Page 4 of Untamed Hunter Daddy

Then I hear the sound.

A short, sharp gasp. The kind a body makes when pain overrides the command to stay silent. It comes from inside the hollow, followed by the clatter of something skittering across snow. A rock. Palm-sized. It tumbles out and comes to rest three feet from my boots.

I round the fallen pine and look down into the hollow.

She's on her knees in the dirt. Dark hair tangled and crusted with ice. Face too thin and too pale, streaked with grime and dried tear tracks. Waitress dress, the kind of thin polyester a thousand small-town diners put their girls in. Soaked through and clinging to her. Apron still tied at her waist, strings frayed because she used them for the shelter. One ankle swollen dark and tight inside a canvas sneaker split along the sole.

What stops me is the rest of it. A small pile of pine needles arranged like she tried to make a nest. Three stripped sticks laid parallel. A handful of red berries set carefully on a flat rock, rationed in groups of three. And scratched into the dirt near the wall, a single tally. Five marks crossed through, and three more beside them. Eight days.

Eight days alone in country that should've killed her in two.

Her hands are pressed flat against the frozen ground. She's shaking hard. Full-body tremors. Her eyes are open but unfocused, pointed at my boots. The expression of someone who's stopped hoping for rescue and is just waiting to find out which kind of end has arrived.

I drop to my knees in front of her. Hard enough that my kneecaps bark against frozen ground. Standing over her right now would be the cruelest thing I could do.

"Hey." I keep my voice low. Not soft. Soft would sound like a lie in this wind. Just low and even. "Can you hear me?"

Nothing. Her eyes stay on my boots. Breathing shallow and ragged.

I pull off my glove and press two fingers to her throat. Pulse is there but thin. Skin like river ice. She's deep in it. Hypothermia, dehydration, that ankle, and the exhaustion that comes from sustained terror.

I pull my jacket off and wrap it around her. She's light when I lift her. Not just small. Empty. Her head lolls against my chest. Hair smells like pine sap and the sharp unwashed smell of a body that's been surviving instead of living. I hold her closer.

She stirs. Eyes flutter open, shot through with raw terror. She tries to pull away but there's nothing left in her. Her voice comes out like something dragged over gravel.

"No... don't take me back. Please..."

Those words do something to me that years of combat never managed. My throat goes tight.

"Easy, sweetheart. I'm not here to hurt you. Name's Ryker Stone. US Marshal. We hit the mine last week. Dale Weathers and his whole operation are in cuffs. The women we found are safe. You're safe now. I've got you."

She blinks. The terror shifts. Fear drains out of her eyes, replaced by something so raw and unguarded I have to look away for a second. Relief. The kind that takes your legs out after you've been holding yourself together too long.

"I ran," she whispers. "When the shooting started. I thought you were more of them. I didn't know. I've been—I don't even know how long⁠—"

"Eight days." I say it before I think better of it. "You scratched it into the wall. You survived eight days up here alone in a dress and broken shoes and you're still talking. Do you understand what that means?"

She doesn't answer. She just presses her face into my shirt and cries like it's been waiting inside her for all eight of those days. I let her. I hold her against my chest and let her fall apart because she's earned it.

The wind howls harder. Snow falls in thick curtains. The storm's here. My knee was right, as it always is. Marshals' field office is a four-hour hike down in good weather. In this, carrying her, with her ankle and her condition—not possible.

My cabin is a few minutes away. High on the next ridge. Solid log construction. Stocked. Generator. Fireplace. Medical kit. Food. One bed. I'll take the floor.

"I've got a place close," I tell her, mouth near her ear so she can hear over the wind. "Storm's here and it's going to get worse. I'm taking you there. Warmth, food, first aid for that ankle. Nobody touches you but me unless you say otherwise. You have my word and my badge number and my name, and all three of them mean the same thing."

She nods against my chest. Just barely. Trust given because she's out of options and too depleted to do anything else. I know the difference.

I stand with her in my arms and start moving. Northwest toward the higher ridge, staying in the timber where the pines break the worst of the gusts. Snow's ankle-deep and climbing. She weighs nothing. Her small hands clutch at the front of my shirt even half-conscious.

I talk to her while I walk. Not because she can hear most of it, but because silence feels wrong after eight days alone.

"You're going to be all right. That ankle's a sprain, not a break. We'll wrap it and get it elevated. You need fluids and calories and real sleep. You're going to hurt worse before you feel better. That's how recovery works. Let it. I'm not going anywhere."

She mumbles something I can't catch. Something that sounds like pie. Then nothing.

The cabin appears through the trees just as visibility drops. Solid logs. Steep roof. Small covered porch. I kick the door open and carry her inside.

Main room is one big space. Stone fireplace along the far wall, already laid with kindling and split logs. Kitchen with a propane stove. Heavy wooden table. Worn leather couch. And in the far corner, the bed I built from beetle-kill pine, piled with quilts.