Sacred (Forbidden Flowers Book 4) Read online

  I want to find my way to safety. I want to find my way to safety . . .

  She repeated the proclamation over and over, struggling to see twenty feet in front of her in the growing darkness and thickening snowfall.

  The law of attraction said that if you wanted something badly enough and expected it to happen, it would, so by God, she was going to want and expect harder than she ever had, because getting stuck on a back road in the middle of a blizzard was not an option.

  With her car practically at a crawl, she persisted, looking for any signs pointing her back to the resort. She didn’t find any.

  A few minutes later, a road that felt uncannily familiar appeared just ahead on the right. The feeling that she needed to take that road was so strong that she hit the brakes too hard and slid right past it.

  Backing up, she guided her car onto the slender road and managed to get going again after spinning the tires on the slick surface.

  After a short incline, the road descended and curved to the left, then the right. The snow was blinding by now, the pavement covered, making it hard to see where the road was and where it wasn’t as she crawled deeper and deeper into the woods.

  This couldn’t be right. She didn’t remember traveling any roads this narrow and swallowed by such thick forest on the way up yesterday. And yet, the feeling that she was on the right path was so overwhelming, she couldn’t force herself to turn around. Besides, there was nowhere wide enough to turn around.

  Then tragedy struck. Just as she felt like she was heading in the right direction, she turned the steering wheel to follow the road, but the car didn’t turn. It slid forward on the slippery, snow-covered pavement, heading straight for a tree with a trunk as wide as her bathroom door.

  “Please stop!” She cranked the steering wheel hard left, but the car continued skidding on its disastrous collision course. Every muscle in her body clenched as she prepared for impact and gripped the wheel. Her new Fiat hybrid was about to become nothing but a crinkled mess.

  And where would that leave her? In the middle of Sasquatch country with no food, no water, and no idea how far she was from civilization. She would be a sitting duck for every bear, mountain lion, or Bigfoot in the vicinity.

  At the last second, the car miraculously found purchase on the pavement and hooked to the left, missing the tree. Unfortunately, its momentum was carrying it off the road toward a steep descent into a ditch. She’d traded one tragedy for another.

  Journey tried to stomp on the brake pedal, but she’d become so disoriented that she missed, slamming her foot on the floorboard instead. The car hitched and bounced over the terrain, then slid down the embankment nose-first, coming to such an abrupt stop at the bottom that she pitched forward and bashed her head on her steering wheel hard enough to knock herself out.

  She and the universe were really going to have to talk about what it meant to be safe. Because this wasn’t it.

  Chapter Three

  The sound of a blaring car horn brought Journey back to consciousness.

  Seriously? Who was honking at her after she’d just driven into a ditch?

  She blinked her eyes open and tried to see out the window. There was a light bobbing up and down in the distance, the beam getting closer as it pierced the thick snowfall.

  That’s when she realized that it was her car horn blaring. And it was trumpeting like an endless whole note because the side of her forehead was resting on the center of the steering wheel.

  She slowly lifted her head, and the noise stopped, but criminy, she had one helluva headache.

  Groaning, she reached up and felt a huge knot protruding from above her right eye. Ouch!

  Her purse was on the floor in front of the passenger seat, the contents strewn everywhere, and the car was still running, the engine revving like her foot was pedal to the metal.

  Oh, yeah, because it was.

  She lifted her foot off the gas just as the light she’d seen bouncing toward her flashed inside the window. A sharp knock came on the glass.

  She jumped and barked out a startled squawk.

  “Sorry . . . sorry!” The man outside took a quick step back but continued peering through her window. “Are you okay?”

  She looked around the inside of her car, then out the windshield at the huge falling snowflakes and a thicket of bushes filling the glare from her headlights.

  “I, uh . . . I don’t know.”

  “Come on, we need to get you out of there.” The man tried to open her door, but it was locked.

  Without thinking, she unlocked it. But, really, what alternative did she have. She could sit in her car, get buried by snow, and ultimately freeze to death and become worm food, or she could take a chance that this guy was a Good Samaritan and wasn’t out there to kill her. Given the circumstances, door number two seemed like a better choice.

  Her car was tipped slightly to one side, with the passenger door facing the ground, so when the man yanked open the driver’s side door, he had to brace it with his back so it didn’t slam back on her face as she struggled to climb out.

  “Take my hand,” he said, reaching for her.

  She gestured numbly toward her spilled purse as he pulled her out. “My things—”

  “We’ll get them later.”

  Once she was free, he reached into the car, shut off the engine, then turned off the headlights. After shutting the door, he took her hand and began climbing back up to the road. “Come on. I need to get you inside where I can check that bump on your head.”

  Inside? She glanced around as he hauled her toward the road while snowflakes landed like freezing bombs on her face, making her wince as she struggled up the embankment. Inside where?

  Gripping his hand, her feet slipped and slid on the slippery ground as she worked her way up the embankment.

  She wasn’t dressed for snow. She had changed into jeans and a sweater before leaving the Mohonk, but she was still wearing the three-inch heels she’d worn to Natalie’s wedding. She’d been in too much of a hurry to get on the road to mess with unpacking her sneakers. Now she wished she’d taken the time.

  “Jimmy Choos?” he said, pointedly looking at her feet once she was on level ground again. “Seriously?” He grumbled something about city girls and impractical footwear, then motioned like he was going to pick her up.

  “I can manage!” She pushed away from him, immediately regretting it as her shoes slid out from under her.

  His arm whipped out and caught her around the waist as she clutched his heavy coat in both fists, barely staying upright.

  “You’re going to break your ankle,” he said, sweeping her off her feet as easily as he would have lifted a small child.

  Warmth poured through his coat, which was a good thing, since hers was still in the back seat of her car. She hadn’t wanted to bother wearing it with a two-hour drive back to the city, which would have been almost done by now had she not gotten lost.

  She shivered and burrowed closer, trying to ignore her aching head while scanning the area in front of them as he carried her up the road.

  “Do I know you?” he asked.

  Her gaze swung around, and for the first time, she got a semi-decent look at her rescuer. It was hard to see him in the darkness with thick snowflakes landing in her eyes, but she was certain she’d never seen him before. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Then what are you doing here?” Suspicion laced his tone as if he thought she were a spy.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did my father send you? My brother?”

  “Your brother?” Had she missed something?

  “Whoever sent you, you can tell them not to bother. I’m not going back.”

  Paranoid much?

  “Calm down, Paul Bunyan. I just came from a friend’s wedding and got lost in the storm.” She pointed at the snow-covered pavement, then looked over his shoulder at her car, which was already half covered with snow. “I thought this road—”

  “Road
?” he said, scowling. “This isn’t a road. It’s my driveway.”

  Wait, hold up. Driveway? She’d driven at least a half mile on this “driveway,” thinking it was a road. That was some long driveway.

  “You mean, this doesn’t lead back to the highway?” She glanced up and down the road—driveway—as if trying to figure out how she could have taken such a massively wrong turn.

  He looked at her like he couldn’t believe anyone could be this clueless and that, surely, her confusion had to be an act to hide the real reason she was there. When she didn’t say anything further, doubt crept into the lines around his eyes, which remained in shadow under the hood of his coat. Then he glanced at her high-heeled shoes, letting his gaze drag slowly up her jeans and sweater.

  “Are you telling me that you really are lost?” He sounded as if he still couldn’t quite believe it but was beginning to.

  “Uh, yeah.” She lifted her foot, giving him a good eyeful of her designer pumps. “I don’t know who your father and brother are, but I’m sure even they would be smart enough not to send someone wearing three-inch heels in a snowstorm to drag you back to . . .” Where exactly was he not going back to? “Wherever you don’t want to be dragged.”

  Wait, hold up. She frowned and looked at her shoe. “How did you know these are Jimmy Choos?”

  His heavy brow set in a firm scowl as they rounded a bend in the drive. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s just get you inside.”

  “And where exactly would this inside you speak of”—her jaw dropped open as they came into a clearing where a cabin the size of a small country came into view—“be?”

  Golden light shone through several windows on the first level, but the rest were dark, which was probably why she hadn’t seen the cabin through the trees. That and the heavy snow, which made it hard to see more than ten feet in front of her.

  When they reached the porch, he set her down but kept walking to the front door, not bothering to wait for her to keep up. She tentatively followed behind, making sure her feet were under her even though the snow hadn’t started piling up on the covered porch yet.

  He went inside, leaving the door open for her to follow him, as if he assumed she would enter a stranger’s house out in the middle of nowhere without any questions.

  She reached the entrance and peered in just as he turned a corner down the hall leading from the enormous and masterfully decorated great room.

  Wow.

  This was no mere cabin in the woods. This was a getaway. A modern retreat worthy of kings. Twenty-foot ceilings, enormous marble and granite fireplace, leather furniture big enough for giants, a pair of Aubusson rugs that would be right at home in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a series of modernist paintings that could have been on display at the Guggenheim.

  Stepping inside was like stepping into another world. One not in the middle of the forest.

  Before she could divert her attention to the kitchen and its acres of granite countertops and brushed stainless steel appliances, Paul Bunyan reappeared carrying a first aid kit.

  “Come here and have a seat. Let me look at that.” He pointed to his own forehead as if to indicate the goose egg on hers, then gestured toward one of the barstools at the kitchen island, which was big enough to be an actual island in the Caribbean.

  She shut the front door, then dutifully took a seat on the nearest barstool as he riffled through the first aid kit on the counter.

  “I haven’t used this in over a year,” he said, taking a moment to pull off his heavy gloves before digging back into his medical supplies. “I hope I’ve still got the good Band-Aids.”

  “What makes them good?”

  He triumphantly lifted a small box from the kit. “They’re waterproof and stick like skin.”

  That’s when it occurred to her. He needed Band-Aids. He would only need Band-Aids if—

  “Wait? Am I cut? Am I bleeding?” She began probing the tender bump on her forehead, feeling for blood.

  He continued pulling out medical supplies. “It’s just a small cut. More of an abrasion really. Nothing too serious.” He set a small tube of antibacterial ointment on the counter. “I just want to bandage it up to keep it from scarring.”

  She lowered her hand to her lap, not too worried about a little scar. Journey wasn’t one of those women. She didn’t get overly concerned with a small imperfection here or there and wouldn’t book an appointment with a plastic surgeon the moment she returned to the city to guarantee there wouldn’t be any scarring from her boo-boo. If she scarred, she scarred. It would give her face character.

  Glancing behind her, it looked as though he’d been in the process of making chili. A cutting board with the remains of a chopped onion sat on the opposite end of the island. Next to the stove were a trio of empty cans, one for crushed tomatoes and two for kidney beans. Steam rose from a large pot on the front burner, filling the air with a heavenly, spicy aroma. Right on cue, her stomach growled. Loudly.

  Laughing self-consciously, she plastered her palm on her tummy. “I guess I’m hungry.”

  “Yeah? When was the last time you ate?”

  She winced as he probed the bump on her noggin, keeping her eyes on the hardwood floor. “I don’t know. A few hours ago, I guess.” She had nibbled on crudités at the reception. Not exactly a meal.

  He was still wearing his coat. Not some flimsy-flamsy, city-boy coat either. This was a coat made to explore the Arctic Tundra. Thick, heavy, and hard to move in. The guy was prepared for a trip on the Snowpiercer.

  As if he were reading her mind, he took a step back, brushed the fur-lined hood off his head, unzipped, and peeled out of the heavily insulated thing to reveal a layer of luscious black cashmere covering broad shoulders, thick arms, and a chest wide enough to land a plane on.

  Cashmere. Not your standard mountain man apparel.

  He flung his coat over the back of a nearby chair, then swiped the tan skullcap off his head, revealing thick black hair that stuck out in every direction, with just the barest hint of silver sprinkled at the temples. When he faced her again, she lost the ability to speak as the most mesmerizing gunmetal-gray eyes she’d ever seen landed on hers.

  Paul Bunyan was mighty easy to look at.

  He combed his fingers through his hair, bringing it to some semblance of order, then turned his attention back to the first aid kit.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Journey.”

  “Journey? You sure?”

  Really? Did he honestly think she didn’t know her own name? “Yes, why?”

  “It’s just an unusual name?”

  “My parents wanted me to have a name with meaning.”

  “Yeah? And what meaning did they intend with a name like Journey?”

  Without skipping a beat—because she’d been asked about her name a million times—she said, “That no matter where life takes me, my journey will never end.”

  He stopped fiddling with the bandages and looked at her. “That sounds a little depressing.”

  “Only if you don’t see how exciting a never-ending journey can be.”

  One of his dark eyebrows kicked upward as he turned his attention back to his makeshift nurse’s station on the counter. “Maybe some journeys are never meant to be taken.”

  First, he thought someone had sent her for him like she was on the mafia’s payroll. Now he was Mr. Doom and Gloom. What dark cloud had this guy dropped out of for him to be so paranoid and pessimistic?

  “Life itself is a journey,” she said. “One you want to last as long as possible, in my opinion, because when there’s nowhere else to go and nothing left to discover, it’s time to move on to the next life.”

  “You sound like my wife,” he said flatly.

  “You’re married?” Marriage sounded awfully optimistic for this guy.

  “I was.” He tore open a small package of cotton squares.

  Ah, so Paul Bunyan was like her. Maybe that was why he was so jaded. “So you’
re divorced too?”

  “Divorced?” He stopped and frowned at her as if to say she couldn’t have been more wrong. Then he cleared his throat and turned his attention back to what he was doing. “No, she was killed by a drunk driver.” He said it like he were talking about something as inconsequential as what kind of flowers to plant on the side of the house, but she could tell by the way his jaw flexed that the pain of loss still haunted him every day.

  And she’d been the one to remind him of how she’d died. She’d assumed he was divorced, not that his wife had been killed in a tragic accident. Talk about bad assumptions.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, feeling like she should hug him or something. But she remained seated, waiting for him to finish transforming into a doctor. He sure was thorough about getting everything he needed before tending to her wound.

  “Why? You weren’t the one who killed her.” He soaked a cotton square with alcohol. “Do you know what day it is, Journey?”

  Screech! The brakes engaged in her brain. Had he just gone from saying that his wife had been killed by a drunk driver to asking her if she knew what day it was? He’d shifted gears so abruptly he’d given her mental whiplash.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “Do you know what day it is?”

  Her mouth flapped open and closed as she blinked up at him. Either he had an extremely short attention span, or he had erected a brick wall around the subject of his late wife that was so tall even he couldn’t climb over it.

  He must have seen the confusion painted like a neon sign on her face, because he stopped fussing with the cotton square and said, “I’m just trying to make sure you don’t have a concussion or any memory loss, Journey.”

  So that’s why he had questioned her name when she’d given it to him. He had thought she’d messed up her marbles when she’d bashed her head on her steering wheel.