“Yeah, I don't have any information like that. Like I said, I just met her this morning.”
“Well, I hope you reconnect at some point,” Luke says.
“Thanks,” I say. “I'm not trying to over-worry.”
“Just better to make sure she's okay.”
“Exactly,” I say to Luke. I feel better having let him know. By the time I get out of the truck and get a few bags of the decorations in the cabin, I'm feeling slightly less anxious about the whole thing. Now that the police know Juniper is here in Alaska, I can't exactly do much more.
I head back to the truck to get more of the decorations when I see something run out of the tree line. At first, I think it's a wolf or bear.
But then I hear it. And I know it is nothing like an animal. It is a woman crying for help. She screams, “Help me!”
She's running through the clearing, fast. There's only one cabin on the other side of that hill. And it's three miles away. It's Tom’s shack.
This woman is coming from that direction and she's running straight toward me.
She screams, “Help, help!” She’s shouting now as loud as she can. The scream begins to change. Fuck. She must be moving in circles.
“I need you to keep screaming so I can find you, so I can help!” I shout back into the wintery void.
If wild animals get her before I do … damn, I don’t want to think about it.
I race toward her voice, relieved once I see she is alone – she is here – alive, and while she looks like she’s been through hell, she is not bleeding or being chased by a wild mountain animal.
But the closer I get, I realize, holy fuck, this isn't just someone.
This is her.
Mine.
Juniper.
She falls into my arms, nearly frozen, shaking, terrified, sobbing.
She still has her long black coat on with the fur collar, but it's been ripped.
It's open. She has on her boots. I know it’s probably not the most gentlemanly thing to think about. She's not wearing any pants. She has a long sweater past her hips, but her legs look half frozen.
Her lips are blue. Her hair has icicles hanging through it; she looks like she is practically a block of ice herself. I scoop her up in my arms and carry her to my cabin. She's shaking, sobbing, frantically telling me a story.
“He couldn't have me. And he was trying to hurt me. He called me his pet. I was so scared. Jacob, how did you find me? I don't know what's happening, but he was going to keep me locked up. And I hurt him. I escaped, and he’s going to find me.”
We get inside and I sit that girl by the fire, trying to put the story together, knowing one thing for sure.
I reach for my gun.
Her eyes widen. “What are you doing?” she asks. She's shaking like a leaf.
“I'm going to kill that man.”
6
JUNIPER
I've been to hell and back.
My whole body shakes, shivering with cold. More than that, I am chilled to my very bones. My teeth clatter. My hands are numb. My toes? I can't even feel them.
But the only thing that gives me comfort is this man's eyes. Jacob, of course it’s Jacob.
I feel like I am a heroine in my very own romance novel, and the idea of him leaving me now? To go get revenge?
No. No, he can't go.
My hand reaches out to him involuntarily and my lips part. The smallest voice – one that doesn't even sound like my own – whispers his name. “Jacob, don't go.”
There's a gun in his hand and the look of a killer in his eyes. Hatred, ready to strike. Vengeance. He's ready to fight for my honor. And for that, there's a belly of warmth rising up inside of me that I wasn't prepared for, that I was not expecting.
When I ran out of that cabin away from that creepy man who kidnapped me, I was not expecting to run through these icy winter woods and find Jacob waiting for me, ready to scoop me up in his arms and carry me into his home.
I look around and I find myself nestled in a cabin made to nurture me back to health.
“You're shaking,” he says as he lowers his gun. He steps toward me instead of the door. “I don't want to go and leave you like this, but the idea of him, that man, being out there, the man who did this to you, it's not right, Juniper.”
“I don't want you to go fight for my honor and leave me here by myself,” I say, tears filling my eyes. I try to wipe them away. But I swear, they turn to icicles before they can fall to my cheeks. He kneels before me. He cups my cheek. He is a stranger, this man, but I rest my cheek in his palm and he's warm. He's warming me up just by his touch. I close my eyes.