“Dammit!” I screamed.

Keep shouting! Max will hear you! He’s close! Charlie yelled.

But I didn’t get to shout. Instead I let out an “oof” as I tried to push to my feet and was tackled from behind by Harry. We rolled through the snow down the mountain, a tangle of arms and legs.

Fight, scratch, kick, bite, scream, sweetheart, scream! Charlie ordered.

I screamed, loud and shrill and I kept doing it as I fought, punching, shifting, flailing, scratching and kicking. We’d come to rest on an outcrop of rock that felt hard, cold and abrasive even through my clothes as we wrestled on top of it and I kept screaming as I kept fighting. I gave it all I had but Harry got me to my back and straddled me. I continued to pound on his chest, scratch at his neck and kick out with my legs, bucking my h*ps and shrieking in terror as both his big mountain man hands cupped either side of my head, yanking it up so my chin was in my throat and I knew he was going to pound it into the rock. My fingers wrapped around his wrists and I pulled out hard but didn’t succeed in moving his hands.

SCREAM! Charlie shouted.

I screamed.

Then Harry was gone because Max was there, tackling him from the side, they both went flying. I sucked in breath, relief so extreme it felt like it ripped through me, shredding my insides. I scrambled back on all fours and ran into something then hands were in my armpits and I was being dragged back.

I screamed again but over my scream I heard Jeff shout, “Maxwell!”

My body stilled and my eyes searched through the darkness to see Max and Harry at the edge of the outcrop, Harry on his knees, Max on his feet, one of his fists holding Harry up at the collar, both of Harry’s hands scratching at Max’s forearm as his legs scrambled desperately in an attempt to get his feet underneath him and Max’s other fist repeatedly, with sickening thud after sickening thud, connected with Harry’s face.

“Max!” Another shout, this one from Mick as he ran and skidded through the snow toward Max but Max didn’t stop.

“You okay?” Jeff asked, I nodded my lie, my eyes never leaving Max as I watched Harry’s legs quit scrambling and his hands weakening in their struggles against Max’s forearm.

Jeff took off just as Mick made it to Max, wrapping both arms around him he yanked him back but Max wasn’t to be stopped. Jeff made it to the trio and then I saw Cotton materialize out of nowhere, then Brody was there and Steve, Darren, George, some guys I’d never seen before and finally Pete and it took all of them to pull Harry one way and Max the other.

Once they disconnected, Max jerked his body away and shrugged off the hands on him, standing still as a statue, only his chest moving, his breaths coming heavy, the cold tufts of them gusting fast and hard from his mouth, lighting in the moonlight and his head was tipped down, his eyes glued to Harry. Harry had collapsed to his front but up on an elbow with his head bent as if he couldn’t hold it up.

I pushed up to my feet, completely oblivious to the snow that covered me, matted wet and cold in my hair, embedded in my clothes and I stumbled to Max. I was two feet away before he turned to me. I felt his eyes hit me through the darkness and my knees gave way before I made it those last two feet.

But I didn’t fall because Max caught me in his arms and hauled me deep into his large, tall, strong body, holding me close, holding me tight, holding me safe.

Told you he was close, Charlie said in my head, his voice teasing but relieved.

It was funny and I would have laughed if I wasn’t busy bursting into tears.

“I got you, Duchess,” Max’s gravelly voice rumbled in my ear.

I lifted my arms to wrap him as tight as I could with the little energy I had left and I shoved my face in his neck. One of Max’s arms stayed locked around me and his other hand slid up, palm warm on my neck, fingers in my wet, snow tangled hair and he held my face to his warmth as I sobbed.

“I got you, baby,” he whispered. “You’re safe. I got you.”

I nodded into his neck and when I had it together enough, I whispered, “Bitsy’s up there somewhere. Shauna too.”

“All right, darlin’,” Max muttered, I felt his lips leave my ear and he asked someone else quietly, “You hear that?”

“We’re on it,” I heard Mick say then I felt Max’s breath warm again on my neck.

“Hold tight, Duchess,” he urged and I did the best I could do and held even tighter. “That’s it,” he whispered, his arm returning the favor.

Things were happening around us, people talking, moving, Steve’s murmur from behind me, his hand touching my hair before it fell away but nothing penetrated the fortress Max had built around me with his arms, his body, his strength. All that was my world was being held in his arms.

When I got myself together, I whispered, “Max?”

“Right here, Nina,” he whispered back immediately, “I’m always right here, honey.”

I hiccoughed another sob and pressed deeper into him.

Then I asked, “Will you take me home?”

Again, Max answered immediately, “Absolutely.”

Then he bent, lifting me in his arms, he carried me through the snow and pine trees of a Colorado mountain, straight to his Cherokee where he set me gently in the passenger seat, buckled me in safely, folded into the driver’s side and then he took me home.

Epilogue

Final Visits

I walked into the A-frame carrying my bags and shouting, “Max!”

I received no reply.

I dumped the bags on the dining table, considered for a moment how angry Max was going to get when he saw that I’d bought myself a whole new outfit (including shoes and underwear), decided that he’d be pretty angry (until he saw the underwear) then I shouted again, “Max! I’m home! Where are you?”

I was shouting because now, if you couldn’t see the person whose attention you wanted, you needed to shout in the A-frame. This was because Max had built off both sides.

One side, off the kitchen, was a one story, huge family room that was stuffed full of furniture that invited you to lounge and do it a long time (and we did); a big flat screen TV on the wall; and inset shelves all around filled with books, CDs and DVDs. There was another enormous stone fireplace in there that helped to heat the space in the winters and made it even cozier and it was already, no matter how big it was, pretty cozy considering the high lounge factor of the furniture.