Page 8 of Shadows of You

A shiver racked her, and she shook her head. So very carefully, she thrust a leg over the vehicle’s seat.

“Hold on to my waist.”

My words were low, gravelly, but she obeyed.

The contact nearly made me jerk. Even through layers of snow gear, there was a burning heat to the woman’s touch.Danger.The message flashed over and over in my mind as I slowly started down the road.

My back teeth ground together as I made the turn into Aspen’s driveway, and she gripped me tighter. As we slowed in front of her old farmhouse, she let go, and I released the breath I’d been holding since the moment she gripped my waist.

Aspen quickly climbed off the snowmobile just as the front door flew open, and a little girl ran out. “Mama!”

She charged down the steps as fast as her snowsuit-clad legs could carry her. She looked like a pink glitter snowball.

“Cady,” Aspen chastised gently. “I told you to wait inside.”

A guilty look passed over her face. “I know, but—” Her words cut off as she saw the deer at the back of my vehicle. “No! Is she—?”

Aspen quickly wrapped her daughter in a hug. “No, Katydid. She’s just sleeping so we can help her.”

Tears welled in the little girl’s eyes. “Promise?”

“I promise. We got some help from Fish and Wildlife. We’re going to make sure she’s okay.”

The little girl’s gaze cut to me, so much like her mother’s, it froze me to the spot. “You’re going to help my mama save Bambi?”

Fuck me.I couldn’t say no to that face or the damn deer.

3

ASPEN

I sawthe moment the burly man softened. Even the hardest-hearted didn’t stand a chance against my Cady.

“Yeah. I’m gonna help her,” he muttered.

I couldn’t stop my lips from twitching. The man didn’t miss the movement, and it turned his reluctant agreement into a scowl. It only made me grin wider.

Cady wiggled to get out of my hold. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! What do we do now? I want to help. I’m a real good helper. Right, Mama?”

“The best helper in all the land,” I agreed.

The man frowned. “I think it’s best if you keep a bit of distance, just in case she wakes up.”

Cady bobbed her head up and down. “I can do that.” She glanced up at me. “Do you think she needs a blanket?”

I shook my head. “We’ve got straw and heat lamps in the barn.”

The man, whose name I still didn’t know, raised his eyebrows in surprise. I was going to start calling him The Grouch in my head.

“You’ve got heat lamps?”

I nodded. “We have some baby ducks that need some extra heat right now. And we’ve had baby goats, too.”

Cady filled him in on our menagerie. “We’ve got ducks and goaties and donkeys and a pony and an alpaca and four cats and a dog and an emu and—”

The Grouch’s jaw dropped. “Did you say anemu?”

My cheeks heated. It did sound a little out there when Cady listed them all like that. “There was a guy over in Brookdale who thought it’d be fun to have one as a pet but didn’t realize all that went into caring for one.”

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