Awol Bride. Victoria Pade

that she’d answered enough of his questions and followed enough of his instructions to have earned some reciprocity.

      “I was headed for Northbridge when the storm hit, and I knew I wouldn’t make it. I called Rickie and asked if I could use the place now, to wait out this weather. I came across your car on my way here.”

      “My car...” Maicy said. “Did I wreck it?”

      “You were nose-first in a ditch.”

      Maicy closed her eyes again, overwhelmed for a moment by all this day had brought with it.

      “Hey! You aren’t passing out on me again, are you?” Conor said in a louder voice.

      She opened her eyes. “No,” she said, hating that there was gloom in her own tone for him to hear. “It’s just been a bad day,” she added, hoping he’d leave it at that.

      No such luck.

      “Yeah, I’d say so... Were you on your way to your wedding or coming from it?”

      “Neither.” She just wasn’t sure how to qualify it. “I got to the church but left before the wedding happened.”

      “Without a coat?”

      “I took my coat—it’s in the back seat with my suitcase. I just didn’t put it on. I was in a hurry.”

      He didn’t push it. Instead he said, “Do you feel like you can sit up?”

      “Sure,” she answered, not revealing that she felt unsteady and drained because she didn’t want him to know there was any weakness in her at all. Not now or ever again.

      “I want you to take it slow,” he told her. “Let me help you, and tell me immediately if you feel any hint of pain or tingling or numbness.”

      “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she clipped out.

      He helped her sit up, and she made it there without saying anything, containing the groan that almost escaped when her head throbbed with the movement. Her expression must have shown her pain, though, because he said, “There’s some pain reliever in the first-aid kit but I don’t want to give you that until I know that the bleeding is under control. Can you stand to wait?”

      “Yes.” And even if she hadn’t been able to, she wouldn’t have told him. “Now can I get off this floor?”

      “Give it a minute. Let’s see what sitting here does first.”

      Maicy sighed, feeling impatient. Methodical and cautious. That was Conor Madison. To a fault.

      And she had faulted him for it. With good reason.

      Glancing down, Maicy noticed her dress.

      “Oh, I’m a mess...” she lamented. And it had been such a beautiful dress—white satin, scooped neck with cowl-like draping to the hem that ended at her ankles in front and gracefully expanded into a short train in back. Now it was wrinkled, soiled and stained with blood.

      “Actually, you look pretty damn good...” Conor said. She might have been flattered if she’d been willing to accept a compliment from the likes of him.

      But as it was she ignored the remark and announced once more, “I feel fine. Now can I get up?”

      “How’s the dizziness?”

      “Good. Gone,” she lied. “I’m sure I can drive. All I have to do is get to my car and back it out of the ditch and—”

      He looked at her as if she was crazy. “In the first place,” he said, “you’re not fine—you’re doing well, but you are not unscathed. You’re nowhere near ready to go outside into the snow without shoes or a coat, much less to hike a mile to your car—because that’s where it is, at the end of the drive up to this cabin. It’s not drivable even if you could get to it—it’s going to need a tow truck. Then there’s the fact that if you were in an emergency room where you belong, they’d admit you to keep an eye on you overnight, and there is no way in hell I’d let you drive even if this was a balmy summer day. So no matter how you want to cut it, you, Maicy Clark, are stuck here. With me.”

      Oh...it was worse than she thought. Not only had she encountered the one person she’d hoped never to see again in her life, she was stranded with him?

      “You look sick—what’s going on?” he said.

      “What’s going on is that I don’t want to be here.” With you! she added in her head.

      But what she said was, “I don’t see mine, but surely you have a cell phone—call for help! Maybe somebody could come and get me—an ambulance, or the fire department.” She refused to believe that things were as impossible as he claimed.

      “If I couldn’t get in to town, no one can get out,” he reasoned.

      “I don’t want to be here with you!” she blurted, unable to stop herself this time.

      “I get that,” he said. “But right now we have to do what we have to do. And arguing about it will only waste time we don’t have to spare. This place is not a four-star hotel and we’re going to have to work to stay warm and fed. So if you think you’re doing okay enough for me to get you onto the couch, there are some things I need to do to get this place up and running—as much as it runs—in order to get us through tonight.”

      Tonight? They’d be spending the whole night together in this cabin?

      Could this day possibly get any worse?

      First her wedding had become a disaster.

      And now here she was, isolated and alone with the guy who had broken her heart and abandoned her in her most desperate time of need.

      Oh yeah, it definitely would have been better if she were just hallucinating.

      Maicy took a deep breath, rallied the strength she’d had to find in herself years before and said, “I can get to the couch myself.”

      He ignored that.

      Which was good because once he’d helped her to her feet her knees buckled and she nearly collapsed.

      He caught her in strong, powerful arms that—if she’d had even an iota of strength herself—she would have slapped away.

      As it was she had no choice but to let him help her to the sofa.

      Once she was there, she shrugged out of his grip and swore to herself that if she couldn’t get back up again without his help, she would stay rooted to that spot.

      Because the last thing she would ever do again was lean on Conor Madison.

       Chapter Two

      “Dammit!” Conor shouted into the wind.

      After trying several different locations outside, he’d found a spot where he had cell phone reception...temporarily. It lasted long enough to reach his brother’s doctor and learn that Declan’s fever was rising. Then he’d lost service again. And no matter where he went now, the phone showed no signal.

      Meanwhile, the storm was worsening. Now that it was dark the temperature had plummeted, and the wind was howling and making the snow a whirling dervish that was even more impossible to see through.

      So Conor turned his attention to the other reason he’d bundled up to come outside—firewood.

      He circled to the back of the cabin where the woodpile was, staying close to the log structure so as not to risk losing his bearings. But he was far less worried for himself than he was for his brother.

      He’d heard the stories about the shoddy, outdated conditions of some stateside veterans’ hospitals, constantly understaffed and undersupplied. And since he’d been back with Declan, he’d seen it for himself. Doctors and nurses were stretched thinner than Conor