Beverly Long - Hunted

He unzipped the coat that practically hung to her knees. Very gently, he helped her pull one arm out and then he lifted the material away.

He gently probed her shoulder area and her collarbone. When he tried to gently rotate her shoulder, it moved but it hurt a lot. “What do you think?” she asked.

“I think you should go to the doctor. But beyond that, I’m pretty confident that you didn’t dislocate the shoulder. It appears more likely that it’s a soft-tissue injury, more of a sprain. We should get some ice on it.” He walked over to the refrigerator and opened the freezer door. It was empty. “I have ice in my cabin,” he said.

She nodded.

“We need to call the police,” he said. “The accident should be reported.”

“I’ll do it in the morning. I want to get some sleep first.”

“I suppose it’s not going to make a difference.” He studied her. “Are you going to call Mack?”

She might have to. But not yet. If she was wrong and the attack had been totally random, she didn’t want to plant seeds of doubt. He hadn’t been crazy about her father and stepmother’s marriage, either. Had said more than once that there was something about Claudia Linder that he didn’t like. “I don’t think there’s much he can do about a car in the trees.”

“He’d want to help. But if he’s working out of the country, it might take him a few days to get back, regardless of how much he wanted to.”

“I guess.” Tomorrow, in the daylight, somebody was bound to see her car. If she didn’t report it, somebody else would. The car was registered in her name. It would probably only be hours before the police notified her dad and stepmother that she’d been in an accident and was missing.

Her dad would be terrified. Her stepmother was the wild card. Would she be grieving alongside her new husband or would she start to hunt in earnest?

By morning Chandler was going to need a plan. Right now, it simply seemed beyond her. She was tired from the drive, sore from tumbling over the mountain and almost falling out of a tree, and rather discombobulated by suddenly seeing Ethan again after all these years.

Ethan reached down to pat Molly’s head. The dog was crowding up against his leg, probably eagerly anticipating the next adventure.

“Like I said before, I’m not sure this is the best place for you.” Ethan looked around the room.

She followed his gaze. The furniture was covered with dusty sheets. There were cobwebs in the corners and hanging over the stone fireplace. Nobody had been at the cabin for more than six months and it showed. She knew the beds would be stripped of their linens and the refrigerator would be bare.

It was cold. She desperately wanted a hot shower, but that wasn’t going to happen. Still, she could probably make do. They always kept clean sheets and blankets in a tote in the closet and she wouldn’t starve to death overnight. The lights were a plus. “It’s not great,” she agreed, “but I don’t have a lot of choices right now.”

“You can stay with me. There are two bedrooms, just like here,” he added quickly.

“I know,” she said. “I didn’t think it was an invitation to...” She stopped, embarrassed. Of course it wasn’t that. For all she knew, Ethan was married with two kids. She sneaked a quick look at his fingers.

No ring.

He noticed. “To hook up?” he said, finishing her sentence. “You’re Mack’s little sister. I value all my appendages.”

She smiled, appreciating the fact that he was trying to make light of the situation. Ethan Moore asked me to stay over. If she was fourteen, she’d have written it in bold in her diary, with little hearts around it.

But she didn’t want to drag Ethan into her mess. “I’ll be fine here,” she said, hoping she was right.

“You don’t have any food.”

“I did. I had a box of crackers and a jar of peanut butter in my backpack.”

“I’ll fix you a bacon, egg and cheese on toast.”

She tilted her head. “That’s my favorite sandwich.”

He winked at her. “It’s the only thing I remember you eating in the mornings. You had one every day for the entire summer, with a glass of chocolate milk.”

She’d always assumed she was invisible to her brother’s friends. “Do you have milk?” she asked.

He nodded. “White milk and chocolate syrup.”

She smiled. “That’s how I always make it.”

“And I’ve got ice for your shoulder,” he reminded her.

Even though she knew staying with Ethan may be a bad idea, she really didn’t want to be alone. “You’ve got a deal. Thank you,” she added. “I’ll try not to be any trouble.”

* * *

ETHAN LED THE way to the Donovan cabin, with Chandler following close. They didn’t talk. He figured she was hurting and he was trying to process the past half hour.

Chandler McCann had certainly grown into a beautiful woman. When she’d entered the cabin and he’d seen her in full light, he’d been practically speechless. Her skin was lovely and it had made him crazy that she’d been marred by the chemical burns of the air bag. Those marks would heal but it was hard to see perfection harmed. Her dark hair had been piled up on her head but the strands that had escaped fell past her shoulders and were silky and shiny.

And then there were her eyes. A vivid emerald-green, with a slight tilt up at the corners. Thick, dark lashes.

She was stunning. And absolutely off-limits. They both might be adults and in any other circumstance he’d consider it, but she was Chandler McCann. Neither Baker nor Mack had ever delivered one of those “stay away from Chandler, you big lug” kind of conversations. Probably hadn’t figured they needed to.

Both of those men―men he admired greatly―doted on this woman. Nobody would be good enough for her. Certainly not Ethan Moore.

The McCanns were old money in Denver. The kind that had a beautiful house in the wealthy district and cabins in the mountains. The kind where wealth was passed down generation to generation. No money had passed down when his mother had died. In fact, there hadn’t been enough in his mother’s bank account to bury her. Ethan had made sure the funeral was nice, though, using some of his savings. He hadn’t expected anything different. He’d been sending money to her every month, knowing that her health limited the number of houses she could clean, knowing that her idiot of a husband did a poor job of providing for them. About the only thing he did well was run his mouth and swing his fist.

Ethan had survived the verbal and physical abuse his stepfather had dished out because he knew that Mack McCann and Brody Donovan were going to grow into men that others would be proud of.

And Ethan wasn’t going to get left behind.

A week after graduation, he’d enlisted in the army.

He’d always known he was going to have to find a different path than his best friends because there weren’t any prestigious military academies or fancy colleges in his future. But he had been determined to be a man others would respect.

Which led him to the second reason why there was no way, no how, that there would be any “hooking up” between him and Chandler. Nobody would respect a man who got involved with somebody when his personal and professional lives had fallen apart. Under investigation.

Ugly words that had come on the heels of ugly accusations. And even though the wildebeest was finally off his back, there were still many who didn’t believe in his innocence.

And that had hurt him more than he expected it would. When he’d made the decision to retire, his supporters had urged him to reconsider. This will blow over, they’d said. But it hadn’t. And all the long months while he waited for his paperwork to be processed, he’d dreamed about a few weeks at the cabin, knowing that if there was anywhere that he could get his head back on straight, it was here.