Chapter One

he morning is all sunshine, blue sky, and pop music. Just the kind of drive I love. I’ve got that feeling, you know, when you are just sure the weekend is gonna be great. A weekend away, doing what I love most.

How can it not be amazing? My phone makes a weird sound, and even though I know better, I glance down, taking my eyes off the road for a second too long because when I look back up and my idyllic drive turns into ten seconds of sheer terror.

The truck ahead is swerving to miss something, it’s bright red brake lights glaring at me.

A guttural sound rushes out of my lungs as I jam on the

brake pedal. My Jeep’s tires squeal angrily. On instinct I follow the truck into the other lane, praying nothing is coming at me head on.

Everything in my passenger seat plunges to the floor. I flinch at the loud crashing noise, the sound of ice dumping from my cooler.

Eyes on the road. Eyes on the road…. Doesn’t matter what’s happening inside the car.

That’s when I see him. God, I would have killed him. My heart nearly leaps from my throat. The man on the side of the road might be dead right this very second if I hadn’t swerved and followed the truck.

I croak out, “Holy hell,” as I whizz past him. He’s bent at the waist, hands on knees, little more than a blur.

But the snapshot image of him in my mind says a thousand words. He’s sick or injured.

Instinct maybe, nurse skills definitely, I can read these things lightning fast. Flushed face. Hunched torso. He’s in pain or can’t breathe.

I’m all shaky inside like Jello, with my heart pounding like a snare behind my ribs, as I manage to pull onto the tiny strip of grass at the edge of the road.

Adrenaline does crazy things to the body. I feel the full effects of it coursing in my veins like a drug. My hands are unsteady as a leaf in a Category 4 hurricane as I pick up my phone from the console.

It’s a tight squeeze on the shoulder of the road, my Jeep barely fits onto the narrow bit of earth between the pavement and the water-filled canal. A recipe for disaster, a road like this, two lanes of fast moving traffic, no shoulders to speak of.

Glancing in my side mirror I make sure no cars are coming before I hop out to offer what help I can, even though I’m a shaky mess.

Hero

Heat slams into me when I step from the car. It’s at least ninety degrees on this open stretch of road. No wonder he looks rough. Heat exhaustion will do that.

I carefully begin to walk toward him. “Are you okay?” He stands slowly up from his hunched position, his eyes searing me with their intensity. He’s big. Waves of energy pulses off him like a radio signal beaming out from a tower.

Uh… Suddenly, I get way more than the prickles along the back of my neck.

There’s an alarm going off in my skull—you know the kind you get when you walk into that dark alley at night.

I freeze mid-step. I’m alone. Is this a trick? One of those stories about women being lured into stopping to help at a car crash.

I’m not a complete fool, when I get the sixth sense, I pay attention.

So, here I am frozen. Hanging in moral and rational limbo. The nurse in me is compelled to help. But the 130-pound girl in me knows I’m alone on a country road and I’m no match for a man of his size.

His dark unflinching gaze holds me and we’re sort of locked in some kind of weird standoff. He’s stock still, only the slow rise and fall of his bare muscular chest indicates he’s not a cyborg, or a mirage that my mind has conjured up.

“Are you okay?” My words are a little shaky, I realize as I start backing up. One step. Then another. I could just toss a water bottle out the window and go on. I reach for my phone in my back pocket. Maybe I should call an ambulance. Or the cops.

I risk a tiny glance at the screen. Damn. No service. Doesn’t that figure? Why can’t you ever have a good signal when you need one?

When I flip my eyes back up I barely see him out of the

corner of my eye. There’s a blur of muscle and clothing, a glare of light.

I only have time to flinch, a nano-second before the force of his mass impacts me.

Oof! The air is being knocked from my body as I hit the ground hard with two hundred pounds of man landing on top ofme.

The sound of an engine and the crunch of gravel reach my ears over the pounding of my heart. I see a blur of chrome and blue paint from a window formed by his forearm and bicep. I gulp when I see that a car is swiping through the dirt where I had been standing.

There’s a thunderous pounding in my chest. His heartbeat? Or is that mine?

The man eases off of me a bit, lifting up on his hands but my lower body is trapped beneath his heavy thighs. The heat of him is all over me.

His dark brown eyes are wide and just as disbelieving as mine as he growls, “Holy fuck.”

The taste of dirt in my mouth makes me cough as I try to get my breath back. He winces as he rolls off of me and coughs out some dust of his own.

I scramble up, trying to get my footing but it’s like I’m trying to stand up in an earthquake. When I manage to get my feet in gear I scurry back to my car like a scared rabbit.

With one weak finger I jam the lock button on the door. Sealing myself inside. My teeth chatter, my whole body jumping around from the double dose of adrenaline.

Just breathe. You’re okay. Looking in the rearview mirror, I see him get slowly up off the ground and dust some gravel and grass off his hands.

Jesus. Did all this really just happen? I almost killed him. Then he saved my life.

Hero

How did my day turn into this? One minute I’m dancing around in my car listening to some obnoxiously loud dance music blaring from my cheap speakers and the next I’m on the ground under some giant hitchhikerkidnapper guy who’s just saved my ass from getting flattened like a pancake.

So, now, what to do? Put my car in drive and spin out as I chalk this up to the weirdest experience of my life?

Or do I actually do the thing I stopped to do, see if he needs help?

Is it safe to help him though…he might be a serial killer. Would a kidnapper try to save my life? Maybe, kidnappers probably want a live victim, and not a dead one. But something about his expression… something about his body language…

Damn. I feel completely irrational about locking myself in my car after he just saved my life. I try to gather my wits.

What am I doing? I glance at him in the mirror. There are waves of heat shimmering off the road. Water, oh yeah. From the looks of him, he obviously needs water.

Pressing the button on my door, I roll down the window just enough to slide my water bottle out. I wave it, so he knows what I’m doing. Then I let it fall to the ground.

As long as my window is up, I’m safe, right? I question the sanity of my reasoning though. He looks like he could wrench the damn door right off, not to mention punching his fist through the window.

Rolling the glass back up, I wait for him to approach. Moving slowly with a grim set to his mouth, he walks along the narrow deathtrap shoulder.

The only thing keeping me here is the fact that he did save

my life. And I took an oath to help those in need. He’s obviously in some kind of distress.

What the hell happened to him? Bits of grass are still clinging here and there on the man’s big body. Smudges of mud mar the deep contours of his muscular chest, and the knees of his pants. A filthy t-shirt is tucked in his waistband and hangs like a rag at his side. There’s a big scrape on his left shoulder.

Did he have that scrape before he jumped on me? In honesty, it looks like he might have fallen from a moving car. The torn pants. The scrapes and mud.

When Mr. Mysterious is standing on the other side of my car window, I get a better look at him. All of him from the square hard jaw with the day-old stubble down to the muscular bands leading down into his torn pants. He’s in top shape, like an athlete… like a fighter or something. He’s also like some kind of delicious taboo eye candy that’s close enough to touch.

The man slowly bends to get the bottle from the ground, moving like he’s in pain. When he stands, he takes a long draw of water, eyeing me through the glass.

Instinctively, I pull back. Everything about him says D A N G E R O U S. He’s big and feral looking, like a wolf. He’s young and strong. His dark gaze is hard as a hammer. Thick ropes of muscle cover him from his neck to the waist of his low slung pants. Every single one of his abs is defined. As in more than six of them. I’ve never seen a body like that in person and I was just beneath it, not something I’ll forget any time soon.

But regardless of how big he is or how sinful-sexy he is, the man is definitely tattered. Now that I get a closer look, I see he’s got some scrapes on his left brow bone too. Does he have a head injury?

The glass between us makes it hard for me to see his pupils in eyes that are so dark brown that they are nearly black.

I can’t stop myself from watching the strong column of his throat contract and relax when he drinks.

Hero

Damn. My mouth feels dry suddenly. My skin flushes with heat. I could watch that all day.

He swallows down half the water, he wipes at his brow as he speaks a single word, “thanks.”

Shouldn’t I be the one saying thanks? He did save my life just now.

After a few more sips, he says, “Thanks for stopping.” “Thanks for knocking me out of the way of that car.” He nods once. “I’m a nurse. Are you alright?” “Alright is a relative term. I’m sure I’ll recover.” “You look like hell.” “Thanks for the confirmation, princess.” He wipes at the sweat from his face and chest with the t-shirt that was tucked into his waist. Some of the mud smears around.

I narrow my eyes. Princess? But I ask about his well being anyway. “No, seriously, are you hurt? Sick? What happened to you?” My window is up, and I can’t detect anything about his odor, but I wonder if he smells like a walking liquor bottle. My mouth was full of dust, and dirt, and the smell of grass when he was laying on me.

He looks around and squints up at the sun. “Short story with lots of gaps.”

Another car whizzes by in my lane without so much as hitting the brakes, giving us zero for extra space. The man moves closer to my Jeep to avoid being sideswiped by the mirror as he growls, “Asshole!”

I point to the passenger side. “Why don’t you move over there before you get hit?”

He mumbles, “I wonder if I already wasn’t?” I dare to roll the passenger window down a bit. “Can I call someone for you?”

Before answering, he finishes the water in the bottle. “No

one to call, ‘cept the police maybe. But I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do that.”

There’s a gallon of water behind the passenger seat, I decide to give it to him too. He looks like he needs it. He’s crusted in salt from his own sweat. I pull the jug onto the front seat and search out two packs of electrolyte pills from the center console. He could use them for sure. “Well, I don’t think calling the police is necessary at the moment. An ambulance maybe, but not the cops. Unless you’re an escaped convict.”

I see him visibly relax. He almost smiles when he sees the gallon of water. “God, yes. Thank you.”

“I don’t suppose an Uber will do?” He chuckles at that. “Here?” He looks around. “You must be a city girl if you think they have Uber here.”

I glare at him as I roll the window down a bit more. This time, I’m going to have to roll it almost all the way down to fit the gallon through. And the packets? Am I just supposed to toss them out the window at him? Passing them to him by hand-tohand gets my neck hackles rising again.

Both of us watch the glass as it slowly descends. For him, it’s the access to what he’s literally dying to get. For me, it might be the difference between safety and harm. I raise the gallon and realize my hand is shaking still and I’m not sure if it’s from the adrenaline hangover or fear.

He takes it from me, scooping it out of my hand with one big paw. Leaning down, he eyes me. “You’re scared to death of me, aren’t you?”

“No,” I reply, holding my chin up, but both he and I know I’m lying.

“Well, if it makes you feel better, I’m as weak as a kitten right now.”

“You didn’t feel as weak as a kitten back there.” He’s probably got more power in his pinky than my whole arm.

Hero

A breeze wafts in, and I can smell him for the first time. A musky, earthy masculine scent. Dirt. Sweat. But not a putrid smell. No alcohol to speak of. For some reason, the scent isn’t repulsive, and my body reacts with an unexpected stir. I might be a virgin, but I know what arousal is when the primal sensation hits me.

I stop myself from drawing in another deep smell by asking, “How did you get here?”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out.” “Are you telling me the truth? Because I’m having a hard time understanding this.”

He snorts, and water drips out of his mouth as he chokes. He swipes at it with his thick forearm. “You? You’re having a hard time understanding this? How do you think I feel right now? I woke up in the ditch. Literally. I’m beat all to hell. My wallet and phone and duffel bag are gone. And the last thing I remember happened about 13 hours ago.”

I lean back in my seat and take a breath. Okay. Things are just getting weirder and weirder.

“Can I have those electrolytes, please?” He nods to the packets. “Then you can leave because I know you’re scared as shit and want to get out of here.”

He’s right. I am scared. But I pick up the packets and lean toward the window. The sooner I get away from here, the better. Since he’s now standing up straight and has some water in him, I reason with myself that he will be okay. Another car, maybe some guy, can pick him up.

He steps back. “Just toss them out. I am not going to reach into your car.”

“Alright,” I reply, but I have a twinge of guilt about it. Am I just being stupid?

“I can leave some food for you too.” “That would be much appreciated too. I’ve got a knot in my gut, and it’s going to be a while before I can get something to

eat. I’m starting to suspect I was drugged, so maybe some food will help.”

The next words that come out of my mouth are a surprise even to me because it implies I’m getting more involved, not less. “Where are you going?”

He puts a hand on the top of the car and leans down. “No clue. I’ll figure something out depending on who picks me up.”

“Where were you going?” “Nowhere,” he says, and I see the pupils in his eyes for the first time. They are big, as are his dark chocolate irises.

“Where were you?” “A bar in Rocky Mount.” “Do you live there?” “Not really.” “Where do you live?” “On the road. Whatever hotel I need to be in.” He must see my confusion and adds, “Construction,” to his reply.

“Ah. Okay. Well…” I’m not sure what to say. “I finished a job near Rocky Mount yesterday. Got dropped off in there at the end of the day. That was it for the gig. Thought I’d have a beer, a burger maybe. And next thing you know, I’m waking up in the ditch.”

“And your wallet and phone?” He just looks at me as if to say, do I really have to say this again?

“Are you an ax murderer? A rapist? A kidnapper?” This gets a smile from him. He shakes his head, and I see a look on his face I’ve never seen before, a softer look that transforms brooding-dark-handsome into sexy hell. It’s as if he knows where I’m going with this now. “Nope. Are you?”

I roll my eyes. “I’m a nurse.” “Good to know. I’d hate to have you kidnap me and tie me up somewhere.”

Hero

My hand comes up to my face as I blush at that thought, and I just shake my head.

Looking down the road, I calculate the risk of what I’m about to do. I’m about to let a strange man—not just any man, but one that looks like a jacked professional fighter—into my car.

Surely I’ve lost my mind. “You’re considering giving me a lift, aren’t you?” he asks with an even more charming smile, a flash of nice white teeth.

“Maybe I should tie you up before I let you in the car.” “Got some rope? I can tell you how. I’m a Marine, so I’m good with ropes.”

Not sure if I’m comforted by the fact that he’s good with ropes, I reply, “I do.” Is it absolutely ridiculous that I’m going to tie his hands? No, I decide it’s not. Fishing into the center console, I pull out a length of 550 cord. I hold it up to him and say, “This should do.”

He laughs in earnest. It’s a deep sound that vibrates around us both. “Just when I thought the day couldn’t get any weirder, this happens.”

Admittedly, he’s a good sport. He instructs me on how to bind his hands. Every time I brush my fingers over his thick wrists, I can feel the heat coming from his golden skin. There’s a dusting of hair over the well-defined and veiny muscles on his forearms. There’s no question how strong he is when he’s feeling in top form. When I finish, I look over my job. Not bad for a novice. I have to smile now as I take in the absurdity of the moment. He’s standing there shirtless with his hands now bound with my bright orange 550 cord. It’s quite a sight.

It suddenly occurs to me how this would look to a passerby and, God forbid, the police. He does look like he’s been kidnapped and beaten up!

And I’ve got my fingerprints all over him! “Get in! Now! Before anyone comes!” I snap.

He looks down, and I think he realizes what I’ve just thought about. He starts laughing loudly. It’s a rich, thick, whole-body laugh that has his abs contracting in all kinds of ways. He picks up the water and the electrolyte packets before tossing them into the window using his bound hands. It’s awkward, but he manages to open the door.

I scurry to move the things out of the floorboard as he angles his big frame into the smaller space. He turns his knees in, situates his feet, and shuts the door. “Ah, God, air conditioning!” He reaches for the fan button with both hands and turns up the speed. Cold air comes blasting out. Holding his face in front of it, he sighs, “okay, we can go now.”

I’m a little dumbfounded by what’s happening. A very large, filthy, mysterious stranger is sitting in my passenger seat with his hands tied together. “Where?” I manage.

“Beats me,” he says as he looks over with a shrug as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. “But, I think you’ll have to fasten my seatbelt.”

I reach out. Wait, that would mean…I start to do calculations on exactly how I would reach around his massive torso to do that. It would involve me practically crawling on top of him. And that ain’t happening. “Let’s just live dangerously for now.” I gun it and pull out onto the road.

The Books

Meet the Heroes