Page 6 of Puck Love

“Look, lady, you’ve bumped your head. You were parked in a snowdrift, for god knows howlong—”

“Please?” Her eyes are open now, her gaze is focused on my face as she pleads. “The tabloids will have a fieldday.”

At first, I think she means because of me, but then it dawns on me where I know her face from. While it’s certainly not as put together as the fifty-foot version I was staring at just a few hours ago, it’s those same sweet and innocent baby blues staring up at me.Shit. I don’t need the tabloids tangling me up with a drunken, runaway countrystar.

“Okay, do you think you can climb on out of the car through the back here? I can’t open your door without risking the whole mountain falling in onus.”

She nods. I lean over and unfasten her belt, and she gets halfway to twisting in her seat and climbing through the gap when she passes out.Fuckme dead. I wrap an arm around her torso and pull her through to the backseat, my shoulder protesting the entire time. In a few minutes, I have her laid out across my lap.If only she were conscious. I open the door and kick it with my foot, wrestling out from under her. I finally make it out of the vehicle, my shoulder screaming at me the wholetime.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” I reach in, sliding my hands underneath her arms and tugging her forward. Her skin is like ice. She’ll be lucky if she doesn’t get frostbite. Jesus Christ. What the hell was she thinking, running around in a snowstorm in heels and a tiny littledress?

I crouch down and pull her prone body over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry. The pain is blinding. White-hot and searing. I almost pass out, but that’s not an option. Emmett is not strong enough to move either one of us, and we’ll both die out here in the snow if I don’t haul ass. Every step is agony. I’m going to be lucky if I don’t wind up benched for the whole goddamn season, but I don't see what choice I have. Even if I left her in the car and called the paramedics, she’d freeze to death by the time they got here. I need to get her inside, warm, and cleaned up, and then I’ll decide if she needs a hospital.Possibly a psych ward. I don’t know what the hell she was doing on my mountain, but I’m the only one who lives up this road, so it’s not as if I can leave her for someone else to find. Out here, I’ll be the only one to find her in the morning. Frozen as the snowdrift she plowedinto.

“Emmett, get the door,” I shout when I’m close enough for him to hear. He jumps out and opens it. A blast of warm air rolls over me. I lay her down on the backseat of the beast, and my brother stares. His mouth is wide open, but no soundescapes.

“Looks like we found your runawaysinger.”

“But I thought she wassick?”

“Not yet, but I reckon she will be in the morning,eh?”

He doubles over, bracing himself with his hands on his knees as he sucks in air. “Stella Hart’s in ourcar.”

“Yep.” I fold my arms and glare at the woman in question. “You know we can’t keep her,right?”

“I think I’m going to passout.”

“Don’t you dare,” I warn. “I can’t carry youtoo.”

Emmett grabs my arm and shakes it in his excitement. He doesn’t know his own strength. “Oh my god, Stella Hart’s in ourcar.”

“Ow, dude.” I wrestle free from hisgrip.

“Can I drive, if your shoulder’shurt?”

“Er, I think I’m gonna take this one, buddy.” I grimace. “Precious cargo and allthat.”

“Goodidea.”

Emmett scrambles into the passenger seat. I close the door on the country music singer, stare up at a sky devoid of stars and wonder how the hell I wound up with the brightest one in the back of mytruck.