if he didn’t want to make it. “Thank you.”
“As to this concussion … I’m no doctor, but there’s one thing I know for sure. I can’t let you sleep too long or too deeply tonight, so you’d better make up your mind that I’m going to be waking you often. And if that means shaking you, I will shake you.”
She didn’t want to be touched. Not by anyone. Fear clogged her throat, even though she understood the sense of what he was saying. “I … only if you have to.”
“Only if I can’t wake you by banging a pot next to your ear.” Then he surprised her by lifting one corner of his mouth in an almost-smile. “Can you live with that?”
“I think so.”
“Don’t worry about attacking me,” he added, the smile deepening enough to seem almost real. “You already tried that and didn’t even put a scratch on me. So if you wake up frightened and strike out, it’s okay.”
That was meant to calm her? Yet in some odd way it did. “I don’t remember attacking you.”
“Most likely not. You were pretty out of it, between the concussion and hypothermia. But yeah, you tried to defend yourself even when you were weaker than a newborn kitten.”
He seemed to like that she’d defended herself, although she couldn’t imagine why. It did, however, make her feel better about herself. Even totally out of it, she’d put up a fight.
“Anyway,” he went on, “the blizzard alone should be enough protection for tonight. But I’ll make sure everything’s locked up tight. Don’t usually have to bother, but.” He left the thought unfinished and shrugged.
“Thank you.” It would make her feel safer. “And thank you for your hospitality.”
Now he looked distinctly uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t have left a stray cat out there tonight. Would have been inhuman.”
Now how did he mean that? She wished she could peer behind the emotionless facade of his face and get an inkling of how this man thought.
No, maybe not. Maybe she didn’t really want to know what went on inside him. Tomorrow she would be gone, as soon as the blizzard let up enough and.
“Oh my God!” The words escaped her before she could stop them.
“What?”
“I just realized. How am I going to get out of here?”
“I’ll take you to a bus or something when the roads clear.”
“No, you don’t understand! He took my purse. I don’t have any ID, no credit card, no money! Oh, God, I’m trapped!”
Just as she started to spiral into fresh panic, he stopped her with one word of command.
“No.”
She gaped at him. “What?”
“I said no. Don’t do it. Don’t wind yourself up. I can help you out with all of that. Trust me, you’ll be on your way again as soon as possible.”
From something in the way he said it, she believed him. He didn’t want her here any more than she wanted to be here.
It was a weird kind of hope, but it was a hope she had to cling to.
Besides, she reminded herself, she’d always found a way to run before. Always. She just needed to wait to gather her strength and lose the mental fog that seemed to be slowing her brain.
She finally ate one of the rolls he offered, and even downed another cup of cocoa. The heat from the fire began to penetrate enough that she threw back the quilt and lay there in the oversized green sweats he had put her into. “My toes are burning.”
He looked at her feet. “I’m not surprised. They were getting close to frostbite. But they look a healthy pink now.”
She hadn’t even considered all the horrible dangers when she had taken her chance to flee the car wearing nothing but her grey sweats and running shoes into a cold Wyoming afternoon. With absolutely no thought of what she should do or where she should turn, she had fled. She hadn’t even risked trying to hide at the rest stop in the hopes that someone else would drive in and she could seek help.
“I guess running like that wasn’t my smartest move.”
“I don’t know, but from what little you’ve told me, it may have been your only move.”
“It seemed like it.” Then she stole another glance at him. “I couldn’t have made it much farther, could I?”
“I don’t know. Willpower can sometimes accomplish near miracles. I’m glad we’ll never have to find out, though.”
At least not this time, she thought miserably. Kevin had grown bigger than life in her mind, more like a nightmare monster than a mere man. “You know what I can’t understand?”
“What’s that?”
“Why he keeps coming after me. Why can’t he just let me go? I go as far away as I can get, and he still comes looking. I just don’t get it!”
He shook his head. “I’m no psychologist. I don’t get why he abused you in the first place.”
“I can understand that better than him tracking me like this. I mean, he has a temper. He blows up. At first I was even able to forgive him. But …” She shook her head. “I don’t get it.”
He suddenly leaned forward, almost like a striking snake, and she shrank back instinctively.
“Don’t ever,” he said, “ever, forgive someone who hits you. Ever.”
She blinked, wondering what the hell was behind that, but then he leaned back and reached for his own mug as if he hadn’t just vented that moment of passion. “Creeps like him,” Clint said quietly, “once they cross that line, they just keep on crossing it like it was never there.”
That much made sense. She nodded. “I guess you’re right.”
“I know I’m right.” His gray eyes seemed to burn. “You can’t erase the lines and then draw them again. The lines get blurred, and it almost never works. Especially if they get a taste for power or inflicting fear.”
She felt her mouth sag open a little and quickly closed it. They were definitely having a discussion about something that reached far beyond Kevin, but she couldn’t imagine what it was.
He rose quickly, mug in hand. “Want more?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
He headed swiftly for the kitchen, as if he wanted to get away from the whole conversation.
Not that she could blame him. She didn’t exactly like it herself.
She lay there, mug in her hands, staring into the dancing fire, wondering more about her rescuer than she should. He seemed like a troubled man, and that made
