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Damian stared at her for several beats in stony silence. Then he broke out into a grin and looked at Ellis. “Man, I like her. She’s worlds better than your usual questionable taste in women.”
“Damian—” Ellis didn’t get the chance to finish the warning.
Bree grabbed the front of his jacket and drove him back against the wall. “Don’t youdarepatronize me like that. I am so done being bullied. I’m more than Ellis’s woman. I am a woman, yes, and I’m damn proud of that. And, yes, I’m attracted to Ellis, but that has no bearing on my worth as a human being. Nod if you understand.”
Damian, struck dumb, his jaw hanging open, nodded.
She gave him another hard shove. “I spend my days controlling a pack of twelve headstrong dogs. So, you, I can handle. I can outrun, outmaneuver, and outthink you. I can kick your scrawny ass to Nome and back without breaking a sweat. So you will address me with respect from now on, got it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Damian said, all serious now. “I’m sorry.”
Ellis nearly choked on his laughter. For one thing, nobody would ever consider Damian scrawny. He was six-two and solid muscle, but Bree had put him in his place and now he moped like a naughty puppy. It was amazing.
And kinda hot.
Okay, really hot.
He might be a little bit in love with Brielle Ives.
21
The doctor kept Ellis at the clinic for two days, which he thought excessive. His heart hadn’t actually stopped. The cold had just slowed everything down so much Bree hadn’t been able to detect his heartbeat. So, yeah, he’d had a near-death experience but notthatnear-death.
He felt fine.
His frost-bitten fingers were healing with no lasting damage. The biggest problem was the rib beat up during CPR, but as long as he had pain meds in his system, he was good to go. No need to lay around.
He didn’t like that the town doctor wouldn’t let him keep Peanut in his room. It wasn’t a real hospital. It was a small-town clinic, and he was the only patient. Why couldn’t he keep his dog with him?
And speaking of things he disliked, he hated that Bree had taken her dogs out to continue the search without him. There was a psychopath on a snowmachine out there somewhere.
Make her drop this. Forget this and forget me.
Yes, he was fully aware Dad had been a hallucination, but that didn’t stop the warning from boomeranging around his brain as he lay tethered to an IV pole. Whatever Dad had gotten himself mixed up in was bad news. The psycho snowmachiner was proof enough.
Bree did not need to be out there. Especially not alone.
By the time his doctor sprung him, he was climbing the walls. Nate came to pick him up, and he all but steamrolled over his brother on the way out the door. “Where’s Bree?”
Nate lifted a shoulder. “She took the dogs out again.”
“Dammit. I gotta—”
Nate stopped him in the doorway with a hand on his chest. “No. You’re not going after her. She knows what she’s doing out there. You don’t.”
“But she’s alone.”
“Exactly the way she likes it.”
“Nobody likes being alone.”
“Speak for yourself.” Nate eased back and crossed his arms over his chest. “She said she’ll be back tonight. She has a room at the Iditarod Roadhouse across town.”
“Then that’s where I’m going.”
“She wants you to go back to Anchorage.”
“Not without her.” Ellis elbowed past his brother and pushed outside. Although he braced himself for the punch of cold, it still took his breath away. For a split second, he was in the water again, all warmth leaching from his body.
