The Path Less Traveled

Chapter 1

Blowing a wispy of silky auburn hair from in front of her eyes Amelia reached forward to wipe the condensation from her windshield. It felt like she had done that at least 10 times in the fifteen minutes she’d been driving. Her house was only 15 miles from the store she owned, yet now it felt like it was 100 miles away. She began to think that staying in her store over night would have been a wiser choice than going home. The snow fall didn’t seem so bad when she locked up, the flurries were light and it was still mostly light outside, yet five minutes into the drive, just as she had turned off onto a less traveled country road the flurries turned into a full fledged assault on her windshield and nerves. As luck would have it, it was that exact moment in time that the car’s heater decided that blowing cold air was a much better idea than actually giving heat.

“What ELSE can go wrong tonight?” Amelia wondered.

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He trudged along the road, each step sending jolts of pure ice through his tired legs. He didn’t know how long he’d been walking, but it surely felt like hours. Plumes of icy breath escaped his nose and mouth as he continued his solitary trek through the snowy night. As he walked his mind kept running in circles, frantically trying to fit the pieces in his mind together. It seemed his mind was full of shattered pieces , everything flitting around but never settling down. His mind it seemed had decided to mimic the snow that was so steadily falling all around him, obscuring his view, keeping him frozen, and keeping him moving forward.

With a sudden Ooooph, he slipped, stumbled and fell into a very wet ditch-bank that finished off soaking his already wet and half frozen clothing. “Dammit!” He shouted at loud to the night, “what else God? Gonna turn me into a fucking popsicle at this rate!”

Struggling back to the road he decided that it was time to just walk down the middle of the road. After all there was no traffic thank to the snow, and it was definitely better than risking another dip into a frozen wet ditch. Long minutes passed and each step became harder and harder to take. The snow was blindingly cold, his feet felt frozen and sharp agonizing stabs of pain began to radiate from the back of his head all the way through his body.

Suddenly out of nowhere he heard the sounds of an engine, and a faint light began to waver around him. Turning he stopped moving and began to wave his arms, praying that whoever it was in the vehicle coming up behind him would both see him standing there and stop to help.

Amelia’s pace had slowed to a painstaking near crawl as her windshield frosted over yet again. She glanced over to the passenger seat to once again grab a tissue to wipe her windshield. Looking up she reached forward and cleared her view and let go of a string of curses that would have made some sailors blush. Jamming her foot on the brakes she shivered as her car slide slowly to the right, just barely missing the crazy human standing in the middle of the road.

Jumping out of the car, totally ignoring all her mom taught her about never stopping and talking to strangers she strode up to what she realized was a man asking, “what the holy hell do you think your doing standing in the middle of the freaking road in a snow storm?”

In the seconds following, Amelia, caught a glance of the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, right before they closed as their owner slumped to the ground. Amelia quickly reached over praying the blue eyes owner wasn’t dead and that she hadn’t killed him or scared him to death. She breathed a soft sigh of relief as she checked him out and saw that he had a pulse. Within seconds her mind processed the facts that the owner of the blue eyes was male, and from what she could see, nice enough looking, and totally unconscious. Pulling her cell phone from her back pocket she went to dial for emergency help only to realize her phone was dead.

She knew she couldn’t just leave him laying there, knew there was no way she was turning around and going back to town in this storm and knew that it seemed, that the only option at least for now was pull the poor guy into her car and take him to her little cabin, at least for the night.

The next few minutes would have made a wonderful comedy as the petite and seemingly frail store owner pushed and pulled the lanky body into the back seat of her car. She laughed softly to herself as she thought of how her mom would have called her insane to even consider taking a stranger into her home, but somehow in those briefest of seconds looking into those blue eyes she knew it would be ok. Amelia finally managed to get the man into her car and walked back around to get into the driver’s seat. Once again putting her car into drive she began the final few miles home.

With a heartfelt groan of relief, Amelia pulled up as close to her front door as she could and cut the car off. Stepping out, she once again went to the back door and began the process of pulling the dead weight that would hopefully wake up and again be a moving body to her front door. She finally managed the short trek, and with a triumphant smile pulled the dead to the world blue eyed man inside. Within moments she had him inside.

Leaving him next to the couch she set about making a fire in her fireplace and getting her lights and other heat turned on.

Amelia pondered what to do with the man. She wasn’t a prude by any means, nor innocent, but she didn’t want to upset the fella when he woke up. She had to remove his clothes, that’s all there was too it, she couldn’t leave him in those wet clothes now could she? He’d catch pneumonia if she did, so without a second thought she went about gathering up the things she’d need to get him out of the wet clothes and dried off.

Coming back to the couch she put her hands under his arms and with a bit of effort finally managed to get him on the couch. Taking a few moments she studied the sleeping man. What she saw nagged at her memory. He looked so familiar some how. Shaking her head she went to work slowly removing his clothing piece by piece. Grumbling softly to herself she wondered if they even made clothing any tighter. Wet or dry, the jeans he had on were damn near sprayed on it seemed. Within a few moments Amelia had the jeans peeled off of what turned out to be well muscled and defined legs. Getting behind him she pushed him into a seated position and began to work the wife beater t-shirt over his head. “What fool walks out into a snow storm without a coat wearing just this?” she thought to herself as she worked. As she pulled the t-shirt over his head she noticed he had a couple of tattoos, naggingly familiar tattoos, one of a superman symbol and one of what looked to be a steer skull on his upper arms. With a shake of her head she lay him back down on the couch throw pillows, noticing a rather large lump on the side of his head. “Well that explains the lack of coat,” she thought, “He wasn’t thinking clear obviously.”

Standing up, she finished drying his now naked body, and wrapped him securely in the softest fleece blanket she had. Being only human, she couldn’t resist a soft stroke over his nicely muscled and slightly furry chest. “Damn he’s a fine specimen, just wish I could figure out where I’ve seen him before. Ahh well, I’ll learn his name when he finally wakes up I suppose.

Amelia went to and put his clothes in the wash and grab a cup of coffee so that she could keep an eye on her patient. Settling herself into the oversized arm chair beside the couch, she picked up her remote and turned on some soft music. This night was going to be a long one, she had to watch over the guy and make sure he was ok. She’d catch a few winks in the chair, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep much. Amelia studied the sleeping man a few more moments and prayed that he didn’t have a concussion or anything serious, because unless the storm let up some she wouldn’t be able to get him to a doctor for awhile.

Morning was only a few hours away so she wrapped herself in another blanket and prepared to spend the might sleeping sitting up and watching over a stranger who she could only pray would be sane when he awoke.