Page 5 of Librarian & the Rockstar

She makes a tiny, distressed sound beside me.

I open my mouth to ask what's wrong…but I don't have to ask. I spot the trunk of a car—her car, judging by the shaken look on her face—sticking out from beneath the branch, and my jaw clenches.

Jesus Christ.

I glance over at her again. Her face is pale, her eyes terrifyingly wide. She's trembling, but I don't think it's entirely from the cold this time. She was inside that car half an hour ago. If she hadn't decided to walk to safety…

A weird pang shoots through the center of my chest, right where my goddamn heart is.

Fucking hell.

I grip the steering wheel tighter, trying to shake off the feeling. It means nothing. It's how anyone would feel realizing how close someone came to dying. Except…maybe I'm lying. Maybe.

"What's your name, sweetheart?" I ask again, trying to recall her attention so she stops thinking about her car lost beneath that branch. Hell, maybe I want to stop thinking about it, too.

What the fuck?

Get it together, Kilborne. Just, fucking get it together, man. You can't afford to crack right now.

"Loralei," she whispers after a moment. "Loralei Grey."

"Loralei," I repeat, and then hesitate. "I'm Ash. Ash Kilborne."

She turns those big doe eyes on me, glancing at me from beneath her lashes. "I know who you are," she whispers.

Well, fuck.

Chapter Three

Loralei

The entire way to Ash's cabin, I steal glances at him, trying to decide if I was crushed by a tree falling on my car, if I got hit by a car trying to walk to safety, or if I got struck by lightning.

As far as I can figure, it had to be one of the three, because nowhere outside of books does a librarian get rescued by the rockstar of her dreams. So either I'm the luckiest librarian on the planet—three times over since I escaped death twice today, too—or I'm actually dead, and this is all happening in some weird version of heaven.

I haven't made up my mind on which is most plausible before his GPS tells him to take the next right. I don't even see the turn before we're on top of the gravel path leading deep into the woods.

He idles just off the roadway, looking over at me. "You ever been out here before?"

"Yes."

"Is there actually a cabin out there, or are we going to get stranded in the middle of BFE with no way out?"

"There's a cabin," I whisper, my teeth still chattering. Even with the heat blasting, I can't seem to get warm again. "It belongs to the Brothers in Arms. They rent it out sometimes."

One dark eyebrow lifts toward his hairline. "Brothers in Arms?"

"The MC."

"MC." He processes this and then mutters a curse. "You mean a motorcycle club?"

"Yeah."

"Jesus Christ." He peers into the woods, looking a little like he's thinking about turning around.

"They're not that kind of MC," I say softly. "They're mostly former military, federal agents, and cops. They help people." When law enforcement needs to hide someone before a trial, or a woman needs help disappearing, they call the MC. Very few people around town know what they do. Those of us who do know don't make a habit of talking about them. I only know as much as I do because I sometimes deliver books to their ranch for the women and kids who stay there.

Ash doesn't look entirely convinced, but he slowly lets off the brake, easing the SUV forward down the dirt path. It's so narrow, branches scrape the sides as we pass through the trees. But after about a mile, the path widens into a clearing, with the cabin at the far side, nestled on the banks of the creek.