Exposed - My Mountain Man Protector Read online

  “You weren’t actually going to strike him when he was trying to get the knife, were you?” Blake said.

  I turned to find myself being dissected by his gaze.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I wasn’t thinking; I was just reacting.”

  “You hardly know me,” he said.

  “And you hardly know me,” I returned. “Honestly, I don’t know what I would’ve done. I just reacted; that’s it.”

  Seeing my face, Blake apologized. “I’m sorry. I… It’s just been a while. I’m not used to people, and I never much liked them in the first place.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Looks like this is just the place for you then.”

  I glared at the army of spiky weeds we were approaching, all in just the right spot to attack my bare legs. What exactly was I supposed to say to Blake’s “I don’t like people”? “Sorry for existing”? Because I was. I really, genuinely was. I wished I wasn’t there, stuck with the one man who seemed about as happy as Angelo to be around me.

  We walked until the mountain wasn’t so remote anymore, until the paths became steeper, the wildflowers rarer, and my legs started stinging with pain.

  Finally, I asked him, “Can we take a break for a minute?”

  He shrugged and sat down on the grass.

  “We weren’t all born and raised in the forest like you,” I said, sitting down myself.

  “I told you, I wasn’t born and raised here, or even in a forest. I’ve just been here for a few months.”

  “Okay…”

  “Yes.”

  I shot him a look. “We are going to be stuck here together for a while, you know. Getting along wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”

  He met my glare with one of his own and then said, “I was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. I was raised by TV and nannies who assured me that my parents loved me, that they were constantly out of the house, running around spending money, because they loved me. By the time I was old enough to leave, I did. I left the money they threw at me to follow them scurrying around society’s hamster wheel of success. I went to my grandad’s, in Denver, and then he died, and I came here, his cabin where he’d take us for vacation sometimes. I’ve never looked back and I never will. I think that life, that materialistic emptiness of striving for goals that are ever out of reach—society’s whole hollow rat race—is disgusting.”

  He met my eye, and then his gaze switched to where he’d directed his diatribe: the glittery “G” of my Guess T-shirt, the black one Angelo had bought for me to parade around in.

  “Sounds like you’re pretty bitter,” I said.

  “Forgive me,” he snapped back. “I came here to escape people like you, so forgive me if I’m a bit upset that the next few weeks are going to be dedicated to getting you out of whatever mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”

  I stood up and declared, “You don’t know anything about me.” Then I stormed off.

  The way I was headed didn’t look like the same path we’d been on, but I didn’t care. I’d have rather gotten lost and died in these stupid mountains than spent another second with that pompous jerk.

  “Claire! Claire!”

  I ignored Blake, but then he ran up right in front of me.

  “Are you coming?” he asked.

  As I glared at him, at his angry blue eyes, I realized why I was so angry at him: It was because he was right. I had gotten myself into this mess. And, if these past few days were any indication, if I was going to get myself out of it, I was going to have to put my pride away for a second and do some things I didn’t like—including sticking with this uncongenial but knowledgeable jerk.

  “Fine,” I said. As he strode on, I followed him without another word.

  We walked along in silence, which suited me just fine.

  Surviving was hard enough as it was. With every step, my legs ached more, and my feet found their footing more and more clumsily, as if I were stepping on quicksand instead of dirt and grass. What complicated things was that we were not on a trail anymore. We were making our own trail, cutting through trees, shrubs, and tall grasses alike. Passing through this field was akin to a massacre. Every step we took, little moths and insects of all types threw themselves out of our path to save themselves.

  When I tried going slower, Blake didn’t adjust his pace. I didn’t bother to ask for another break. Already I could see there was no going slower, no stopping. There was only continuing on and on and on until we were there, wherever that was.

  “We’ll be at the ranger’s station in just a couple more hours now,” he said at some point.

  I tried to make his revelation that it was only a couple of hours as opposed to a day away cheer me up, but I was too tired to even smile. Every breath had become a wheeze. It was at the worst possible time too. We had started up an incline, where the grass was slick, presumably from rain.

  “Careful,” Blake said to the air ahead of us.

  I responded by stumbling on nothing and tumbling down the way we’d come. Tree roots, grass clumps, dandelions—everything I grabbed at to stop my fall snapped off in my hands. I tumbled until my head slammed into a bank of dirt and everything went black.

  CHAPTER SIX

  When I opened my eyes, I was moving, though my legs weren’t. Overhead, clouds swooshed by, and off to the side was Blake’s determined face.

  He was carrying me, his face as smooth and casual as if he were carrying a package of bread and not a full-grown woman.

  “Sorry,” I told his blond beard.

  “It’s fine,” he said. Then: “I’m sorry too, for what I said before. You just…remind me of someone, someone I’d like to forget.”

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  I didn’t want to press it further; we did hardly know each other, and I didn’t want to have to share my story either.

  Blake seemed to appreciate my silence and finally asked me, “Want a piggyback instead? We’re almost there, but this way you’ll get to see a bit more of the scenery.”

  “Sure, thanks,” I said.

  He put me down and leaned over, and I hopped up onto his strong back. The pain in my legs dulled to a murmur, while my eyes reveled in the sight before me.

  We were passing a pond. It was an unbroken sheet of reflection. The birch trees on its surface were as clear and as perfect as the real things at its edge, the only difference being the slightest rippling in the water versions. That and a duck who was swimming across obliviously, breaking apart one tree after the next, shattering reality’s oh-so-convincing reflection. This first duck was followed by another and then another, until the whole pond was a sheet of ducks instead of trees, showing a different type of beauty altogether.

  I watched the flock in awe until it occurred to me: Where there were ducks, there was…

  “Watch out,” I told him.

  Blake froze and swore. It was already too late.

  He lifted his boot, and we both laughed at the brown mess there.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I thought of it at the last second.”

  He wiped his poopy boot off on a nearby log.

  “Don’t worry about it. Thanks for trying.”

  The next few minutes consisted of Blake avoiding landmines of duck poop while I pointed out ones he looked to be missing. By the time we were in the clear, we’d arrived at the ranger’s station.

  “Forgot to mention it’s abandoned,” Blake said as I got off him.

  He glanced at my face, as if expecting a catty response. I only smiled shyly at him. I was just glad we were finally here.

  I took in the house for a minute, keeping my face neutral so it didn’t look as dismayed as I was starting to feel. The abandoned ranger’s station was really an abandoned house—a leaning-to-one-side, red-bricked wreck.

  “Found it on a hike a few weeks back,” Blake said, holding the glassless door for me to go through.

  “Well…” I said, searching for right words, “no one will look here.”

 
; And it was true. The ruin before me, the absolutely trashed relic of a house—no one would ever think anyone would be here.

  The inside wasn’t much better than the outside. In the first room, there was a busted twist of a chandelier on the ceiling, while the walls were snakes, shedding their skin of plaster in imperfect crumbles. Meanwhile, the floor was a battle of glass and plaster (presumably from the chandelier and walls). Only the stone fireplace was intact, though there was a hole in the bottom that was gaping and terrifying.

  “It needs some work,” Blake said flippantly, his gaze flicking to a pile of bottles in the corner.

  At this, I burst out laughing, and he did too. We laughed and laughed and laughed until we slumped to a bare patch of floor.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I may have acted rashly. I just thought this place was…remote.”

  “You don’t have to apologize for anything,” I said, putting my hand on his arm. “You saved me. This place…it’s a fixer-upper.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”

  His gaze was on my hand. After a minute, he rose, picked up the duffel bag with one hand, and stretched out the other.

  “Tonight we’ll eat and sleep outside. Tomorrow we’ll get to work on this place.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said, taking his hand with a smile.

  Leaving the house was a relief.

  By now, however, it was dark outside. Luckily, there was a small lantern that Blake lit. He plopped the duffel bag on the ground.

  “There’s a fire pit around here somewhere,” he said. “It’s just too dark to find now. I don’t want to trip and land on a nail or shard of glass while looking for it.”

  “I like the way you think,” I said.

  I couldn’t really tell in the dark, but it almost looked like Blake was smiling.

  He handed me two pieces of bread. “Tomorrow, when we can hunt and cook, our meals will be less depressing. But tonight, this is it.”

  Again, I felt his expectant gaze on me, as if he were waiting for a muffled sigh, a stifled groan, anything.

  “Raisin, my favorite.” That was what came out of my mouth to my own surprise.

  We toasted bread pieces, and, after a minute, he finally asked me.

  “What was that about?”

  I swallowed the bread, but a lump stayed in my throat.

  “What was what about?”

  “When we first met, you accusing me, and then that man pretending to be a police officer. I need to know what I’ve gotten myself into.”

  I nodded, keeping my gaze on the flickering candle flame.

  “Of course. I’m sorry. I just…haven’t talked about it yet. To anyone.”

  He didn’t say anything, but his silence wasn’t aggressive. His waiting was just that: waiting. He was giving me time to say what I needed to.

  “It’s my husband, Angelo. Our marriage hadn’t been right for a while, and, about a week ago, I’d had enough. He was out of the house so often that I was sure he was cheating on me. So, one night I followed him. He went to this factory and killed a man. He saw me, and I ran. I’ve been running ever since. He must’ve sent that fake police officer to fetch me or… I don’t know.”

  I could feel Blake’s intent eyes on my face.

  “Christ,” he whispered.

  “That’s not all,” I said, suddenly empowered by my admission. “He said ‘this is a message from Gabriel’ when he killed the man. I think he’s part of the mafia.”

  Blake sat back, the flickering candlelight showing several concerned creases in his forehead.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again, and then I rose.

  “If you don’t want to help me anymore, if it’s too much, then I understand. I can leave tomorrow. I know I’ve disturbed your life enough already.”

  Blake rose and looked down at me, a frown on his face. “No. Don’t leave. It’s not safe out there. I’ll still help you.” He was still frowning as he said it.

  “I mean it,” I insisted, stepping back. “I got myself into this. It’s not fair to go dragging someone else into this mess.”

  He tilted his head at me.

  “You really think that?”

  The question made me pause. Did I? After all, how was it my fault Angelo had turned out to be a crazy sociopath, and a member of the mafia at that?

  I sat down and stared into the candle. Lila’s favorite quote, stolen from Mad Men’s Don Draper, played in my head: “People tell you who they are, but we ignore it because we want them to be who we want them to be.”

  I glanced back at Blake and found myself nodding.

  After all, hadn’t a part of me always been suspicious of how fast my relationship with Angelo had progressed? The way he had pursued me relentlessly since the moment we met, said everything right and done nothing wrong? Hadn’t his shady friends seemed off from the start? Hadn’t the whole idea of my not having a job seemed wrong too? And yet I had gone along with all of it, plugged my ears to my family’s and friends’ pleas, burrowed my head into Angelo’s chest further, twisted myself so I could only hear the lies he cooed to me, the things I wanted to hear.

  On my wedding day, when I felt like throwing up instead of smiling and running back home instead of walking up the aisle, didn’t I take a Pepto-Bismol instead of looking into what was tugging at my heel, screaming at me to take a deeper look at the man I was marrying?

  Yes, Angelo was a manipulative, evil man, but there had been signs of who he really was and I had ignored them. I’d shut my eyes to the signs and my ears to reality, to others, even to myself. I had been so intent on things being as they’d seemed that I had refused to accept anything that had suggested otherwise.

  Yes, I may have been a victim of Angelo, but I was also a victim of myself. I had done this too.

  “Yes,” I said. “I ignored the signs because I couldn’t bear facing the truth. My husband was manipulative, and I ate it all up because I wanted to.”

  Blake was still staring at me intently. There was an expression on his face I hadn’t seen before.

  He took my hand and then dropped it.

  “We should probably go to sleep now. We have a big day ahead of us.”

  As he knelt to put out the candle and start unpacking the duffel bag, he said, “Thank you for telling me.”

  “Thank you for still wanting to help me,” I said.

  He took out the tartan sleeping bag and, as he unrolled it, asked me, “You’re okay with sleeping outside for tonight?”

  I shook my head. “Actually, I’d prefer to sleep with the glass shards and plaster pieces.”

  We laughed, and he gestured back into the hole of the door. “Be my guest.”

  I slipped into the sleeping bag, snuggled in, and closed my eyes. “Maybe outside will be nice…for tonight.”

  Blake said nothing, and I rolled onto my back to look at him.

  “What is it?” I asked after seeing his awkward look.

  “There’s only one sleeping bag, and it’s cold.”

  I rolled over to the side. “Oh, of course. Sorry.”

  He slipped in.

  “Sorry. Tomorrow I’ll cut it in half.”

  As we lay there, our shifting away from each other only brought us closer together. The sleeping bag was barely big enough for one, let alone two, which wasn’t the worst thing since Blake radiated warmth. I quite liked the feel of his strong arm beside my face. Everything smelled like warm pine.

  When he shifted, his leg brushed mine, and a flame of emotion snaked through me. But when I checked his face, the scowl was still there, his forehead still creased with worry.

  Just go to sleep, Claire, I told myself. You have a big day ahead of you.

  So I did. I made a good go of the sleeping thing. I tossed. I turned. I counted sheep until I got to 374. I tried to sleep, but I did just about everything but.

  Finally, in exasperation, I got up and started walking into the trees.

  My phone said it was 3 a.m., but somethin
g told me murderers didn’t typically venture out this far into the forest to find a clueless city girl to kill. Besides, if I had stayed lying there any longer without sleeping, I would’ve gone crazy.

  Every one of my footsteps was loud in the quiet night. I used my phone’s flashlight to light up the path ahead of me. Its beam lit up glimpses of things: grass, shrubs, tree trunks, a frog with glinting eyes. I walked in a fairly straight line so I didn’t get lost. Blake already thought I was an idiot; I could only imagine how pleased he’d be if he had to hike out and find me. That was if he didn’t decide to just leave me to my lost fate.