Page 6 of Hard to Hold


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Chapter 3

There was nothing I could tell him. Nothing he’d believe. I didn’t even know his name. In my premonitions, I’d never needed it. I only knew the way he made me feel. I’d been like a voyeur during the man’s entire life. “What’s your name?”

“You don’t know it?” he asked, handing me a pair of jogging pants to slip on.

I stepped into them and tied the string. The pant legs were six inches too long. The girth draped like curtains, flat and straight down, in spite of my curves. “I wouldn’t have asked if I knew.”

The man disappeared and returned, carrying a duffel bag. “I put all of your things in here.”

“Thanks, Mr…”

No smile, nothing but curiosity stared back at me. His intense gaze held mine as if trying to read my mind. Maybe he was. Maybe we were connected because he was “special” too.

“Harlon Simmons, and you are?”

“Nina Bennett. Thank you for saving me.” I gestured with my thumb over my shoulder toward the door. “I’m late getting back to the search and rescue command point. When Peter tells them, a bear was chasing me, they’ll be looking for me next.”

“I guess we need to get you back,” Harlon said, picking up the bag he’d put my wet stuff in and carrying it to the door. With his hand on the knob, he turned to me once more. “You still haven’t told me how you knew about the tiger scar.”

My mouth parted, and I snapped it closed. “Lucky guess.”

His eyes searched mine. He opened his mouth to speak, but snapped it shut and waved me through the doorway.

When I’d been carried after spraying myself with bear mace, I hadn’t been able to see where my savior had taken me. Harlon’s house sat in an alcove surrounded by a forest of trees. A beat-up truck sat in the dirt driveway. He opened the door, and I slid inside, putting the bag with my wet stuff on the floorboard.

The log house fit the flannel-wearing lumberjack. It was two stories with a wrap-around porch. An older storage shed sat in the distance. The sliding doors were left open shaded by a towering pine tree. Fish were hanging from a beam, and a knife was stuck blade down into a chopped tree trunk.

“What were you doing in the woods when you found me? I mean you carried me here, and we must have walked for ten minutes. Why were you in the woods?”

His lips twitched as he glanced at me. “Why does it matter?”

I shrugged. It really didn’t matter. I was just glad he’d strolled by and had been carrying a gun.

“It doesn’t.” I turned my gaze to the window and watched as we pulled out onto the main road. Had I been looking for his driveway, I would have missed the entrance, probably never to be found again. There wasn’t a landmark to lead me back.

“Thanks again for saving me,” I offered.

“Not a problem. No one needs to know that the savior needed saving,” he said as he pulled into the campground. An ambulance was pulling out just as we pulled in. His lights shined bright on the police officers in the tent, arguing with my sisters.

“Friends of yours?” he asked as I opened the truck door.

“Sisters,” I said, climbing out and grabbing my bag of ruined clothing. “I’ll return your clothes if I can find your house again.”

“Don’t bother. I have plenty more,” he said, reaching over and yanking the door shut before he backed out and left me standing there watching him leave.

Gwen and Faith ran over to me. Gwen grabbed me by my shoulders and turned me around. “Are you hurt? There was a report of a gunshot.”

“She’s in shock. That has to explain it. Gwen, call an ambulance.”

Faith’s words pulled me out of the stupor Harlon had left me in. “I was chased by a bear, but I sprayed him and got it in my eyes. A lumberjack with a gun saved me.”

“A lumberjack, huh?” Gwen asked, glancing in the direction of the road. “I’ll have to be sure to find him and thank him.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think he’s a people person. He lives in the woods for God’s sake.”

Harlon looked like a man hiding from the world. Who had no phone in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere? That alone should have told me something wasn’t right about him. If not very, very wrong.

He’d lifted me and tossed me over his shoulder like a man who’d done it before. Come to think of it, he’d removed my clothes within a matter of seconds. He was skilled at more things than catching fish. Maybe I should have stayed. Maybe not.

What was I saying? Premonitions about that man had haunted me for decades. Maybe they’d stop now. Maybe him saving my life was what those visions had been leading up to.

“I’m fine. I promise. I just want to go home and soak in a hot tub. I’ll call you guys tomorrow.”

“Fine,” Gwen said, watching me with eagle-eyed precision as I slid into my car and lowered the visor for my keys to drop into my lap. Normally I wouldn’t leave my keys hanging around, but doing a search and rescue in the woods, I wasn’t really worried about it being stolen. Everyone who’d showed up had more important issues to worry about, like saving a life. Who knew I’d be in need of saving too?