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Josef glances at me. “Is it?”
“Damned right it is.”
He goes back to carefully watching the road. After forever, we come to a stop, deep in the forest. “It’s up there. Take the path. Follow the smoke from the chimney.” He tosses me a flashlight and a burner phone. “Call me if you need provisions. My number’s programmed in. There’s enough food, water, and wood to last a couple of days. There’s a snowmobile in the shed.”
As soon as I jump from the truck, he’s backing up and turning around. The dim tail lights of the old truck quickly disappear into the heavy falling snow.
Exactly seven minutes later, I’m knocking on the door of a tiny, rustic cabin, praying I don’t get shot and disposed of in the snowbank I just trudged through. “Simona…”
Footsteps make the floor creak behind the heavy wooden door. I realize I may have miscalculated. Maybe the element of surprise would have been better. But I haven’t picked a single lock in my life.
I’ve kicked down a few doors, but somehow that just seems wrong. It is Joseph’s cabin. And she is safe inside of it.
Fighting to keep a growl out of my voice, I call to her. “Simona, open up.”
The latch clicks. When the door swings wide, I’m met with the muzzle of a very big shotgun. I sigh in relief. Never has a gun pointing in my direction looked so good.
“Sprite. Damn, I’m glad to see you.”
Simona’s eyes are brimming with tears. Her throat works. “You found me.”
I push the gun aside and jerk her to me. “Damn right I found you. Again,” I murmur against her hair. “You might as well give up. I’m stubborn. I’m mad too, which makes me even more determined.”
She leans down and sets the shotgun on the floor. Tentatively, she wraps her arms around my neck. “I wasn’t really going to shoot you.”
“I know.”
I steal her breath with a kiss that’s barely restrained. I want to crush her sweet lips, ravish her with all the frustration I’ve got knotted up in me. But I don’t.
She leans back. “Josef brought you?”
“Yes.”
Squinching up her cute nose, she says, “That devil.”
I grin as I rub a thumb across her cheek. Across the mark that’s turned the world upside down. “I’m pretty sure he’s an angel.”
She drops her lashes. “Actually, I have to agree with you on that. How did he know I was here?”
I pull her against me, tighter. Feeling how damned perfect this infuriating woman fits in my arms. “That’s for him to tell you.”
Before she can get away, I swing her up into my arms and carry her to the couch. “Now, you are going to talk. Even if I have to handcuff myself to you.”
She buries her head in my shoulder. “Scotch…”
And the tone of her voice makes all that fear inside of me unspool into a messy tangle. I fight the urge to snap as icy terror drops into my limbs. “What did the doctor tell you?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
He’s here.
Him. The man who saved me. The one who rocked my world and tossed it upside down. The devil who won’t stop pushing his way into every single aspect of my life.
Some part of my mind knew he’d find me. Just not so fast.
I’m not ready.
I’ve never been so scared in my life.
