Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Ashley

“ C ome on, Norm, it’s going to get too cold, even for you.”

I carefully lead my newest alpaca into the barn. He’s still a bit skittish but doing better than when he arrived a couple of months ago. It’s taken a lot of time and patience to get him to trust me enough to even put the halter on and then a bit longer to attach the lead. Thankfully, he spots his best buddy, Malone, munching on some hay, and he comes the rest of the way inside much easier.

“Yeah, yeah. Go join your friends,” I say, taking off his halter.

I give the space a quick check, making sure everyone is accounted for and settling in for a snack or on the extra-thick straw beds I laid out for them earlier. Most of the year, the boys prefer to stay outside even at night, but in the winter, I make sure they bed down in the barn. Alpacas are hardy, but the storm that’s moving in this evening is planning on dumping snow on us and dropping the temperatures into the single digits. With the windchill, it’ll get below zero.

I nod at Rebecca, my llama and fox hunter, and then head out of the barn, making sure it’s secure behind me. A couple of the alpacas have figured out how to push open the doors if I don’t make sure it latches completely behind me. The last thing I want is to be trudging through thigh-deep snow, looking for my freezing herd who aren’t smart enough to get back in the barn themselves.

During the summer months, they pretty much free-range over my land, and it’s easy to keep tabs on them as I’m out in my workshop or hunting and fishing every day. It’s rare for there to be any issues. As herd animals, they didn’t tend to wander off on their own, and Rebecca keeps smaller predators like foxes away.

Trekking back to the cabin doesn’t take too long, but it’s dark as hell. The night sky is swallowed with clouds, blocking the stars and moon and pelting me with rapidly accumulating snowflakes. I’m used to it for the most part. I grew up on the West Coast, but I moved to my peaceful—or isolated, if you listened to Aunt Marie—cabin after I was discharged from the Army.

After what had happened… I just wanted to be left alone while I relearned how to live. After five years, that feeling hadn’t really gone away, even as I’d gotten comfortable with my prosthetic and my raging PTSD had dialed down. I like the quiet, though I do get lonely sometimes.

There are a few others on this side of the mountain I’ve gotten to know, but I’m not particularly close with any of them. I know them well enough to have a beer at the tavern, but that’s about it.

A few times a year, I’ll venture down the mountain to Stonewood Ridge, the closest town, but I usually regret it. It’s far from a bustling metropolis, but I can’t do crowds anymore, needing to know who’s nearby at all times.

Aunt Marie likes to tell me that living alone for so many years is turning me into an agoraphobe.

She might be right.

But I don’t have any plans to change or move.

Was the cabin supposed to be temporary? Sure, but I’ve adapted it to live in long term, and the boys and I get along just fine on our own. And since that fancy resort went up a couple of years ago and paid to have a fiber optic line run up, I’ve even got decent internet now .

Do I lie awake some nights, wishing for a warm body next to me? Someone to share responsibilities with. To spend evenings with my head on his lap while he reads and cards his fingers through my hair.

Maybe.

But adding another person to the mix—assuming I could convince them to move up into the mountains with me—would mean having to change my life all over again. And what happens when they get tired of it just being the two of us and some alpacas and take off?

I have a good thing going, really. I’m not looking to upend it because I get horny sometimes.

That’s what hands and Fleshlights are for.

I don’t know what has me so introspective tonight. Grimacing at myself, I heave a sigh. That’s a lie. With Christmas right around the corner, I’ve been thinking about my life and my parents and what they would have thought about the fact I never came back down from the cabin. Mom loved the holidays so much I know she’d be disappointed I don’t celebrate at all anymore.

The first year after they died, Aunt Marie tried to get me to visit her for Christmas, and I shut her down so hard she never brought it up again.

I stomp my boots on the front porch, trying to get as much snow off as I can. In a few weeks, I’ll stop questioning my life and go back to enjoying the peace and quiet.

Just as I wrap my fingers around the handle of my front door, I hear a loud crash not too far away, the metallic crunch tickling at the back of my mind. I whip my head around, searching in vain for the source.

That had to have been a car hitting a tree or something. Nothing else up here could make a sound like that. There aren’t any other houses for miles, the turnoff that leads back to my place not having a single other property on it.

Why the hell is someone out in this weather, and why are they near enough to my cabin that I could hear them crash? For a second, I try to deny what I heard. Maybe it was a tree falling, the sound echoing oddly on the snow-covered landscape.

I know that’s bullshit though.

And I know I can’t not check it out.

My place and the barn sit on a few acres of cleared land, but the rest of my property is trees and rocks and the road is narrow on the best of days. Which this is far from.

It’s not hard to imagine someone losing control or going too fast and hitting one of the huge pines covering the mountain at this elevation.

Grunting in annoyance, I head back in the direction of the barn but veer to the left before I reach it, using a button pad to open one of the stalls of my detached garage. Not knowing what I’m walking into, I grab a few tools and fire up my snowmobile.

Fingers crossed, whoever is out there simply took a wrong turn onto my road, and I’ll be able to get them on their way without issue.

I follow my driveaway around the edge of the clearing and then onto the road, keeping my eyes peeled behind my helmet’s shield for any signs of a disturbance. About a mile from my place, I spot it, the rear lights still lit up.

The front end is crunched against the trunk of a tree, smoke rising from under the hood, which is bent and popped halfway up. There isn’t any visible movement, no sounds of someone searching for help.

My heart rate speeds up, a cold sweat breaking out on the back of my neck and my face going numb.

This isn’t like that night.

This isn’t my parents’ car.

I pull up right next to the Accord and disembark, ripping my helmet off to see better. There aren’t any tracks to indicate someone’s left the scene. Whoever was driving—and any passengers with them—has to still be inside.

Shoving down my staticky nerves and memories, I hustle up to the driver’s-side door and peer in. It’s dark, but I can just make out the shape of a person slumped over the steering wheel, the deflated airbag a bright beacon.

I knock on the glass, not wanting to scare the person by just opening the door. “Hello? Can you hear me?” I shout, curling my hand into a fist and banging it on the window when there’s no response.

There’s no movement, and worry burns through me, quickening my actions. I grab the handle and tug, but the doors are still locked. Jaw clenched, I bang on the glass once more.

Nothing.

“Fuck.” I grab my crowbar and hurry around the vehicle.

I know the damage to the vehicle isn’t bad enough for the person inside to be severely injured. More likely than not, the impact from the airbag knocked them out. Maybe they have a mild concussion.

But I can’t quit seeing my parents in their beat-to-shit Mustang. Blood is everywhere. Mom’s beautiful blue eyes staring right at me, lifeless.

There’s a slight tremble in my fingers, but I ignore it, raising the crowbar and striking the corner of the window—where it will be weakest—with the bent claw end. It punctures a hole easily, shattering the glass.

I use the metal bar to clear away the rest of the glass, then reach inside and hit the Unlock button. Jogging around the back, I toss the tool in the direction of my sled and grab the driver’s-side door’s handle.

It takes all of my strength to heave it open. The metal groans plaintively where the front of the car has smashed backward into the hinge.

I tear off one of my gloves and reach in, laying my fingers against the warm neck of the young man inside. He’s still slumped over, completely unaware of me smashing into his car, but there’s a strong and steady pulse.

“Hey, are you okay?” I give one slender shoulder a shake, jostling him so he slumps a little toward the center console, and I get a good look at his face.

There’s a bruise forming above one of his eyes, and there’s some blood under his nose, but it doesn’t look broken or swollen. I try not to notice how attractive he is as I pull out my knife and cut through his seat belt, then ease him back away from the steering wheel.

I’m not very successful. Even disheveled and a little battered, my stomach flips at his gorgeous bone structure and lips. He’s East Asian, I think, or at least partly. He has dark brows, a pointed chin, and floppy hair.

And he’s maybe mid-twenties.

Since my mid-twenties were over a decade ago, I shove my attraction down and focus on helping him. While the curve of his lips might be oddly seductive, the bluish tint to them isn’t.

I can’t leave him here, even if his car is drivable. And that’s a big if.

Making a decision, I reach over him and find the keys, shutting off the engine.

Then I try to figure out how to get an unconscious man back to my house on a snowmobile.