Christa
Was this man saving me? Or had my life just gone from hellish to worse?
“Um, sir? I can walk.” My voice came out reedy and weak. “Would you mind putting me down…please?”
“Soon as we get to my place.”
“Your place?” All the blood was going to my head, making my words slow. My tongue felt thick. I should have been frantic, but I couldn’t seem to get a scream going. “I need to call the cops.”
“No cell service here. Call ’em from my home phone.”
“Please. I’ll walk.”
He set me on the ground and steadied me before taking his hands away. “You got no shoes.”
I looked down. Oh.Right.No wonder it was so cold. That and my lost coat.
“Won’t hurt you. Promise. You want to walk, you walk.” I blinked at him. He was dressed appropriately for the frigid night in a dark canvas coat with a thick beanie pulled low. His face, covered in a dense beard, didn’t need much else. His bottom half, in jeans and mud-stained boots, looked just as warm. “Here.” He unzipped his coat and, before I could stop him, put it over my quaking shoulders. Oh my God, it was Heaven. “Sorry I didn’t ask.”
I waited. “Ask what?”
“Permission to pick you up. Usually…” He paused and shook his head. “Never mind.”
What kind of person had ausuallythat involved heaving bodies over their enormous slab of a shoulder? A fireman? A serial kidnapper? “You carry…people…a lot?” The words didn’t want to slide out past my chattering teeth.
“Used to.” He shrugged, then glanced at my feet. “Boots are big, but you can—”
Before he could take off his shoes for me, I stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “No. No, I’ll walk like this.”
“You could just let me carry you.” He looked up the mountain, to wherever our destination was. “Be faster.”
“I’m heavy. I don’t want you to—”
“Light as a feather.”
I was shuddering too hard to give him a look.
“Come on.”
“Not killing your…back? You swear?”
“Swear.”
“Not planning any…nefarious activities?” I tried to make it into a joke, but my voice came out tiny and scared.
“Don’t even know what that means.”
“You’re not going to—”
“Kidding.” His mouth did a weird quirking thing at the corners, which I assumed was meant to be a smile. It didn’t look entirely natural on him. “Won’t hurt you. Promise on the memory of everyone I’ve ever lost.” Every word sounded dead serious.
Which I guess it would if he were a creepy person, bent on killing me, but considering that I couldn’t feel my toes—or my brain—anymore, it was definitely one of those leap of faith moments. Just those words—leap of faith—sent my mind careening back to the moment he pulled me from the car.
I nodded. He grabbed my hand and bent, and suddenly I was on his back again, my butt by his head.
He huffed on—actually up—each uneven step jolting me against him, and I could do nothing but curl into his heat.
“Not far,” he huffed out. A few minutes later, I smelled wood smoke just as a dog barked, the sound muffled. I strained my neck to look ahead.
