A thrill of excitement flushed through her system.

“Never fear, I have come prepared. Bear bells, check. Bear spray, check. No small children wandering from the trail, check. Make sure to hike with a friend.”

Hmmm. If the sign had ever seen Lana in a wilderness type situation, it would have known better than to suggest that.

“Well, I’ll just have to be extra person-y.”

Ready for her first adventure but just hungover enough to not want to climb a mountain, Zoey picked a wide, sweeping trail with minimal elevation changes. The hike would take her at least an hour, staying within the resort’s property. Later, when she was feeling better, Zoey had every intention of exploring every inch of these mountains she could. Taking a picture of the map with her phone, Zoey and her water took off.

The trail couldn’t have been tidier unless someone had personally vacuumed the pine needles off the ground. The mountains rose high above the surrounding trees. With every step, her heart swelled wider, her soul flying free. Never had she been happier.

At the unmarked junction, Zoey had the choice to go right or left. On a whim, she went right, when thus far, all her turns had been left.

Zoey knew where she was going. She did. Even when the trail twisted and turned more than the map said it should. Even when it stopped being so well maintained and narrowed on both sides. Even when it became clear that she’d made a wrong turn somewhere and needed to reevaluate her location.

She was a strong, independent woman perfectly capable of taking care of herself in the Alaskan wilderness.

Which was why, when she turned the corner and ended up next to a massive steel shipping container, face-to-welding mask with a man brandishing a chainsaw above them, Zoey knew exactly what to do. She ran away. And when he yelled something, grabbing her arm and pulling her around, Zoey was more than prepared for the situation.

Screaming bloody murder, Zoey kicked him straight between the legs.

Chapter 4

Now, for the record, Graham completely agreed with Zoey’s reaction. If he’d walked out of a forest and into a chainsaw, he’d be upset too.

The problem was, when she turned to run away, she’d been running toward the north side of his property, making a beeline for a thirty-foot ravine. The chivalrous part of Graham’s nature would never willingly let someone fling themselves to their death on his property, especially when it was all based on a simple misunderstanding.

Unfortunately, it was hard to express agreement while dry retching into a welding mask, injured beyond all hope of recovery. As a person with hopes and dreams and the desire to someday father children, Graham knew better than to remain keeled over with a chainsaw beneath him, even one not running.

All in all, it was a dangerous time to be a man.

He shoved the mask off his face, tossing it aside in an attempt for her to realize he was actually a normal, nonmurderous human being. If the situation had been different, Graham might have tried to console her or at least convince her she didn’t need to keep screaming. But alas, curling up in the fetal position was the best he could do.

She screamed all the way to his four-wheeler. She screamed the entire time she tried to start the four-wheeler and failed. She took a breather for a moment as she kicked it a few times and then continued to scream as she ran to the house to—he assumed—barricade herself in and call the police. Let the police come. It was possible Graham needed immediate medical attention.

If he wasn’t so busy cursing into the dirt beneath his face, Graham might have screamed some too.

Graham stayed there for a while, letting the white-hot agony roll through him until it dulled to merely a rusty-knife-stabbing-him-in-the-groin type of pain. Then—like any intelligent man would do in the same situation—Graham crawled into his workshop and locked the door.

Until further notice, this was exactly where he planned on staying.

* * *

Zoey was a reasonable woman. With the arrival of the Moose Springs police department’s finest and the proper displaying of a badge number, Zoey allowed herself to be talked into calming down. The single officer had found Zoey crouched outside the now-closed shipping container, a tire iron she’d procured from the chainsaw murderer’s truck held at the ready.

If he’d come at her again, Zoey planned on bludgeoning him to smithereens.

After the police convinced Zoey to put down her weapon and reassured the chainsaw murderer it was in fact safe to come outside again, Zoey had been horrified to find she’d been almost chainsawed by the nice, handsome bartender who’d so sweetly driven her home the night before, leaving aspirin on the table next to her. Upon further inspection, there was a lot of suitably chopped and chainsawed wood scattered around the property.

It was possible the most terrifying moment of Zoey’s life had been an unfortunate misinterpretation of the events at hand.

There was a certain amount of shame in realizing she had attacked a perfectly innocent man. Especially when the innocent man was one Graham Barnett, who had gone to lengths beyond necessary to help her. Yes, it had been scary to turn the corner and come face-to-face with a chainsaw murderer. But now that she knew it was Graham whom she had attacked, Graham who was possibly peeing blood, it only increased the shame.

As the cop took their statements, Zoey kept asking Graham if he was okay, hovering over him like a fretting hen, which he seemed to be enjoying enormously. By the third time he moaned and groaned and asked for her number, Zoey threw up her hands and retreated to the safety of the opposite side of the patrol car, putting the bulk of the vehicle in between them for his safety as much as her sanity.

Ignoring Graham’s antics and Zoey’s growing agitation, the officer shook his head and asked Graham if he was able to drive into town. After retreating inside his home to get an ice pack, Graham agreed.

Jonah, the officer who’d responded to her call, was a weary-looking middle-aged man, slender and fit, but not for lack of trying for the opposite. Riding in the passenger seat next to him, Zoey kept nudging candy bar wrappers and empty soda bottles with her shoes.

“Sorry, ma’am. Usually, if I’m giving someone a ride, they’re in the back.” The officer took a long drink of gas station Slurpee, his cup balanced precariously in the squad car’s cupholder. It couldn’t have been anything less than a half-gallon.

“Do you think I hurt him? I think I hurt him.”

A shadow of a smirk crossed Officer Jonah’s face. “Well, ma’am. If I had to say, I’d guess he’s not going to ask any women out anytime soon.”

“He asked for my number three times back there,” Zoey groaned. “I almost gave it to him too. Do you think he’s okay to drive?” Zoey twisted in her seat to stare at the Dodge truck following behind them. “He might need to go to the hospital.”

“Naw, if he needs a doc, he’ll let me know. We’ve had our fair share of tussles and bar fights around here, and Barnett always ends up in the middle of them. I doubt you gave him any worse than he’s had before.” Jonah rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Now that he’s not a few feet away from us, are you sure there isn’t anything more you want to add to your report? Anything inappropriate Mr. Barnett did?”

“No.” Frustrated, Zoey repeated the same thing she’d been telling him for the last hour. “I came out of the woods and saw him with the chainsaw. The rest was sort of instinct.”

At the raised eyebrow from the officer, Zoey bristled. “Oh no, I’m not getting any eyebrow judgment thingies from you. You know those women who are too stupid to live? I refuse to be too stupid to live. I don’t go in evil basements alone, I don’t linger in cornfields on full moons, and I’m definitely not going to let a fully mobile human being with a chainsaw chase me down and stuff my body in a steel shipping container.

“I mean, who even has steel shipping containers? In the woods?” She huffed.

“They’re common in this area, ma’am.”

“Anyone in my situation with half a brain would have disabled him. It was the right thing to do.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Seriously. It was the best call I had in the situation.”

Jonah took another drink from his bucket of Slurpee.

Sinking down in her seat, Zoey groaned into her hands. “I didn’t know I was running toward a cliff. I just saw the bad guy chasing me.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

When they pulled up to a tiny cement block building on the far side of town, Zoey watched Graham park on the street behind them. He didn’t look angry, but he did ease out of the truck with a carefulness that belied his current exuberance. Her agitation at Officer Jonah only increased as Graham grunted in discomfort upon closing the driver’s side door. How badly had she hurt him? Was he permanently damaged? Would he never have kids because of her knee-jerk reaction to defend herself in a life-and-death chainsaw situation?

“Are you okay?” she asked under her breath as he held the door for her.

An amused look was all Zoey got in reply.

Zoey didn’t think they were being arrested. She wasn’t in handcuffs in the back seat, and Graham was driving his own truck. People didn’t drive their own vehicles to jail. Then Jonah escorted them inside what must have sufficed as the Moose Springs police station: a building barely the size of a two-car garage, with only a desk, a bathroom, a small refrigerator, and a single cell.

Iron bars, corner toilet, and all.

“We don’t have an official station here in Moose Springs, ma’am.” Officer Jonah scratched his head, looking around as if uncertain of his options, and then he shrugged. “I suppose the drunk tank will have to do until we get things sorted out.”

“Get what sorted out?”

“Well, ma’am—”

“Zoey.”

A trace of annoyance crossed his face for half a second before disappearing. “Well, you and Graham—”

“Mr. Barnett,” Graham supplied cheerfully, making Zoey groan.

Unfazed, Jonah continued. “You both have conflicting stories about the events occurring this morning on Mr. Barnett’s property. I need to talk to my supervisors about what they want done. Barnett, are you pressing charges?”