Gone (Deadly Secrets #2)(14)

He shoved his feet into his boots, grabbed a jacket from the hook near the door, and shrugged it on. Buttoning his coat, he jogged down the rickety porch steps of the old farmhouse he’d bought a year before and hadn’t come close to renovating yet.

The wind bit at his ears and neck, and he shrugged deeper into his coat as he crossed the front yard and headed down the short driveway. An engine revved a hundred yards down the road, and he looked up just as the driver overcorrected on the ice and slid into the ditch.

“Son of a bitch.” He jogged along the snowy gravel on the edge of the country road. By the time he reached the car, his ears were frozen, his muscles tight, and he wished he’d stayed at that stupid party so he wouldn’t be out here freezing his ass off for someone he didn’t even know.

He picked his way down the embankment. Luckily, the black Audi had been nearly stopped when it had slid off the road, so he didn’t expect the driver to be injured, just rattled. He knocked on the window. “Hey. You okay in there?”

Long seconds passed, then slowly the window slid down, and he stared into Raegan’s nervous face. “Hi, Alec. Um, I’m okay. I think.”

Shock gave way to irritation. “Holy hell.” He pulled the car door open and reached for her arm. “What are you doing out here?”

“I was—” She grasped his forearm as she struggled out of the car, slipping in the snow and falling into him. “You left the party before I got the chance to talk to you.”

He closed his hand over her other arm and shifted his weight on the hillside to pull her up beside him. “So you drove all the way out here in the middle of a snowstorm? That’s asinine.”

Her trendy pumps slipped on the snow, and she almost went down, but he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her up against him.

When they reached the roadside, she huffed and pushed out of his arms. “I wouldn’t have needed to come all the way out here if you hadn’t run.”

“I didn’t run.”

She brushed the snowy hair out of her face. “You sure didn’t let anyone know you were leaving.”

Resting his hands on his hips, he glared down at her, the cold and snow and biting wind forgotten. “Who told you where to find me?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and pursed her lips, just as she’d always done when she was irritated with him.

“Shit,” he muttered, knowing exactly who’d told her where to find him. “My money’s on my obnoxious therapist brother. He needs to learn to stay out of shit that doesn’t concern him.” He moved into the ditch again toward her car.

“What are you doing?” she called.

“Grabbing your stuff. You’re not going anywhere tonight.” He pulled her car door open again and leaned inside. “What else do you have in here besides your purse?”

“Um, my laptop bag is in the back.”

“Of course it is,” he muttered, grabbing the keys from the ignition and tossing the strap of her purse over his shoulder before slamming the door.

He moved around the car, slipping twice in the snow and grabbing on to the car to keep from going down. Once he had her laptop bag out of the back, he slung the strap over his head and hiked back up to the road.

“What about my car?” she asked as he grasped her elbow and ushered her away from the car toward the house.

“It’s stuck until we can get a tow truck out here.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Aren’t you even going to lock it?”

“Why? So vandals can trash it trying to get inside to search for anything valuable?”

“Vandals?” She glanced around the snowy road. “Out here?”

Frustrated she’d slowed her steps, he said, “Yes, even out here. Come on, already. It’s fucking freezing and I’d like to get inside where it’s warm.”

She frowned but stepped forward. The heel of her pump slipped on the ice, knocking her off-balance. A yelp slipped from her lips and her hands flew up to stop herself as she went down.

“Dammit, Raegan.” Alec tightened his hand around her upper arm and jerked her against him before she could hit the ground.

Her heart raced beneath her thin trench coat. He felt it all the way through his thick winter jacket. And even through the layers of cloth between them, he could feel her heat, warm, enticing, calling to him in a way nothing and no one had called to him in a long-ass time.

His pulse shot up, and sweat slicked his spine even in the cold night air. Pushing her away so their bodies were no longer plastered together from chest to hip, he kept his arm around her to make sure she didn’t go down again. “The house is right over there.” He pointed toward the glowing lights through the storm and started walking. “Just don’t take me down with you if you fall.”

“I’ll try not to,” she muttered.

Somehow, they made it back to his drive and up to the porch. Letting go of her as soon as they moved out of the snow, he shoved the door open and stepped inside.

Raegan shook the snow from her hair and coat and followed him in. Then slowed her steps and said, “Wow.”

He knew what she was seeing. The same thing he saw every day when he walked in. Bare floorboards, open walls he’d yet to close up after he’d had the wiring redone, a worn-out couch, and the only nice thing in the house—the river-rock fireplace he’d replaced as soon as he’d moved in.