A couple long strides, and I reach the woman with the purple jacket.
“You okay?” I ask gently, shoving my bruised and bloodied knuckles into my Carhartt pocket to avoid scaring her.
“Yes,” she whimpers, blinking hard twice. “Can you… Can you…” She stares at the man in the snow, brows knitting, tears streaming down her pretty pink cheeks. “Can you please get me out of here?”
“Done.” I offer her my good hand. She takes it in her hot pink gloved fingers, squeezing hard, like she’s afraid I’ll vanish.
Time freezes for one fraction of a second. All warm sparks, luscious pink lips, and a fragrance like sugarplums. She starts forward but almost falls, her legs no longer working.
A part of me—the brutish part—wants to sweep her in my arms and carry her back to the white lacquered sleigh piled high with fur blankets. But, no. I’m no cave man.
“You’re safe with me,” I say, the way I talk to my rescue horses. Grounded, safe, weighted to the earth.
“I know,” she answers, disbelief threading her voice. But her face tells me she means it.
At the sleigh, she hesitates. “What about Trevor?”
“Still have his keys?” I whisper.
The creep sits straighter.
She nods, patting her purse.
Trevor’s mouth works, face fuming, as if he’s about to say something.
I just glare, eyes drilling into his ugly face.Heard enough out of you.Drunk or not, he gets it without me saying a word.
“I’ll call Deputy Mack,” I reassure when she bites her bottom lip, eyes shifting back and forth between us. “He won’t freeze,” I add, and the ambivalence drains from her face.
He should. But that’s another story.
“Hey,” a familiar voice calls from the other side of the road—one of the resort groundskeepers.
“Todd,” I nod.
“That guy serious?” he asks, shaking his head. “Trying to start a fight with you?”
Trevor snarls like a rabid raccoon, then freezes when I turn his way with another grimace.
I shrug.
“You all good? Need me to call it in?”
“Please,” I answer, helping the woman into the sleigh. “Mack’s just around the corner.”
Todd nods. “I’ll let him know you were just defending yourself.”
I grunt. Hadn’t even thought that far. Only knew I wasn’t letting him touch her again.
Once she’s bundled up next to me, I text Mack to confirm he’s spoken with Todd. Then, the sleigh flies.
The woman goes pale—despite the icy wind splashing her cheeks—and quiet, too. Like she can’t comprehend what’s going on. “He’s going to be so mad,” she says, eyes searching my face. “So mad.”
That wasn’t mad?I want to ask. But I don’t. Instead, a pit forms in my stomach as mountains streak past on either side.
She snuggles deeper into the blankets. Snow swirls around us, coming faster and more furious with each gust of wind. She doesn’t ask where I’m going, which makes it easier to not think about the obvious. Why we’re headed for my cabin instead of the ski lodge.
Something tells me, by the crease of her forehead, the frown pressed into her lips that the resort—and Trevor—are the last things she wants to see right now.
