Authors: J. Rose Allister
“I didn’t realize relationship status was such a controversial topic among newly acquainted adults.”
“It is, if one thinks about the reasons for asking.”
His chuckle did a happy dance along her nerve endings that made her shiver despite her newly acquired hot flashes. “Maybe I’m just makin’ small talk to keep your mind off the road.”
That part was definitely working. “Or maybe you’re interested in me and wonder whether you have a chance.”
“So, do I?”
Her eyes jerked to his in time to catch his glance straight on. There was a smolder in his gaze that brought her simmering insides to a full boil. No man had ever looked at her quite that way before. Not a full grown, hot-as-hell man, anyway. Plenty of teenage boys had horned after her once upon a time, an unpleasant side effect of having been on the cheerleading squad. This was utterly different.
Words couldn’t get past the pulse hammering her throat, and her lips cemented themselves shut. Connor didn’t seem to mind, though. On the contrary, the knowing, lazy grin that slid up one of his sculpted cheeks indicated he’d taken her wide-eyed silence as an encouraging sign.
Her heart was skipping beats like wild when he suddenly whipped his attention back to the road he’d neglected for a millisecond too many. “Shit,” he said, punching the button to slide the window down.
She scanned the road with wild eyes. “What is it?”
He inhaled the rush of air through the window and slammed on the brakes without warning.
“Jesus!” she shouted.
The squeal of brakes—oh, God, she thought, that awful
squeal
—tore through the thin layer of calm their banter had painted over her fear of the hazardous road. Her hands flew to the dashboard, where she braced herself with her eyes shut tight to await the sickening crunch of metal that would surely follow.
Instead, the car halted in silence. “Stay here,” Connor said.
Her limbs were shaking when she opened her eyes. “What the hell, Connor?”
He was already out the door and sprinting around the front of the car, headed for a sparse section of woods on her side of the road.
“Connor?” she called after him, but he ignored her.
The car idled while the open driver door dinged an alert through the interior. Terra’s pounding heart threatened to jump out after him. What the devil was the man doing?
“Thought you said you don’t jump and run easy?” she asked, too low for him to hear.
When he paused to crouch over something not far off, however, she frowned and reached over to twist the ignition key off. She slid out of the car on legs that wobbled as much from the adrenaline of the drastic stop as from whatever chemical madness Connor seemed to think she was experiencing. She sped up when she realized he was kneeling over someone.
“Oh, my God,” she said, stopping at the man’s feet. He was another cowboy, no doubt, complete with rugged jeans, pointy-toed boots, and a gray hat that had been knocked to the ground near his head. His denim shirt was torn and stained with dirt. Blood flowed from an ugly, gaping wound near his shoulder. Dirt and small sticks littered his matted, dark hair as he lolled his head from side to side. He was moaning and gasping for breath while he clutched at the front of Connor’s sweater.
“I ain’t never seen no wolf like it before, Connor,” he was saying.
“The wolf was injured, too, wasn’t he?” Connor asked. “
Wasn’t
he?” he added when the man didn’t answer. His voice echoed into the woods beyond.
Terra hugged herself tight. “You know this guy?”
“I thought I told you to stay in the car,” Connor snapped over his shoulder.
She raised her chin and stepped around the side of the other man. “My teachers always said I never follow directions.” She ignored his glare and nodded to the man. “Who is he?”
“Nash Walden. He was my boss until this afternoon.” Connor paused. “When he fired me.”
“I said I was sorry ’bout all that, cowboy,” Nash ground out between stilted, heaving breaths. “You know I hated to do it.”
“It’s in the past now,” Connor said. “You’re gonna be all right.”
Connor’s dark glance at Terra seemed to indicate otherwise, though. She swallowed.
“A wolf did this?” she asked, looking around the woods for signs that it might return and possibly bring along some hungry friends.
“It weren’t no ordinary wolf,” Nash said. “I know it sounds crazy, Connor, but what I saw weren’t in no way no regular wolf.”
“I know,” Connor said in a sober tone. “Here, Terra.” He glanced at her. “Use this to help stop the bleedin’.” He rose and tugged his sweater over his head and tossed it at her.
She gaped in shock at his muscled perfection while he turned and stalked toward the woods. It took a few seconds to shake herself loose from the sight of his bare torso, and when she managed it, she dropped to Nash’s side. “I’m Terra. We’re going to help you, okay?”
She pressed the sweater against the wound to stanch the flow. The knit fabric she clutched was still warm from Connor’s body heat.
With alarm, her head whipped up to see Connor’s broad, muscled back tromping too close to the woods. “What are you doing?” she shouted. “Don’t go that way. That wolf might still be out there.”
He kept going. She might as well have been talking to air.
“How’d you manage to injure the wolf, Nash?” Connor yelled back a few moments later.
“How do
you
know the wolf was injured?” Terra cut in.
Her eyes flew wide when he swiveled around. His eyes seemed to glow an eerie yellow. At least, they seemed to for a moment, but the effect faded. She must have imagined it.
Her gaze slid over his bare torso again. Hair curled in a light dusting from up near his throat to the bottom of his sculpted chest, where it quickly tapered to a thin line that traveled down where she shouldn’t be looking at the moment.
“I can tell,” he said. “There’s blood over here.”
She shrugged. “Of course there’s blood. Nash is bleeding.”
“This blood smells different.”
She wrinkled her face while he shot a hard look over his shoulder. “Were you the one who injured the wolf, Nash?”
“Not me,” Nash said in a dry, thin voice. “There was a woman. She chased it off.”
Connor spun around, back to the woods. “Shit.”
“What woman?” Terra called out, not sure whether she was more confused over the conversation or the bizarre way Connor was acting. “What’s going on?”
“Quiet,” he shot back. “Let me listen a minute.”
She scowled at his back and pressed down harder on the sweater. Nash let out a piercing moan that twanged at her gut. She winced and pulled back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Nash cried out louder in response. She looked on, feeling utterly helpless, while his pale green eyes rolled back. His moans grew higher pitched. “He needs help,” she shouted out to Connor.
After a few more moments of staring into the vacant woods, Connor finally turned back and settled a measuring stare on the man. “It’s startin’ on him already. Damn it.”
“What’s starting?” she asked. “Why does weird shit keep starting
with people you meet by the roadside?”
He blew out a breath and stalked back over. “We have to get out of here.”
“Let me help you get him to the car.”
“No. Stay back, Terra.”
She blinked at him. “But you need help. He needs help.”
“I can manage. You need to leave.”
“What?”
“This is where we part ways, darlin’. It ain’t safe for you to stay.”
The tiny trip in her pulse over the way
darlin’
rolled off his tongue was immediately buried by her irritation. “Who said anything about staying? Let’s stick him in the car and get the hell out of here.”
“It’s too late. I’ll tend him, but you shouldn’t be involved. Not like this.”
Nash’s moans grew sharper, and tears of empathy sprang to her eyes. “How can you help him out here all alone?”
“Just do it!” He fairly shouted the words in a booming command that made Terra recoil. He let out a gruff sigh. “Please, trust me. I’ll take care of him, but I can’t if I’m worried about you.”
“Whatever.” She stood up, sniffing while she brushed dirt off her knees. “Sit here alone with a bleeding man and get eaten when that wolf comes back. See if I give a shit.”
She turned on her heel and stormed back to the car, which still had both doors wide open. She slammed the passenger’s side a bit too hard on her way past, and she nearly bashed her head on the side of the roof when she flung herself into the driver’s seat. A concussion on top of this crazy day would be just what she needed. Then again, maybe it would knock some sense back into her.
She paused midreach for the ignition key when she flicked a glance at the men a short distance away. Connor was kneeling over Nash, whose cries were now loud enough for her to hear inside the well-insulated vehicle.
How far was the nearest paramedic? Too far, most likely. A hospital or clinic, then. She snatched up her cell phone and checked the signal. Two bars. Her concentration narrowed to the touch screen while she entered some parameters into her navigation software.
A few moments later, a tight smile erupted over her face. “Right.”
When she got out of the car this time, Connor was on his feet and had scooped Nash up into his arms. She could have sworn that for a brief moment when he glanced up that the gold in his eyes flashed like fire again.
“What are you still doin’ here?” he asked while she raced up to him.
She waved the phone at him. “There’s a hospital only six miles away. We can drive him there.”
“We can’t do that.”
Her triumphant smile slid away. “Why not?”
“There’s a cave a couple miles from here. We—meaning Nash and I—can go there.”
Annoyance stabbed at her. “How can you care for his wounds in a dirty old cave? And how are you going to carry him for two miles?”
“I’m strong enough.”
“Not as strong as you are stubborn, I’ll bet.”
“I ain’t gonna argue about this.”
She waved the phone at him. “No, because you’re going to let me drive you to Shay Falls Community Hospital.”
He shook his head. “No hospital. No way.”
“What’s wrong with hospitals? They do come in handy when people get hurt, you know.”
“Not for this. They won’t be able to deal with it.”
“Deal with what? A few stitches? And I suppose you can do better in a cave?” Nash let out a moaning wail that curdled what little was in her stomach. “How long are you going to let him suffer like this? Is it a matter of the money a hospital would cost?”
Connor growled. “Damn it, woman, it ain’t the money. But I don’t have time to debate it with you. He’ll be fine.”
“At least forget the cave. Let me drive you to your place or his ranch.”
“I got no place, and he can’t go back to the ranch like this. It wouldn’t be safe.”
“So, is he so okay he doesn’t need a hospital, or so bad off we can’t even take him home?”