07

After three cups of coffee and a half-eaten hamburger, Kate pushed her plate away and asked for the bill.

Julie approached with a crooked grin, "Sleaze-ball hasn't looked your way since he sat down, probably still licking his wounds, the dirt bag." She paused, eyeing the man with cerulean-daggers, "Ronan should have wiped the floor with him."

At the mention of her unlikely savior, it prompted a sudden tingling along her skin, one that drove her from her seat as the invasion of sharp, gray eyes arose to mind. "I should go. Thanks for dinner."

Julie seized up her plate and waved her out the door, all the while glaring heatedly at the man huddled shame-faced in the corner.

The air had cooled some with the approaching dusk and she tilted her face to the breeze that carried to her.

She quite liked BlackMountain. Aside from a few impertinent stares, no one asked questions. Her newfound haven appeared seemingly befitting and hopefully would prove to be therapeutic, though she imagined it would take some lengthy time before retrieving any happiness that was once her.

She tried recalling ever being happy with Danny. She had loved him, so much so she would've done anything for him. She hadn't realized that she'd unknowingly given her heart to a monster.

Would she ever truly be free of him? After waking in that hospital room with no recollection as to what happened, unaware that she'd lost a small part of her along with her memory – had all been a monumental realization.

She would never make the mistake of returning to him.

She reached home just before nightfall and decided she'd go for that run in the morning.

Taking the few steps that led up onto her rickety porch, she paused to survey the encroaching darkness that which enshrouded the surrounding trees.

She wasn't so much disquieted by the actuality of being alone; vulnerable to whatever may lurk in the surrounding wood. She in fact, quite genuinely, relished the very idea of it. She was certain her solitude would be her key factor in ensuring her safety. It just might protect her from the impending danger that was Danny Horner.

Kate awoke abruptly the next morning, gasping desperately for a breath while clutching at her throat.

Her eyes danced wildly about the room, momentarily caught in the aftermath of a nightmare. Steadily, awareness settled and her shoulders went slack. Her chest arose and fell with uneven breaths and she could do no more than give way to the onset of tears that consumed her.

Trembling, she shoved the blanket aside and swung her legs over the bed. She remained there, arms on either side, palms gripping the mattress as she tried shaking the lingering remnants of her fears.

She may have been eager to forget her painful past but it appeared as though her subconscious-self refused to do so.

After ten minutes of crying softly, she wiped her tears and straightened from the bed. Running a shaky hand through her tousled hair, she moved towards the window and peered outwardly.

The sunrise was a soothing, welcoming sight.

She knew it was going to take some time before she was completely free of Danny and all the horrible, inconceivable things he'd done to her.

But how much time was enough?

Her nightmare was as vivid and painful as if it were real. Reminding her all too gravely that Danny still had a hold of her, though it may not be physically, it was in every way, emotionally and mentally.

Wrapping her arms about herself, she turned away from the window to get dressed for her run, hoping it would assuage her uneasy thoughts.

She had donned a pair of gray yoga pants and a pale, yellow tank. Pulling her hair into a ponytail she considered a jacket but eventually decided against it.

As she stepped outside a smile broadened her face.

The sun rose languidly beyond the trees, taking its leisure time in depicting the sky with shades of pink and orange with but one, gossamer cloud drifting a by.

A breeze carried through the trees, stirring limbs and splintering feeble leaves from their stems. She felt the coolness of lingering morning dew as it whisked over her skin, further widening her smile.

Spying the narrowing trail she started for it in a light run. She focused on her breathing, inducing steady, encouraging breaths as she all but surveyed the vastness of green and vegetation. She could feel the softened dirt beneath her soles as she quickened her pace, following the undisturbed trail, mindful to the trees that widened and thickened about her.

She ran harder, her ribs protesting with a dull ache but she pressed on, delighting in the run as the earth hastened beneath her. She curved a path, leaping over a fallen branch, feeling the cool air more prominently at her nape as beads of perspiration formed there, her heart thumping wildly against her chest, propelling her onward.

She wasn't sure how long she'd been running for. The sun was higher now, some of those pink and orange shades gone with a forthcoming blue.

The trail had led her up the eastside of the mountain. The ground was more solid, some of it rock, hidden beneath the green terrain.

Her chest burning with fleeting breaths, she slowed her pace and flattened a hand over her ribs, the ache there gradually intensifying.

Catching her breath, she noticed she'd come to an overhang. She stepped further out marveling at the sight that lengthened below the steep face of the rock, momentarily caught in awe by the beauty of the mountains that flourished in sight.

Her tank clung to the small of her back but a breeze that drifted to her upon that edge flit through her dampened shirt, cooling her flushed skin.

Her legs tingled with the run, so much so that she hadn't felt the very ground, ground she believed solid, crumble from beneath her.

A panic ripped through her chest, prompting a strangled cry from her throat as she all but simultaneously dropped with the disintegrating earth. Her hands lashed out, desperately scrambling for something solid to grasp as terror laced her limbs, all the while, the soil slipping unmercifully beneath her fingers.

Unbridled tears blurred her vision as the waning edge suddenly spit her into nothingness and she felt the weight of her body falling to the impending certainty of a broken body.

It happened so abruptly, just as the crumbling precipice that she hadn't time to comprehend what followed. She'd been falling, certain that a roughened grove would greet her fall only to be snatched from gravity with a fleeting deftness that escaped her.

Her eyes closed, breathless and momentarily dazed, she forced air into her lungs, feeling the sudden surety of ground beneath her trembling frame.

She must be dead, surely, to have eluded the ominous snap of her body as it struck the ground?

If she were dead, why then did her ribs ache tremendously?

As the horror of what nearly occurred slowly ebbed from her body, only then was she aware of the unwavering warmth that sheathed her.

A breath hitched in her throat and her eyes opened of their own accord, connecting with a lucid, silvery gaze.

She realized horrifying that the warmth encasing her was none other than incredible brawn.

Ronan couldn't believe his good fortune. The very woman that had tormented and weighed his thoughts now lay in his arms, staring wildly at him with those cat-like eyes.

He could taste her fear as it emitted the air, feel it shudder from her limbs into his as she lay immobile beneath him. His nose inhaled deeply of orchids, wrapping him in the lovely, tantalizing scent of her, prompting a groan that he struggled to quell.

She lay flat against his forearm, her dark hair, barely managed within its restraint dispersed the earth in an alluring spread.

He felt the rise and fall of her breasts, inducing a maddening sliver of desire as it rippled over him in a startling and unnerving way.

Lying here only worsened his kindling fervor for she lay flushed beneath him, making him painstakingly aware of every soft and enticing curve that molded perfectly to every hardened inch of him.

An unwarranted heat spiraled low in his belly and muscles tightened, stiffening as he swept her with a heated perusal, his eyes moving admirably over the shape of her mouth, the slant of her brows, features all of which had him intently fixated.

He seemed incapable of moving, fascinated by those pale green eyes with just a hint of blue. He felt her state of shock, could see it in the thin layer of haze that veiled her eyes as she stared blankly, her heart beating erratically against the solidness of his own.

He'd been treading the other side of the mountain, attuned to his inner beast evoked by the stirrings of nature, when that familiar and unmistakable cadence settled to his ears.

He stilled, his muscles stiffening as he tilted his head to inhale the air, his body instinctively hardening with the sudden awareness of her.

A wayward breeze carried her scent to him and with a subdued growl he took off in running. He marveled in the chase, drawn by the beguiling smell of her as it lured him to that steep, precarious edge.

His eyes fastened heatedly to the length of her, sweeping her from head-to-toe, admiring every desirable curve that deemed appraising.

The manner in which she held her ribs hadn't escaped him nor had he a moment to fully fathom as a sudden ominous shift in the ground, a sound undetected by human ears, jarred him to the realization of dirt crumbling fast, and with a preternatural litheness, he launched from the trees as the edge pitched from beneath her.

He caught her discernable cry as it resounded sharply in the air, the sound alarming to his ears.

He could see the questioning glint in her eye of just how they managed to defeat the explicable pull of gravity.

He knew the moment she became afraid.

It didn't set well with him, in fact, he quite hated it.

He pushed his body up and in doing so pulled her along with him. She allowed it, if only for a brief and scant moment before putting a considerable distance between them.

She avoided his stare all together and he noticed discernibly that her hand had returned to that spot above her ribs.

"You alright?" he asked a bit coarsely with an edge of gruffness that appeared to unsettle her.

She cleared her throat, shakily brushing remnants of dirt from her legs as she answered in a meek and feebly audible response, "Yes."

His eyes narrowed on where her hand rested and instinctively he took a step toward her.

Her head shot upright and she retreated, eyeing him with a distrust that further unnerved him, "I'm fine." She asserted green eyes alight with a perceptible fear.

Kate struggled in masking her fear, most especially due to the weight of that silvery gaze that all but unraveled her barely composed nerves.

Her ribs ached something awful, so much so that it took every bit of her willpower to keep from doubling over.

She was certain that she'd been falling to her death. She could barely piece together what just happened. How had he managed to grab her so easily, so swiftly in the blink of an eye?

Her gaze moved warily over him, very much aware of him watching her but incapable of pulling her eyes away.

He was a daunting man. Just as formidable and frightening in the broadness of morning light as he was in the obscured quarters of his nightclub, and oddly enough light of foot, for such a sizable man.

She hadn't even heard or seen him.

She noticed however that the sunlight did wonders to his flaxen hair, enhancing that shoulder-length mane to an impressive gold.

Her heart thumped wildly against her breast as she surveyed his impressive muscle-clad frame. He was entirely a different breed of man. He had a charge of air about him that bespoke dominance, forewarning her to steer clear. He was every bit as menacing as he was the other night.

And she realized quite alarmingly that she was utterly and defenselessly alone with him. He could easily hurt her, subdue her, and do whatever he deemed fit and no one would know.

Her throat constricted at that chilling thought and inherently she took another step back.

That silver gaze narrowed shrewdly, "Twice now I've encountered you, and yet I do not know your name." that deep timbre swept over her in a sensually dark and tingling caress.

Her breathing intensified, further agitating her aching ribs which prompted a wince from her.

"You're hurt." It wasn't a question but an assertion and he moved toward her, which propelled her backward.