Without warning his truck fishtails on some ice. I scream, heart pounding in my chest. My hands shoot out, grabbing aimlessly. They land on the dash in front of me (great), and Sawyer’s biceps (holy mother of all that is large and solid).
When we come to a skidding stop, he looks down at me. “Still want me to take you to Gia’s?”
The question is rhetorical. I look past him out the window. The school isright there, a hazy silhouette beyond all the white. We were going at a snail’s pace and we still spun out. But when I look back at him, flannel shirt open at the top, jeans hugging his thighs, hair falling carelessly over his forehead, my hand still gripping his arm, all I see is trouble.
I swallow. “Yes, please.”
His dry chuckle is an irritating grate up my ribcage. “Not a chance. You’re coming home with me.”
I hate that he’s right. Besides the ice on the road, visibility is almost nonexistent. He eases down on the gas, and we start moving again. It’s the wrong direction, but I don’t dare distract him by asking where “home” is. Nothing is in this direction except Mount Eden. He must be avoiding the main road, maybe there’s an accident I don’t know about.
Why he traded in his huge truck that had heated seats and probably four-wheel drive for this clunker, I don’t know. We slip and slide all the way to the mountain road. My confusion rises when he doesn’t turn back toward town, instead driving a short way up the road before turning onto a gravel drive.
The blood pumping through my veins could power a rocket ship. Pain shoots through my hip with every bumpand jolt. At first, I think maybe I fractured something, but the sensation, while intense, is more surface-level.
It takes approximately one century to traverse to the cabin in the woods that I think might become my murder location. When we stop, I peer past the blanket of snow.
“Wait, you live here?”
It was hard to tell at first, but I know this place. It’s old Mr. Collins’s cabin. The only place I ever thought might be worth actually living in Blue Ridge for. The snow is coming down too hard for me to see if the view is as nice as I remember from the few times I hiked here.
His hand is on the back of my seat when he answers, body angled toward me. “I do. Can you walk?” I follow his gaze to my hip, and that’s when I notice blood for the first time—I must have fallen on something sharp, probably ice. Embarrassment blazes through me.
“Just a flesh wound,” I say in my best medieval British accent, but when I turn in my seat, I can’t help wincing at the pain.
He ignores the joke and steps out, slamming his door hard. Before I can get out, he’s at my side, stooping to pick me up as if I weigh nothing, and shutting the door with his hip.
“You don’t have to?—”
“This’ll be quicker,” he clips out. So much for chivalry, he’s probably just cold. Then again, so am I. I’m still wearing his coat, but my sweater is wet from melted snow, chilling my skin.
I wrap my arms around his neck and settle in for the ride. His coat smells like chlorine, but he doesn’t. His scent is the perfect blend of clean and spicy. It wakes up all the nerves in my body, the sensation pinballing down to between my legs.
With him focused on where he steps, I can openly study his face. His thick eyebrows are furrowed in concentration. Several days’ worth of scruff covers his face, but he’s shaved at the neck, giving it that soft, kissable look?—
“I can feel you staring,” he grunts.
Whoops.
“Plotting my murder?” he asks.
My heart is a kick drum in my chest. “I assumed that’s why you broughtmehere.”
“Please,” he says, “if I were going to murder you, I’d do it on the other side of town, not at my house.”
He’s careful climbing the wooden steps, then shifts my weight to one arm while he opens his door.
CHAPTER 25
BRIE
Inside,he kicks off his boots and deposits me on a bench against the wall.
“Wait here.” He strides away, and I distract myself from the throb in my hip by looking around.
This place is . . . cramped. The entire cabin is much smaller than I expected, just one room, like a large studio. The amount of junk jammed in here doesn’t help. Dressers, a large bed, bedside tables, storage boxes stacked high in one corner. It all points to him moving from a much larger house except his couch is way too small for the space, like it came from a compact apartment. I can’t understand it.
“Here,” he says, hurrying back to me, carrying a first aid kit and some towels.
