Chapter Three

Savannah

This is hands down the craziest fucking thing I’ve ever done. I don’t know this man-beast from the abominable snowman, and here I am following him blindly into the white wilderness. I must be nuts…certifiably bat-shit. If I get out of here alive, it’s going to be a miracle worthy of my written memoirs.

With each step, I remind myself that he can do anything to me, and no one will ever know. No one will even hear me scream. Still, the thought of being alone in the bus with no heat or light terrifies me more than accepting his offer. As odd as it is, there seems something inherently trustworthy about him. A clear leader. Leader of what, I don’t know. He appears to be a salt-of-the-earth type, and he knows his way around the area which is more than I can say for myself. Perhaps he’s got a working telephone.

I leave Mel a note telling him the bus engine died, a local offered me a lift into town, and that I’d catch up with him there. I wrap a scarf around my head, sling my purse strap crossways over my shoulder, and grab my coat before following the hulking stranger out of the bus and onto the road.

I look down at my shoes. I’m wearing boots—well, sort of—but they aren’t anywhere close to what is required of me right now. After a quick mental check of my closet, I know I don’t have any better options on board. It never occurred to me that I’d have to walk on anything other than concrete or red carpets, and my selection of footwear is proof.

“Shit!” I curse as my four-inch Jimmy Choo ankle boots sink into the snow, burying me up to mid shin in cold slush. My wool, tight-fitting leggings aren’t much protection either. Damn, they’ll be ruined forever. I hate this country already, even if my Nana Aislan was one hundred percent Irish and would turn over in her grave if she heard me say so.

Ronan strides ten feet ahead, oblivious to my distress. I turn to go back inside to gather many more layers of clothes or even grab a blanket, but the bus door hisses closed, and shit…locks all of my professional and personal goods inside. I pull on the door, but it doesn’t budge.

I have a choice. I can stand here and hammer on the door, or I can follow my only hope for safety. I lurch forward, hopping from one foot to the other like a rabbit through the miserable white stuff to catch up to him.

“Wait! Slow down!” I yell, then let out an embarrassing shriek when I nearly fall on my ass.

A gentleman would wait on me, take me by the arm, shield me from the wind and lead me at a pace conducive to my outrageously expensive footwear. I’m used to all men falling at my feet in service to me. Catering to my every whim. Call me a diva, but I’m not digging this scenario one bit.

Who am I kidding? This brute doesn’t look anything remotely resembling a gentleman? More like a Neanderthal from one of those movies on the Discovery channel about prehistoric man.

Hardly. The guy is nearly six and a half feet of solid, hulking hairiness. One of those back-to-nature earthy types who denounces society and believes in living off the land. I can certainly tell what he doesn’t believe in, namely soap, Gucci Black, or barber shops. Probably kills his own meat with his bare hands and grows his own vegetables too. Something about his voice, though—aside from a brogue so thick I can barely understand him—is deep and rich like Irish Crème. Now there’s something to love about Ireland. It sends vibrations through my core like one of my bass player’s power riffs, and I feel strangely lured by it, hence the fact I’m now following him like he’s some Gaelic pied piper.

Ronan stops and turns around. “Hurry on,” he says. “Gotta leg it if we want to get home afore dark.”

“Home?” I say, finally reaching within a few feet of him. “You said you’d take me into town.”

“Aye. When the snow lets up, I’ll give yer a ride into town.”

“Oh, I get it,” I say, realizing his car would, of course, be parked at his home. “How far away are we? From your home?” I clutch the ends of my scarf over my nose and mouth against the driving wind and snow.

He looks down at me with brooding, dark eyes that shine in the dusk like two pools of ink in the dying light. Yet, they aren’t threatening. They’re quite the opposite. They’re laden with mystery and intrigue and invitation. I should be terrified at what those eyes seem to broadcast. Instead, some part of me that I’ve never met before pleads with my rational brain to lay down in the snow and spread my legs. But I’m not afraid, and I don’t give in to my baser urges either. All my previous panic flees the scene.

“A few hundred meters. Not far, if yer get a move on.”

“Could you help me, then? Your legs are a lot longer than mine,” I say, holding out my hand, wondering if he’ll take it and what it might feel like if he does.

Hoping he’ll take it. Touch me. Protect me.

Fuck me.

I shake my head. Christ, where are these erotic thoughts coming from? Celibacy has been my best friend for months. When I’m on the road, I can’t get distracted by men and sex, no matter how many hunky strangers offer their cocks to me on a silver platter.

For now, I sure as hell don’t want to get left behind in the wake of his giant strides. He seems to hesitate, but then shifts the bag he carries over his shoulder and grips my freezing hand in his huge, rough one. He yanks me forward with the force of a tractor, heading for the edges of the forest. I honestly make an effort to keep up, but it isn’t long before I stumble and fall to my knees. Ronan hoists me to my feet and drags me forward again. I keep my head down as the snow continues to fall and swirl in all directions inside the cover of the forest.

Despite my legs going numb from the cold, the muscles in my calves burn with the relentless effort of lifting my legs up and down trying to match Ronan’s impossible pace. As I muster a long lunge to close the distance between us, my treacherous high heel snaps and sends me sideways onto the snow-covered ground yet again.

“Oh! Damn and double damn.” I moan in misery and frustration. When will this trek end? Surely, we must be near his place by now? I can’t see a thing, and now I’m covered in snow, my face and hair wet and freezing.

I stop only long enough to indulge in a convulsive shiver.

“Forget it, woman,” Ronan says, scowling. His gruff nature and rude speech would have frightened me if I hadn’t been nearly catatonic from the blood numbing cold and pain instead. He lets go of my hand and stoops over me. Burly arms snake around me and lift me bodily out of the snow in a single, swift motion. “We’ll make better time this way.”

Oh my God, is this guy for real? I know I shouldn’t question it. I should just enjoy it while it lasts. Who knows if I’ll ever be rescued like this again in my life. Hoisted up as if I weighed no more than a bag of groceries.

Thanks to my trainer’s constant reminders, I know I’m no lightweight, yet he carries me forward without so much as a grunt or a wheezing breath. Is he some kind of superhuman hybrid? Perhaps that’s why he hides himself out in the woods like this, away from the prying curiosity of normal people. That scene from “Encino Man” flitters across my brain. Did someone dig Ronan O’Farrell up from the depths of Mother Earth and thaw him into a living, breathing Cro-Magnon man?

In any case, my tired muscles welcome the respite, and having no other option, I wrap my arms around his neck to remain as stable as possible. Out in the open air, I don’t detect as strong a smell about him as I had inside the bus. It’s not unpleasant exactly, just earthy and raw. His long hair cascades down his back in snow-crusted strands. Its length rivals my own, and I feel a strange urge to dry and comb it out when we get inside, just to feel its texture. Why do men—who don’t even appreciate it—always possess the thickest and healthiest hair?

Just as I settle into the rhythm of Ronan’s powerful strides, he stops short. In the next instant, I find myself on the ground again, dumped unceremoniously into the snow.

“Hey!” I yell. Great, now my ass is sore as well as my arms and legs. “That hurt! I didn’t ask you to carry me.”

He ignores my outburst and crouches down near a fallen tree at the edge of the now-indiscernible path we’re following. He sets down his shoulder bag and begins pawing at something on the ground.

Seriously? He’s foraging like a damn deer with a storm closing in on us? “What are you doing?” I ask, righteous indignation lacing every syllable.

Ignoring me, he takes a pair of shears from his pack and begins to cut branches from a small bush he’s uncovered. “Skimmia. I’ve been lookin’ for it all day. Don’t know how I missed it afore.”

“S-skimmy?” I repeat, unsure if I’m even close to the actual word. “What the hell is that?”

He turns on me in annoyance like I’m a moron. “Do yer ever stop with that gob of yers? Shite, yer talk the hind leg off a donkey. I need it, is all. There’s nay reason for yer to know why ‘cause yer be leaving soon. As soon as feckin’ possible.” His dark gaze flicks back and forth over me, and I felt as chastised as a grade school kid with just that cursory look. “There’s some under yer arse right there. Clear the snow away will yer, so I can collect that bit as well.”

What? He expects me to dig in the snow? Suddenly, this feels less like a rescue and more like a death march. I shift my internationally adored and revered arse and follow the trail of his pointing finger. Dark leaves poke out from beneath the snow cover.

Fine.

If it gets us moving again, I’ll play hunter-gatherer. There had better be a top-notch manicurist in town if I ruin my beautiful gel nails in the act though.

Like a petulant child, I swat at the brush, sending snow flying in all directions. By the time I sufficiently clear the leaves, my fingers throb from the numbing cold. I cup them to my mouth and blow across them in an attempt to get the blood flowing again. Ronan bends down over the exposed plant and snips more branches off to stuff in his pack.

“That’s the lot,” he says with a grunt as he stows the shears and rises to his feet. “Come on then, only a tad farther. I trust yer can hoof it the rest of the way.” He extends his giant hand to help me up.

“My boot is broken,” I cry, lifting one foot from the snow. I nearly sob at the sight of its spike heel dangling uselessly from the sole. Without warning, Ronan grabs the supple leather and snaps the heel off the rest of the way. I gasp in shock and add a pathetic moan as he discards it into a pile of snow as if it’s nothing. As if I’m nothing. “These are Jimmy Chooos!”

“God be with yer.”

I stare at him, then realize he must have thought I’d sneezed. Geesh. “No. These are twelve hundred-dollar shoes.”

“Really? Now they’re shite. Who spends their hard-earned schnozzlewoppers on fancy shoes, woman? Yer got fleeced, yer did.” He looks at me like I’m the most ridiculous person he’s ever met. And schnozzlewoppers? Did we take a left turn into Whoville? “Steady on.” With a firm hand under my armpit, he hoists me to my feet and tows me forward.

Too dumbfounded to protest, I limp alongside him in a clumsy, uneven gait. In a few minutes, the path widens and the trees clear to reveal a…um, cabin, for lack of a better word. ‘Hovel’ comes to mind, along with ‘Hobbit.’ The structure hunkers low amid a thicket of tangled brush. The doorway barely seems tall enough to accommodate a man of his height. Its whitewashed walls look made of cookie dough, and the steep-pitched thatch roof sits atop it like a sagging, snow-covered straw hat. A plume of smoke fights its way skyward through the storm from a stone chimney. I add ‘Hansel and Gretel’ to my mental word list.

“This is your home?” I ask without thinking.

“Aye, home sweet home.” He gives his abode a proud nod. “Grand, ain’t she?”