Page 6 of Frost and Venom

Harlow was close to Shabina. She knew the terrible things that her friend had endured. She’d actually been tortured. Real torture. Harlow was a nurse, and she’d seen Shabina’s scars. She had seen her in the middle of a very intense PTSD episode, yet she still envied her. How insane was that?

Harlow had grown up in what appeared to be a loving household. Certainly, there was enough copy of the happy family together, laughing and smiling. Although, if anyone looked at her closely in the footage of all the interviews, campaign commercials and publicity pieces surrounding the family as she’d grown up, they would see she rarely smiled.

People believed what the publicists fed them—and they were fed the illusion of the perfect family. She’d been miserable. Lonely. Aware that her father wasn’t the good man he portrayed, or her mother that perfect elegant woman always supportive and at his side. The senator ran his every campaign on being a family man, and the country bought into it.

Sadly, Harlow would have traded her life for Shabina’s, torture and all. Shabina ended up with a man who loved her and built his world around her. Rainier would protect and care for Shabina with the last breath in his body. Harlow wanted one person, just one, to love her like that, and it would never happen. She would never allow herself to get that close to anyone.

Harlow picked up the pace as she swept past the café and started up the long slope leading to the trail she often took. Misha suddenly swerved from the trail, barking ferociously. Heart in her throat, Harlow halted immediately at the warning and reached for the small pistol she always carried with her. She knew how to use it. In fact, she was a very good shot. Sadly, she wasn’t always certain she would use it even if her life was threatened. She might very well find out which way that was going to go.

“Damn it, Harlow, I could have killed you ten times before you or your dog noticed you weren’t alone. You’ve got to be more aware of your surroundings.”

The voice came out of the darkness, just to the side of the trail. She would know that voice anywhere. Sometimes when she was alone in her bed, she replayed the sound of it over and over. Black velvet soft. Mesmerizing. So low she found herself leaning toward him, wanting to capture every word, anytime he spoke.

“Wilder. What are you doing here?” When he first spoke, her heart had nearly exploded in her chest, and it wasn’t settling down quickly. She told herself he’d startled her, and that was the reason, not that anytime she heard, saw, or even thought about him, the chemistry, at least on her side, was off the charts. Unexpected. Entirely unacceptable.

“What the hell? Are you crying?”

It was a demand, nothing less. He came out of the shadows, a darker entity that almost appeared insubstantial until he got up next to her. She opened her mouth to deny the tears when his voice registered. A note. One off note. Someone else might not have caught it, but she had intimate knowledge of his voice.

She studied him carefully before reacting. Instead of Hawkin Wilder standing straight with his wide shoulders and killer body, Harlow could see he was hunched over, both arms wrapped around his middle. He was hurt. Seriously hurt. Everything flew from her but the need rising up to help him.

“Tell me what’s wrong, Wilder,” she demanded, approaching him slowly. One didn’t move fast at him. He had the instincts of a hunter, and he would react. She had seen him go from completely relaxed, sprawled lazily in a chair, to full-out attack mode, taking down his prey with ease.

“Tell me why you’re crying.”

She had to tilt her head to look up at him. Not far, but it was annoying when she was the nurse, the one in charge, and she was tall.

“We aren’t bargaining when you’re clearly injured,” she said. “Can you make it back to the house, or should I call for help?”

“I was on my way to you,” he admitted. “I can make it. But you may as well resign yourself to telling me why the tears and why you’re running at three in the morning. Which is not a good thing, Harlow, and I think you know that. It’s dangerous for any woman to be out here alone, but you, in particular, with everything that’s going on, shouldn’t be without bodyguards.”

Of course he would know. Everyone knew. It was international news. The humiliation of having a man like Wilder know about the shameful things her father had done burned through her. And she refused to have bodyguards. She was over that life and had been for years.

Harlow cursed herself for being so emotional. She’d been raised to be stoic, to never show her feelings, but lately, she fell apart the moment she was alone. Now, Wilder had come at the worst possible time. She’d given herself permission to fall apart, to cry, scream, rail against injustice, believing she would be alone at three in the morning on a trail in the middle of nowhere.

Still, she was a nurse, and a darned good one. The scandal didn’t matter, only the fact that this man was injured. She took a deep breath, forcing air into her lungs. She could handle this. More, it was Wilder, and he was injured.

“Let’s get you to the garage. I can take you to the hospital.” She managed to keep her voice steady. In charge. She should have known it wouldn’t work.

“Not going to the hospital, woman. If I wanted to go there, that’s where I’d be. I was coming to you so you could fix me up.”

She matched her pace to his. Normally, Wilder moved with easy, fluid steps, but he was awkward. Hunched. Arms still wrapped around his middle. One hand was pressed hard against his side. “Where is your car?” She hadn’t noticed one sitting in any of the parking places.

“Don’t have one.”

That didn’t make sense. “How did you get here? You’re injured.”

A faint grin sent her heart into overdrive. His smile was stunning yet terrifying in the way she reacted to it. She just didn’t—couldn’t—have such intense chemistry with any other person. But Wilder?

“Happy you finally noticed I could use a little assistance. It hurts like a son of a bitch.”

She kept walking, ensuring she didn’t move too fast. A fine sheen of sweat glistened on Wilder’s face. He hunched even more as they made their way slowly back toward her house.

“Ran into trouble on a mission. Parachuted in to you.” His low, velvet-toned voice was barely discernible. “Don’t want to take the chance of paperwork in the hospital that would lead straight back to me. If this is inconvenient…” He shrugged.

“As if I’d ever turn you away.” She wasn’t going to point out she was risking her license, depending on how bad it was. She could get in trouble if he’d been shot. That was something she would be obligated to report—not that she would, and she was usually by the book.

As if reading her mind, he took one hand and ran it down the back of her hair as they walked. “Things go wrong, you need anything at all, you reach out to Rainier. He has the pull to get you out of trouble.”