“Why were you standing in the middle of the road? Trying to get yourself killed?” Reaching for my right arm, he lifts me effortlessly out of the snowbank and sets me on my feet. “Are you lost?”
Lost? I shake off his hand. “No!”
His stoic demeanor is shattered. He seems agitated, flustered.
I stare up at him, trying to ignore the blistering heat rising on the back of my neck. My stomach twists. Seeing Aksel only exacerbates my conflicted feelings about Waterford.
“This time, I did nearly hit you,” he seethes.
“So don’t drive so fast,” I fire back, unnecessarily combative.
His hostile eyes bore into mine. “I wasn’t going too fast!”
Aksel circles the Defender and steps onto the running board to inspect the ski rack, which is screwed into the white aluminum top. The rack wouldn’t have unbolted or shifted when the car braked, which means Aksel isn’t actually inspecting it; he is looking for an alternative to talking to me.
Stepping off the board, he glances down the canyon toward Waterford before bringing his eyes back to mine.
My impulse to be afraid is overshadowed by the peculiar sensation occurring in my stomach when his eyes roam over me. I try to avoid his gaze, but with nowhere else to look, my eyes return to his brooding face.
“What are you doing up here?” Aksel asks.
“Running.”
His eyes smolder with agitation and accusation. “Running—in the steepest canyon in Waterford—in the middle of a snowstorm?”
I gesture at the dusting of flakes. “This is hardly a snowstorm.”
“It will be,” Aksel corrects me. “No one can see you running in the daylight, let alone when it’s snowing.” His eyes narrow. “You do know where you are, right?”
“Eagle Pass,” I say.
Aksel closes the distance between us. He is so close I can see flecks of turquoise in his otherwise green eyes. He looks both dismayed and bewildered.
“What are you doing here?” he repeats in a quiet, determined voice.
“Running,” I restate slowly, as if he hadn’t heard me.
“I mean, in Waterford.”
“I live here now. And you won’t have to keep trying so hard to avoid me because I doubt I’ll be here long!”
Is it that obvious I don’t belong in Waterford? Don’t fit in?
Flustered, I bend down to tighten the frozen laces on my shoes, which have hardened into icy straws. When I stand, Aksel hasn’t moved; his eyes remain trained on me.
His stony gaze is unreadable, yet that same familiarity ripples through me again.
I’m certain of it now. Aksel is hiding something.
Although I was warm while running, my jacket is damp from snow and sweat. Standing still, the cold creeps into my limbs.
Averting my eyes from his face, I look down the steep canyon. Thick snowfall has decreased visibility; I can barely see the shimmering lights of Waterford sparkling in the V between the mountains.
Aksel doesn’t relax his stiff posture. If anything, he seems more tense, watching me uneasily, as if I somehow make him nervous.
My stomach remains knotted in a confused mess. Why did I run up Eagle Pass?
What exactly did I intend to do? See his house? See him?
Trying to stop the blush rising to my cheeks, I turn away from Aksel’s antagonistic stare. “I should get home.”
Wind gusts sweep through the canyon, chilling my bare legs.
“I’ll drive you,” he says abruptly, nodding toward the Defender. “It’s cold and getting dark. This road becomes a sheet of ice in these storms.”
The urgency in his voice unsettles me. With his feet planted firmly on the ground, Aksel resembles a bronze statue, towering above me.
Before I can respond, the quiet snowfall becomes a soft rumbling.
Aksel swivels his head toward the steep rock wall of granite, watching it quizzically. Then his face darkens.
The faint rumbling swells, echoing through the canyon in cracked groans.
I step closer to him. “What is—”
Suddenly, Aksel’s hand fastens around mine. Shocked, I look at him.
“IN—NOW!” he commands.
Instinctively, I obey.
I run to the Defender. Apparently, I’m not fast enough because Aksel slips his arm around my waist and nearly throws me into the passenger seat.
“Cover your head,” Aksel warns.
I wrap my forearms across my head. The rumble magnifies.
Aksel flips the ignition and shifts the Defender into first.
The jagged canyon wall hurls toward us as Aksel juts his arm before me like a protective steel pipe and rams the Defender into the mountainside.
CHAPTER 15
Stars erupt across my vision. My forehead pounds.
I can smell pine and leather. Someone is shaking me gently.
Disoriented, I open my eyes. I remember a thud … a deafening rumble … his arm across my chest