Page 26
“Shh, baby.” He was already out of the truck, moving around the front through the driving snow like it was nothing. Sage tried to frown.
How could anyone move like that in a blizzard?
He opened her door. Reached in. His hands found her with the same careful, telegraphed gentleness as before. Slow enough for her to brace or pull away.
She tensed instantly.
The old system slammed online — every wire, every alarm, a full-body rigidity drilled into her from years of hands finding her in tight, enclosed spaces. Her fever-loose mind slipped sideways, unmoored, tumbling back into the dark.
“Nooo — stop…no, I’ll use my mouth, okay? Just not — please not down there — not like—” Her voice broke. “Not like before.”
Her voice seemed like it was coming from far away, and her grip on consciousness was slipping.
“No…no…no….please…help…me….someone…don’t…don’t let…noo…”
CAL
Cal used every ounce of training he had.
Every hour of learning to regulate his heartbeat in combat. Every mission where the difference between success and catastrophe was the ability to hold still when everything inside him was screaming. He used all of it now, standing in the snow with a feverish girl in his arms who was begging him not to rape her because that was the only framework she had for a man carrying her somewhere she couldn’t see.
I swear to God I’m going to find him….
He lifted her gently out of the truck and held her against his chest, one arm curled protectively beneath her knees, the other supporting her back. Snow crunched under his boots as he carried her toward the front door, jaw locked tight, hands careful and reverent. Behind it all, cold rage banked low in his chest like a fire that would burn for months — for years — until he hunted down whoever had done this and made them understand that there were men in this world who stood as the wall. The kind the weak and innocent could huddle behind. The kind that monsters would break themselves against and shatter.
He opened the door and carried her inside. Her body burned hot against him.
The cabin wrapped around them instantly — deep, radiant warmth from thick insulation, the geothermal system that had cost a small fortune and paid for itself in the very first winter. He crossed the great room in five long strides, the high ceiling, massive stone fireplace, and floor-to-ceiling windows registering as familiar shapes in his periphery. Home shapes. The kind he’d built to hold back the void.
The long, deep, butter-soft brown leather couch was one of the few pieces he’d insisted Isabelle buy. He lowered Sage onto it with the same careful reverence he’d shown since the diner, then drew his heavy coat back over her. She was still shivering, eyes closed, lips moving in silent, fevered fragments.
He stepped back outside into the gathering storm. Wind howled harder now, snow driving thick and sideways, the temperature plunging into a cold that would make the road impassable soon. He grabbed her backpack, guitar case, and the stuffed bear from the back seat.
Brutus stood in the wide barn doorway.
The massive grizzly had wandered out from whatever warm corner he’d claimed, clearly roused by the truck. Snow dusted his enormous head and shoulders as he scratched lazily against the doorframe, looking every bit like an extremely large predator who’d been woken from a nap and wasn’t convinced the interruption was worth it.
Cal snorted. “Aren’t you supposed to be hibernating or something?”
Brutus huffed, fixed him with a bored stare, then yawned — a cavernous, unhurried display of forty-two teeth and a tongue the size of a dishcloth. With a final satisfied scratch, he shuffled back into the warm hay and the unlikely peace of the barn where horses and cats had long ago accepted their strange roommate.
Cal shook his head, a faint smile tugging at his mouth as he carried her things inside. He turned toward the couch to set them down—
She wasn’t on the couch.
His body went tactical before his mind caught up — eyes sweeping the room, cataloging exits, hand already reaching for the HK .45 at the small of his back—
She was in the corner.
Pressed tight against the junction where timber met stone, making herself as small as possible. A pocket knife trembled in her grip, the three-inch blade catching the low light in shaky, erratic flashes.
Cal stopped.
He stopped completely. Motion to absolute stillness in a heartbeat. Twelve feet of open floor stretched between them. Her in the corner with the knife. Him standing in the middle of the living room, still holding her backpack, guitar case, and the one-eyed stuffed bear. Twelve feet… and years of damage. He was going to have to cross all of it with nothing but his voice.
SAGE
She’d woken up on the couch and he was gone.
