Page 19 of Escaped (Snowbound with a Stranger #3)

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Eli

The store was empty as I walked inside, the small, silver bell sounding overhead drawing the assistant from the tiny kitchenette. I was relieved to see Tom striding behind the counter. In his thirties, he was as strong as he was reliable, and we’d always got along well.

“Eli!”

His hand rose to welcome me.

“I was wondering what happened to you after the storm. No one could get a hold of you.”

“That’s a very long story.”

My mind flitted to my phone still sitting in the cabin beyond the store.

“Things got a little treacherous up there for a while.”

I motioned with my head toward the peak of the wilderness.

“I was with a group of tourists when the shit hit the fan, and that’s what I want to talk to you about.”

“Yeah. I wasn’t here that day, but I heard about it. Aside from clearing the snow, the next few days were all about what had happened.”

His somber expression gave few clues as to what he’d heard, so I pressed on.

“Two of my party fell at the falls.”

I paused at my description, realizing the days of taking people there were over. Whatever happened with Erin and any potential reprisals from Hawkins’ men or the authorities, I could never return to that life.

My days in the wilderness were over.

“Two men, right?”

“Yes.”

My heart sped up as Tom confirmed the details.

“I called the incident in before the storm came, but then I lost signal, had to take refuge, and I never found out what happened to them.”

A knot of trepidation clutched at my stomach as I accepted how much that had bothered me. Tour guide might not have held the same responsibilities as state-sponsored assassin, but I’d enjoyed the job and respected the environment. Being unable to save James and Miles had ripped at what remained of my integrity.

“Did the emergency services find them?”

I pressed my palm onto the cool counter as I awaited Tom’s verdict.

“They found them.”

His lips twitched.

“One was still alive at the time, but the other…”

His hesitation conveyed what the end of his sentence was.

“One was alive?”

I couldn’t believe anyone could have survived that fall.

“Initially.”

Tom shook his head slowly.

“He had massive internal injuries. Even the rescue helicopter couldn’t get him to hospital in time.”

“Shit.”

Hearing the men’s fate out loud was demoralizing.

“What happened up there, Eli?”

Tom leaned toward me.

“You’ve never lost anyone before.”

“I know I shouldn’t blame the dead, but they just didn’t want to listen to me.”

Sighing, I recalled James and Miles’ final moments.

“I kept urging them to come away from the edge, but they insisted on posing and having photographs taken.”

“I know the type.”

He looked at me with sympathetic eyes.

“Too much ego and not enough brain-power.”

“Yeah.”

Tom had described the James I had met perfectly.

“That’s about right.”

“Don’t look so worried,”

he assured me.

“They all signed the legal disclaimers saying they understood the risks involved in the hike and they accepted them. You shouldn’t be in any trouble.”

In the frenzy of the snow, Erin, Hawkins, and I hadn’t even considered the idea that I’d be in trouble, but Tom was right. Every single person I’d ever taken into the wilderness was made to read and sign the full list of risks, from twisting an ankle to being mauled by a curious bear. James and Miles had been made aware of the hazards, even if they’d chosen to ignore my advice.

“I suppose there’ll be an inquiry.”

I cringed, imagining having to drag Erin through that ordeal. As the potential only surviving witness, she could be called to give testimony at such a hearing.

“I don’t know.”

Tom shrugged.

“But I reckon they’ll shut down the tours. The charity funding the park was already against the idea of private tours on the grounds of health and safety, and well… this will only strengthen their cause.”

“Yeah.”

I wouldn’t have been surprised if Tom was correct, and while I’d miss Niantes’ rugged beauty, I wasn’t going to continue giving the tours anyhow. I had something new in my life—someone who was more important than spending days out in the wilderness. When I’d burned through the money I’d saved during those years in nature, I’d find another job.

“What about the woman who went missing in the group?”

I asked.

“She was in her forties, with blonde hair… She was in a relationship with one of the deceased and decided to trek off when the snow started. Has she been found?”

I remained hopeful that either Chelle had found her way back to civilization or the emergency services had found her.

“Yes.”

He straightened as though the thought hadn’t occurred to him until I’d mentioned it.

“Search and rescue found her around ten kilometers from the river.”

“Alive?”

Time shifted to slow motion as I waited for his answer. I knew whatever came next would be pivotal for my little girl.

“Barely.”

Tom flicked on his screen and clicked into the appropriate file.

“Hannah’s report says she was hypothermic.”

Hardly surprising, but at least she isn’t dead. Erin will be so relieved.

“How long was she out there? Do we know?”

Tom scanned the date at the top of the screen.

“It seems as though she was found in the snow first thing the next day.”

“She’s lucky to be alive.”

My sigh spoke of my frustration.

“I should have made sure she stayed with us. Do you know which hospital she was sent to? I’d like to reach out and make sure she’s doing okay.”

“Looks like the Royal General,”

Tom confirmed with another peruse of the screen.

“She might even have been discharged by now.”

“Thanks, Tom.”

I didn’t like to tell him that the woman I’d fallen for in the last week would also have Chelle’s details, so making contact if she was no longer in hospital wasn’t going to be a problem.

“What happened to the rest of you out there?”

Tom flicked out of his screen.

“They’re saying it was the worst storm around these parts for seventy years!”

I could believe that.

“I broke into the nearest ranger’s cabin, and we sheltered there. We had a little wood and food to keep us going.”

I neglected to mention how one of my old bosses had subsequently tracked us down and foisted us away by helicopter. The tourist office was only staffed during the day, so neither Tom nor any of his colleagues would have been aware of Hawkins’ little trip to the area, and that was how I wanted it to stay.

“Are you all okay?”

Tom looked me up and down as though he should have noticed an obvious injury. Fortunately, Owen’s handiwork and my tolerance for pain meant there was nothing for him to notice.

“A little worse for wear,”

I replied, once again failing to elaborate about my most recent injuries.

“But it’s nothing that rest and hot food hasn’t helped with. It’s taken until today for me to feel up to coming back, though.”

To face the music.

I didn’t vocalize the final four words, but they were there in my mind, taunting me with their accuracy. Whether I was legally culpable for what had happened to James, Miles, and Chelle or not, a part of me would still blame myself. I had been in charge that day, and I should have done better.

“I’m glad you’re okay.”

Tom’s expression brightened.

“I’ve missed you around here.”

“Thanks.”

Mirroring his smile, my attention flitted to the exit and the woman I knew would be waiting for me.

“And thanks for your help today. If any of the bosses want to speak to me, I’ll be available on my phone.”

Just as soon as I’d found the damn thing and charged the device.

“In the meantime, I’m going to head up and collect something I left in the ranger’s hut.”

“Okay.”

Tom seemed surprised by the idea, but he didn’t press the point.

“Take it easy this time, all right?”

“I think I’ll be okay.”

My tone was droll as I turned for the door.

“I’ve done this before, you know.”

Chapter Twenty

The Cabin

Erin

“Sir?”

I was on my feet the moment the door swung closed behind him, my heart racing as he neared. Frantically, I searched his face for any sign of an answer to the question that plagued me. Was Chelle alive, or was I going to have to live with her death on my conscience?

“Hey.”

His voice was soft as he took me in his arms, his palm cradling the back of my head. Time stretched out around me as I waited for him to go on.

“She’s alive, little girl. Chelle made it out of here.”

“Thank God.”

The relief emanating from me was thunderous, shaking me to the core, and in that split second, I let go of all of the tension and emotion I’d been clinging to. All the days I’d grasped at the sense of not knowing her fate, all those long hours of trying to reconcile my part in her potential demise, and suddenly, I had a reprieve.

“Where is she?”

Blinking past my tears, I glanced up at him, realizing his embrace was no longer only about moral support. He was the one keeping me upright.

“I don’t know.”

He tugged me closer until there was no choice but to cede to his wordless demand and rest my head against his chest. Glad for his warmth, I ceded, but even Eli’s touch couldn’t quiet the emotions warring inside me. The desperate anxiety that had been my constant companion collided with the happiness flooding my system, spiraling me into a new uncertainty.

“She was taken to hospital with hypothermia the day after the storm, but I have no details about whether she’s still there.”

“Oh, God.”

My thoughts were unraveling as I tried to keep up. Hypothermia was serious, and we had no way of knowing how her condition was.

“So, we don’t know how she’s doing? She could still be there? What if she took a turn for the worse and we just don’t know?”

“Little girl.”

He sounded exasperated as he tried to soothe me.

“The doctors and nurses will have given her intravenous warm fluids and monitored her heart. I’m sure she’s received excellent care.”

“But how do you know?”

Once again, lingering doubt wormed its way into my head and refused to let me believe in the good news. Until I spoke to Chelle again, until I saw her and understood her health outcomes for myself, I’d always worry about the worst-case scenario.

“Trust me.”

He smiled as he inched away, the loss of his heat leaving me oddly bereft.

“Once you get to your phone and charge it, you’ll be able to call her and find out I’m right for yourself.”

***

Eli’s prophecy echoed in my head as we made the final climb toward the cabin. A numbness had settled over me since the news about Chelle; a sense that nothing that was happening was actually real, as though I was living in a willowy dream. Taking his hand as we neared the wooden lodge that had been both my prison and paradise, I recalled little of the hike that had delivered us there.

Twisting to peer back at the expanse of trees behind us, I could hardly believe it was the same location we’d been forced to cower in during the snowstorm. One facet of me recognized the place—the tall trees looming large into the sky—while another, larger part, couldn’t quite put my finger on where we were. Standing there, the scene looked like a rerun of a show I’d seen once.

“How are you feeling?”

He lifted my hand to his lips and brushed a kiss over my knuckles. The touch of his lips stirred me, abruptly grounding me into the present.

“I don’t know.”

Turning back, I offered him a meek smile.

“Being here is like one giant flashback, and I can’t stop worrying about Chelle.”

“The sooner you can call her, the better.”

His thumb stroked my fingers as he guided me the final few feet toward the cabin.

“And being here...”

I hesitated as we neared the front door, overwhelmed at the idea of going back inside.

So much had happened in that small, wooden space. So many fantastic highs and awful lows that I wasn’t sure I had the capacity to cope, especially after the uncertainty about Chelle.

“Too many memories?”

His tone was wry.

“That’s one way of putting it.”

I pulled in a shaky breath, glancing inside to see the outline of one and then both of our hiking bags. Our phones were in those packs, and that technology was the route to discovering how Chelle was, but gripping the doorway, I was paralyzed by the weight of just being back there.

It was inexplicable to be in that place where so much peril and pleasure had transpired. I could hardly remember the woman I’d been before I’d laid eyes on that cabin.

“You brought me here to rescue me, sir, but by the time Hawkins’ men dragged us away, I wasn’t the same person.”

“I don’t think either of us was, little girl.”

His hand slipped around me, pulling me against him.

“I fell in love with you here, and even then—before Hawkins came and fucked everything up—I couldn’t imagine a world without you in it.”

“Even then?”

I gazed at him, half-delaying the inevitability of going inside and half intrigued by his admission.

I could scarcely remember the intense feelings he’d inspired within the cabin’s dark confines, and whether or not I’d been ready to give our love a chance when we’d headed to bed that last cold night was difficult to say.

All I knew for certain was that by the time I’d fended off Hawkins’ pawing hands and found Eli again, all thoughts of leaving his side had been abandoned.

The idea of losing him then was simply intolerable.

We hadn’t known each other a long time and there was no way of knowing what the future would bring, but we’d been through too much to not give our chemistry a chance to bloom.

“Yes.”

His smile was sincere as we stood on the threshold.

“I knew then. I just didn’t know how to tell you. I wasn’t sure you wanted me.”

“You thought I’d say no.”

I smirked at the idea.

‘No’ wasn’t a word Eli was used to hearing.

“I…”

He paused, apparently doubtful. In the relative safety of our current situation, it was refreshing to see him hesitate. Eli had been my rock on more than one occasion, but it was good to know he was only human, and that he, too, experienced insecurity.

“I just didn’t know how you’d react.”

“Because you were such a swine to me?”

Smiling, I realized it was fun to play with him, and the growing tension sizzling in the air between us was finally cutting through the sickening sense of unease I felt about my friend.

I was pursuing a facetious tone that he might make me live to regret, but I couldn’t help myself. It was so unusual for my lover to be on the backfoot, and for once, we’d achieved it without him needing to be shot or beaten.

“A swine?”

He arched that delectable eyebrow at me, knowing precisely what impact it would have. Right on cue, pleasure pooled between my legs, goading me to keep playing.

“I sound like a hero in a nineteenth-century romance.”

“Hero?”

I sniggered at his comparison, leaning into the simmering chemistry. It had been too long since we’d tugged at the loose ends of our smoldering connection; too long since I’d felt comfortable to yield entirely.

“Does a hero strip the heroine and turn her over his lap to spank her?”

I tapped the new boots I’d purchased against the wood beneath my feet as though I was impatient, but in truth, it was excitement stirring inside.

Not that I should have been even thinking about how masterful my new man could be—not given my concerns for my friend—but standing there, I was heady at the idea of provoking him.

“What are you doing, little girl?”

His tone was shrewd, suggesting he appreciated what I was doing, but the bemused expression on his face conveyed his confusion. Poor Eli probably had whiplash. One moment, I was shaky and emotional, clinging to him for support as I tried to process what fate might have befallen my friend, and the next, we were there at the genesis of it all, and I was thinking between my legs again.

“I’m just saying, does that sound heroic to you, sir?”

My pulse sped up as his lips curled at my insistence.

“That depends on what you judge to be heroic.”

He edged closer, forcing me back against the doorframe, and I went willingly, enjoying the feel of the wood behind me as my lover loomed large.

“As I recall, I saved you in this place.”

“I saved you at Hawkins’ place,”

I countered, as though the trauma of the last few days had been a competition.

It hardly mattered who had done what, but the one-upmanship was suddenly unreasonably enticing.

“But that didn’t happen here, did it?”

His voice had deepened to that lower, sexier octave that spoke directly to my clit.

“Here was where I looked after you, kept you warm and stopped you from running out into the snow again.”

“Yes.”

I craned my neck to meet his eyes. He was so tall and physically capable, and I already knew how good he was inside me.

“Yes, what?”

He skimmed his palm along the length of my body, pausing to fondle my right breast. I mewled at his touch, caught in the conflict of the moment. We were there to collect our things and find out about Chelle, but the heat ballooning in that doorway was difficult to ignore.

“Yes, sir.”

There was no fear or indignation in using the title anymore. Once upon a time, it had seemed like such an indignity, but as we edged inside the doorway, I sensed the show of submission igniting me. My heart hammered faster as his large fingers manhandled my breast through the hoodie, and I noticed how labored my breathing had become. I wanted him, wanted to feel his body on mine, and succumb to whatever he asked of me.

With his injuries and the news about Mum, it seemed forever since he’d last pinned me against the wall and given us what we both yearned for. Our play the night before had been enjoyable, but being forced to take his cock deep down my throat was nothing compared to the potential of that moment.

“You are so naughty.”

He shook his head, but already, one of his hands had risen to my hair and taken my ponytail in his fist.

“This is not what we came here for and you know it.”

“I know.”

I was breathless as he yanked my head back and started planting hot caresses at my nape, my remaining logic scattered with each kiss.

“We shouldn’t, sir, but coming here…”

Whatever I was going to say was lost to the intensity of his lips, my eyes closing as he maneuvered me across the floor and against the wall. My back hit the structure with a soft thud, his hands already shifting to the bottom of my hoodie and yanking the fabric over my head. I watched him pull Owen’s attire from my body, vaguely aware of it landing on the ground by our feet.

“Get the rest of your clothes off,”

he growled, already working on his zipper.

“I want you naked when I claim you.”

Oh, fuck.

Only a few words, yet they detonated every latent need flaming inside me. The last few days had brought pain and misery, and I was ready to be his little girl again; that time, without fear.

I moved unthinkingly, lifting the T-shirt over my head and pulling down my leggings and panties until I was naked save for the clothing caught at my knees.

Fisting his cock, his eyes devoured me hungrily.

“Tell me what you want.”

“You, sir.”

There was no hesitation and no second thoughts. After everything we’d been through, we deserved the moment of electrifying intimacy.

“I want you to bang me hard against the wall.”

It might have been good to have had him naked as well, to enjoy the look of his devilish body, but there was something sublimely arousing about being the only one without clothes, some element of surrender that sent voltage coursing around my body.

“I fucking love you.”

He moved so fast I scarcely even saw him coming, and a moment later, he’d whisked me from the ground, hiking my legs around his body as far as my garments allowed.

Holding me there, he pushed me gently back on the wood and, looking into my eyes, he slowly slid inside me. Whimpering at the intensity, I cried out, gripping the back of his neck as he filled me. All remaining coherence was lost as his hips began to move.