, give me a shout when you’re dressed and I’ll carry you back,” he doesn’t turn his head back to yell at me.

Did I do something? Is he upset with me? For the life of me I can’t think of why. Confusion eats at me as I try to quickly slip into his clothes. I can’t believe how much the idea is bothering me.

Chapter 16 | Abbie

Cole carries me back to his cabin in silence. Not a single word is spoken between us and it’s like every step he takes builds the worry in my gut that I’ve done something wrong. I’m surprised as he approaches his place, marches in through the door and softly lays me down on the bed. I don’t mean to let my eyes trace where his long-sleeved waffle shirt is clinging to his muscular frame. I get drawn into the deep valleys between his abs before realizing that I’m blatantly staring and close my eyes. When I open them, and focus on Cole’s intense gaze, I can see that the fire I thought was anger building inside him is something entirely different.

It's desire.

I’d be lying I if said I didn’t feel it too. This rush of heat burning over my sensitive skin, I’ve never felt anything like it. Certainly not from looking at a man. Not that I’ve ever given myself any time to explore any of that.

With my scholarship giving me a chance to get educated, I didn’t care about the boys in my classes. However, right now I’m not looking at a boy. Cole is most definitely a man.

I swallow hard and realize my breathing has grown quick and shallow. Cole sinks to his knees and leans over me, never moving his eyes from mine. I shiver with anticipation as he finally crushes his lips into mine and I moan into his mouth with longing I’ve never experienced before.

Cole hears my cry of desire and slides his hands under my shirt, easing it up over my belly and my breasts, “I want you so bad Abbie. I need you.” His voice is hoarse and thick. It sends a deep tremor down the length of my body straight to my clit. My entire body feels alive, every nerve quaking with a strange mixture of excitement and uncertainty.

“I want to taste every inch of you. I want to kiss these,” he leans over and licks my taut nipple and I throw my head back with the unexpected pleasure that courses through me. Cole pulls the drawstring of the pants I borrowed and unties the bow I put in them to hold them on my hips. “I want to taste you here,” his broad hand grazes against the outside of the pants and my hips involuntarily convulse toward him.

“Is that what you want?” He looks down at me and I bite my lip and cast my eyes down to my toes. I do. I want him more than anything, but I don’t have the first clue how to be for him. I don’t know what he wants. I don’t know what I want for that matter.

Cole stops and pulls back, he lifts my quivering hands into his and kisses them, “What’s wrong?” I can see genuine concern in his eyes.

I try to find the words to tell him. I’m too embarrassed to let him know.

He searches my face, “I don’t want to do anything you’re not comfortable with. I’m sorry, I thought you wanted this too,” he frowns and begins to pull away but I grab him.

“No, it’s not like that. It’s just, I’m not used to this,” I admit sheepishly.

“What part?” He tilts his head trying to understand the words I don’t want to say.

“All of it,” shame washes over me as I feel him study my face.

“Wait are you… you’re a virgin?”

“Yes. But, that doesn’t change how I feel about you. I want you too, I just feel stupid saying this, but I’m not sure what to do. I mean, of course I know how this works, I’m not an idiot,” I ramble, the words spilling from my mouth before I can even think about them. “But I don’t know how to make you feel good.” my cheeks burn and my eyes prickle with tears as I wait for him to say something. His silence is deafening.

“Listen,” he hooks his thumb under my chin, “look at me,” he pulls up on my jaw until we’re eye-to-eye. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about, Abbie. I’m glad you told me, I wouldn’t want to hurt you.” He runs his other hand over my hair and gives me another quick kiss. It’s all it takes to light my body back up, aching to give myself to him.

“I feel silly,” I admit.

“Don’t. You shouldn’t. Listen, I’m not going to fuck you right now, you’re not ready for it,” his words crush my spirit and make me hate myself for ever confessing my secret.

“No, we can still do this,” I plead.

“No.” His voice is firm. His one word is a complete sentence. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t make you cum,” his eyes twinkle and my heartbeat quickens. “I’m going to eat that sweet little pussy of yours Abbie and make you cum in my mouth. How does that sound?” His voice is raspy and all I can do is nod my head.

Chapter 17 | Cole

Climbing up onto the bed, I straddle a leg on each side of her and soak her up. It’s been a long fucking time since I’ve had the chance to savor a woman, and even then, I can’t think of a single one who made me this hard just by looking at her.

I lean over her and slide my hand under her head, pulling her to meet my hungry mouth in a tantalizing kiss. I glide my tongue against hers then suck her bottom lip into my mouth, giving it a little bite before kissing away the pain.

Pushing her long, damp hair aside, I kiss her tender neck as she exhales like she’s been holding her breath. Her little whimpers grow louder as I suck her soft earlobe between my lips and flicker my tongue over it the same way I plan to with her clit… in due time.

I’m in no rush, I want to taste all of her smooth skin. I want to feel every part of her quake against me as I bring her to ecstasy. I want to kiss and bite and suck every inch of her, marking her as mine.

My cock throbs against my pants and I take in a shaky breath, reminding myself of the control I need.

I tug the shirt bunched over her breasts up and she raises her arms over her head as I slip it off her body. Cupping her perfect tits in my hands I tease her nipples with my thumbs and she squeezes her eyes shut, tossing her head back gasping.

“You’re so sensitive, aren’t you?” I muse as I watch her writhe under me, knowing the pleasure filling her is nothing compared to what will come.

“Mmhmm, that feels so good,” she whispers, like she’s not sure if it’s okay to tell me.

“Good,” I smile down at her, “how about this?” I lick a trail of saliva around her nipple before pulling it in over my teeth and battering my tongue against the diamond tip. Softening my lips, I lick her tenderly and then drag my tongue across the valley between her breasts and tease her other nipple the same way.

Abbie thrashes below me like a woman possessed. She doesn’t seem to have control over her own limbs as she twists up to meet my mouth. She mewls, begging me to teach her body about the white-hot bliss of passion and experience.

Her hips grind against me, begging me for something she’s never had. Her mind might be nervous, her heart might not be ready, but her body knows instinctively what to do. It’s silently pleading with me to fuck her. To claim her. To stretch out her walls until her hymen is mine.

My breathing is jagged and my throat is raw as I fight my urges to rip off her pants and fill her with my cock. It takes a second, but I remember that a moment of intense pleasure would never be worth the regret of going back on my word. I meant what I said about not wanting to hurt her. Besides, good things come to those who wait, that goes for me, and I’m about to show her that it goes for her too.

I kiss and nibble a trail down her ribs and over her belly to the edge of the pants that I lent her. I can smell her desire like a fresh bloom after a spring rain. It fills my nostrils and drives me to the edge of sanity. I hook my fingers under the waistband and tug the pants over her hips, down past her sweet ass in one yank, until they’re pooled around her ankles. Staring between her legs, I lick my lips at her neatly trimmed pussy. I run my finger over the short hair and pull her lips open to reveal the pearl of desire inside her.

Glancing up at Abbie, I can see she’s nervous. She’s tensed back up and looking down at me with concern etched into her delicate features.

“Just lie back and relax,” I slide down between her legs, “I’m gonna make you feel good, I promise.” I hover over her sweet pussy admiring her untouched lips. Delving my tongue between them, I’m rewarded with a splash of her juices. Like the first drops of water after a long trek through the desert, I lap them up feverishly.

Slipping my tongue deeper between her lips I slide into her tight hole and she squeezes down on me, making me groan as my cock jealously throbs against the fabric of my pants. I take a long, slow lick up to her sensitive nub, flattening my tongue against it, letting her get used to the sensation.

Abbie cries out and opens her thighs wide, until each of her legs is lying flat against the bed. I smile against her, then begin to lick slow, lazy circles over her clit. Her cries grow louder and she begins to buck against my mouth, chasing her pleasure.

I press one finger against her wet slit and push it inside her. Her body writhes under me as her pussy squeezes against my finger tightly. I flicker my tongue against her nub quicker as I press into her center. Abbie moans and twists as I take her to the edge. Thrashing my tongue over her clit, I thrust my finger inside and hook it toward me, pressing against the spot inside that brings her to new heights. Abbie cries out while covering her face with her hands, and throws her head back. I relentlessly lick her clit until her shuddering and quivering stops.

Pulling out my finger, I lick off her sweet nectar with a smile and climb back up beside her.

“That was incredible,” she looks at me with her hooded eyes and gives me a dreamy smile.

“I’m glad,” I answer honestly and pull her into me. Abbie nuzzles into my chest and I pull the blankets over us and wrap my arms around her.

“I’ve never felt like that before,” she confesses. “I mean, I’ve touched myself, of course, but it’s never felt like that,” her voice is breathy.

I run my hand over her hair and kiss her forehead, holding her tight. “There’s a lot more where that came from, Abbie. But right now, you need some rest.”

She doesn’t answer me, she just snuggles in a little closer and I feel her body relax in my arms. Before long I can hear her breathing grow deeper as she drifts off into sleep as I hold her in my arms. I don’t want to fall asleep, I don’t want this feeling to end. I just want to lie here and hold her like this forever.