Chapter One

Bonnie

“Damn you dirty rotten piece of metal!”

The words that continued to come out of Bonnie Kincaid’s mouth would have made her mother blush. If her mother had been there, she would have washed her daughter’s mouth out with soap, even though Bonnie was twenty-seven years old.

Bonnie cursed once more at her car engine and kicked the front fender hard enough to make her wince. The damn car was dead on the side of a lonely country road in the middle of God-knew-where of the Colorado mountains. Bonnie’s AAA membership had run out about two months ago, along with every other thing in her life.

She was stuck.

Lightning crackled around the edges of the darkening clouds. The wind whispered to the pine trees and mountain fields that rain was coming. She slammed the hood of her car down and spat out another curse before apologizing to her vehicle. She didn’t want the poor car to hate her.

She sat down hard in the driver’s seat with her feet on the dirt road and checked her phone. No bars. Not even the hint of reception. She stood up and walked around holding her hand up to the sky, but nothing changed. Her phone was useless up here in the mountains.

Another rumble of thunder passed overhead, and she looked up at the sky. The sun was setting behind the mountains to the west as the storm rolled in from the north. It made for a pretty picture with the sun turning the sky an ominous red and glinting off the dark clouds, but she wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it.

She stuck her phone back in her pocket and ran her fingers through her hair trying to figure out what to do next. She had been stopped for at least ten minutes now and hadn’t seen another car drive past the entire time. There was a very good possibility that no one would ever drive by.

“Yeah, Bonnie, take the random dirt road. It’ll totally be scenic and awesome,” she told herself aloud. She rolled her eyes at her own stupidity. “Yup. That was a great idea.”

She glanced around, hoping against hope that someone was going to come and rescue her, even though she knew it wasn’t going to happen. She was going to have to rescue herself. With a sigh, she got up, pulled the keys from the ignition, closed the car door and started walking up the road. She knew there was nothing for at least five miles behind her. She hoped that maybe something was up ahead, or at least a high spot to get better reception.

She climbed the dusty hill, feeling the increase of elevation sucking all the oxygen from her lungs. She was from a small town just outside Atlantic City, so being over a mile high was a hard adjustment. She was fairly active, but she was still gasping for breath as she came over the top of the small hill. Elevation was brutal to the body.

The only warning that Bonnie got that something was about to happen was a single clap of thunder. Immediately after, the sky opened up and dumped rain directly on top of her. It was different than the summer rain she was used to. It was ice cold and made of tiny drops that felt like needles. It soaked her thin t-shirt in seconds. The wind whipped up, moaning through the pines. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, trying to decide if she should keep going or head back to the car and wait the storm out.

She was about to turn around when she saw the light. It was about a mile up ahead and called out to her in the deepening darkness of the storm. Multiple windows lit up with a cheerful yellow glow against the darkness of the storm. It looked welcoming, even from far away.

Bonnie tucked her head, pushing her dark blonde hair back over her shoulder and trudging down the now-mud road toward the welcoming lights. She risked a glance at her phone and found that she still had no signal. She sighed and kept walking.

This was not how she had planned this drive to go at all. To be honest, this was not how she had planned her life to go at all either.

Her life had been simple. She had lived with her brother and had a teaching job she adored. She didn’t currently have a boyfriend, but that was something she was working on.

Then, just like this storm, it had all come crashing down around her. And now, here she was, stuck on the side of the road during a trip through the mountains. Alone.

She’d been driving along one of the smaller highways and saw the winding dirt road. She had planned on taking the small back road up to the top of the mountain and seeing the sunset from the top. The map on her phone made it look like she could have gotten up there and had the view all to herself.

“I should have just taken the highway,” she mumbled, wrapping her arms around her a little tighter to try and stay warm. The temperature was dropping quickly now that the sun had set. Wind from the storm whipped at her wet hair and flung raindrops into her face. She wondered if they were going to turn to snow they felt so cold.

She kept her legs moving. Step by step, she was going to make it to that house and use their phone. The thunder made her nervous, and she stayed to the side of the road.

“At least Brett’s not here,” she murmured to herself, stepping around a large puddle. If her little brother had been there, he would have pushed her into that puddle with a laugh. He was twenty-five but still just as annoying as when he was five years old and pulling the heads off her Barbies. While they successfully shared an apartment, it was only because they had separate rooms and completely opposite work schedules. He worked nights as security at the docks while she worked at the local elementary school as a special education teacher.

But that was over now. Her work was gone. Her life was gone. She had to keep running to stay safe. To keep her little brother safe. From them. It made her heart ache, and she sent a prayer up to the storming sky to watch over her little brother.

She shivered as she walked up the big wooden porch to a large building. It reminded her of the dining hall at the summer camp she’d gone to as a kid. Even the chairs tucked under the awning were the same as the ones she remembered.

There was a big wooden door, but no obvious knocker or doorbell. She chewed on her lip for a moment as she decided what to do next. She wasn’t sure if she should knock or just go straight in. If it was a summer camp like she suspected, no one would be listening for a random knock. If it wasn’t a camp, she would give someone a surprise.

She raised her hand to knock. Better to knock first, then try the door if no one answered. Her knuckles tingled with the cold as she rapped them against the wood. It was hard to make a fist her fingers were so frozen. Who knew the rain up in the mountains could be so cold?

She counted to ten and went to reach for the doorknob just as the big door creaked open. She was suddenly very glad she’d gone with the knocking plan.

The light shining from the door hurt her eyes after the dark of the storm. All she could make out was a large, masculine shaped blur against the sudden brightness.

“Pickup is on the other side of the ranch,” a deep voice told her. “The kids aren’t in this building.”

The tone was kind but weary as if the man had to give this speech more often than he liked. She recognized it as the one she used herself directing parents to the pickup area across the field of her school.

“I don’t have any kids here,” she said quickly. Another peal of thunder echoed behind her as she wrapped her arms around her core and shivered. “My car broke down a mile or so that way. I don’t have any cell service. Is there a phone I can borrow?”

She looked up at the man in front of her. The light came from behind him, but her eyes were used to it now. He was tall and well built with biceps peeking out from under his camp t-shirt. His black hair was shaggy around his ears and hung into his dark brown eyes. His jaw was strong, but there was a soft kindness to his face that she immediately liked. If he smiled, she was sure he could model in a magazine.

She wiped water from her forehead and wondered just how much like a wet rat she looked like. She was sure she didn’t look pretty, which was a shame because he was an attractive man. It was just her luck a good looking guy would answer the door when she looked like something the cat dragged in.

His eyes softened as he looked her over, and he winced. She decided she must look super pathetic.

“Come on in,” he said, moving to the side. “Let’s get you dried off and then you can use the phone.”

She sighed with relief and gratefully stepped through the door into the warm yellow light.