Rescued by the Woodsman

  We needed to get help.

  It was beginning to get light outside, just enough for me to make out my surrounding. I’d just hike a little bit. I’d pick out a landmark and walk toward it, a straight line. That would be safe enough, surely.

  I started to walk, keeping one eye on the phone, hoping for at least one bar, another on the skyline. There was a tree in front of me, maybe a few hundred yards away that looked like it had been struck by lightning or something. I decided to walk toward it. It wasn’t that far, and surely I could see the plane from there.

  I stopped every few hundred feet to look back and make sure, getting a little more nervous as the plane shrank, growing smaller and smaller, while the tree didn’t seem to get much bigger.

  Still, I kept walking. I was going downhill. We’d been on a more level area, and going downhill…that had to be good, right? Hank had mentioned a road, and a small town…it would be down the mountain. At least I thought so.

  I glanced back, looking for the plane.

  Fuck. I couldn’t see it.

  And there were still no bars on the phone.

  “Time to go back,” I muttered to myself, discouraged at not finding a signal. I’d last seen the plane no more than a hundred steps back so I’d be okay, but I didn’t dare go any farther. Turning, I started to retrace my steps.

  From the corner of my eye, something moved. My heart leapt. Was it a rescue party?

  “Hello?” I called out, staring in that direction. “Is—”

  The next words froze in my throat as something slunk out from behind a tree trunk, revealing its body.

  Its very big body.

  A wolf.

  My heart was pounding so hard in my throat that I almost couldn’t swallow. Very slowly, I took a step backward, praying with everything inside me that it was just a dog. A nice, lost little dog. But I knew I was fooling myself.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  Shit. I took another step back, trying to remember what the right thing to do was. I was a nut for those “What to do if” scenarios, and if that had been a bear, I knew I should have raised my arms and made a lot of noise. But what did I do with a snarling wolf?

  Don’t run, a voice whispered in the back of my head. If you run, it’s going to chase you.

  Another movement off to the side had me sliding my eyes to the left.

  It was another wolf.

  And another…

  And another…

  “You…wolves don’t eat people, right?” Maybe just me talking would make them go away. My sisters always told me that I could be that annoying.

  The big one – the one I’d seen first – took a step toward me, lips peeled back from his teeth as he made a menacing growl.

  “You don’t want to eat me,” I said, lifting a hand. It shook. My voice shook. Every part of me was probably shaking, from my voice straight down to my toes. Why the hell had I left the plane? “I eat too much junk food. I’d be bad for your heart.”

  I was babbling now. Babbling to a wolf that had just taken another menacing step toward me.

  Panic bubbled up in my throat as he took one more. Time seemed to slow down, his body tightening like a coiled spring.

  This is it…

  I tensed, preparing for the pain of its teeth sinking into my skin, and I threw myself backward as he lunged, knowing it was pointless.

  I fell.

  And I kept falling, head over heels before my butt hit hard cold earth, and I started to slide down, down, down.

  There was a huge crrracck that echoed through the air – possibly my skull because I hit something – hard. And I kept falling.

  But sharp teeth didn’t sink into me, and I was glad of that.

  That was my last coherent thought before darkness swam up to grab me.

  4

  I had woken up hurting the last time and this time was no different.

  Once more, my body ached – all over, and my head was killing me.

  Groaning, I reached up to touch my temple, and even that slight movement was enough to send agony crashing through me. Lowering my hand, I closed my eyes and waited for the pain to recede. It did, slowly, but awareness didn’t come with it.

  I felt like my entire head had been swathed in cotton.

  Where was the plane?

  Shouldn’t I be in the plane?

  It had crashed, right?

  I reached back into the void of memories, trying to think. That made my head hurt worse, but I persisted because something didn’t seem right.

  I was inside, and I was warm.

  The scent of woodsmoke filled the air, not at all unpleasant, but it was another indication that I was in some kind of shelter.

  Give it a minute, Stella. Maybe you’re sick. Maybe you hallucinated the whole plane crash thing – wouldn’t that be fantastic?

  It would, because that would mean I hadn’t come this close to being wolf food.

  Wolf food.

  The wolves.

  Bile welled up in my throat as the memory came crashing back.

  Oh, shit.

  The wolves.

  I wasn’t sick because there was no way in hell I would have hallucinated that.

  So the plane crash had happened. I had walked away from the plane, trying to get a signal on my phone…and I had ended up surrounded by wolves.

  And now I was inside. Somewhere.

  Time to figure out where, and what was going on.

  I cracked one eye open. When nothing swam in front of my vision like last time, I decided to try the other.

  Okay. This was progress. I wasn’t seeing double, and the pain in my head didn’t get any worse. Without moving my head around, I took in as much of the room as I could.

  I thought I was in a cabin. I saw wooden planks overhead. A lodge, maybe. Had there been a rescue team? I’d heard a noise…a gunshot, I thought. Maybe the rescue team had scared the wolves away, and I was in a lodge or something. That would explain the woodsmoke, the wooden planks that made up the ceiling. Slanting my eyes left, I saw a table, a few other things I couldn’t make out without really moving my head.

  No people, though. At least not to the left. There was a wall to my right. I couldn’t see it, but I sensed it. If I wanted to see anything else in the cabin, I was going to have to sit up.

  I really didn’t want to. Moving was going to suck.

  But move I did, in slow, slow increments, easing my elbows underneath me and curling my abdominal muscles, trying to avoid any actual head or neck movement because, oh, mama, was my head hurting. A noise caught my ears, and only sheer instinct kept me from turning to seek it out.

  Even that slight change in position allowed me to take in more of the cabin. It was small. Definitely not much of a lodge, if it was one at all. A door and a massive coat hung from a hook on the nearby wall, along with a pair of boots lined up underneath.

  There was a dampness under the boots that made me think somebody had been wearing them – recently.

  I heard that noise again.

  Breathing.

  It sounded like somebody breathing.

  “Hello?” I called out.

  “Hello,” a low, smooth voice responded.

  I jerked the rest of the way upright and yelped – because that voice was a lot closer than I expected. Whipping my head around, forgetting the pain it was going to cause, I found myself staring at a shadow.

  That shadow stood by the fireplace I had yet to take it – that’s because it was to the left of the door, at an angle I couldn’t have seen until I was either upright or moving my head with a lot more freedom than I really wanted.

  The sudden movement had my head swimming, and I moaned, cradling my skull in my hands as I waited for the pain to subside.

  “Easy,” that low voice said. “You hit your head when you fell. You’ve got a concussion at the very least. You don’t want to be moving so suddenly.”

  “I was trying not to,” I snapped without thinking about how it woul
d sound. Even as it dawned on me just how bitchy I did sound, I decided I didn’t care. I hurt too much to care, and I groaned once more, that pain so all-consuming, I almost wished it would just swallow me and get it over with. Finally, it eased back, and I dared to lift my head a bit, then a bit more, but doing it so slowly, it must have appeared comical to the man who watched me.

  And it was a man – the voice I’d heard earlier could never belong to a woman.

  It had been a nice voice, I thought. It would have been even nicer if I’d had some idea he was standing less than ten feet away, so he hadn’t scared me so much, but still…a nice voice.

  “Any better?” he asked, moving away from the fire and drawing closer to the edge of the bed.

  The ability to answer was momentarily gone, mostly because the ability to speak was momentarily gone. He’d robbed me of the ability to speak. Just looking at him.

  He was…impressive.

  I’d heard the phrase ‘he was a mountain of a man,’ but until that moment, I’d never really seen any particular male who could fit said phrase. Not only did this guy fit it – he seemed to define it. From where I sat on the bed, he looked…massive. I had no idea how tall he was, but I could tell he was inches taller than me, with wide shoulders and a chest to match. They were covered by red and black checked flannel, and under the flannel, he wore a black thermal shirt. Jeans covered thick, strong thighs. He wore no shoes, only socks. The sight seemed oddly incongruous with his massive, powerful appearance,

  His hair fell in a straight, thick line to his chin – or roughly to his chin. I was having a hard time determining where his chin was because it was covered by a thick beard just a little darker than his brown hair.

  His eyes were a piercing pale grayish-blue, and he stared at me with the same intensity that I must be watching him with.

  The beard framed a mouth that looked too soft for him, and that mouth, just as I noticed it, turned down in a frown. “Well?”

  I blinked. “Well, what?”

  “Is your head any better?” he asked.

  I had the feeling he’d asked it once or twice before.

  “As long as I’m not moving, the pain is only mildly horrible,” I said, swallowing back the nervousness the sight of him brought on. “What am I doing here? Who are you?”

  “My name is Lukas.” Under the shaggy fall of his bangs, I thought maybe he arched an eyebrow at me. “Do you remember what happened?”

  “There was a plane crash…” Licking my lips, I looked around – carefully. “My pilot…where’s my pilot?”

  “I didn’t see the pilot with you. There were wolves.”

  Gorge rose up to choke me once more, and I battled it back. If I started to puke, my head would split wide open, I knew it. “I know,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “I remember. I…I think I fell. I thought they were going to attack me.”

  “They would have. I was in the right place at the right time, with the right kind of firearm.” That brow was still arched. “I scared them off. You went down a pretty steep embankment and hit your head. What else do you remember?”

  “I remember my pilot was left alone at the plane,” I replied. “We need to go get him.”

  “We can’t.” Lukas shook his head. “The storm has moved back in, and there’s snow and freezing rain moving in. Once it clears, I can go out and look for him, but until that happens, this kind of storm is a death trap for anybody moving around in it.”

  “He’s hurt!” Panic welled inside me. Hank was hurt, and it was my fault, and I’d left him alone out there.

  “And it won’t do him any good if you or I were to go out there and end up hurt – or worse – because of the storm,” he said implacably. “You said your plane crashed. Did you radio for help?”

  The question caught me off guard. Had Hank radioed for help? Hank’s voice came back to me on a wave of memory. Don’t you go fretting…they know we’re out here…

  “I didn’t, but Hank did. My pilot,” I clarified. He was still watching me intently, and it was so unnerving. I would have inched back on the bed if it hadn’t been so conspicuous and painful just to move. “My pilot radioed out after the crash. They…” Whoever they were. “They know about the crash and who we are, about where we are.”

  I added that last part in, because hello, big, scary-looking stranger who kept watching me almost the same way the wolf had. Incongruously, I found myself thinking…do you want to eat me? Almost an echo of the same thought I’d had with the wolves.

  But while the idea sparked a sort of terror inside me, it wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

  Heat suffused my face, and I hurriedly looked away, forgetting about my head until it was too late. “Aw, shit,” I groaned, reaching up to cradle my throbbing skull.

  The good news was that the pain chased away any hint of that lingering, borderline erotic thought.

  Borderline hell, my libido whispered.

  My libido could get stuffed.

  “There’s no way we can help Hank tonight?” I asked stiffly. My eyes drifted to the window, mostly covered by thick, heavy curtains.

  Lukas moved toward it and pushed the curtains aside, revealing a maw of darkness, unrelieved by moonlight or stars. It was then that I heard the roar of the wind and the odd plinking sound of icy rain. “I’m not going out in that. While I can’t stop you, I don’t suggest you do it either.” He looked outside for a long moment before shifting his attention to me.

  We studied each other while my heart beat a chaotic rhythm in my chest, then I nodded. “Okay. Um…is there a bathroom?”

  He gestured to a door on the opposite side of the room, and I eased myself upright. I took note of my clothes then and sighed. They were covered in dirt, mud…and blood, I realized. Sucking in a breath, I reached up to touch my head once more but found no wounds there.

  “You’ve got scrapes on your face and hands. I cleaned them as best as I could without waking you. There’s a first aid kit on the sink you can use,” he said, clearly following my thoughts.

  It was unsettling how well he did it.

  “Can you handle cleaning up on your own?”

  I glanced at him. He had gone back to staring out the window.

  “I…yes,” I managed to say, staring down at my hands. The backs were covered in small scratches, and my belly decided right then to pitch and heave. Twice, I realized. I’d come this close to death twice in one day.

  Dimly, I heard him moving around, and when I looked up, I found him standing in front of me. “Something for you to put on,” he said gruffly. “I’ll try to get your clothes clean.”

  I took the clothes and nodded in thanks, then, before the panicked emotions could take hold, I hurried into the bathroom. Fuck the throbbing in my skull. I needed a few minutes of privacy.

  * * *

  Thoughts of the wolf and Lukas kept intertwining as I lay in bed sometime later. He’d had chicken soup waiting when I got out of the bathroom, and although I’d only been able to eat about half of what he’d given me, my belly felt so much better for having food in it.

  I didn’t feel much better.

  I was warm, relatively safe – I thought – and had food.

  Hank was out there in the cold, in another storm. I knew he had food and could build the fire back up. We’d dragged firewood close but how long would it last?

  The guilt kept me from being too comfortable as I lay tucked in the cocoon of blankets, the warmth of the fire filling the cabin.

  Lukas sat in a chair near the fire silently. He hadn’t said much of anything since offering me the soup, and he’d barely looked at me either.

  Still, I kept thinking of the intense way he’d watched me earlier.

  The same way that wolf had.

  You don’t want to eat me…do you?

  That was the thought in my mind as I fell asleep.

  Maybe that was why I ended up dreaming about Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf…and I was Little Red.

&nbsp
; Only I didn’t end up going to Grandma’s house.

  Rather, I was in this very cabin, lying in this very bed as the wolf prowled around my bed and looked at me with Lukas’s pale, gray-blue eyes. And he didn’t growl at me. Instead, he spoke with Lukas’s low, smooth voice.

  “What are you doing out here alone in the woods, Little Red?”

  5

  “I’m getting tired of waking up cold and sore,” I grumbled. At least today I was able to ease my body upright without everything in me screaming in agony. It just moaned instead. I considered that progress.

  It was cold in the cabin, and although I hadn’t looked around, I had a feeling I was alone in there.

  “Lukas?” I called out.

  There was no answer.

  Shivering, I climbed from the fading warmth of the bed and went over to the fire. It was down to coals, and I jabbed at them with the poker a bit, then added one of the logs from the stack nearby. I hovered there, watching until flames began to lick up the sides of the dried wood then I hurried back over to the bed, diving back into the blankets.

  I wrapped them around me, shivering as I waited to warm back up and wondered where Lukas was. The fire had died down so low, I knew he hadn’t been in here in a little while, but where was he?

  The question nagged at me until I clambered out of bed, keeping one of the thicker blankets wrapped around me as I moved over to the window. Watery sunlight filtered down through the clouds, and while the snow and rain had stopped, I couldn’t tell if the storms were done or just taking a timeout.

  For a few minutes, I paced, casting looks at the window, then the door as I wondered where Lukas could have gone. What was I going to do if he had just…left?

  “Why would he do that?” I muttered.

  It wasn’t like he had to go and save me from the wolves.

  “You don’t know that he did, though.”

  Talking to myself, arguing with myself was going to drive me insane.

  My bladder ended up driving me to the bathroom, and after I’d taken care of that, I took a better look at the scratches on my face and hands. They weren’t deep, and they already looked better, save for one along my jawline that would probably take a few days to heal. Head cocked to the side, I eyed it. I’d probably hit a rock or something.