“You can’t get up yet. You might be hurt.”
“Not hurt.” She tried to sit up again. Her gaze shifted to Aries and she let out a gasp. “I don’t like dogs!”
“He won’t hurt you. Aries, back.”
The dog backed away a few steps but kept his attention riveted on Hunt, awaiting the next command.
“Can you tell me your name?” Hunt asked her.
She stared into space for a moment. “Where am I?”
“You’re on the mountain. Were you driving?”
“No…” She didn’t sound so certain. He’d seen this before—often, in fact. People forgot the events under extreme duress. And clearly she’d experienced something scary.
He got her under the arms and looked into her eyes. “Does anything hurt? Can you feel your feet?”
She nodded.
“Okay, I’m going to help you sit up. We’ll take it slow.”
“All right.”
Once he assisted her into an upright position, Hunt crouched next to her, still assessing her appearance. Mid-to-late twenties. She could be a victim of foul play or been in a domestic situation when she was dumped here.
Speculations aside, her physical condition was stable. But not for long if he didn’t get her out of the elements.
Hunt looked into her eyes again. She didn’t seem connected to the moment. She was far away, unable to process what was happening to her. Even in the darkness, he could see how pale she was. It made it all the more urgent to get her out of here and warmed up.
“I’m going to carry you back to my vehicle and drive you somewhere to get help.”
“I don’t know where I am.”
“That’s okay. I’ll stay right by your side while we figure it out together. Are you able to stand or should I pick you up from this position?”
“I can stand.” Her tone convinced him that she was strong enough to do that, and he helped her to her feet.
She wobbled, and he held on to her by the waist. When her eyelids fluttered, he expected her to drop like a rock at his feet, passed out unconscious, and he jerked to action.
He swooped her into his arms, hitched her tight against his chest and ducked under the branches to get out of the forest. Aries led the way through the darkness to the SUV.
Now he had to figure out what to do with the woman. So much for a quiet, uneventful break from rescuing people in peril.
What happened? Freya’s last memory was getting into her car to drive to the grocery store. The next thing she knew, she was waking up in a snow drift with something cold and wet in her face.
When she opened her eyes, a big dog loomed over her. She disliked dogs. Since a young age, she’d always been afraid of them. But her emotions were too numb to feel the fear she normally would.
Snow blurred her vision as much as the fog inside her mind. Between the two, she hardly understood what was going on until she felt herself being lifted. A set of strong arms supported her. She closed her eyes and fought to get her bearings.
She really wished she could recall what happened! Start at the beginning of the day.
It had been like any other day, waking up and going to work at the office. Except this wasn’t a normal day. It had been the Christmas luncheon. Scattered but discrete events whirled through her brain, and she focused on putting them in chronological order.
The last thing she recalled was cleaning the snow off her car and then getting behind the wheel with the intention of going to the grocery store. After that…nothing.
Her brows creased as she fought to remember.
“I’ve got you. You’re going to be all right.” She might have believed that the low male voice was a whisper of the wind blowing past her if not for the rumble in the chest underneath her ear.
He shifted her in his arms and she heard a car door open. Next thing she knew, she was placed on a seat and was looking into a pair of friendly eyes. In the vehicle’s overhead light, she made out that they were brown.
“Do I know you?” she managed to whisper.
“My name is Hunt. I found you in the snow. Or my dog did.” He glanced down, and she followed his line of sight to the big dog she’d seen looming over her before.
She recoiled.
Hunt held up a palm. “It’s okay. He won’t hurt you. He’s a search and rescue dog. Trained to find people who are lost.”
“Am I lost?”
Hunt’s lips twitched at the corners. “I’d say you are. Can you tell me your name?”
She blinked. Fragments of images were scattered in her brain like the tiles of a Scrabble game. She could almost make out the letters but was unable to put them in order.
She shook her head, brows pinching again.
“That’s all right. It will come to you. You hit your head.”
She snapped her gaze to his. “I did?” She reached up to touch the back of her head, immediately finding the spot she hadn’t realized was throbbing until this second. When she drew her fingers away, she found them sticky with blood. “I’m bleeding!”
“Don’t panic. The cut isn’t bad. I’m going to take you…” He trailed off, stare fixed on the road ahead. “I’m going to take you to my place. The clinic is closed.”
Hunt leaned over her. “I’m going to buckle you in now.”
He snapped the seatbelt around her and then moved to the back of the vehicle. A moment later he was back to spread a thick blanket over her, tucking it around her shoulders and under her knees.
The fog was starting to clear a bit more in her mind, but that didn’t make it any easier to understand what happened to her.
Hunt slid into the driver’s seat. “Just relax. Close your eyes if it helps. The drive might take a little while—the roads are terrible.”
She did as he told her and found the advice helped.
“Freya,” she whispered.
“What was that?”
“My name is Freya.”
“Freya,” he repeated. “Good. Freya, were you driving or on foot?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s okay. I’ll tell you what I know. I was on my way to my cabin, and my dog Aries caught your scent out the window. I stopped and he led me to you.”
“I don’t know how I got here.”
“We’ll piece that together later. Right now, can you tell me how you’re feeling? Are you dizzy?”
“No.”
“Nauseated?”
She mentally scanned her body. “No.”
“Does your head hurt?”
“Yeah…”
A second later, Hunt’s voice broke through her haze again. “Freya! Stay awake. Stay with me.”
Hot air blasted out of the vents at her face. She curled her fingers into the blanket.
“My fingers are burning.”
“That’s a good sign. It means there’s blood flow. Another few minutes and we’ll reach the cabin. Hang in there, Freya.”
She opened her eyes and stared out the windshield. The world was so white, she didn’t know how he could see the road. “Where is the dog?”
“He’s in the back.”
“Don’t like dogs…” she mumbled.
“He’s big but he’s a teddy bear, I promise. If you don’t like him near you, he’ll stay back. He’s a good boy.”