Chapter 21

Theo's nagging guilt turned into terror as he rounded a bend in the back road leading to the cabin. There was Star's lime green hybrid, nose down in the deep ditch alongside the road.
"Son of a bitch." His stomach clenching, he parked his SUV on the shoulder and got out to check Star's vehicle, breathing a deep sigh of relief when he saw that everything was switched off and there was no sign of Star, or her purse, which she never went anywhere without. She'd been well enough to get out and walk. Thank god.
He climbed back into his SUV and started toward the cabin, going slowly enough to watch for any movement along the side of the road.
There. He stopped and peered through the rain at the movement.
It wasn't Star, just a bunny.
But what was a walnut brown, lop-eared rabbit doing out here in the woods? Native cottontails were light, mottled brown with perky ears - this had to be a lost pet. Worse yet, it was clearly dragging itself along without the use of one of its back feet.
Hell. Worried as he was about Star, Theo had been a vet for nearly eight years. He simply couldn't ignore an animal in pain. He climbed out into the rain, again, and grabbed the emergency blanket from behind the driver's seat as he did. Carefully, he wrapped the blanket around the shivering animal, somewhat surprised that it didn't even try to fight. Since it was only another few hundred yards to the cabin, he just held the bundle in his lap as he drove the rest of the way.
The sick feeling in his stomach didn't go away when he saw there were no lights burning in the windows, even though dusk was already starting to fall. He parked then, still carrying the bunny in his arms, he strode up to the covered wooden porch and pounded on the door.
No answer. "Damn it!" The door was locked, so he felt above the lintel for the key he knew had always been kept there. Holding the rabbit in the crook of one elbow, he opened the door and looked inside.
Nothing. No sign that anyone had been here in weeks - maybe months. His heart pounded in his chest as he stepped into the empty great room.
The blanket in his arm suddenly seemed to expand, adding more weight than he could easily hold in one arm, and Theo stumbled, catching the bundle with his other arm so he wouldn't drop it. Sure enough, he'd swear it now weighed a hundred pounds.
A shriek - a very human shriek - filled his ears. "Theo?"
Theo looked down. "What the fuck?"
It wasn't a shivering rabbit wrapped in his red fleece blanket. Instead, it was a wet, muddy and very naked woman, with tangled walnut-brown hair, milky skin and bluish-green eyes.
"Star?"
"Theo!" Lithe arms wrapped around his neck as she pressed her face into his chest. "Theo, thank the gods you found me."
Even soaking wet, his big body radiated heat and Star snuggled close. She'd been confused when he hadn't seemed to recognize her on the road, but she'd still been too woozy to wonder how he managed to drive his SUV with her in his lap.
After a moment, he eased her to the floor - or started to anyway, until she cried out at the pain in her left ankle.
"What's hurt?" Instantly, Theo lifted her back into his arms and carried her over to the couch.
"A-ankle."
He laid her down onto the wide leather couch and peeled back the blanket from her foot. "Anything else?"
"I bumped my nose on the airbag, but it seems fine now."
Theo touched her face gently with his fingertips. After a few seconds, he let out a long breath. "Nothing broken. Shouldn't even have much of a bruise. Now let's see the foot."
Gentle hands trailed down her leg, and Star let her eyes follow his movements. He had a good bedside manner, even if she wasn't a puppy. Then she noticed something and the bottom dropped out of her stomach.
"Theo, where the hell are my clothes?"
"I was wondering the same thing," he said, his long fingers carefully probing her ankle. His short, light brown hair was matted to his head, and his usually warm brown eyes remained fixed on her foot, though she could see the tension in the tight lines of his muscular physique. "Though not as much as I wondered why I picked up a rabbit from the side of the road and walked into the house with a woman in my arms."
"Cute. Could you wait until I'm warm to be an asshole?" She gathered the blanket closer around her, yelping when he probed the tender spot on the side of her ankle.
"I'm not making anything up, Star. I swear to god, I found a hurt domestic bunny limping along the road. One step into the cabin and suddenly it was you, naked. Any idea what the fuck is going on, or did somebody slip something funny into my coffee back at the gas station?" His voice, normally so calm and steady, trembled.
"I'm going with the coffee idea."
"Yeah, me too. Either that or I'm the one who crashed my car and all of this is an anesthesia-induced nightmare."
Great. Now her ex-boyfriend thought she was a nightmare. Could this get any better?
"Well, it looks like the ankle is just a sprain," he reported. "Probably a pretty mild one at that. If it was broken, there'd be a lot more swelling by now. As soon as we get you clean and warm, I'll wrap it up, but you should be fine in a day or two."
"Th-thanks." She couldn't help reaching out her hand to him - he'd always been the most honest man she'd ever known. "Swear to me you weren't making that bunny bullshit up, Theo."
He held up three fingers and looked into her eyes. She'd never seen him so shaken, not even when they'd broken up last August. "Scout's honor."