Page 2 of Snowed In with her Mountain Men
“I’m keeping this,” my landlord growled, stopping to shake my laptop like a prize. “Maybe you’ll get it back once you’ve paid me everything you owe me.” He grunted in contemplation, then curled his lip. “Or maybe I’ll just sell it. Depending on how much I can get—”
“NO!”
I rushed him, grabbing the arm holding the laptop with both hands. All my work! Everything I’d done!
“Please—”
He tried jerking his arm away, but I held fast. I was hanging on him now.
“You can’t just—”
The man jerked again, this time so savagely I couldn’t hold on. But neither could he. The sudden change in momentum as my hands fell away caused his arm to swing wide, his grubby fingers spreading open. Together, we watched as my laptop sailed across the cabin…
Nooooo!
… and landed square in the fireplace.
“NO!”
My whole life was in that computer! My heart lurched as I rushed to save it, scrambling across the rough wooden floor on my hands and knees. Overruling every last ounce of self-preservation, I reached deep into the firebox. Instantly I recoiled, realizing my mistake.
Pain bloomed in my brain, as searingly hot and intense as the flames now curling over the edges of my laptop’s plastic case. Crying, screaming, I tried reaching out again. This time, a hairy hand closed over mine.
“Let it burn.”
The words were gruff and callous, the voice laced with a grim, almost cruel satisfaction. I struggled against my landlord’s grasp, as the fire crackled. My laptop sizzled. The plastic bubbled and popped.
“Maybe now you’ll know I mean business,” the man taunted against my ear. A fat arm snaked around my waist as he pulled me tighter against his body. The stink of beer on his hot, stale breath was strong enough to make me gag.
“And if you don’t have the rent by the time I come back…” he threatened menacingly, “well, we’ll just have to see what else—”
The arm squeezing my waist coiled even tighter for a brief moment — so tightly I nearly threw up. And then, just as quickly and invasively as it slid in there, the arm was gone.
And so was my landlord.
Except for his screaming.
~ 2 ~
RYDER
This high in the mountains, you never leave your door wide open. Anything could get in. A hungry wolf. A curious mountain lion.
Some angry, woman-beating fuckwad, just begging to be pounded.
We’d seen the cabin a hundred times on the way home, but never with the door open. Lately there’d been a single car in front of it, and a beat up one at that. Now, there was a pickup truck as well.
Between that, and the flickering orange light spilling out from the cabin doorway, something was bound to be wrong. By the way Oakley stiffened in the passenger seat of the Marauder, I knew he saw it too.
“Ryder?”
“I’m on it.”
I swung off the main road and skidded up to the place, our headlights cutting bouncing beams through the swirling snow. The storm had hit early; and persisted throughout the day. Even over the wind, I could hear the screams.
SHIT.
Oakley was on the ground before we’d even stopped rolling. I pulled the emergency break, leapt after him, and together we burst through the cabin doorway. And it was a good thing we did, because the scene before us required our immediate attention.
