I handed him the soup bowl, wincing as my shoulder throbbed. “Some people don’t deserve to be saved. There is a difference.”
Those sinful lips twitched within that forest of dark facial hair again. “There’s the fight I was talking about. Now that you’re awake, I’m gonna call the doc and the sheriff and see if I can get an ETA on when they can get up here and rescue you.”
“Aren’t you the one that rescued me?” It was biting and lacking any kind of calm.
He chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “No, I kept you alive, Pop-Tart. There’s a difference.”
The devil was always in the details, wasn’t it?
Chapter 4
Ben
“You sure she’s safe up there with you until the roads clear enough to get to her?”
Cooper MacKenzie’s voice was gruff and full of suspicion in my ear. I couldn’t blame him for being skeptical about my intentions. The Marshals had given him a rundown about all my misdeeds before plunking me down in his backyard. He knew all about the man I used to work for and all about the other men I ratted out to the feds in order to win this sweet spot in WITSEC. He wasn’t thrilled to have someone like me in his neck of the woods and he kept his eyes on me. All the MacKenzies did. This was their town and they weren’t about to let a dangerous outsider fuck things up.
They were smart.
“She’s good. I cleaned her up the best I could, but she’s got a gash on her head that needs more medical care than I can give. She dislocated her shoulder and bruised some ribs but that seems to be the worst of it. Obviously, I can’t tell if she’s got anything internal jacked up but she’s responsive and awake, so I’m thinking most of her injuries are superficial.”
There was a grunt on the other end of the line. “The car is totaled? Did she say why she was up on the pass in those conditions in the first place? Damn tourists. Always making more work during the winter.”
I rubbed my thumb along the side of my mouth and lifted my eyebrows at my bristly patient. She was watching me with narrowed eyes and a tight mouth. She hadn’t said a word since I laid out the truth for her. They said it hurt, but I could see in her eyes that in this case the truth killed.
“She was coming up to meet a friend. She thought she could handle the roads because she’s from Denver. You might want to have the town tourism board put the fact that Surrender is pretty much Antarctica in the winters on your website and brochures.” I kept my voice light but the stern sheriff was in no way amused.
“What friend was she coming to meet? Do I need to get word to someone that she’s been located? No one has called in a missing person over the last few days.”
I was a good liar, used to spinning words and telling stories to keep my ass out of the fire, but something made me uneasy lying to this cop. This new leaf I was under was starting to get really annoying. Having a conscience and empathy was a real bummer. I was used to being calculating and operating on the assumption that the only person that mattered in the world was me, myself, and I. Having consideration for others sucked and I didn’t like the way it scratched across my skin.
“Uh…the friends already know she’s okay. She called them on my cell. They aren’t local so as soon as the roads clear, they have to head back home. They were just up here for a long weekend and she’s going to need to see your brother before she travels. The doc needs to check her head out.” Echo narrowed her eyes at me as the untrue words tripped over my tongue. I didn’t want any of the MacKenzies to know that they were her target. They would not respond well to having a bee…even one as attractive as she was…in their collective bonnet.
Cooper grunted in my ear again. “I’ll tell Thomas. He might be able to get up to the cabin on an ATV before the roads open. There was an emergency here in town last night involving several cars and multiple injuries, so he’s had his hands full. I’ll tell him to give you a call if he can make it up sooner than expected, Benny.” A piece of my soul was soothed when I heard my real name, even though it was said with warning and a clear threat. “You take care of that girl. If she so much as looks at you sideways when I get up there, what the feds can do to you will look like child’s play by the time I’m done making your life a living hell. Understood?”
He couldn’t see me but that didn’t stop me from putting my fingers to my forehead and snapping out a sharp salute. “Aye, aye, captain. I shall remain on my best behavior.”
Echo let out a startled-sounding laugh and lifted her fingers to her mouth like she could stem it. I didn’t know if she was surprised that she was laughing at me, or surprised she was laughing at all after everything she’d been through recently. Either way, the sound was lyrical, light, and sparked something warm and foreign in the center of my chest. I immediately wanted to do everything I could to make her laugh again.
“Stop being an asshole, Ben, and just take care of the girl. I’ll be in touch.” The line went dead and I shook my head at his words. I couldn’t stop being an asshole. That’s what I was. I’d worked hard at it, been conditioned to be the best asshole I could be by the king of all assholes. Those instincts and automatic responses didn’t fade away overnight. They were far too ingrained into who I was.
I held the phone out in Echo’s direction and asked her, “Do you actually have someone you need to let know you’re all right? You’re going to be trapped up here for a few days and I’m sure your family is worried about you.”
She looked at the phone like it was a venomous snake ready to strike. “No one knows I’m here. I took two weeks off work, packed a bag, and left. My parents haven’t spoken to me since I found Xanthe and my little brother is dealing with his grief in his own way.” She sighed and shifted under the quilt that still covered her lap. “He lives in Arizona and is kind of a New Age spiritualist. Last I heard, he was on his way to Sedona to seek solace and commune with nature so that he could send Xanthe’s soul to the other side peacefully. He doesn’t even own a cellphone. The only person I keep in touch with regularly is my best friend’s five-year-old son, Hyde. After she died, I helped him find his father, who recently adopted him. He’s a good kid, sweet, and his dad is all right too. They both like to check up on me here and there but I didn’t tell them I was coming because one, or both, would have tried to talk me out of it.”
I let my extended arm drop and blew out a low whistle. “You lost your best friend as well as your sister?”