Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

BEAU

“You little fucker, what did you do?” I growled at Ashe, and he just bared his teeth at me and growled right back.

Of all the furry woodland creatures who could have decided I was their person, I ended up with a smartass, delinquent trash panda.

The woman was still curled in a ball on her side, her dark hair a wild tangled mess, which I knew my incorrigible wildlife friend had a hand in.

Tipping the handle of my axe against the closest tree, I squatted down in front of her, using my fingertip to brush away the hair covering her eyes.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said evenly, gritting my teeth when I noticed Ashe creeping around the tree she was laying beside.

Widening my eyes, I signaled with my finger that he needed to give her space. The little fucker lifted the red hat clasped in his hand and dipped his shoulder in a shrug. He chirped with a faux look of innocence, but didn’t step any closer. That little menace had done enough. And judging by the protective way the hiker was cradling her leg, she’d been injured while she fled from him.

I’d like to say it was the first time Ashe had chased a hiker, but I’d be lying.

“Hey.” Tipping her chin toward me, I stroked my gloved thumb over her cheek, and her eyes fluttered open. Deep brown irises stared back at me, almost knocking the breath out of me.

She stared at me as she took in a shuddering breath, but was calming down from her earlier panic.

Absentmindedly, I brushed the hair out of her face, watching her. Tiny freckles spanned the bridge of her nose, and I wanted to trace them.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

After a few minutes of staring at each other, she started to uncurl, brushing my hand away and trying to tame the hair back from her face.

“Can you help me up?” she asked, trying and failing to sit up because the weight of her pack kept pulling her down. I reached for the buckle on her chest strap, and she batted my hand away, narrowing her eyes at me. “I asked you to help me up, not feel me up.”

Raising my eyebrows, I sat back on my heels and watched her unclip the strap, but she still couldn’t free herself from the shoulder straps.

“You could help,” she growled, her fear clearly having transitioned into anger. I couldn’t blame her for being mad at Ashe, but I’d come to help. Despite her initial impression that I was here to murder her.

“You smacked me away. I thought you didn’t want help.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but then let out a squeak as she looked behind me.

The rain had slowed into a soft mist, but when I turned, I saw what had her in such a panic.

Ashe was sitting on the trail, hands clasped in front of himself, looking the picture of innocence.

“Get it away from me. I think it has rabies.”

Laughing, I pulled off my glove, snapping my fingers toward a tree on the far side of the trail. “Get your ass over there and don’t move.”

Ashe chattered at me, but obeyed, slowly trudging toward the tree, and sitting at the base like a sullen teenager.

“You know that thing?” Her voice was a mixture of disgust and alarm.

“Yeah, unfortunately. He’s… mine, I guess.”

“You guess?” she scoffed, and I almost laughed when she leveled Ashe with a glare. “He’s a menace. He jumped on my pack and was trying to bite me. Now I’m going to have to figure out how to get a rabies shot in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

“He’s not rabid, just an asshole.”

“Sounds like he keeps good company, then.”

Trying not to laugh, I stepped behind her, easily lifting her up and pulling the clips to loosen her shoulder straps so I could get the giant pack off her. Despite a few scrapes and dots of mud, the thing looked practically new.

“Stop touching me,” she shrieked, trying to pull away, but drawing in a pained breath and whimpering when she tried to put weight on her left ankle.

“Quit moving so I can get this off you. I’m not carrying it and you through the woods.”

“You’re not carrying me anywhere,” she yelled, opening her mouth to scream again, but I flattened my palm across it, muffling the sound.

“I won’t leave you here, and judging by the looks of that ankle, you’re not walking anywhere on your own. We’re two miles from the closest shelter, it’s about to start raining again, and I don’t particularly want to walk back in a downpour.”

She tried to talk; her voice muffled against my palm.

“So, I’m going to pick you up, and you’re not going to freak out. Because I’m trying to help you.” Slowly pulling my hand away, I waited for the scream, but she was quiet as I pulled the straps free, carefully disentangling her hair from the zipper on the top flap of her bag. Without even thinking about it, I brushed her hair back, murmuring next to her ear. “Good girl.”

She stiffened, pulling in a deep breath, but she didn’t call me out on it. I wasn’t sure where that came from, but it just seemed instinctual to be whispering it in her ear. Her pack fell to the ground with a thump, and I pulled her back against me, trying to ignore how she seemed to fit perfectly against my chest.

“What’s your name?” I whispered, enjoying the way she shuddered.

“Is…la…” she whimpered, reaching forward and cradling her calf. Clearly, the adrenaline was wearing off, and the pain was surfacing.

“Nice to meet you, Isla. I’m Beau,” I chuckled. “And the little trashole over there is Ashe. Ready for me to pull you up?”

She nodded, trying to help push herself up, but I quickly swung her around, cradling her in my arms. I’d get her to the cabin and come back for her pack and my gear.

As I stepped over a log into the wooded area leading toward the cabin, she cried out, reaching back toward where I’d left her bag on the trail. “Wait. You can’t just leave my bag here!”

“I’ll come back and get it later.” I kept moving, but she tried to scramble free, shrieking as I almost dropped her. “Quit fucking moving, or I’m gonna drop you and then you’ll really hurt.”

“No, no, no. Let me down. I can’t leave it. It’s got things I can’t replace if someone steals it. All my papers are in there.”

“No wonder the thing weighs a fucking ton.”

She pouted, flashing me with those deep soulful eyes again, and I growled, turning and going back for the damn thing.

“Quit touching my ass,” she growled into my flannel shirt after I draped her over my shoulder, and I laughed, wondering what her story was. “And stop banging me around. What if I have a concussion?”

“You don’t have a concussion,” I answered, continued forward since it was a mile to the cabin, and I wanted to be inside when it started raining again.

“But how do you know?”

“I just know.” Her eyes weren’t dilated, and she hadn’t seemed disoriented. A bit of a live wire, but not confused or distant.

“No, you don’t. You’re just a big brute man handling me so you can take me back to your lair and now I’m gonna be another hiker who went missing from this stretch of trail.”

Her comment made me pause, but the crack of lightning and boom of thunder following had me moving faster. She wasn’t wrong. There had been several unsolved disappearances from this exact stretch of trail. One of them from…

No. We don’t talk about that.

“Once you can walk, I’ll make sure you get to where you need to be. But you’re not going anywhere tonight. And my truck is too far away to make it there by the time this storm rolls over us. So, I’d appreciate it if you could stop fighting me because this pack is way fucking heavier than it should be. What do you have in here, bricks?”

She gasped, trying to push herself up, but I growled, and she laid back again, her voice muffled against my shirt. “Your demonic little squirrel better not have broken my laptop.”

Fucking tourists. Why she needed to bring a laptop on the trail was beyond my comprehension. Couldn’t people just unplug occasionally and leave it all behind?

Ashe chirped from my side, clearly not appreciating her squirrel comment, but I took a deep breath and pushed on, because despite being tiny, carrying a woman on one shoulder and a fifty-pound pack at the same time was not fucking easy when you were traveling over wet leaves and trying to get to cover.

“Where are you taking me?”

“To my cabin, but the more you distract me, the longer it’s gonna take. Can you save the interrogation for when we get inside and warm?”

“Fine,” she huffed, and I picked up the pace, trying to outwalk the storm.