As I swallow down the nerves bubbling in my throat as to where my savior slept last night, I swing my head to the left. My hand shoots up to clamp my mouth when my eyes lock in on several deer heads mounted to the wall the bed is squashed against. They’re dead, but like all spooky things, I swear the buck in the middle follows my trek when I scoot up the bed to place some much-needed distance between us.
The situation worsens halfway up the ‘bed.’ It isn’t what you’d anticipate when hunting a furniture shop for a new bedroom suite. The base is made from the same chunky wood as the dining table and kitchen counter, and although the mattress appears genuine, it isn’t often you’ll find one covered with a patchwork quilt made from fur.
I freeze like a statue when reality dawns. I’m not admiring the cashmere softness of a bear skin rug cabins around these parts have on their polished oak floors. I’m resting on deer skin—quite possibly the bodies of the deer heads mounted to the wall.
Yuck!
A hiss whistles through my teeth when I attempt to scamper off the bedding made from dead animals. When I peer down at my feet, I learn the cause of my pain. My right foot is as mangled as the remains of my car after cartwheeling down an embankment. But unlike my car’s unsalvageable self, my foot’s chances of survival are high. Numerous butterfly stitches hold the mottled skin together, and although bruised and swollen, there are no signs of gangrene.
The tissue surrounding the stitches is very much alive—unlike my heart when a door on my right shoots open. It sinks as low as my morals when the man who rescued me walks out of a room I assume is a bathroom from the amount of steam that follows his exit. His hair is wet and no longer weighed down by knots, and if you exclude his thick beard that reaches his collarbone, his face is clear of any mess.
Although ethics would usually have my assessment stopping at the base of his neck, since we’re not in a hospital, and I’m technically the patient, I drop my eyes to the lower half of his body so fast, I add to the dizziness bombarding me.
With his teeny tiny towel giving him no coverage, I can confidently declare his chest is as hairy as his face and that the bumps in his midsection are as spit-inducing as the width of his biceps.
He gives meaning as to why everyone is fascinated to discover if Big Foot is real. There’s something oddly attractive about a beast of a man with no grasp of reality.
I snap my eyes away when the stranger busts my watch. He grunts at me like an animal. It isn’t a like-what-you-see groan but the grumbly moan of a frustrated man.
Although mortified he caught my gawk, some good comes from my embarrassment. My lowered head has my eyes stumbling onto my antique medical bag. It was a gift from my father when I was accepted into medical school. It’s been passed down in his family for generations, and I am so incredibly grateful the stranger removed it from the wreckage before it exploded—even more so when I remember my work cell phone is inside.
While acting ignorant to the pain making my stomach swirl, I snatch up my bag, dig out my cell phone, then log in via facial ID. Since there are only a handful of cuts and grazes on my face, it logs me in first go.
After pushing aside my shock that a notification from my iCloud-synced travel app announces that my plane to Paris departed two days ago, I hit the first number on my recently called list before squashing my phone to my ear.
The name at the top of my most called list doesn’t belong to Cedric. It’s for my boss and almost decade-long friend, Isaac Holt.
“Come on…” I groan through clenched teeth when a prerecorded voicemail from my cell phone provider announces there isn’t adequate service to connect my call.
I scoot up the bed until I’m in a seated position, then hold my phone high in the air, praying for a single bar.
I get nothing.
Not just because there’s no service this deep in the woods, but also because the unnamed man storms across the room to snatch my phone out of my hand.
“What are you doing? I need my phone. I require urgent medical assistance,” I plead as he stomps to the other side of the cabin like his towel isn’t dangerously close to slipping off his wide hips.
My last comment is a lie. He patched me up so well, I doubt an intern at a local ER could do a better job. It just feels wrong to be alone in a cabin with another man so soon after breaking things off with my fiancé, not to mention most people seek assistance during a crisis, not isolation.
Both shock and anger bombard me when the stranger dumps my phone into a shallow wood-carved sink before he switches on the faucet full pelt. The water pressure is basically nonexistent, but there’s enough flow to ruin my phone.
I can’t understand a word grumbling from his mouth in a series of long grunts and mumbles, but even a novice lipreader could get the gist of what he’s on about.
Help isn’t arriving for me anytime soon.
My throat works through a hard swallow when the stranger spins around to face me. His hair swishing against the curve in his lower back isn’t the cause of my distraction. His rueful glare at my cheeks is.
When it dawns on me what he’s staring at, I swipe at my face like a mad woman. I didn’t realize tears were weeping from my eyes until his cocked brow and furled lip pointed it out. Only a handful of tears dampen my face, but he glares at them like they haven’t stopped streaming from my eyes the past three days.
Once I’m confident I have matters under control, I say, “I can’t stay here.” Certain my life is about to replicate a horror flick, I caution, “People will be looking for me.”
He slams his fist down on the dining table, diverting my attention to him before he abruptly shakes his head. His nonverbal confirmation that I am to stay with him has me lost for words. It’s clear he’s frustrated that I’m in his domain, but he’s refusing to let me leave.
It truly doesn’t make any sense.
With my confusion rendering me silent, and the tension palpable, the unnamed man sucks in three big breaths before he stalks to an antique closet in the far corner of the space to get dressed.
Although stupid of me to do with a bunged foot and possible stage-three concussion, within a nanosecond of realizing this could be my only chance to seek help, I use his distance from the only door connecting me to the outside world to my advantage.
