Lumberjacked (A Holiday Lumberjack Mountain Man Romance) - K.C. Crowne Page 0,13

there, but oh, my. I cleared my throat and focused. “It’s pretty deep,” I said. “How did it happen?”

“Mudslides can be a bitch.” He grinned at me as if this was a feat. But boys thought wounds and scars were trophies.

“Oh,” I said, realizing what had happened. “You got hurt saving me.” Like in the stories, I’d been a damsel in distress. It all sounded very romantic, but he’d been injured on my account.

Viktor only grunted. I wanted to argue with him about getting help but decided against it. He was a big boy. A very big boy. He could take care of himself.

“I need to go home,” I said after a moment.

Viktor frowned. “How?”

“I drove up here in a truck.”

“That’s long gone.”

I shook my head. “It can’t be. Where did you put my clothes?”

Viktor reached for a shirt and pulled it over his head, not even pulling a face while he did. When he looked at me, his expression was sceptical. “You’re not putting those back on.”

“I’m not very well leaving with a t-shirt on, am I?” I asked.

Viktor grunted. Something dark flickered across his face. Grunts and groans, almost like an animal, seemed to be his first language.

“Where are they?” I demanded.

Viktor sighed and stomped to the wardrobe. He took a folded stack of clothing out from the bottom and handed it to me. When I lifted my jeans, I realized what he’d been saying. They really were torn. But I needed clothes in order to leave.

I walked to the bathroom to change and saw Viktor follow me with his eyes until I closed the door. I looked at my clothes and frowned. They weren’t only torn, they were bloody. I could see the bandages Viktor had administered peeking through the rips. I looked in the mirror and ran my fingers through my hair. It was getting oily; I needed to wash it soon.

What I really needed was to get home and have a hot shower. Home seemed very far away from Viktor and his little cabin in the mountain. I didn’t even know exactly where we were.

“Are you ready?” Viktor asked when I stepped out of the bathroom. He had pulled on jeans that clung to his hips the way I wanted to cling to his hips. He wore a jacket, too, the one I’d worn when I’d sat outside with him yesterday.

“You’re taking me?” I asked, surprised.

“Might as well. It won’t help if you get lost on top of everything else.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

He walked to the cabin door without a sound and opened it, holding it for me. What a gentleman. As soon as we stepped outside, I gazed at the beauty around me. The trees were so tall, the canopy of leaves high above our heads. Birds chirped in the branches above us, and the light created thin shafts that reached the ground, which was wet with rain. It looked like it had been raining all night.

“This weather is crazy,” I commented as we walked.

“It’s the beginning of all your problems.”

“You are the master of understatements and grunts,” I commented. He ignored me, and I clenched my teeth. Good looking or not, he was kind of annoying.

As we walked through the trees, I watched Viktor. He moved through the forest as if he was one with it, silent, careful. If I hadn’t known he was right here with me, if he was following me between the trees, I wouldn’t have seen him. Despite his size, he moved quickly, lithely. He reminded me of a predator, stalking his prey through the trees.

I wasn’t nearly as graceful. I stepped on every possible twig that could snap, stumbled over the roots of trees that seemed to lift just as I passed them. I slipped on loose sand so that he had to catch me, which he did, every time. His thick arm would wrap around my body, or his large hand would catch mine. And every time, I wished he would never let go.

How did he know the way through the forest? If I had to find my way, I would get lost and wander for days. But Viktor walked with a purpose, as if he knew exactly where he was.

“There,” he said, pointing a thick finger when he stopped.

I looked through the trees and saw nothing. “What am I looking at?”

“The place where your truck was parked.”

I blinked. This couldn’t be right. I looked around, frowning. The ground was uneven, with fallen branches and logs