Lonely Alpha (2 page)

Mandy made her way back to her Honda with as
much dignity as she could muster. Why the heck had she even
bothered to come back? He was about as friendly as a grizzly bear
with a toothache. She climbed into her car and backed quickly out
of the driveway, heading down the mountain for the tiny one-street
town that passed for civilization at the bottom.

“Impossible.” She said it, but it wasn’t
true. When she climbed out of her car and strode up to the gigantic
tree that lay across the road, giving it a good kick, it proved to
be very real and very solid. She winced as her toes throbbed inside
her now-scuffed hiking boot. “Ugh.”

She was trapped. Trapped. What were the odds
that two huge trees would just so happen to fall across the road at
the same time, blocking the passage at either end, a mile or so
before the junctures that joined it with other routes? The hair on
the back of her neck stood up. This was no random act of nature. It
couldn’t be. Backing away from the tree quietly, she slipped back
into her car, rolled up the windows and locked the doors.

Her heart fluttered as she tried to keep a
cool head despite the fact that alarm was zinging through her
veins. One evening in Nashville, a strange man had followed her as
she’d walked a few blocks from a convenience store to her
apartment. This felt like that – unnerving, with an air of
impending danger that sharpened her senses. Pressing her nose
against the window, she glared at the fallen tree. Its trunk-end
still lay in the forest, hidden by trees and mid-evening shadows
that prevented her from seeing where it had broken. Was the wood
jagged and splintered, or cut smoothly by a saw? Or maybe even
ax-bitten. A chill raced down her spine, and she shuddered as the
vague memory of some cheesy ax-murderer film flashed through her
memory. Someone had probably cut down those trees, blocking the
road on purpose, which meant that she might be trapped on the
mountain with a psycho.

She immediately thought of the only man she’d
met on the mountain, and his bright hazel eyes assaulted her
memory. Could they be the eyes of a crazy man? A killer?

No. She was getting ahead of herself, her
sudden suspicion fueled by one too many murder mystery novels and
the occasional horror film. It was true that something wasn’t
right, but she wasn’t doing herself any favors by jumping to the
worst possible conclusions. Taking a deep breath, she reached into
her purse and pulled out her cellphone. She’d call the police and
they’d send out someone to clear the road and give her a ride back
to civilization.

Or not. Her fear returned as she flipped on
her phone and stared down at a screen that boasted no reception.
She glanced around at the thick forest surrounding her on both
sides. Of course her phone didn’t have reception – the asymmetrical
mountaintops and thick forests were more than enough to block
fickle electronic signals. She put it away and wiped her sweaty
palms on her shorts, mentally corralling her options. By the time
several stressful minutes had passed, she’d come up with two
options. The first was to walk down the mountain to town. The
second was to stay put, spending the night in her car, hoping for
rescue in the morning.

Dusk had truly settled over the wilderness,
quelling Mandy’s enthusiasm for her first idea. Town was miles
away, and that distance would seem very long indeed if she had to
make the trip in the dark. The woods were thick, and the idea of
walking alongside the tree line without being able to see anything
or anyone lurking nearby made the hair on the back of her neck
stand up again. Besides the possibility of a lurking criminal,
there were wild animals. These mountains were known for their
abundant bear populations. Maybe it would be safer to wait out the
night. Someone was sure to discover and report the blocked road by
morning. Maybe she wouldn’t even have to wait that long. Surely the
sheriff’s department sent cruisers over the mountain roads
occasionally, checking for trouble. With that thought brightening
her outlook just a little, she made a one-eighty, heading for a
little gravel turn-around spot she’d seen a little ways back up the
mountain.

With her car pulled safely off the road and
nestled in the half-moon shape that had been cut into the edge of
the woods, she committed herself to the idea of spending the night
there. It wouldn’t be that bad. She had snacks she’d picked up at a
convenience store along the interstate, and heck, her little Honda
was a lot sturdier than a flimsy canvas tent, and she’d camped in
one of those before. Even if a hungry bear or a murderous madman
did emerge from among the pines, she could drive faster than they
could walk. And if that didn’t work…

She opened her glove box, groping inside
until her fingers touched cold steel. Gripping the handle of the
.22 she’d packed there in preparation for the trip, her fear ebbed
a little. One of her co-workers had cautioned her not to embark on
a journey into the mountains alone without some sort of protection,
and she was glad she’d listened. The gun would be a last resort,
but if it came down to it, she wasn’t a bad shot.

****

Mandy awoke to a sharp pain spiking through
her chest. As she stiffened against the driver’s seat, she realized
that it was alarm, pure and simple. Her pulse raced as she
reflexively tightened her grip on the gun she held in her lap.
There had been a sound, and it had jarred her out of her uneasy,
nightmare-ridden sleep.

Knock
.
Knock
. It came again,
and she flung her weapon toward the driver’s side window, leaning
as far away from it as possible as she took blind aim at whoever
had rapped on the glass.

“Put that damn thing down!” A growl of a
command sounded crystal-clear, even through what now seemed the
feeble protection of her window.

She squinted against the darkness, sighting a
familiar face down the barrel of her gun. “You!” It was the guy
from the cabin – Mr. Inhospitality himself, hunkered down by her
window, glaring at her like
she
was the one acting crazy.
“What are you doing out here?” Her voice came out higher than she
would have liked. It was dark outside, but there was enough
moonlight for her to recognize his face and – good Lord, he wasn’t
wearing a shirt at all this time – the muscles that rippled along
his torso, striped with dark hair.

“I might ask you the same thing,” he drawled,
his nose practically pressed against the glass despite the fact
that she had her gun trained on him.

“Oh, I think you know exactly why I’m here,”
she said, her indignance overwhelming her fear. He must have been
the one who’d cut down the trees. Why else would he have returned
to so near the scene of the crime?

“The trees,” he grunted. “Yeah, I saw ‘em.
What the hell possessed you to spend the night in your car on the
side of the mountain when you coulda called for help?”

A tremor raced through her tired arms.
Holding a gun steady was a lot more exhausting than it looked on
TV. She’d never aimed one at an actual person before, only targets
at a shooting range she’d visited a few times to familiarize
herself with the weapon she’d bought, just in case of an emergency.
“My cellphone doesn’t get reception up here.”

He shrugged. “You coulda come up to my cabin
and used my landline.”

She glared at him down the short barrel of
her .22. “You weren’t exactly very welcoming the first two times I
stopped by.” Besides, she wasn’t an idiot. He was her number one
suspect, and the idea of returning to his cabin to call for help
was laughable. “I figured I’d be better off waiting for help to
come to me.”

He scoffed. “I reckon you’re in for a long
wait, then. You got enough supplies in there to last?” He pressed
his forehead against the glass, scrutinizing the interior of her
car with his strange hazel eyes. They almost glowed in the
moonlight.

“Back off!” she snapped, pressing her gun
against the glass. “Don’t think I don’t know you’re the one who
chopped down those trees.”

An arrogant smirk tilted his full, luscious
lips. “I don’t think you know much of anything. Now put that gun
down and get outta that car before the person who did cut ‘em down
finds you.” He laid a hand on the door, trying the handle.

“I’m warning you,” Mandy shouted, “I’ll shoot
if you make me.”

He seemed thoroughly nonplussed. “Might want
to turn the safety off first.”

She narrowed her eyes at her weapon – he was
right. The safety was still on. She laid her thumb on the little
steel lever, ready to flip it. “Don’t tempt me.”

He sighed, his breath fogging the window, and
straightened, leaving Mandy and her gun at eye-level with his
ridiculously trim abs. “At least roll the window down a crack.
Makin’ me yell like this is only gonna attract whoever trapped you
on this mountain.”

“Fat chance.”

He shrugged, and the movement caused every
muscle from his shoulders to his hips to ripple. “You’re the one
with the gun. Tell you what – if you open that window a crack and
talk to me for just a minute, I’ll leave you alone afterward, if
you want.”

Huffing in irritation, she kept her gun
steady with one hand while she turned her key a fraction of an inch
in the ignition, putting the car into a mode that allowed her to
work the power windows without actually starting the engine. When
the window had sunk down by the barest of inches, she stopped and
turned the car off again. “What do you want?”

He leaned down, his lips almost brushing the
glass as he spoke in a deep half-whisper. The sound of it sent
unwelcome shivers down Mandy’s spine, and the heat of his breath
warmed her face just a little. “Someone blocked the road on
purpose,” he said, his voice more serious than before, “and their
reasons can’t be good. A pretty thing like you, out here alone in
your car…you’re a sittin’ duck.”

“You’re not helping your case,” she said
drily, switching the gun to her other hand.

“You can’t stay out here. It’s
dangerous.”

“And just where else would I go? I’m trapped,
remember?”

“To the only safe place between here and the
other road block – my cabin.”

She bit back a humorless laugh. “No way.
You’re crazy if you think I’m going anywhere with you. It was
probably you who cut down the trees in the first place.”

“It wasn’t,” he said, his voice edged with
annoyance.

She leaned back against her seat and scowled
at him.

“Come out here and I’ll prove it to you.”

“No! We’ve been talking for more than a
minute. Leave me alone now, like you promised.”

He sighed, the rush of his breath sending a
few stray tendrils of her unruly hair dancing. “The thing about
that is; I lied.”

“You…!” She narrowed her eyes, wracking her
mind for an appropriately insulting name to throw at him. Something
unspeakably foul was dancing on the tip of her tongue when a loud
noise rent the night, echoing through the forest and shattering the
air of furious intimacy between her and the stranger. She squeezed
the handle of her gun harder than ever. Whatever weapon had made
that explosive sound was a hell of a lot bigger than her little
pistol.

“Told you there’s someone out there up to no
good,” he said, speaking quickly. “Now get outta that car. They’re
too close to here for comfort.”

She slowly lowered her gun, her protests
dying on her tongue, along with her insults. “I can’t,” she said
quietly. She was trapped between two dangers – the stranger at her
window and the unknown but clearly heavily armed menace lurking in
the woods at her other side.

He tempered his voice with a reassuring
calmness she wouldn’t have guessed he’d possessed. “You’ve got to.
You can’t stay here with God-knows-who lurking in the woods with a
gun that size. You come outta that car and I’ll keep you safe, I
promise.”

It was insanity that she was considering
obeying. But he was right about one thing: she couldn’t continue to
just sit there in her car – not after that noise, anyway. “Prove to
me that you didn’t cut down those trees,” she said, remembering his
earlier offer.

“All right. But you’ll have to come out here
and let me show you.” He nodded toward the road, which she knew
bent around a curve, just past which lay the fallen tree.

“I’ll be keeping my gun trained on you the
entire time, and if you make one false move…”

He nodded, flashing her a hint of a grin.
“Feel free to turn the safety off, if you’d like.”

Chapter 2

Mandy unlocked the door and stepped carefully
out of the car, flipping off the safety and keeping her weapon
aimed at the sturdy wall of muscle that was the man before her.

He trod silently down the road and toward the
end of the fallen tree, and she followed at a cautious distance.
“Look here,” he said, stepping past the tree line. “This tree was
cut with an ax.”

“So?”

“So do you think I had enough time to zip
down here after talking to you and cut this down by hand?”

Her suspicion ebbed just a little. She hadn’t
really thought of that. With his rugged physique, she had no doubt
he could wield an ax with the best of them, but it seemed
impossible that anyone could have cut down the tree by hand in such
a short period of time. Whoever had done it must have started just
after she’d driven past this place the first time…which meant that
they’d knowingly trapped her on the mountain. A thick knot of
anxiety formed rapidly in her throat, forcing her to swallow before
speaking. “I guess not.”

He nodded, apparently satisfied. “Good. Now
that that’s settled, you’ll come with me.” It was more of a
statement than a question.

“I can’t just spend the night in a stranger’s
cabin,” she protested. True, he hadn’t even known that she’d been
on the mountain whenever someone else had begun cutting the tree,
which made it unlikely that he was in on whatever scheme was
brewing, but still…