Snowed In(manxman)

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

'Come on in here, Tex. You ain’t got nothin’ out west that’ll compete with what I have in this room’

Will heard the words but the laudanum that Thompson kept him pumped full of made it impossible for him to do anything other than lie there as a dirty, hairy man came into the room and closed the door.

Will wanted to die, prayed for death, as the man began to undo his trousers…..

Warm, foul breath washed over Will’s face and he screamed. He kicked his legs and swung his arms to ward off his attacker, desperate to defend himself.

A yelp filled the air when Will’s hand connected with a fur covered leg

Fur???

His eyes flying open, Will saw a big black nose and brown eyes less than a foot from his face. He scurried to sit and pulled a stiff wool blanket around his naked body as the big hound simply sat down and studied him. His long tail swished slowly back and forth across the dirty wood-planked floor.

Where in the hell was he?

Will glanced around the tiny one room cabin. There was a small unmade bed in the far corner, a rocking chair beside the sofa he was on and a wooden slab table with two crudely constructed chairs sitting beside a cook stove and a cabinet. A rifle leaned against the wall beside the door and Will realized that the clothes he’d run away from the brothel in had been strung up to dry.

But who lived here? How had Will come to be here? And why was he naked?

The door to the cabin burst open and Will felt the frigid air from outside blast against him. He buried himself deeper against the sofa as he watched the giant of a man who came inside.

The man had his arms full of firewood and he kicked the door with his foot to close it behind him. He didn’t turn his gaze toward Will or the sofa as he strode past and dumped his load of wood into the basket beside the fire.

Will felt his eyes roaming over the man as he bent down and began tossing a few logs on the fire. The man was wearing worn black trousers that hugged his legs and backside quite nicely. It was easy to see that he pants were broken in nicely. His shoulders were broad and he was clearly very strong.

Will knew that if this man meant him harm there wouldn’t be much Will could do to stop him. At five foot nine and one hundred and sixty pounds soaking wet with rocks in his pockets, Will didn’t have anything on this six foot five, well muscled giant.

The man stood straight once again and turned slowly. Will sank a bit deeper into the couch as the man stared him down. Will swallowed hard. The man was handsome in a dangerous, he-could-kill-a-person-with-one-finger kind of way. He had dark hair that hung past his jaw, a sharply angled, stubble covered chin, dark eyes and thick brows. One of those brows quirked up as he scratched at his red flannel encased chest.

“Nice of you to finally wake up,” he growled in a deep voice that seemed to rumble out of his chest and caused Will to shiver.

“Who are you?” Will whispered, finding that his throat hurt and his head was aching. Being caught out in the snow combined with his body trying to recover from the sudden lack of laudanum coursing through it were taking a toll on his strength.

“The man that saved your ass last night.”

“Yeah, but, what’s your name?” Will insisted, wondering if the man was being difficult on purpose. The sneer on his face as he looked at Will certainly made it seem as if he were hostile and unhappy about Will’s presence in his cabin.

The hound whimpered and laid his hand on Will’s leg and this caused the man to grunt, “Beaux, get your ass over here,” he growled out and the hound gave one last glance to Will with those big brown eyes and then loped over to the man and sat beside him.

“What were you doing up on this mountain in the middle of the night during a blizzard?” the man demanded.

Will didn’t answer. Instead he averted his gaze and stared at the wall. The man shifted his feet and grunted with irritation, “As much as I’d like to throw you back out on your ass, this blizzard hasn’t let up yet and there’s damn near three feet of snow out there. You just stay the hell out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.”

Will nodded without looking at him and wrapped the blanket around himself a little tighter. That wouldn’t be a problem. He had no urge to get any closer to that harsh, mean man than he was right now. The man strode back toward the door, grabbed a thick fur coat from a hook and shoved his arms inside it.

He looked at the hound, Beaux, and pointed at Will, “Watch him,” the man ordered and then he went back out into the snow, slamming the door behind him.

Will was confused by the man’s actions but he was too tired to dwell on it much. Instead he pushed himself up on his shaking legs and nearly fell. Beaux was at his side in an instant and Will leaned on the dog as he walked over to his clothes and realized they were dry.

As quickly as his weak body would allow him, Will pulled his clothes on, praying every moment that the monster of a man wouldn’t come bursting back into the cabin until he was at least fully clothed.

Dressed and exhausted, Will collapsed back on the sofa and patted Beaux’s head as the hound dropped it onto his knee, “What’s wrong with your owner, Beaux?” he whispered.

Beaux heaved out a sigh and Will laughed lightly, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

***

Turner felt trapped. Damn it! There was a reason he had left his farm in his brother’s keep and moved onto this mountain three years ago. He didn’t like people and he didn’t want to have to be around them any more than was necessary; now he had a damn naked man on his sofa!

Turner tossed down the extra hay for Bernice, his mare, with much more force than was necessary and she stomped her hoof to let him know it. Turner scratched her nose in apology and sighed.

He had been right last night when he had suspected he knew who that man was. It was Will. Turner didn’t know his last name and he didn’t know where he’d come from but he knew what kind of man Will was and Turner didn’t want to be around him.

Will had once worked as a dealer at the biggest saloon in the nearest town owned by Thompson Caudill and Turner had found himself going into town much more often then normal just to catch a glimpse of him.

He’d been the first man to turn Turner’s head or cause him to entertain thoughts of attraction or even having a conversation with someone since Peter had died three years before but before Turner could decide whether or not he wanted to act on those feelings Will had changed careers.

He’d moved to Thompson’s brothel and begun lying on his back, hitting his knees or shoving his ass in the air for any damn drunk that came along with a bit of coin in his pocket.

The thought of that made Turner sick.

He’d come to this cabin after Peter had died, after his father and mother had washed their hands of their devil afflicted son, after he’d lost every friend he’d ever had other than his brother, and made a vow to be alone forever. Now he had the only damn temptation he’d found in all that time naked in his cabin and looking weak, sick and lost…..

Turner growled and finished filling the feed buckets for Bernice and his mule, Clyde. The sooner this blizzard passed and the trail to town became passable the better. Turner didn’t want that whore of a man here for long.