The police. Again, she could feel her heart start to race. Why? She searched her mind, her terrifyingly empty mind, and tried to reason it out. Was she in trouble with the police? Was she running from the police?
“I just need a place to stay. To get some sleep,” she said. “Can you just drop me off at a hotel?”
He waved his hand in a semicircle. “We’re sort of in the middle of nowhere.”
She could see that. Everywhere she looked there was snow. And it was getting dark.
“Will you drive me as far as the nearest town?” she asked. “I’ll pay you. I promise. I mean, I don’t have any money with me, but I’ll send it. Just give me your address.”
He stared at her, his eyes showing absolutely nothing. Was he about to kick her out of his car, thinking that she was going to be more trouble than she was worth?
“I won’t be any inconvenience,” she promised.
“There have to be people looking for you, worried about you. At the risk of stating the obvious, I think today might have been a big day for you.”
Had she gotten married today?
She didn’t think so. She’d know that. Deep down she would know. Right?
“I’ll contact people once I get to the hotel,” she said.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. Handed it to her.
Her arm felt as if it weighed eighty pounds when she reached to take it. Her fingers brushed against his.
Warm skin.
So different.
And a flash of a memory, jagged at the edges, in grays and blacks, like an old movie, jumped into her empty head. Cold hands. Wrapped around her upper arms. Pushing her. Cold, cold hands.
She closed her eyes. Willed it to come. But that was it.
“Please just take me to the nearest hotel.” She put his phone down on the gearshift console. Maybe rest would help.
If it didn’t, she didn’t know what she was going to do.
Under normal conditions, having a beautiful woman beg him to take her to a hotel was not an invitation that he needed to give much consideration to.
Hell, yes.
And if all went well, a half hour after they’d checked in, neither one of them would even remember it was snowing.
But there was nothing normal about this. The woman had been lying in the snow in a wedding dress. As he’d approached, he’d seen a slight movement in her arms and legs and had reached out to check for a pulse. She’d responded like a mad dog, throwing a punch and kicking her leg. Her movements had been uncoordinated, as if hypothermia was setting in.
While he had no formal medical training, every SEAL had the basics. He’d quickly sorted through the options. Moving someone before a full assessment was always a risk. But her extremities all seemed to be in working order, maybe a little jerky, a little awkward. He’d identified the cold as his biggest challenge, decided there was no time to waste and flipped her over to her back.
Then, even though her arm and leg hadn’t connected with anything vital, he’d been knocked back and just a little breathless.
She had a stunningly beautiful face. Dark hair. Very dark eyes, almost black. Rich, almond skin that hinted at an ethnicity that was more exotic than his own common German-Irish mix. Maybe from one of the Pacific Islands.
When she’d screamed, he’d gathered his lust-spiked wits and moved into action. He didn’t think she’d been there long. Dressed as she was, it would have taken less than twenty minutes in these conditions—twenty-degree temps with a thirty-mile-an-hour wind—for her to be in real serious trouble.
He hadn’t been confident that she could walk, so he’d carried her to the car. Once inside the vehicle, he’d been processing what to do next when he’d seen the marks around her wrists that looked suspiciously as if she’d been tied up.
It was possible that it had been consensual. What people did behind bedroom doors was nobody’s business. But he’d spent the better part of the past decade in countries where men routinely mistreated women and he couldn’t get the idea out of his mind. But when he’d asked, she’d stared at her wrists, as if it was the first time that she’d seen them, seen the damage.
Then he’d seen the small trickle of blood on the side of her face. He’d been very concerned when he’d felt the lump on her head, which he suspected she’d gotten from connecting with the fence post, and had been relieved when he’d seen that the cut itself was just a slice that would heal quickly.
He’d pushed aside his concern over her possible mistreatment and dealt with the immediate need of getting her out of her wet clothes.
When he’d pulled the T-shirt over her head and lowered her dress, he’d done a quick inspection of the rest of her to assess for injuries. Had caught a glimpse of pretty breasts and smooth skin but no other significant bruises or red marks.
The wedding dress had been wet and heavy and, quite frankly, had knocked him off his stride.
And oddly enough, it had seemed to have a similar effect on her. She’d ripped the pins out of her veil as if she was attacking a nest of snakes with a garden hoe. Her wet dark hair, free of constraints, had fallen around her shoulders.
How had a bride ended up in the snowdrift? Where the hell was her husband?
When he’d picked her up, he’d made a visual inspection of the surrounding area. No footprints besides the ones he’d left. No sign of a vehicle, with the exception of the wide tire tracks on the road, but he was fairly confident that the truck hadn’t stopped. There was no sign of heavy exhaust in the fresh snow that would have been there if a big truck had idled for any amount of time.
Was it possible that she’d fallen out of the truck while it was moving? That someone had pushed her out?
None of it made sense and she wasn’t helping. She’d lied about her name. He was pretty sure about that. Had tried to let her know that he knew in a nice way by calling her Stormy instead. When she’d asked his name, he could have reciprocated and lied. He had a half-dozen different aliases that he’d gone by in the past years. Instead, he’d offered up the truth.
It might have been a mistake but he’d felt the need that one of them should be honest. Why it was important, he wasn’t sure. They were ships passing in a storm. He was offering a helping hand until she could reach out to someone else.
Which she didn’t seem inclined to do. He’d expected her to look upon his cell phone as an unexpected lifeline but there didn’t seem to be anybody she was interested in calling.
Odd. To say the least.
There were probably a couple choices. He could keep driving toward
