The Tourist Attraction (Moose Springs, Alaska #1)(20)
The trail couldn’t have been tidier unless someone had personally vacuumed the pine needles off the ground. The mountains rose high above the surrounding trees. With every step, her heart swelled wider, her soul flying free. Never had she been happier.
At the unmarked junction, Zoey had the choice to go right or left. On a whim, she went right, when thus far, all her turns had been left.
Zoey knew where she was going. She did. Even when the trail twisted and turned more than the map said it should. Even when it stopped being so well maintained and narrowed on both sides. Even when it became clear that she’d made a wrong turn somewhere and needed to reevaluate her location.
She was a strong, independent woman perfectly capable of taking care of herself in the Alaskan wilderness.
Which was why, when she turned the corner and ended up next to a massive steel shipping container, face-to-welding mask with a man brandishing a chainsaw above them, Zoey knew exactly what to do. She ran away. And when he yelled something, grabbing her arm and pulling her around, Zoey was more than prepared for the situation.
Screaming bloody murder, Zoey kicked him straight between the legs.
Chapter 4
Now, for the record, Graham completely agreed with Zoey’s reaction. If he’d walked out of a forest and into a chainsaw, he’d be upset too.
The problem was, when she turned to run away, she’d been running toward the north side of his property, making a beeline for a thirty-foot ravine. The chivalrous part of Graham’s nature would never willingly let someone fling themselves to their death on his property, especially when it was all based on a simple misunderstanding.
Unfortunately, it was hard to express agreement while dry retching into a welding mask, injured beyond all hope of recovery. As a person with hopes and dreams and the desire to someday father children, Graham knew better than to remain keeled over with a chainsaw beneath him, even one not running.
All in all, it was a dangerous time to be a man.
He shoved the mask off his face, tossing it aside in an attempt for her to realize he was actually a normal, nonmurderous human being. If the situation had been different, Graham might have tried to console her or at least convince her she didn’t need to keep screaming. But alas, curling up in the fetal position was the best he could do.
She screamed all the way to his four-wheeler. She screamed the entire time she tried to start the four-wheeler and failed. She took a breather for a moment as she kicked it a few times and then continued to scream as she ran to the house to—he assumed—barricade herself in and call the police. Let the police come. It was possible Graham needed immediate medical attention.
If he wasn’t so busy cursing into the dirt beneath his face, Graham might have screamed some too.
Graham stayed there for a while, letting the white-hot agony roll through him until it dulled to merely a rusty-knife-stabbing-him-in-the-groin type of pain. Then—like any intelligent man would do in the same situation—Graham crawled into his workshop and locked the door.
Until further notice, this was exactly where he planned on staying.
*
Zoey was a reasonable woman. With the arrival of the Moose Springs police department’s finest and the proper displaying of a badge number, Zoey allowed herself to be talked into calming down. The single officer had found Zoey crouched outside the now-closed shipping container, a tire iron she’d procured from the chainsaw murderer’s truck held at the ready.
If he’d come at her again, Zoey planned on bludgeoning him to smithereens.
After the police convinced Zoey to put down her weapon and reassured the chainsaw murderer it was in fact safe to come outside again, Zoey had been horrified to find she’d been almost chainsawed by the nice, handsome bartender who’d so sweetly driven her home the night before, leaving aspirin on the table next to her. Upon further inspection, there was a lot of suitably chopped and chainsawed wood scattered around the property.
It was possible the most terrifying moment of Zoey’s life had been an unfortunate misinterpretation of the events at hand.
There was a certain amount of shame in realizing she had attacked a perfectly innocent man. Especially when the innocent man was one Graham Barnett, who had gone to lengths beyond necessary to help her. Yes, it had been scary to turn the corner and come face-to-face with a chainsaw murderer. But now that she knew it was Graham whom she had attacked, Graham who was possibly peeing blood, it only increased the shame.
As the cop took their statements, Zoey kept asking Graham if he was okay, hovering over him like a fretting hen, which he seemed to be enjoying enormously. By the third time he moaned and groaned and asked for her number, Zoey threw up her hands and retreated to the safety of the opposite side of the patrol car, putting the bulk of the vehicle in between them for his safety as much as her sanity.
Ignoring Graham’s antics and Zoey’s growing agitation, the officer shook his head and asked Graham if he was able to drive into town. After retreating inside his home to get an ice pack, Graham agreed.
Jonah, the officer who’d responded to her call, was a weary-looking middle-aged man, slender and fit, but not for lack of trying for the opposite. Riding in the passenger seat next to him, Zoey kept nudging candy bar wrappers and empty soda bottles with her shoes.
“Sorry, ma’am. Usually, if I’m giving someone a ride, they’re in the back.” The officer took a long drink of gas station Slurpee, his cup balanced precariously in the squad car’s cupholder. It couldn’t have been anything less than a half-gallon.