Her cold, almost frozen fingers tremble, but she places her palm in mine. “The power is out,” she whispers, “and our landlord didn’t get us a generator.”
I growl under my breath, glancing back at her almost snow-covered house. “Then you’re coming back with me,” I reply without thinking, helping her out of the truck. “I have a place on the mountain.”
“Wouldn’t that be completely out of the way?” she asks carefully, teeth chattering. “I have a wood-heater. But—” She cuts herself off with a shake of her head. “No wood.”
“I have a place in town, too,” I reply, keeping my voice low as I guide her to my truck. “Somewhere we can lie low during the storm. Has a generator.”
I stayed there rarely, only when I was on call for volunteer work at the station. But even then, being on the mountain usually served them better. I could usually co-ordinate up there and give them an idea of the fire from my vantage point.
The thought of bringing this woman into a space that’d been mine alone and never been touched by another should have made me uneasy. But as I help her into my truck, there’s only a strange sense of protectiveness swelling within me.
“Thank you,” she says as I grab the seatbelt, our faces inches apart. She’s damn near going to freeze to death, and yet I find myself trapped in her blue eyes. She has my heart warming without even trying—and that’s dangerous.
There’s a reason I prefer to be alone.
Clearing my throat, I buckle her in. “No worries,” I mutter, slamming her door shut. I eye her truck for a moment before going back and getting her meagre supplies off the passenger seat, locking the vehicle before I jump into my own and embrace the heat once more.
The woman makes a sound in the back of her throat. “Thank you.”
“You already said that,” I mutter, kicking the truck into gear and getting us the fuck away from her dead street. For a moment, the snow seems to soften, the sky turning from its original angry grey to white, like the storm wants to clear.
“I mean, for getting my stuff,” she stutters, teeth chattering, arms wrapped around herself. If she could somehow fold in on herself, I had a feeling she would.
The snow comes down faster in a flurry of harsh white snowflakes. As I push through the storm—a storm that’s quickly turning into a blizzard—I clear my throat. “We aren’t far from my place,” I tell her, turning down a familiar street.
I’ve spent enough time in this small town to know it better than the back of my hand. Even though I prefer the isolation and quiet the mountain offers me, it’s hard not getting used to a place like this.
“That’s good,” she says, breathing in sharply. “I need to rest so I don’t give birth in your truck.”
That has my heart racing. I spare her a quick glance and find her bracing against the seat, one hand digging into the leather, the other gripping theoh-shithandle above her head. Every instinct in me is telling me to get this truck down to the hospital, but if she’s in labour, I doubt she’d make it with how slow the drive will be.
Despite those instincts, something else roars to life inside of me. A desperate need to protect her, a desire to see her through this. It’s a foreign feeling I don’t quite understand, yet as I listento her breathing, each small puff of air laboured and painful sounding, the feeling grows within me.
Without thinking, I reach across the centre console and rest a hand on her knee. The simple touch has her almost jumping, though just as quickly taking my hand and gripping my fingers tightly.
“We aren’t far from the cabin,” I tell her quietly. “Just a few more minutes.”
“I really shouldn’t,” she explains on a long breath. “I’m not due yet. It’s just the stress. Probably false labour. I just need to get inside and lie down.”
My jaw clenches as I nod. “I see the cabin up ahead.”
Beside me, the woman sighs in relief. Slowly, I pull into the lot. There are six small single-bedroom houses that are rented out mostly to guys like me—recluses who live on the mountain and occasionally return to civilisation. Of the six, I know two belong to the Jade Mountain rescue team. Another to an ex-military guy I sometimes see hunting on my cameras. The others, I didn’t know.
I pull into mine, the last on the right, and cut the engine. “I’ll get you in first, then come back for the stuff,” I say, barely looking at her.
The only response I get to that is another sharp breath. The last thing I want is her actually giving birth—not here, and definitely not now. So, I jump out, round the hood of the truck, and get her door open with a grunt. I manage a cursory look around the lot for any of the other guys who live here, but there’s no one else around. Not another truck, and no lights.
We’re completely on our own.
And I don’t know if I like that or not.
While she restson the sofa in the living room, I get a fire roaring to life, pack away the meagre supplies we have, and do a thorough check of everything—twice. All the while, she’s working through breathing techniques and muttering to herself about giving birth in a stranger’s cabin.
If I thought I was panicking, I can’t imagine how she feels. It melts a little of the tension inside me. It shouldn’t. My focus should be on getting her through the storm safely, then to the hospital so someone else can look after her.
But when I stop in the small hallway hiding the tiny bathroom and single bedroom—which is barely good enough for me, let alone her—and watch her, that unfamiliar protectiveness swells within me again.
I don’t do…attachments. I never have. You learn quickly in foster care not to form any lasting relationships with anyone, not when you can be moved on to another house in the blink of an eye. I only have acquaintances now; the guys who volunteer, other men who rarely leave the quiet of the mountain.
