Chapter 1
Kaleb
“If you’re not home as soon as this snowstorm ends, Devon and I are coming to get
you,” my brother, Tanner, warned me the second I picked up the satellite phone in
the remote cabin. “I’m not saying that you don’t desperately need a break from
work, but we both know that’s not what you’re doing at the cabin right now.”
I raked a frustrated hand through my hair as I sat down on the bed in the bedroom
of the cabin. Hell, I probably shouldn’t have answered the phone, but there was a
raging spring snowstorm going on outside, and I didn’t want my family to be
concerned about me.
I had left my home in Crystal Fork, Montana pretty abruptly a few days ago.
“I just needed a few days alone to think,” I admitted to Tanner.
There was no way I was going to convince my brother that I was taking a few days
off to do some fishing or rest and relax here in this remote location.
We’d just gotten back from my cousin Shelby’s wedding in San Diego when I’d
decided to bolt.
Tanner knew that wasn’t a coincidence.
There was definitely a downside to being so close to my two younger brothers.
We knew each other so well that they immediately knew when I was doing
something out of character.
The truth was, I wasn’t usually the kind of guy who left at a moment’s notice to
pull his head together.
I was generally the way-too-serious, eldest Remington brother who didn’t know
when to stop working.
“You have to stop feeling guilty about what happened to Shelby,” Tanner said
firmly. “We were just at her wedding, Kaleb. She’s healthy and happier than she’s
ever been.”
What my brother was saying was very true. Shelby, who was more like a little
sister to me than a cousin, had just married one of my best friends in San Diego.
She was ecstatically happy with Wyatt, and I was grateful that she was finally with
the man she deserved.
It was just damn hard to forget how close she’d come to never seeing that wedding
or a happily ever after.
All because I’d chosen work over her safety.
“It wasn’t your fault, Kaleb,” Tanner said like he’d been reading my thoughts. “It
was six months ago. The kidnapping is in the rearview mirror for her now. Let it
go.”
Easy for him to say. Tanner isn’t the one who left Shelby alone in the barn and
vulnerable.
Now, every time I saw her, I was reminded that I’d failed to protect her from
falling into the hands of a serial killer.
I had recurrent nightmares about the event, even though I hadn’t been the one to
rescue her. For a while, I’d had them nearly every night after she was rescued. As
the months had gone by, they’d gotten better, but seeing her again last week had
triggered a hellacious nightmare when I’d returned from her wedding.
I’d literally been a bystander in that nightmare while Shelby was being abused and
murdered. It was vivid, probably triggered by being at her wedding. I’d woken up
in a cold sweat, reliving that damn nightmare over and over while I was awake.
It was so bad that I’d needed to get away for a few days, and for some reason, I’d
been drawn to the remote cabin I hadn’t visited in a very long time.
In retrospect, maybe the remote cabin hadn’t been such a great idea. It left me
alone with my thoughts way too much, and the guilt of what I’d done was still
eating me alive.
I’d known that Shelby was vulnerable, and that she had a possible stalker.
Maybe I’d only left her alone for a few minutes to finish a work call, but it had
been long enough for her to get kidnapped and live out a horrifying ordeal that
never should have happened.
No, she hadn’t been murdered or raped, but she would have been if she hadn’t
gotten rescued when she did.
“It was my fault,” I said hoarsely. “I wasn’t there for her.”
Just like I hadn’t been there when my dad had died of a heart attack three years
ago. None of us had been in Crystal Fork then. My mother had been alone until
we’d been able to get back home. My brothers and I had been away on what we’d
considered a very important business trip out of the country at the time.
Yeah, maybe I couldn’t have predicted what had happened to my father. There
had been zero warning signs that he was going to die anytime soon. But he was
older, and I now regretted not spending more quality time with him.
Hell, now that I’d turned forty years old, maybe I was trying to get my priorities
straight.
I’d spent all of my adult years chasing business goals. Now that I’d realized all of
those ambitions, I was starting to recognized that I’d been a selfish prick.
What had happened to Shelby had been a huge wake-up call for me.
I couldn’t seem to shake off the guilt I felt every time I thought about the day of
her kidnapping, and how it could have so easily been avoided. It was especially
difficult when I saw her in person. It reminded of just how close we’d come to
losing her to a homicidal psycho.
“Wyatt has told you a million times that Ted Young would have gotten to Shelby
somehow,” Tanner answered in an exasperated voice. “If not here, he would have
eventually got to her back in San Diego. He was a obsessed lunatic, Kaleb. Had
you been with Shelby in that barn, he probably would have just shot you and taken
her. You couldn’t have protected her when he had a loaded firearm. He would
have done whatever it took to get to her. Hell, we all thought she was safe here at
home.”
“She wasn’t safe,” I corrected. “And bad shit can happen anywhere.”
I’d learned that the hard way.
Maybe crime was extremely rare in Crystal Fork, but no part of the world was
isolated from crazy people, not even the small Montana town I’d grown up in.
It had been my responsibility to protect my younger cousin while she was here in
Montana. Wyatt had trusted me to watch out for her in his absence, and I’d failed.
If it hadn’t been for Wyatt’s risky rescue, Shelby wouldn’t have had that dream
wedding we’d just attended.
“Look,” Tanner replied. “I know you’ve always had an overinflated sense of
responsibility, but you have to stop with the guilt trips or those damn nightmares
are going to eat you alive. Shelby is happy. She doesn’t blame you for what
happened. Neither does Wyatt, and you know how protective he is. Shelby didn’t
take the whole stalker thing seriously, either. She knows that she should have
waited a few minutes so you could go out to the barn together. None of us took the
stalker situation seriously enough, Kaleb. We thought she was perfectly safe in
Crystal Fork. We had no reason to believe that a serial killer was tailing her. What
were the chances of that happening? You’re the most rational man I know. Use
some of that common sense to shake this off.”
“I think I really need to get all of my priorities straight,” I confessed gruffly.
I’d spent my entire adult life making work my priority.
Now that my two brothers and I were all billionaires and had found that success
beyond what we’d ever believed possible, I was strangely...restless.
It wasn’t that I didn’t love my work and my business, but I felt like something
important was missing.
At some point in my workaholic existence, I’d lost sight of what was important to
me.
“You think?” Tanner asked drily. “We all work hard, Kaleb, but your life has
revolved around KTD Remington since the moment you got out of college. We’re
all dedicated to KTD, but it’s your entire life. There has to be life beyond work,
brother.”
“Yeah, well,” I grumbled. “I guess I haven’t figured out exactly what a more
balanced life is like yet.”
Family had always been important to me. I was a Remington. It was ingrained in
my DNA.
Nevertheless, KTD had taken priority quite a few times when it shouldn’t have
been that way.
“Then figure out what those priorities are, and bring your ass back home,” Tanner
insisted. “Devon and I feel guilty about misleading Mom. She thinks you’re
somewhere on a business trip. She has no idea that you’re drowning in guilt in her
cabin.”
Technically, the cabin I was staying in did belong to my mother. My dad had
bought it as a retreat for the two of them over a decade ago, and they’d used it
often. She had decided that the cabin now belonged to her sons because she
couldn’t bear to come back here after my father’s death, but her name was still on
the deed. And it would stay that way.
“She’d worry if she knew I wasn’t on a business trip somewhere,” I reminded
Tanner.
I didn’t take vacations or time off to relax.
Ever.
If I’d used the excuse that I wanted to get away for a few days for anything other
than work, my mother would have been instantly suspicious and worried.
My brother released a long breath. “I know. That’s the only reason we haven’t
given up your real location. She’d never buy the fact that you wanted to do some
early spring fishing in the middle of nowhere during a massive snowstorm. She’d
want to know exactly what’s wrong with you.”
I’d shared my guilt and nightmares with my brothers, but it was the last thing I
wanted to reveal to my mother. She’d been through enough sadness and emotional
trauma after my father’s death.
“I’ll be back once the storm clears,” I promised.
“What in the hell possessed you to take off like that when a huge storm was
coming?” Tanner questioned.
I shrugged, even though he couldn’t see that action. “I didn’t check the weather. It
was almost sixty degrees when I left Crystal Fork.”
It was a sad excuse, but it was the truth.
“Which really tells me just how eager you were to get away,” Tanner observed.
My brother didn’t need to remind me that it was downright idiotic to not pay
attention to the weather in Montana. It could change in the blink of an eye. I was
born here, and I’d lived here most of my life.
Blizzards in the springtime weren’t all that unusual here.
“I’m coming back soon,” I insisted. “When I left, I’d only planned on hanging out
here for the weekend. The storm is extending my visit, unfortunately. All aircrafts
are grounded until this blizzard passes.”
There was a brief pause before Tanner finally asked hesitantly, “Why the cabin?
Why now? It’s been years since any of us have been there. None of us have been
there since Dad died.”
His question made sense. After all, I had a private jet that could take me anywhere
I wanted to escape for a short time. “I’m not entirely sure,” I replied honestly.
Some weird instinct had drawn me here for some reason, which sounded pretty
ridiculous. It wasn’t like this cabin my parents had loved was going to tell me
what I needed in my life and exactly how to forgive myself for the mistakes I’d
made in the past.
I’d been here for a few days, and I hadn’t gotten a single answer to those questions.
A sudden sound coming from the window prompted me to get up from the bed,
wondering who or what could possibly be out in this blizzard.
Most likely, it was the wind tossing something against the window, but I decided
I’d better check it out.
“Hey, I have to go,” I said to Tanner distractedly. “I’ll call you back.”
I disconnected the call without waiting for his response and dropped the phone on
the bedside table.
I was surprised as I turned toward the sound I’d heard a moment ago and saw the
window actually starting to rise.
Definitely not the wind blowing things around.
The window squeaked a little as it slowly opened.
A small backpack was suddenly flung into the room, and it hit the floor with a
thump!
At that point, I knew I should probably be concerned about who was about to enter
the room, but I was more annoyed that my peace was about to be disrupted.
One glance at the figure struggling to get inside told me that I wasn’t going to have
to defend myself against an unwanted intruder.
It was a smallish figure, a female, and she literally dropped through the window
and collapsed on the floor.
Her teeth were chattering, and she was shivering so hard she could barely get two
words out of her mouth. “N-need, h-help.”
“Fuck!” I cursed as I closed the window and knelt down next to her, knowing we
were a long ways away from the medical help she probably needed right now.
Honestly, even if we weren’t pretty far from town at this cabin, there was no way
medics were going to get through the blizzard and blocked roads to take care of
this woman.
My gut twisted as she shot me a desperate look with a pair of dark, beguiling eyes
before she promptly passed out on the bedroom floor.
Fucking hell!
I knelt down and felt for her pulse and made sure she was breathing before I started
to strip off her wet jacket, a lighter garment that wasn’t suited for a Montana
blizzard.
No hat.
No gloves.
No real insulation from the brutal, frigid winds that were howling right outside the
damn window.
What in the hell had she been thinking?
And where had she come from?
No sane person would be out in this storm right now.
As I quickly removed anything that was wet from her body, I contemplated the fact
that it was entirely possible that she was out of her mind. Literally.
Maybe a tourist with a death wish?
The only problem with that theory was that we weren’t exactly in a tourist area,
and not that many people flooded into this part of Montana at this time of year to
see the sights.
I left her undergarments on because they only slightly damp, and quickly went to
get some towels and blankets.
Her skin was ice-cold, but I knew better than to try to warm her up too fast. I
wasn’t a trained medical professional, but I knew enough about the outdoors and
the treatment for hypothermia.
I frowned as I dried her hair quickly, and removed her glasses. She’d broken them
when she’d done that swan dive head first through the window.
The lenses seemed to be intact, but the frames were broken.
Setting the glasses aside, I focused on my uninvited and unwanted guest as I
wrapped her dry but cold body into the blankets, picked her up, and carried her to
the living room.
I plopped my ass on the plush rug in front of the warm fireplace, and pulled the
shivering woman into my lap, my arms tightly around her blanketed body.
Hell, this was the last thing I wanted or needed.
I also sucked at taking care of anyone, but I was all she had right now.
She stirred, but she didn’t open her eyes, which led me to believe she’d probably
passed out from possible exhaustion. She definitely wasn’t completely
unconscious.
She was small, and fighting against the storm and brutal winds outside had
probably taken everything she had.
I had no idea how long she’d been lost in the wilderness.
Did she have family?
Did anyone know she was even missing?
She looked young. This definitely wasn’t the kind of place a twenty-something,
attractive female wanted to hang out.
Especially not alone.
And yes, I’d noticed that she was attractive, even though I probably shouldn’t
have, but I wasn’t blind, and I had been stripping her down to her underwear.
Considering her extremely fit body, silky brown hair that barely brushed her
shoulders, and stunning, chocolate brown eyes, there had to be a guy looking for
her somewhere.
“Wake up and talk to me,” I said insistently near her ear. “Tell me your name. I
need to know that you’re coherent.”
If she wasn’t, I was fucked.
She was a total stranger, but for some reason, I had to know that she was going to
be okay once she was warmed up.
“An—,” she murmured breathily, sounding like she’d just run a marathon.
My chest tightened as she finally opened her eyes and said in a stronger voice.
“My name is Anna.”
She looked at me with a curious expression, one without a hint of fear.
I was a total stranger to her. We were in the middle of nowhere, and I currently
had her situated on my lap in nothing but her underwear.
Shouldn’t she be a little alarmed or concerned?
Maybe she was totally out of her mind after all. ...
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