Guns and Roses (13 page)

“Negative.” The skin at the back of Colin’s neck prickled. He glanced around. “Just a disabled motorist. Looks like she hit a patch of ice.”

“Are you sure it isn’t—”

“Yes. Lemme call you later.”

He stuffed the phone in his pocket and stood perfectly still, listening.

“How do you know my name?”

He pivoted in the direction of the voice. He swept the light around, but saw only trees.

Movement behind him. He turned around as a woman stepped out from behind a tree.

Colin skimmed the light over her and did a quick assessment: five-eight, medium build, brown, blue. Blood trickled down her face from a gash on her forehead.

He stepped toward her. She stepped back. The fierce look in her eyes made him think of a cornered animal. He glanced at her side and noticed the rock clutched tightly in her hand.

He slipped her phone from his pocket. “I found this by your van.”

He stepped toward her. She took a wobbly step back and he saw that she was trembling. This woman wasn’t just disoriented—she was terrified. The accident must have been worse than it looked.

“You need a bandage on that cut,” he said.

“I need to call the sheriff.”

“We can do that.” He lowered the light so it wasn’t shining in her face. “But you know, this county’s the size of New Hampshire. There are four deputies. Odds of anyone getting out here in the next hour are pretty slim.” He held the phone out to her. She studied his face. Then she dropped the rock and stepped forward.

“Thank you.” She glanced down at her phone and then up at him again.

Colin shrugged off his jacket, taking care to pull his shirttail over his holster. No point in scaring her more than she already was.

“You need a bandage for that cut,” he repeated. “I live just up the road.”

He held the jacket out and saw the longing in her eyes. It was freezing out here and getting colder by the minute.

“Come with me,” he said.

For a moment, she just stood there. A shudder moved through her as she looked at him. Colin waited.

She took his jacket and slipped it on.

Chapter Two

Holly struggled to keep her teeth from chattering as they bumped along the gravel road. Just a few minutes in the truck, and already she felt the ache of circulation returning to her fingers and toes. She pulled the jacket tight around her to hoard every possible bit of heat.

Snowflakes whizzed against the windshield and she watched them numbly. Stumbling around in the woods as the temperature dropped had been terrifying. The combination of darkness and cold had given rise to a bone-deep fear unlike anything she’d ever experienced. How long could she have lasted out there on her own?

Holly’s teeth chattered, and the man behind the wheel pretended not to notice. She glanced over at him. She’d never taken a ride from a stranger before. Probably not a smart move. Then again, it was smarter than cowering in the forest and dying of hypothermia.

She looked out the window as he pulled up to a small A-frame cabin. As promised, it wasn’t far from the crash site. But the house wasn’t quite what she’d expected when they’d passed through fancy electronic gates to enter the D&D Ranch. The massive ranch had been purchased recently by some rich software exec, and Holly had heard about the deal all the way in Bozeman.

A yellow light glowed from the front porch. He parked alongside a neatly arranged stack of firewood and cut the engine.

“Gonna get cold tonight,” he said as they climbed out. He grabbed a few logs before tromping up the stairs.

“Wait.”

He turned to look at her. In the porch light, she saw that he was tall and broad-shouldered. He could overpower her in a heartbeat if he wanted to, and she was about to enter an empty house with him.

“I don’t even know your name,” she said.

“Colin Denton.” He gave a slight nod. “I’m the caretaker here, case you were wondering.”

She hadn’t been. That’s how frozen her brain was. It hadn’t even occurred to her to wonder what this man did for a living or why he happened to be out on the isolated stretch of highway where she’d crashed her van.

He arched his brows at her. “And you are…?”

“Holly.” Well, duh. He already knew that. “Holly Henriksen.”

The corner of his lip curved up. He stood there on the porch, not even shivering, in only a flannel shirt and jeans. He had brown-black eyes and a two-day beard, and it suddenly struck her how attractive he was—in a scruffy, lumberjack kind of way.

“You want to come in, Holly Henriksen, so I can see about that cut? Or we gonna stand here all night freezing our tails off?”

His tone was teasing, and something told her he was using it to relax her. It worked. There was something about his posture, his mannerisms, and his decisive response to everything that made her want to trust him. She climbed the steps and waited with her hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket as he unlocked the door.

The cabin was dark inside. It wasn’t freezing, though, and she guessed he must have had a heater going earlier in the day. He flipped on a light and she looked up to see a chandelier made of deer antlers. She surveyed the layout. A small living area, a large fireplace. At the top of a ladder was a sleeping loft, where she noticed a rumpled bed. Tucked beneath the loft was a kitchen with outdated appliances.

“It’s small, but it heats up pretty quick.” He switched on a space heater and then knelt beside the fireplace to stack the logs. “Hand me some of that newspaper, would you?”

She glanced at the wooden coffee table, where a paper was spread out beside an empty coffee mug. It was open to an article about drug trafficking along Interstate 15. It was the Missoula paper—Holly recognized it because she’d read the same article over breakfast with her sister. Was it really just this morning? It seemed like weeks ago.

Holly handed him the paper, and he made brisk work of getting the fire going. She edged closer as it crackled to life.

“Thaw out,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

She held her hands near the flame and closed her eyes as tingly warmth seeped into her toes and fingers. Even her nose stung. God, she’d thought she’d never get warm again, and the feeling of heat on her face now brought tears to her eyes.
What is wrong with me?
She
never
cried. But something about the events of the past hour had her emotions bubbling to the surface.

Someone tried to kill me.

Holly stifled a shudder and opened her eyes. She heard cabinets opening and closing, and soon, he was at her side again with a red first-aid kit and a wooden stool.

“Sit.”

She sat, which immediately seemed awkward because she was at eye-level with his waist. He crouched down and opened up the kit.

“Nasty gash,” he said, tearing open an antiseptic wipe. “There’s a cut on your lip, too. You hit the steering wheel?”

“I guess.” She reached up to touch her mouth. It felt swollen, and she remembered tasting blood as she’d climbed from the van.

“Fair warning—this’ll sting.”

Holly’s stomach fluttered as he rested his hand on the side of her face and tilted her head back slightly. She looked into the fire to distract herself.

“Your van doesn’t have airbags?” he asked, going to work on her injury.

“It pre-dates airbags. We call it the brontosaurus because it’s so old.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

She shifted her gaze to his and something sparked between them. She glanced away. Was it her imagination, or was he asking about her marital status? Probably her imagination. She had to look like roadkill. She tucked a wayward curl behind her ear.

“My sister,” she told him. “We’re in business together.”

“A flower shop, huh?”

She smiled. “Heather prefers ‘floral studio.’ I guess you looked in the back?”

“Yep.” He dabbed the cut.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry.” His gaze met hers. “You’ve really got some dirt in here. You fall on a rock?”

“I’m not sure. I couldn’t see, really.”

He looked concerned now. “Can you tell me what day it is?”

She took a deep breath. “Friday, November fifth.” It was engraved on her brain. The day she was supposed to collect the check that would save her floundering business.

“Count backward from a thousand.”

She shot him a glare. “I’m not drunk.”

He waited patiently until she complied. After about ten seconds, he gave a nod. “Bend your head forward,” he said. “That hurt?”

“A little sore.”

He settled his hands on the back of her head and palpated her skull, right through all the tangles and leaves in her hair.

“Look at me.”

She did. His irises were nearly black and she could see the fire reflected in them. The moment stretched out. Holly’s chest tightened and her heart started to thud.

His gaze shifted to her cut. “You could probably use a few stitches. I’m not equipped to do it here, but I could run you to Bozeman.”

She just stared at him. She was new to Montana, but even she knew that would take at least two hours, given the weather.

“Ah, probably not worth it,” he said, rummaging through the kit. “It’ll heal up pretty good if you keep a butterfly on it.”

“Where’d you get your medical training?”

He looked at her. “The Army.”

Ah-hah. It made sense now. The posture, the mannerisms. Something about him had made her think cop, but now she realized it was the military background.

“You served in Iraq?”

“Afghanistan.”

“And you came home…?”

“Two years ago.” He snapped the kit shut, and his tone told her he didn’t want to talk about it. Maybe the transition from soldier to ranch hand hadn’t agreed with him. Holly could relate. She’d always pictured herself a painter, not a florist. But as an artist, she’d been starving, and flowers paid the bills.

Most of the time.

A wave of anxiety hit her. “Listen, does your phone work out here? Because I really need to call the sheriff.”

“Like I said, they’re stretched thin tonight.”

“I need to call my sister, too.”

“Soon as I’m done, you can call whoever you want. You should use the landline. Cell phone coverage is spotty out here.” He dabbed at her face some more with the antiseptic and she watched the muscles of his neck move as he worked. She smelled wood and leather and a hint of male sweat. The combination was making her a little lightheaded. It had been ages since an attractive man had put his hands on her for any reason at all, and even though the reason was accidental, the situation was making her antsy.

“You’ve got a lot of dirt in here,” he said. “What were you doing in the woods, anyway? Weather like this, you’d have been better off staying in your vehicle to wait for help.”

“I know. But I got out to check the damage and someone started shooting.”

He froze. “
Shooting?
”

“Three shots. Two missed. Third one hit the van, and I took off.”

“Someone
shot
at you.” He said it as a statement, not a question, and she could tell by his tone that he didn’t believe her.

She eased back. “That’s why I ran.”

“You sure they were shooting
at
you, and not just nearby?”

“I’m sure.”

His jaw tightened. He looked away and muttered something.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He took out a butterfly bandage and positioned it on her forehead. Something had changed—she could see it in his face. He’d gone from relaxed to super-tense in about three seconds.

He stood up. “That should do it. Phone’s by the fridge there.”

Holly stood, too. “Thanks. I—”

“Take all the time you need. I’ll be back in a minute.”

She felt a jolt of panic. “Where are you going?”

“To check something.” He pulled the keys from his pocket and moved for the door.

“But… don’t you want your jacket back?”

“I’m good.” He grabbed a camouflage hunting jacket off the chair and then used a key to unlock a cabinet by the door. Holly saw an array of guns. He took a pistol off a shelf and turned around. “You know how to use a handgun?”

“Yes, but it’s been a while.”

He held it out to her, grip out and barrel pointed toward the floor. She took the gun and tested the weight in her hand.

“It’s loaded?”

“Fifteen rounds.” He closed the cabinet and reached for the door. “Lock up after me,” he ordered. “And don’t aim that at anything you don’t intend to shoot.”