Somewhere New (Isle of Doughnut #1)

Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

ASTER

I n my defence, the boulder looked a lot like a house from the road.

Almost as soon as my suitcase and I had cleared the rockfall after being unceremoniously abandoned, it started to snow. Visibility, which before had only been hampered by gnarled trees and massive outcrops of rocks, became woefully poor. Like, wave-my-hand-too-far-from-my-face-and-I’d-lose-it poor.

At first, I’d stuck to the road. Bonnie had said to follow it and I’d be fine. I’d shuffled along the rutted track, my hands turning into claws once more as I alternated the arm dragging my suitcase.

I wouldn’t have left the road unless I was certain what I could see off to the side was a house. What else could the big, square darkness in the middle of the swirling white making up the rest of my vision be?

As I neared it, the bumps on top I’d assumed were chimneys turned out to be rocks and the square to the side I thought might be a car turned out to be a rock and the freaking house itself turned out to be the mother of all freaking rocks.

I’d chuckled to myself. Silly Aster. Only I could mistake a moss-covered boulder for a house. Lucas would find this hilarious once I found the actual cabin and thawed out enough to call him.

Shivering despite the ridiculous number of layers I had on, I turned back to the road.

It wasn’t there any more.

I swear I did a literal about-face, but my sense of direction must have been knocked askew by my inability to see anything—except for rock formations masquerading as houses—more than half a metre from my nose.

I shuffled to the left—no joy—and to the right—even less joy. The road had totally vanished.

Oh, and my phone had no signal. Obviously.

I decided heading generally upwards had to take me in the same vague direction as the road, so set off the way that made my thighs burn the most.

And now I was lost in a snowy wilderness, trying desperately not to panic about the uptick in likelihood I would freeze to death. In general life it was statistically quite low. I mean, if someone was going to accidentally wander into an unattended industrial freezer, it would probably be me, but I’d managed not to make a snowman of myself yet.

I maintained that the delirium of trawling through the snow coupled with trying to keep the increasing chances of my impending death from making me curl up in a ball were why I was talking to myself. That wasn’t something I did every day of my life. No siree.

‘Inuits have a name for you.’ Okay. So maybe I’d gone a step past talking to myself. ‘Something that means annoying- arse-snow-that-doesn’t-look-pretty-or-fall-in-neat-piles-but-is-tiny-balls-of-fury-that-hurl-themselves-at-unsuspecting-travellers.’

A flurry gusted into my face, but the snow couldn’t be offended. It was annoying. Nothing like any snow I’d seen before. It wasn’t settling, but instead whirled around in the wind and pummelled me with the force of a thousand teeny bullets.

‘If you could stop, that would be great.’ I wasn’t above bargaining with the weather gods if it meant a brief reprieve from this onslaught. ‘Ten minutes would be splendid. You can have a rest, I can find the road, and afterwards we can all get on with what we do best. I can not die out here in the wilderness and you can continue being the most useless kind of snow known to man. Deal?’

I blinked away the icy pellet that had hurdled my lashes and dive-bombed straight into my eyeball.

‘Dick move,’ I muttered, lowering my head to avoid any more kamikaze snow.

I wanted to stay chipper. Bonnie would have taken one look at the weather when she got to her cosy cottage and realised her mistake in sending me into the mountains alone. A rescue crew would be on their way soon to find and retrieve me. In a few minutes, this terrifying aloneness in a snowstorm would be over and I’d be clutching a hot chocolate and laughing about what a numpty I was to have left the road.

I really, really wanted to stay chipper, but the section of my brain committed to staying upbeat was minuscule. The rest was a roaring chasm of doom.

I was going to die out here. No one would find me, not until it was too late. If I was lucky, I’d be gone when they found me, frozen under a pile of snow that had decided the only place it wanted to settle was on top of me.

‘I don’t want to die.’ I knew how stupid it was to start crying in the middle of a life-or-death situation, but I couldn’t stop the tears coursing down my face. Or, that’s what they tried to do. The salty water froze as it broached the tops of my cheeks, forming an itchy crust.

I reached up to wipe it away, placed my foot wrong, and tumbled to the ground.

‘This is it,’ I cried, as more tears escaped then immediately froze around my eyes. ‘This is the place where I die.’

I hadn’t hurt myself when I’d fallen, the ground springy beneath my knees and hands, but the effort of standing was too much. What would I do once I was on my feet again? There was no path to follow, just an endless trek upwards until I fell again and that time I really would be too exhausted to get up. Why not shorten the process and choose to die here? It seemed as good a place as any to turn into a frozen statue.

Letting my backpack slip to the ground, I slumped against my suitcase. I pulled my legs up to my chest, cradling what warmth I could to myself as the snow pelted me.

All my reasons for coming here suddenly felt incredibly stupid. Like, my thesis still held value, but why did I have to come now? What was the rush? A broken heart was such a bad reason to run away from everything I knew and everyone I loved. Scottish islands weren’t a miracle cure for everyone’s need to trample all over every romantic bone in my body. I couldn’t believe it had taken a snowstorm and sitting at death’s icy door for me to realise that.

I’d never see my dad again. Or Lucas. I even kind of missed Jamie, even though he’d been an arsehole. Before that, he’d been my friend. Now I’d never get to tell him what a dickhead he was ever again.

I scrubbed at my face, the frozen tears unbearably itchy. I blinked, and the perfect white nothingness was broken by a line of black. Ducking my head, I swiped at my eyes to clear the lash away before it could sneak onto my cornea and plague me.

When I raised my head, the line of black was still there. But it wasn’t just a line any more. It was a solid column made up of blues and reds, topped with black. With moving parts and everything.

‘I’m here,’ I shouted. ‘I’m here, I’m here.’

My heart burst from my chest as the column moved closer and all its details resolved from a snow-blurred mess into a man.

My mouth fell open. Because fucking hell. Whoever rescued me from this snowy hell was always going to be my favourite person until the end of time, but this guy was perfection. I’d thought Captain Errol and Bonnie the Abandoner were hotties, but this man made them look like trolls.

He had to be related to Bonnie. They had the same jet-black hair—his in an untidy tangle that swung down over his forehead—and intimidatingly thick eyebrows. Half of his face was covered by a close-trimmed beard that did nothing to hide his sharp jawline and clear, golden skin. He was musclier than his sister, broader and manlier. He looked like he could throw me over his shoulder and carry me to his hidden cabin without breaking a sweat.

I wouldn’t mind it if he did. He would look good sweaty.

I groaned as he came closer. I might have admitted my plan to learn to be alone here might have been a teensy bit stupid and a terrible reason to impulsively push forwards my trip, but it was my plan. The only one I had. The single defence between my heart and the endless queue of people ready to stomp on it.

‘Not another one,’ I moaned, as Hottie McHotterson crouched in front of me. Bonnie’s brother’s name might have slipped my mind during the whole terrified-I-would-die escapade.

His eyebrows drew together. ‘Sorry?’

‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ I snapped. I could be grateful for him saving my life and mad he would look so damn good while doing it. I contained multitudes.

‘Right.’ He looked around, like there might be someone else on this remote mountainside I was conversing with.

‘Can you help me up?’ I asked, since this guy was here to rescue me but apparently wasn’t so good at the actual rescuing part. I was reasonably sure it involved helping me to shelter long before any of my limbs turned to ice.

McHotterson stood, then bent over me. I would have enjoyed the rough treatment as his hands slotted around my torso more if standing up didn’t cause a riot of agony down my legs.

Barely vertical, I slumped into my rescuer, saved from becoming a heap on the ground by his strong arms.

‘Shit,’ I mumbled into his chest. His warm chest. The nuzzling that ensued as he adjusted his hold was involuntary. Nothing had ever felt as good as rubbing my frozen face on this stranger’s skin-warmed shirt.

It must have been pretty obvious I couldn’t stand or be helpful as we made our way to safety, since McHotterson huffed—the action pressing my nose further into the glorious warmth of his chest—and swung me into a bridal hold.

My face fell naturally into the dip between his neck and shoulder as my claw-hands scrabbled at his shirt. It was a sign of how much the cold had affected my brain—and I refused to think too deeply about how close I might have actually been to freezing to death before my unfairly attractive rescuer arrived—that I didn’t question how he planned to carry both me and my stuff. I didn’t say anything. Instead I breathed heavily into his blessedly warm skin, reassured by the tang of sweat that he was real and here and had saved me.

A crash, and the snow stopped. Blearily, I raised my head. Correction: the snow continued pelting its annoying way down outside, but my rescuer and I were now in a cabin. The most wondrous cabin I had ever seen. From a brief glimpse of the main room, I spotted a comfy-looking sofa and a pile of blankets and a glowing fire.

I groaned as McHotterson carried me past all that and into a smaller room. More blankets and a bed that looked like it would win all the awards for being the softest place ever, but it wasn’t my destiny to burrow into them either. My saviour hauled me into a bathroom, complete with a gleaming white separate bath and shower, and lowered me onto a wooden chair.

I honestly didn’t whimper as he pulled back. No one would have described the sound that left me as anything other than entirely manly and self-sufficient.

‘You need to get warm,’ McHotterson explained, clocking my evident concern at him taking his delicious body heat away like the worst cartoon villain. ‘Can you strip?’

My dick made a valiant effort to involve itself in proceedings, before shrugging its shoulders and admitting blood was needed far more in other areas of my body right now. Who could hear those three words from such a perfect human specimen and not react ?

Blood had no trouble flooding my cheeks when it quickly became apparent that in addition to my inability to follow roads and recognise houses, I also couldn’t de-clothe myself. My abused hands had given up, my fingers reduced to weak twigs that were good for nothing.

McHotterson turned from where he’d been testing the temperature of water as it streamed into the tub. His eyebrows—the most expressive part of his face—developed a pinched line between them.

‘Let me.’ He crossed the room and dropped to his knees between my legs.

My dick didn’t even try this time. Traitor. Or saviour, since this guy was going to help me take off my clothes like a toddler and a boner would make the whole situation a hundred times more uncomfortable.

He paused before making contact with the zipper of my fleece, his eyes flicking up to mine. It was impossible to pick my favourite of his features but if someone had a gun to my head and was screaming that I had to choose, his eyes would probably edge out the rest. They were light brown, hazel or something, but also kind of green with flares of orangey yellow.

I could stare into them all day, but it was clear he was waiting for something. While being the hottest person on the planet, he was also a gentleman.

‘Go ahead,’ I said breathlessly. Apparently my dick had put itself in a timeout but my vocal cords had decided the best way to entice my rescuer was to go all huffy and weird. Perfect.

Thankfully, McHotterson ignored my messed-up voice. He deftly pulled down my fleece zip and unfastened the buttons of the jacket underneath. A woollen shirt came next. He pushed them all off my useless arms. His hands gentle, he pulled my vest over my stomach and helped me ease my elbows out of the way.

In a million other circumstances, this would easily have been the sexiest experience of my life. The hottest person I was ever going to meet was kneeling between my legs and slowly undressing me. I shuddered every time his calloused fingers coasted over my skin. But not because I was experiencing sexual nirvana. Oh no. Because I was so freaking cold.

It physically hurt when he undid my jeans and belt, then wrapped my arms around his neck so he could lift me and pull them down my half-frozen legs. I’d thought I’d been in pain when I’d fallen in the snow, but this was something else. My limbs had slipped into a numb stupor due to the extreme cold outside. Now they were waking up. And they were not happy about it.

‘Ow,’ I moaned as McHotterson put me back on the chair and slid my jeans down my thighs. ‘Ow, ow, ow ow.’

‘Sorry,’ he grunted, eyebrows scrunched in a way that radiated guilt.

‘No. You don’t be sorry.’ Every word was strained, my lungs contracting as he lifted one leg then the other to free my jeans. ‘None of this is your fault. You didn’t force me to get lost in a snowstorm.’

‘It’s not a snowstorm,’ he said, removing my socks.

I attempted to reel back, ramming my sore shoulder blades into the chair. ‘Excuse me for using the wrong terminology.’

It was even more subtle than the smile hiding behind Bonnie’s smirk, but his lips twitched in his beard. I itched to find out if it felt as heavenly soft as it looked.

Whatever happiness briefly illuminated his face fell away as he contemplated my dancing-cookie boxers. I chose to interpret that as reluctance to strip me completely, rather than judgement of my awesome fashion choices. No one could hate smiling cookies printed on bright blue cotton.

‘I can deal with them myself.’

I reached for my waistband and my shoulder twinged. Hissing, I clasped my arm to my side. Maybe this guy had a helplessness kink. Or no, maybe he hated it. That was what I was supposed to hope for. If I couldn’t get my first choice of an island devoid of hotties, I’d settle for one full of hotties who were either unattainable or found me repulsive.

‘Put your arms around my neck,’ McHotterson instructed, giving no indication of where he landed on the helplessness kink scale.

Carefully, I obeyed. Even more carefully, my rescuer hooked his thumbs into the waistband of my boxers on either side of my hips and edged them down. I shivered, feeling pathetically exposed in addition to pathetically cold and feeble.

I squeaked manfully as McHotterson bent to hook his arm under my knees. Back in a bridal hold, but this time with my face burning at the shame of not only being helpless but also butt naked, I clung to my rescuer as he carried me over to the tub.

‘This might hurt,’ he warned, before lowering me into the steaming water.

If I had the physical capability, I would have clung to him and demanded he lift me away from the liquid-based torture. As it was, my arms went limp and my breath was stolen as a thousand needles pierced my skin at every point the water lapped against me.

I shuddered as I settled into the bath, the pain gradually fading and noodle-like looseness invading my limbs. I realised McHotterson still had his hand on me when my head lolled back and I nudged into his arm. He pulled away, unfolding his shirtsleeve to cover a forearm streaked with dirt.

‘Don’t drown,’ he murmured, before rushing from the room.

I huffed out a pained laugh. That would be just my luck. Rescued from what was apparently not a snowstorm but resembled one in every way, and once I was somewhere safe and warm, then I would die.

The warm water caressing my raw skin, I settled into the tub. I braced my feet at the far end as my eyes drifted closed.