Page 2 of Snowed In with her Mountain Men

RYDER

This high in the mountains, you never leave your door wide open. Anything could get in. A hungry wolf. A curious mountain lion.

Some angry, woman-beating fuckwad, just begging to be pounded.

We’d seen the cabin a hundred times on the way home, but never with the door open. Lately there’d been a single car in front of it, and a beat up one at that. Now, there was a pickup truck as well.

Between that, and the flickering orange light spilling out from the cabin doorway, something was bound to be wrong. By the way Oakley stiffened in the passenger seat of the Marauder, I knew he saw it too.

“Ryder?”

“I’m on it.”

I swung off the main road and skidded up to the place, our headlights cutting bouncing beams through the swirling snow. The storm had hit early; and persisted throughout the day. Even over the wind, I could hear the screams.

SHIT.

Oakley was on the ground before we’d even stopped rolling. I pulled the emergency break, leapt after him, and together we burst through the cabin doorway. And it was a good thing we did, because the scene before us required our immediate attention.

“Oh, fuck this. ”

The guy couldn’t have been more than forty, but the intense hatred in his expression made him look far older. He was short and squat, greasy and ugly.

And he had her by the arm.

Neither of them saw me until I surged forward and grabbed him by the collar. When I squeezed the flesh of his neck to pull him off her, he screamed like a little girl.

“She’s bleeding,” Oakley noted.

The little blonde who’d been clinging to this guy’s leg was crying, screaming and bleeding. It was all I needed to see.

WHAM!

It was always funny; how comically surprised most bullies looked when you finally punched them in the fucking face. I didn’t know who this asshole was, or where he’d come from. But I was more than happy to be his new dentist.

Wham! Wham! Wham!

“Ryder!”

Oakley’s voice floated in from somewhere, but I couldn’t hear it. Or at least, I pretended not to hear it for a few more punches.

“RYDER, STOP!”

I paused to look up for a moment. Oakley had her in his arms. She was clinging to him desperately, still crying, still bleeding. The blood on her face was the deciding factor.

WHAM!

I dropped my fist a few more times into the guy’s face, for personal reasons, before finally letting him go.

Even dazed, he was smart enough to immediately scramble away.

Still clutching his ruined nose, the asshole disappeared through the doorway and into the blowing snow.

The roar of his truck’s engine told the rest of the tale.

“Jesus,” swore Oakley. “You’re going to be picking teeth out of your fist again!”

My hand was red and swollen, but my hand didn’t matter right now.

What mattered was her. The poor thing sobbing in Oakley’s arms was five-foot nothing, her pretty, heart-shaped face streaked with blood and tears.

Her long, probably beautiful blonde hair was all matted against it.

Somewhere beneath that, a pair of stark blue eyes shifted wildly back and forth between us.

Before any of us could say anything, my nose wrinkled in disgust.

“What’s that smell?”

The blonde’s eyes went wide as planets as she twisted her way out of Oakley’s arms. To our surprise she made a dive at the fireplace, reaching her bare arms into the flames.

“WAIT!”

Or at least, almost into the flames.

“Stop, you’ll burn your hands off!”

We caught her just in time, pulling her backwards and away from danger. For some reason she kept struggling against us, beating on our arms with her tiny fists.

“My laptop!” she croaked.

Tears streaked her porcelain face, as her eyes reflected the firelight. And then I saw it. The bubbling, plastic goo of what was once a laptop computer lay melted against the logs and embers of the glowing fireplace. Even as I watched, it bubbled, hissed, and spat.

Striding to a nearby chair that was knocked over, I used one of its legs to fish the laptop out of the fire. It was a lost cause, though.

“She’s bleeding and burned,” said Oakley, examining her hand. “Quick, get me a towel. Something clean.”

I scanned around. Sparse didn’t even begin to describe the place. The single room cabin barely had anything in it, even though it was obvious she’d been here for months.

“I don’t see any—”

“Paper towel then!” Oakley huffed, pointing toward the small, makeshift kitchen. “And some water.”

I hurried over and spun the faucet. Nothing happened. I banged it a few times, for no good reason other than I was a guy, and sometimes we banged things.

“Shit,” I spat. “Pipes are frozen.”

This time Oakley didn’t answer. I looked back and noticed the blonde had stopped crying. She’d stopped struggling. She’d stopped… well, pretty much everything.

“Damn,” my friend swore. “I think she’s in shock.”

I sighed and shook my head slowly. “She’s coming with us then.”

“No,” growled Oakley. “This isn’t our business.”

“Didn’t we just make it our business?”

He had no answer to that. He also didn’t look happy about it.

“And do you really want to leave her?” I challenged. “I mean, look at this place. It’s fucking freezing in here! She barely has any firewood, there’s no running water…”

“Yes, but—”

“The front door’s smashed in,” I went on. “She can’t close or lock it. Not to mention her shit-for-brains boyfriend is gonna come back here to beat on her some more. Probably the very moment we leave.”

Oakley was patting the side of her face rapidly, like you’d see in the movies. It wasn’t working.

“Look, I don’t like it either,” I admitted. “But there’s a bigger storm coming behind this one, and we’re not leaving her here. Not until we know she’s gonna be okay.”

With that, I scooped her right out of his arms and headed straight for the door. It stopped further protests, and it put things in motion. I liked things in motion.

Almost as much as I liked the feel of her warm body, secure in my arms.