“Not with people shooting at me,” Penny said, remembering the gun fight. “Why were people shooting at me?”
“You didn’t know them?”
Penny crinkled her nose.
“I don’t usually hang out with people who fire guns at me, no,” she said.
Harlan seemed to accept that, and his face softened a little.
“They were poachers, looking for some endangered species we have around here,” he explained.
“What… like deer or something?” Penny asked, confused. Growing up in the same town, she couldn’t remember there being a long list of endangered animals, or poachers for that matter.
“Wolves,” Harlan said. He arched a brow, as if daring her to disagree.
“Oh,” was Penny’s only response. “Are they still… out there?”
“They left when the sun went down. It’s too cold to hunt. They’ll be back tomorrow morning, though. Which is why you need to leave as soon as the sun’s up.”
A tiny bit of Penny’s pride withered. True, she was trespassing, and she didn’t exactly want to be here. But the way he said she had to leave, like it was personal… that rubbed her the wrong way.
“Fine,” she replied, rubbing her hands over her arms. The muscle tremors had moved up to her arms, and her body trembled unpleasantly.
She caught half a mumbled curse on Harlan’s lips as he turned and went to the bedroom, then came back with some of the blankets Penny had left behind.
“You need to stay warm. You were unconscious when I found you, your body’s had a lot of stress.” Harland thrust the blankets at her, and Penny took them without a word of protest. She didn’t feel cold, but she didn’t want to argue with him, either. Grumpy though he may be, he had probably saved her life.
Harlan went over to the kitchenette and set a kettle on the tiny stove. To her surprise, he returned with two steaming cups of Orange Pekoe tea.
“No sugar,” he said, claiming the chair across from Penny.
“It’s okay. I don’t much like it,” she said, sipping the tea gratefully. A long moment passed, the silence heavy, before Penny spoke again. “So… if the lodge is closed, why are you here?”
Harlan set his cup down, and Penny could see him weighing what he should tell her.
“I know the owner,” was his eventual answer.
“The Harbin kid?” Penny asked, surprised.
Harlan gave a low chuckle.
“Chase? That kid is thirty four years old and has at least an inch and twenty pounds on me,” Harlan said.
“Chase! Man, I could not remember his name for anything,” Penny sighed.
Harlan went tense again. It was odd; he wasn’t that expressive, nor did he gesture much, but Penny found him absurdly easy to read. Something about him, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
“You know him?” Harlan asked.
“I mean… he’s a few years older than me. We went to the same school, but we don’t know each other know each other. Not more than anyone in a small town,” she rushed to explain, to ease his obvious discomfort.
Not that Penny should care.
“Ah.” Harlan glanced away, leaving Penny to wonder what he was so worried about.
“Let me guess,” she said, something clicking into place. “I remember Chase going into the Marines. That must be how you guys know each other.”
Harlan’s brow hunched, and he gave her a slow nod.
“We served together for a long time, yeah.”
Penny needed to say something, start talking. Any conversation was a good thing at this point, distracting her, keeping her from staring at Harlan. Every time she stared too long and Harlan caught her, he shifted in his seat, looking ready to jump up and run out of the cabin. He alternated between seeming disgusted by her presence and staring back at her, like he hadn’t seen another human in a thousand years.
“Where were you stationed?” Penny asked. “If you don’t mind me asking, that is.”
“Where wasn’t I stationed?” Harlan said. “Germany. Aruba. Afghanistan. Syria. Kuwait, for a minute.”
“Oh. Uh, cool,” Penny said, feeling lame.
“What do you do?” he asked, leaning back and crossing his arms. Penny tried desperately not to ogle his sexy, tanned forearms. She dropped her gaze to her lap.
“I’m an art teacher. Or I was.”
“Past tense?”
Penny’s face began to flame again, but she wasn’t one to skirt around the truth of what had happened.
“I got fired. My ex was sleeping with the headmistress of my school, and when I caught them together, she fired me. The same day he kicked me out of our apartment.”
A growl rumbled through Harlan’s chest, and Penny looked at him with surprise.
“Some loser cheated on you?” he asked. His eyes blazed bright, and for a half second Penny wondered if he might be teasing her in the cruelest way. But no, he was serious. Offended, angry, and confused on her behalf, for some unknown reason.
“Well, he was sort of…” Penny pursed her lips and twined her fingers in her lap, trying to find the right words.
“A worthless prick?” Harlan suggested.
Penny laughed, then nodded.
“Yeah. He—”
“I don’t need the details. Forget about him,” Harlan said, shifting again in his seat. The movement drew Penny’s attention to his upper arm, where a few spots of red were spreading across his white t-shirt.
“Harlan, I think you’re bleeding,” she said, hand flying to her throat.
He looked down at his shoulder, then hefted a sigh.
“It’s fine,” he said. “Now that you’re up, I’ll just grab another shirt from my bedroom.”
“It is not fine!” Penny said with a gasp. “You didn’t say you got shot!”
The idea of him sitting here chatting with her while having a wound made her angry.
“It’s nothing,” Harlan said, but Penny was already on her feet.
“Do you have a first aid kit?” she demanded to know.
Harlan gave her a measuring glance, then rolled his eyes.
“In the medicine cabinet,” he said.
Penny retrieved it and came back, putting on her best take no prisoners expression.
“Take off your shirt,” she ordered, giving him what she hoped was a steely glare.
A flare of humor lit his face, followed by more eye rolling.
“Fine,” he said, rising and pulling his shirt off, every muscle in his torso rippling as he moved.
Penny’s dry mouth and shaky legs returned, and she had to rip her eyes away from his obscenely flat, defined abs.
“Couch,” she said, pointing. Her cheeks and neck were red and hot with a mixture of hunger and ire. Thankfully Harlan dropped onto the couch, his eyes roaming up and down Penny’s body from head to toe.
It struck Penny that Harlan might actually be interested in her, not repulsed. It seemed insane, someone