Chapter Two
It was midnight, and Shelly still couldn’t sleep. She paced the confines of her cabin, her bare feet sliding over the old, wood floors. She’d tried to sleep, but every single time that she’d closed her eyes, she’d seen her stranger. She’d seen him dying, for her.
The fire crackled in the large, stone fireplace. The red and orange flames were dancing as she stared straight at them. Guilt twisted her stomach. The same guilt had her hands shaking in front of her. A man had died, and she was so sick of death. Sick of it reaching for the people around her, over and over again. Sick of—
A soft knock sounded at her door. Her head jerked toward the sound, and her brows lowered as she gazed at the door. She was near the top of the mountain, on an isolated, private stretch of land. Land that had been in her family for generations.
The knock came again, only harder this time. Stronger.
Shelly swallowed as she inched toward the door. It was too late for a visitor. The place was too isolated for some tourist to wander up to her doorstep by mistake. Her phone was on the table near the door, and she grabbed it. Her fingers swiped over the screen. She could call Blane and get the sheriff there in…
In thirty minutes. Because that’s how long it takes to get from his place to the top of this mountain. Oh, damn.
The knock came again. Harder. And…
“I know you’re in there.” A man’s voice. Strong. Familiar. “You’re standing behind the door, and you’re scared, but you don’t need to be.”
No, no way. No. She was wrong about the voice being familiar. Wrong because it couldn’t be, could not be—
Her stranger?
She surged toward the door, flipped the locks and yanked the door open. A cold burst of wind and snow hit her, and Shelly stared in shock at the man before her.
It was him. Her stranger.
The hero.
The dead man.
Her knees started to buckle. The phone slipped from her grasp and dropped to the floor. She was about to follow that phone and hit the wooden floor, but—but he caught her. He moved so fast, catching her and lifting her into his arms. He held her easily as he swept into her cabin, kicking the door shut behind him.
She should scream. She should jerk out of his arms. She should do something.
“You should breathe,” he told her, and his lips—firm, sensual—kicked up just a bit. “That’s what you should do first. Breathe. Then you can scream. You can jerk away from me. You can do everything else you have planned, but you have to start by breathing.”
He carried her to the chair in front of her fireplace. He sat her down ever so carefully even as she sucked in a couple of deep gulps of air.
He knelt in front of her, his hands going to cage her in the chair. His hair was mussed and dusted by a bit of snow. His eyes were just as amazingly blue as they’d been before. He wore a t-shirt—the same black t-shirt he’d worn at the bar. Jeans. Boots.
“You’re dead,” Shelly said.
“I actually get that a lot.”
“What?”
His right hand moved to cup her cheek. His touch was so warm, and she flinched against him.
“Easy.” His gaze didn’t leave her. “I just want to make sure you’re not going to pass out on me.”
Her hand caught his. Held tight. “You’re here. Really here.”
One dark eyebrow raised. “Yes.”
“I’m not dreaming? Hallucinating? Having some kind of breakdown?” Shelly needed to be one hundred percent sure of this.
All trace of amusement left his face. “I’m right here.”
She shook her head. “I saw you die.”
He glanced away from her.
She was still holding his hand. Still holding him, and Shelly didn’t think she’d ever let go. “Who are you?”
He swallowed. “I really hoped you’d know.”
What? “I’m Shelly. Shelly Hampton, and I wish that I could say I knew you, but I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“Shelly.” He seemed to taste her name. Savor it.
She shivered.
His gaze focused on her once more. “I need to tell you some things. And when I do, I want you to promise me that you’ll keep taking those deep breaths, okay?”
She sucked in another deep gulp of air.
“The things I say, they’re going to sound crazy, but I swear, they are true. I’m not lying to you. I won’t lie to you.”
His voice was so deep and hard. His gaze so intense.
“I don’t know who I am.” His gaze held hers. “A few months ago, I woke up in a lab. I was strapped to an exam table. Men and women in white coats rushed around me. I heard them saying my experiment was a success.”
She pulled in another breath.
“They kept me locked away in a facility—didn’t take me long to figure out it was run by the government. They thought I couldn’t hear them when they talked, didn’t think I picked up on their whispers, but I did. They said the place was part of Project Lazarus, and I was a test subject. A fucking lab rat to them.”
She had no idea where this story was going. She didn’t—
“Then they killed me.”
“What?”
He rolled back his shoulders and surged to his feet. His hand pulled from her hold as he towered over her. “I think they killed me five times. Part of their experiment, you see. Because they wanted to see how long it would take me to come back from the dead.”
She could only stare at him. I’m in the mountains, alone in my cabin, with a man who is insane. I let him in my home. Does that make me crazy, too? It must, it—
“You’re not fucking crazy,” he growled. “And you’re also not remembering to breathe, Shelly. Breathe.”
She sucked in more air. Her heart was racing so fast she thought it might burst from her chest at any moment.
“I hate that you’re afraid of me. I-I didn’t think you’d be afraid.” He raked his hand through his hair. “I thought you’d see me…that you’d know me.”
“Um.” She cleared her throat. “Excuse me, but I have to tell you that we’ve never met. Never. I mean, not before I saw you in the bar tonight. We’re strangers.”
His whole body stiffened. “We can’t be.” His hand dropped to his side. For an instant, fury was on his face, and his lethal glare had fear surging even stronger inside of her. She pressed back into the chair and tried to figure out how she could escape. How she—
“You can’t run from me.” A muscle jerked in his jaw. “I’m here to protect you. You’re in danger, don’t you see that?”
She was seeing that fact pretty clearly. Because the guy in front of her was spinning some wild story about a government experiment and—
“You were in my mind. From the minute I woke up in that hell, you were in my head. I’d have flashes of you. I couldn’t remember anything else, only you.” He was definitely angry. He spun away from her, pacing toward the fire. “You were—you are the only thing I know, and you stare at me like I’m a monster.”
Time for her to run. While his back was turned. Now. Shelly leapt from the chair and raced for the door. Her hands flew out and—
Hit him.
Because the big, probably crazy stranger was suddenly in front of her. Impossible. He’d been behind her. He’d been in front of the fireplace. But now he was between her and the door. He’d beaten her to the door. And he wasn’t even breathing hard.
“I am not here to hurt you. You’re in danger, but not from me.” His voice was low, and it seemed to sink right beneath her skin. “I found you…I tracked you…I searched for you because I knew I had to keep you safe.”
“But you don’t know me.” Her voice was too high. Cracking. A terrible contrast to his. “We don’t know each other.”
Pain flashed in his eyes but was quickly masked. “You are the only thing I know. They held me in their lab, kept me prisoner for months. Experimented on me again and again. Killing me, bringing me back.”
No, surely…
Dear God, that couldn’t be true, could it? “Y-you were shot tonight. Show me your back.”
Staring straight at her, he yanked the shirt over his head.
She swallowed. Twice. The guy was built. He didn’t just have a six pack going on. More like a twelve pack. But there were scars on his chest. Faint white ridges. A lot of them. Bullet wounds? Knife wounds?
He turned, giving her his back.
And where there should have been a gaping hole…her fingers reached out and touched warm skin. He jerked hard beneath her touch, and she heard him hiss out a rough breath. “Got the bullet out. I’m okay now.”
She didn’t stop touching him. His skin was…it was slightly red in the middle of his back, near his spine, and she could have sworn that what looked like some kind of fresh scar tissue was starting to form. “Impossible.” Was that…was that blood still on his back? Dried blood?
He turned toward her. Offered her the shirt in his hand.
Shaking, she took the shirt and she found the hole that had been left by the bullet. There was dried blood on the shirt. His blood. She dropped the shirt. Backed up four quick steps. Shook her head. “This isn’t happening.”
“I wish it fucking weren’t. It’s my life, though. Or what’s left of it.” He gave a grim laugh. “You’re what’s left of it. I found you.”
Those words—Oh, God.
“I knew you were out there. You were in my head, and I knew you had to be real, no matter what bullshit the assholes in that lab told me. When the place was destroyed, I escaped. I came looking for you.” He advanced toward her.
Shelly backed up another step.
“You’re in danger.” His hands fisted at his sides. “I know it. I can…I can sense things, okay? Hell, I can come back from the dead. I think that proves I’m not exactly normal.”
No, he was far from normal.
“My senses are better than a normal man’s. Far fucking better. I can hear through walls, I can hear whispers from a hundred yards away. I can see better than any human—see, hear, smell. I’m faster, I’m stronger.”
Nothing he was saying reassured her. “How do I know that you aren’t just crazy?”
His eyes narrowed. “I can prove it.”
Um…
A moment later, he opened the cabin’s front door. Cold air blew inside, chilling her. “Come and watch,” he invited.
And then he slipped outside. She rushed to the door, intending to slam it shut and lock him out while she still had the chance. This was her perfect opportunity, this was—
He was gone.
Her head poked out of the doorway. She looked to the left, to the right, but he wasn’t there. He’d vanished in a blink. No way. Impossible.
Shut the door. Go inside. Lock him out—
“A lock won’t keep me out.” His voice boomed in the night. Boomed—and he had to be a good hundred yards away from her. She inched forward onto her porch, squinting to try and make him out in the distance. He was a shadowy figure and—
Then the shadowy figure seemed to fly toward her. He moved so fast. She opened her mouth to scream, and he was just there. Right in front of her. Touching her. Holding her.
“Told you,” he said, his voice eerily calm. “I’m fast.”
And he let her go. He backed away. An old tree had fallen near her house. The tree’s trunk had to be at least five feet round. He grabbed the tree and lifted it up, as if it weighed nothing.
Oh, God.
She ran back into the cabin. Slammed the door. Locked the door. Triple locked it. Her right foot hit the phone she’d dropped moments before, and she yanked it up. Her fingers flew over the screen as she started to call Blane—
The door burst open.
She yelped and whirled to face the man standing there. He’d knocked in her door—and he still held up one hand, as if he’d just used one hand to break into her cabin.
Shelly rushed across the room, she grabbed for the fireplace poker, but he was too fast. He got to the fireplace first. His hands closed around hers before she could get a weapon. The phone went flying again as he pulled her close.
“Don’t hurt me,” she cried even as she tried to figure out how to hurt him.
But his eyes widened in absolute shock. “Never,” he swore, and his hold—it was careful. Gentle. His fingers were around her wrists, but his thumbs were stroking her skin. “I came to keep you safe, not to hurt you.”
He had saved her life—twice. Shelly’s head tilted as she fought her fear and studied him. “You really don’t know who you are?”
He shook his head. “In the lab, they just gave me a number. Never used a name. And like I said, the only thing about my past that I remember—”
“Is me,” she finished softly. Her words were calm and quiet, but her heart was racing like crazy in her chest. What he said didn’t make a bit of sense to her. Everything seemed impossible but…
But…
She had seen him die. He’d been dead at the crash scene on the mountain road. And she’d seen his super speed. His incredible strength. “Is there anything else you can do? Any other super powers that I need to know about?” Because, yes, it sounded like she was boarding the crazy train.
His gaze cut away from her.
Oh, crap. “There is something else.”
He kept stroking her inner wrists. Her pulse was going mad beneath his touch. Understandable since he scared her. A guy with his powers, how could he not scare her? But there was also a strange awareness between them. A sort of primitive pulse that was drawing her to him.
Desire. Lust.
The guy was drop-dead sexy. She’d never been the type to fall for a tall, dark stranger, especially not one who came with all of his extra features.
Only she wasn’t pulling away from him. She was standing there, enjoying his touch despite the madness that he’d brought her way.
Maybe she was the crazy one. Shelly cleared her throat. “What aren’t you telling me?” Her head tilted back more as she stared up at him. “Can you fly? Because if you can fly—”
“I can’t fly.” His gaze came back to hers, and it actually seemed to—to heat. A sensual awareness filled his stare. “But I am tuned to you.”
“Okay, I don’t know what that means. Seriously, no idea.”
“It means that I can feel you. How the hell do you think I found you in these mountains? It’s like—hell, it’s so hard to explain, but it’s like an invisible thread connects me to you. When I broke out of that lab, I could feel it. I could feel it when I was still in the lab, too. It’s a pull that leads me straight to you.” He hesitated, and she knew there was more. Only she wasn’t so certain she wanted to know the rest. Maybe she’d had enough revelations for one night.
An invisible pull? Was the guy saying he could basically, what? Find her, anywhere she went? That was—
“When your thoughts are strong enough and I…think when we’re physically close, I can hear them.” Another confession from him.
Her jaw dropped.
“So, yeah, I can find you anywhere. I can—”
“I-I didn’t say that part out loud.” She yanked her hands back from him.
He frowned at her. “You don’t have to pull away. I like touching you, too. I feel the desire, too. I wanted you before I even knew if you were real or just a figment of my desperation, and I—”
I feel the desire, too. No, no, he knew that she felt that weird attraction to him? Now her cheeks were burning hot, and not because of the flames in the fireplace. “You don’t just jump into someone’s head. You don’t do that. It is not appropriate.”
His frown deepened as his brows pulled low. “I was just trying to understand you. I knew you were afraid, and I wanted to see if you could feel anything other than fear for—”
She jabbed her index finger into his chest. His bare chest. His sexy chest. Focus. “Do not get into my head again, do you understand me? Because I am trying hard not to have an absolute freak-out on you. You’re some kind of superman who has just landed on my doorstep, and on top of all the other terrible shit in my life, I don’t know if I can handle this right now.” I don’t know if I can handle you.
He blinked. “I told you, I’m here to help you. I think you’re in danger. After what happened tonight, I know you are—”
“Blane—Sheriff Blane Gallows said some hunter accidentally fired at us, and Blane told me that my brakes had gone out because of a leak. Wear and tear. No one was gunning for me. No one was—”
His hand curled around hers. But he didn’t move her hand away from his body. Instead, he flattened her palm against his chest, and she could feel the thunder of his heartbeat. “That wasn’t a hunter firing at you. The shot came from far away, from a guy who knew how to use a scope and aim perfectly in the dark. Probably a trained sniper. He’d picked that spot deliberately because he expected you to go off the mountain there. He knew your brakes couldn’t handle the turn. He was there, waiting, to finish off the job, just in case you managed to get out of your car before it went over the edge.”
She licked lips that had gone far too dry.
He gave a low growl. A sound that was weirdly sexy. All hard and primal.
Her breasts tightened. What is wrong with me? She cleared her throat. “You can’t know that.”
He just stared at her. “I could hear the shot coming. I was able to figure out the guy’s location. A sniper spot. After he hit me, I heard him flee. If I hadn’t been dying, I would have given chase.”
Dying. “Y-you knew you’d come back.” Come back from the dead. Was she seriously saying this stuff?
He gave a little shrug. “I figured the odds were good.”
“What if you hadn’t?” Her voice was husky. “What if you’d died right there and that had just been the end?”
“Then you’d still be alive.”
She snatched her hand back. “Don’t.” Her whole body had gone tense. “Do not ever do something like that again, got me? Because I don’t want someone dying for me.”
He blinked. Seemed confused. Fair enough—that made two of them.
She needed to put some distance between her and her mystery man. “You should leave.”
He glanced toward her door. Her broken door. “It’s not safe for you to be alone out here. You’re being targeted.” He rolled back his shoulders. “I’ll fix your door.” He hesitated. “I can…I can stay outside, if you’ll let me. The cold doesn’t do anything to me, and—”
“You’re not staying outside.” A terrible thought struck her. But if everything else he’d said was true…oh, jeez. “You don’t have any place to go, do you?”
He gave a curt shake of his head. A negative shake.
Was she really supposed to kick out the man who’d saved her? Turn him out into the cold, winter night? Shelly bit her lower lip. Dammit. “This cabin is plenty big enough for us both.” No, she hadn’t just said that.
Had she?
His eyes widened. “You’d let me stay with you?”
Her breath heaved out. “The place has three floors, okay? Plenty of room. I’m on the top floor. You can take this one. Use the bathroom. Shower off the blood. And get a good night’s sleep. We can figure out everything else in the morning.” She paused. “Don’t go down to the lower floor, okay? It’s, um, locked up.” Partially true—her studio was down there, and she wasn’t up to going in that particular room yet.
He wasn’t even blinking. Maybe she’d made a huge mistake. Maybe he was some kind of serial killer and this was a terrible—
“I’m not a serial killer,” he gritted out.
Her hands flew up. “Stay out of my head!” Everything he said is true. She’d need more than a few hours of sleep to wrap her mind around all of that. “That’s the number one rule between us, okay? Don’t jump in my head. You saved my life, so I owe you.” Seriously owed him. “You can stay here and I’ll…I’ll try to help you.”
For an instant, hope flashed on his face. It was almost painful to see.
“I don’t know you.” She bit her lower lip. “I don’t know how you know me. How you remember me, but after everything that’s happened, I will help you. I’ll help you try and figure out who you are.”
“Thank you.”
She gave him a weak smile.
His face tensed. His eyes glittered even more.
“Um, is everything all right?” Shelly asked him as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.
“I want you.”
Her heart thudded into her chest.
“You…want me, too.” Now he was the one clearing his throat, but it didn’t seem to help because when he talked again, his voice was still more like a growl than anything else. “I picked up that thought before you told me to stay out of your head.”
Her cheeks burned again as she blushed. “I don’t make a habit of sleeping with men I’ve just met.” And I don’t even know your name! She’d have to start calling him something soon. Shelly pointed down the hallway. “After you fix the door…” And really, he’d broken it so it only seemed fair that he fix it, right? Not like she was asking for too much. “Use the bedroom and the bathroom on the right.” She hurried toward the stairs. Shelly knew she needed to get away from her stranger. Maybe put a few locked doors between them.
Then again, he didn’t seem to have any trouble knocking down locked doors.
“We can talk in the morning,” Shelly added, throwing those words over her shoulder. Her hand slid up the wooden banister. She didn’t look back, not until she reached the upper floor. She paused then, leaning a bit over the wooden balcony. And she found his gaze right on her. For a moment, she absolutely could not look away. There was just something about him. So intense, so powerful…
I don’t know him. We’ve never met. Because there was no way she could ever forget a man like him.
No way.
***
He hadn’t forgotten her.
Shelly moved away from the wooden balcony. Her soft steps padded over the carpet, and then he heard the faint sound of her door shutting—and the click of the lock sliding into place.
He still didn’t move.
She’s real. I touched her. I spoke to her. The doctors at the lab had tried to tell him that he’d just imagined her. They’d been so certain that he couldn’t remember the woman with the long, dark hair and the deep, dark eyes. They’d been so certain he was wrong. They’d pumped him with drugs—hell, sometimes, he’d been sure they were trying to make him forget her.
But he hadn’t forgotten her. She was the only thing he remembered. The only thing that mattered. And every instinct he had screamed that she was in trouble.
Shelly.
His Shelly.
He found some tools in the garage just beyond the cabin. He fixed her door, discovered that the task was surprisingly easy. Maybe he’d been some kind of handyman in his former life.
He put the tools away and as he walked toward the room Shelly had indicated, he saw her phone on the floor. Frowning, he picked it up, and when he did, the screen glowed, showing him a picture of a blond man. A man who had his arm wrapped around Shelly.
Anger churned inside of him. Who in the hell is that asshole? His fingers swiped over the screen and her contact list came up. The guy…he was Blane Gallows.
Sheriff Blane Gallows. Shelly had said that.
She’d been…attempting to call Blane? When she’d been so afraid? He looked upstairs. No sound came from her room. Her call hadn’t gone through. He didn’t have to worry about the sheriff storming to the cabin.
But did he have to worry about the sheriff having some kind of claim on Shelly? Carefully, he put the phone down on a nearby table. With the tension pounding through his body, he was worried he might crush it. He had to always watch himself. He was so strong that he could break things too easily.
I’ll have to be extra careful with Shelly.
Because he would never, fucking ever, want to break her.
He headed for the bathroom. As he entered the room, he stripped. When he climbed into the shower a few moments later, the hot water poured down on him. He closed his eyes, putting his face under the spray, and in his mind, he saw…her. Only Shelly wasn’t in the cabin any longer.
She was walking on a beach. Her hair blew in the breeze behind her. Shelly wore a small, blue bikini, one that showed off her perfect curves. She stopped walking and stared off into the distance. Her feet curled into the sand and then a wave came up and tickled her toes.
She laughed. The sound pierced right through him. She laughed and then she turned…
I swear, she turned to look at me.
The image disappeared from his mind. The waves were gone, and all he knew was the pounding rush of the shower’s water. Frustration surged within him. He wanted the fucking surf back. He wanted the damn beach. He wanted Shelly in her bikini.
He wanted his life.