Total pages in book: 198
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
I checked my service, but it was still nonexistent. I shot off a message to Rhodes and Amos anyway.
Me: Finally done, it’s a long story. I’m okay. Didn’t have service. I think the tower is down. On my way out, but I have to go slow.
Then I backed out and started the trip home. It was going to take about an hour to get there once I got off this sketchy part. Best-case scenario, it would be two hours to get to the highway.
And it was just as shit as I remembered. Worse even. But I didn’t care. I gripped the steering wheel for dear life, trying to remember what path I’d taken on the way up, but the rain had cleared my tracks.
I got this. I can do it, I told myself, driving literally two miles an hour and squinting like never before and hopefully never again.
My hands cramped, but I ignored them and the weird feeling of driving with no shoes on, but I wasn’t putting those boots back on anytime soon.
I drove, not turning on the radio because I had to concentrate.
I made it maybe a quarter of a mile down the road when two headlights flashed through the trees around a bend.
Who the hell was driving up here this late?
I cursed because the best path was straight down the middle, and it wasn’t like the road was wide to begin with. What were the chances? “Fuck,” I muttered just as the lights disappeared for a moment and then reappeared on the straightaway, coming toward me.
It was an SUV or a truck for sure. A big one. And it was going a hell of a lot faster than I was.
With a sigh, I pulled off to the side, zipping up Amos’s jacket to my chin, and then pulled off even more. With my luck today, I was going to get stuck.
No, I wasn’t. I was going to get home. I was going to—
I squinted at the approaching car.
The SUV slammed to a stop, and the driver’s-side door opened. I watched as a big figure jumped out and stopped in place for a second before starting to move again. Forward.
I locked my doors, then squinted again and realized . . . I knew that body. I recognized those shoulders. That chest. The cap on what was definitely a man’s head.
It was Rhodes.
I wouldn’t remember throwing my own door open, then reaching to grab my shoes and slipping them halfway on before sliding out of my car. But I’d remember hobbling forward with my boots barely hanging on by my toes and watching Rhodes make his way toward me too.
His face was . . . he looked furious. Why did that make me want to cry?
“Hi,” I called out weakly. Relief shot straight through me. My voice broke in half, and I said the last thing I would have wanted to. “I was so scared—”
Those big, muscular arms wrapped around me, the only thing holding me up, one hand going to palm the back of my head. My hair was wet with sweat—that shit wasn’t rain—but the entire length of his body pressed against mine. There and comforting, and everything I needed then and more.
That entire beefy, hunky body trembled lightly, I faintly noticed. “No more hiking by yourself,” he whispered roughly, so hoarse it scared me. “No more.”
“No more,” I agreed weakly. I shivered once in his arms, supported nearly completely by his frame. “It rained so much, and I don’t know where the fuck those clouds came from, but they were shitheads, and I had to hunker down.”
“I know. I thought something happened.” I was pretty sure he stroked the curve of my head. “I thought you got hurt.”
“I’m okay. Everything hurts, but just because I’m tired and these boots suck. I’m sorry.”
I felt him nod against me. “I came up here as fast as I could when your text came through. I had to go to Aztec and didn’t get service. Amos called me flipping out. He wanted to come, but I made him stay, and now he’s pissed off. I got here as fast as I could.” The hand on the back of my head swept down my spine, palming the small of my back, and there was no way I was imagining the fact he hugged me tight. “Don’t ever do that again, Aurora. Do you hear me? I know you can do this all by yourself, but don’t.”
At this point, I was never going hiking again. Ever. Another shiver shook through my body. “I’m so happy to see you, you have no idea. It was so dark, and I got really scared there for a while,” I admitted, feeling my own body start to tremble.
The hand on my head stroked down, pulling me in so close, I felt like if he could have put me inside of him, he would have.