Peppermint Creek Inn Read Free Page B

heart, she realized her only means of a quick escape had vanished.
    He rolled off her with a groan.
    Lightning flickered through the windows and she saw him sitting close by. Fresh blood trickled down the right side of his face. His lips moved. He was talking to her. Through the noise of her crashing heart she barely made out his words.
    “Are you okay?”
    Was she dreaming? Had he cut her throat? And now she lay on the floor, her lifeblood draining from her and he was asking her if she was okay?
    “Sweetness! Are you hurt?” his ragged voice seemed louder, more insistent as the noise in her ears subsided.
    Mentally she searched her body for any pain and felt nothing. “I…I don’t think so.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Y-yes.” She fought back the tears of shock blistering sharply against the back of her eyes.
    “You are one lucky lady. C’mon let me help you up.” His white teeth flashed as he smiled in the lightning flickers and then he extended his hand toward her.
    Sara hesitated only a moment before sliding her hand into his outstretched palm. He pulled her to her feet.
    Without warning, the shakes hit. Full force.
    Her legs wobbled.
    Reaching out to him for support, her hand wrapped tightly around his upper arm. Muscles greeted her. Enormous muscles. Firm and unyielding.
    Even through the thick, cool fabric of the leather jacket, she could feel them. God, but the man was built.
    Something hot and wild stirred deep inside her womb. A sexual craving she hadn’t felt for a long time. Something she thought she’d never feel again.
    Explosive visions ripped through her mind, visions of this dangerous man wrapping his arms around her naked body, kissing her face and lips, fucking her senseless.
    She shook her head of the unwanted thoughts. To allow these wonderful feelings to flood throughout her body was wrong. Very wrong.
    “Hey. Take it easy. I said I wouldn’t hurt you. Really. Everything is going to be all right.”
    The soft way he looked at her made her believe him…that is until she spotted the metallic glint strike off the item dangling from his wrist.
    Squinting through the muddy darkness, she tensed. An awful shiver crept up the full length of her spine.
    Oh, shit! The guy was wearing handcuffs! Hysteria edged into her mind again.
    For God’s sake! He was an escaped criminal!
    “What do you want from me? Why are you here?”
    “I need your help.”
    Was this guy seriously demented? “My help? Just like that. You stick a gun in my face, scare me to death and now you want my help? No way! I’ve had enough. I’m out of here.”
    She rushed past him and through the open doorway.
    Shards of lightning blinked off and on through the sky illuminating the disarray compliments of the fallen tree.
    Instantly she knew she couldn’t get around the wreckage, not unless she went back into the kitchen, past him and out the door at the rear of the house. And right now she didn’t want to go inside.
    Back to him.
    The lightning had parted the giant beech, as if God himself had swung an ax through the wild heavens slicing her tree perfectly in half. Half the tree had fallen into the parking lot, burying her truck beneath the debris. The other half had crushed the stairs, the entire wheelchair ramp, part of the wooden railing and a large runaway branch had ripped away the rest of the glass from the already broken windowpane.
    All this in the exact spot where only moments earlier, she’d stood watching in horror as the tree had hurtled toward her.
    The full impact of what had just happened sunk through the layers of her tattered emotions.
    Shock. Anger. Finally, confusion. If he hadn’t grabbed her and pulled her out of the way, she would have been dead.
    The sobering thought struck a massive blow to her midsection. Her stomach convulsed violently. A cold sweat blistered across her forehead.
    Inhaling a deep breath of cool Spring air, she welcomed the sweet aroma of freshly broken wood into her lungs and