Hate Me Not, page 1
part #1 of Badger Creek Duet Series Series
HATE ME NOT
ALEX AND DELANEY BOOK TWO
BADGER CREEK DUET SERIES
CLAIRE RAYE
Copyright © 2022 by Claire Raye
www.claireraye.com
Cover Design by Amy Queau of Designs
Cover Photography by Regina Wamba
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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CONTENTS
1. Alex
2. Delaney
3. Alex
4. Delaney
5. Alex
6. Delaney
7. Alex
8. Delaney
9. Alex
10. Delaney
11. Alex
12. Delaney
13. Alex
14. Delaney
15. Alex
16. Delaney
17. Alex
18. Delaney
19. Alex
20. Delaney
21. Alex
22. Delaney
23. Alex
24. Delaney
25. Alex
26. Delaney
27. Alex
28. Delaney
29. Alex
30. Delaney
More of Alex and Delaney
What’s Next
Also by Claire Raye
About the Author
1
ALEX
My eyes fly open as I take a sudden gasp for breath, my chest heaving with the effort even as a weight presses down on me. Fuck, where the hell am I?
I blink, the whiteness that surrounds me almost blinding.
My body feels numb and for a second I wonder if I’m paralyzed; maybe dead.
I can feel my heart pounding in my chest, a hard beat against my rib cage as I try to move. But I’m boxed in, my body somehow trapped.
I open my mouth and try to suck in another lungful of air. The pain hits me immediately, almost winding me as I try. The air is so fucking cold, and it hurts to breathe, but I force myself to do it again.
And again.
I’m freezing and I know I need to get up, but my legs and arms don’t seem to want to work. I try to look around, but I can’t see anything, my surroundings are nothing but white.
“Fuck,” I groan, swallowing hard as I try again. “Fuck!”
My voice sounds louder this time, but the silence that follows feels deafening. And it’s in that instant that I’m hit with the sudden reminder of everything that happened.
Being on that far mountain, trying to clear the skiers. The weird cracking sound that was unbelievably loud, before a sudden whoosh surrounded us, like a fucking tornado was tearing through the valley.
I remember turning, the feeling of absolute terror as I realized what was about to happen, as we both—
Fuck.
Delaney.
Delaney was with me.
I force another lungful of air in, ignoring the pain as I command my arms and legs to work. Groaning at the effort it takes, I push against the weight of a fuckload of snow and ice, as I finally get a glimpse of the sky. The dusk sky that’s about to get very dark as the sun sinks below the horizon.
Oh jesus, shit, this is not good. We can’t be out here at night. We’ll fucking freeze to death.
Crawling out of the snow I’ve been buried in, I manage to stand, my hands on my knees as I suck in deep lungfuls of air, forcing myself to breathe through the pain. My poles are long gone, but I’ve still got my skis on, although weirdly the one on the right is broken. I reach down and unclip them, realizing as I do that my backpack is still strapped to my shoulders, thank god. Something in my left shoulder hurts too, but I ignore it, knowing I don’t have time for pain right now.
I stand up, straightening as I take another deep breath before opening my mouth.
“DELANEY!”
The sound seems to echo back at me, while at the same time disappear into the distance, as though sucked into some kind of weird black hole. I glance around, desperate to find her, but I can’t see anything but snow and trees and fuck, the light is really fading fast. Where the hell is she?
“DELANEY!” I scream again, my voice already hoarse.
Somewhere in the distance I hear a cracking sound and for a second I’m paralyzed with fear that another avalanche is about to hit. I freeze, holding my breath as I wait to be swept off the mountain again, my body pounded with snow and ice and rocks like it was before.
But nothing happens.
“Fuck,” I breathe out, relieved. I prop my skis up in the snow as a marker or beacon or something, to let people know I was here. Beacon, shit, my avalanche beacon. I glance down, my gloved hands patting at my jacket, desperate to find the lifeline to us getting rescued.
But it’s gone.
“Fuck,” I curse again, kicking at the snow in frustration. How the hell have I lost the one thing that can possibly save us? The one thing I was told to never leave behind.
I turn in a circle, desperate as I pat my jacket again, hoping that somehow my beacon is still here. I feel the hard shape of something in my jacket pocket and exhaling in relief, I unzip it and grab it, only to find it’s not my beacon or my phone but my fucking lift key and ID badge. Reaching up to my helmet, I find my headlamp is also gone and I tear at the chin strap in frustration, throwing my helmet into the snow.
“Fucking hell,” I mutter, frustrated at having somehow lost the two things that could have potentially saved us, as I shove the key and ID badge back into my pocket and turn toward the trees, having no clue how to even begin looking for her.
“Delaney?” I call again, as I stumble through the snow, every step feeling like I’m walking through quicksand. “DELANEY?”
I head farther down the slope, my eyes desperately scanning the expanse of white, the trees in the distance as though they can somehow offer something. Just as I’m turning around, ready to head back in the direction I came from, I catch it. A glimpse of color.
Bright fucking neon pink color.
That neon pink ski suit I love so much.
The one I know she wore to piss me off today because she knows I love it and I don’t want anyone else staring at her in it because her ass looks fucking amazing and so does she, and after everything that happened, everything I did, I don’t blame her, but holy fucking shit, she’s here. I’ve found her.
“Laney,” I breathe out, relief washing over me as I stumble over to her, my steps clumsy and slow, “can you hear me?”
I crouch down beside where she lies on the snow, pulling my glove off with my teeth, I touch my hand to her face. She’s fucking freezing, her lips are blue and her eyes are closed. She’s lost both of her skis and has a bruise on her cheek and a large cut on the side of her head that’s bleeding into the snow.
“Laney,” I repeat. “Wake up, please, wake up.” My cold fingers move over her face and her throat, searching for a pulse. When I finally feel it, I let out the breath I didn’t even realize I was holding. “Thank fuck,” I murmur, undoing her helmet and then lowering my forehead to hers. “Laney, please, I need you to wake up.”
She groans beneath me, her body rolling toward me and my head snaps up.
“Laney?”
She blinks her eyes open, wincing in pain as she lifts her arm, her fingers touching her face.
“Don’t touch it, you’re hurt. We need to get out of here. Can you walk?”
She looks up at me, her eyes wide with terror, her teeth now chattering and I know she’s either got hypothermia or she’s going into shock. Or both.
Slipping my arm slowly beneath her shoulders, I gently ease her up. “We need to find some shelter, okay?” I tell her, trying to keep my voice calm. We need a lot more than shelter, but without shelter first, all of that other stuff will become redundant. We won’t survive the night out here.
“A…Alex,” she moans, her whole body now shaking.
I pull her close to me, trying desperately to get her warm even though I know it’s impossible. “Laney, I need you to get up. We need to find shelter. I promise I’ll get you warm, but first, you need to get up.”
I start to stand, pulling Delaney up with me. She’s shaking uncontrollably now and I’m guessing everything that’s happened is finally hitting her. I need to get her somewhere safe, somewhere I can get her warm, but where?
We’re on the side of a fucking mountain, in a valley that no one comes to. Fuck knows how far off course we were swept by that avalanche. We’re lucky to be alive.
I wrap my arm around Delaney and pull her close, her body slumping against mine. “Put your arm around me,” I tell her
She doesn’t move and I have to do it for her, before I glance up, trying to decide where the fuck to go.
In the end, we head for the trees, because if nothing else, at least they might provide some shelter, even though I know that’s bullshit and won’t do a damn thing to protect us when the sun goes down. It takes us forever to walk down there and it’s already starting to get dark by the time we do, the temperature also dropping.
“Delaney, do you—” I start to ask, but stop. Asking if she knows where we are is a dumb question. How the hell could she?
We walk through the trees and come to what looks like an old stream but is now nothing more than a ridge in the ground, filled with rocks and ice. Turning, we walk along the edge of it. It has to lead somewhere, right?
I need more light, but neither of us have our headlamps so all I can do is squint in the slowly dying daylight, silently praying that I find something that could work as shelter.
We eventually come to a small clearing by the former stream and when I glance to the left, I actually groan in relief at what I see.
A small cabin, which looks completely abandoned, but I don’t give a shit, because at least it’s shelter for us.
“Laney, look,” I exhale, pointing toward it. She doesn’t say anything though and when I look down, her eyes are closed, her body still shaking and slumped against mine. The cut on the side of her head looks to have stopped bleeding, but dry blood is caked to her face.
With a curse, I walk us toward it, our movements slow, because Delaney can barely seem to walk right now. When we reach the front door, I try the handle, but it’s locked. Cursing, I let go of Delaney, gently lowering her to sit on the small step of the porch, before I ram at the door with my shoulder.
The pain jolts through me, reminding me of the likely injury to my left shoulder, but the door bounces open and I actually cry out with relief. Pulling Delaney up, I take her inside, closing the door behind us.
It’s dark inside, but there are two small windows and in the fading light, I can make out an old wooden bed pushed against the far wall. To my left stands a small table, one of its legs propped up with a book and two steel chairs beside it. To my right is a large open space, but at the far end is an old pot belly stove, with a heavy pot sitting on top. Amazingly beside it is a stack of wood and an old rusty axe, and I send up a silent thanks that at least I don’t need to try to find a way to keep us warm tonight. Resting next to the stove is a container of long length fireplace matches making it all the better.
Depositing Delaney in one of the chairs, I take off my backpack and move over to try and get a fire going, just as the sun finally sets and the cabin plunges into darkness. Even though my backpack is mainly to carry food while I’m at work, I have a couple of other things in there, including a first aid kit.
Once the fire is going, I leave the door to the stove open to give us more light and take the steel pot outside and fill it with snow, before returning it to the stove to heat up. I then move over to the bed, grabbing the thin mattress and the musty old blanket that lies on top.
They are old and dirty and covered in dust and god knows what else, but right now I don’t give a shit. I need to get us warm and dry and this is the only way I know how.
Dropping the mattress to the floor in front of the fire, I stick another log on as I try to figure out if we have enough wood to get us through the night. It’s now pitch-black outside, the two grime-covered windows are still clear enough to see the stars in the darkened sky.
Then I turn and walk over to Delaney.
“Laney, I need you to stand up for me,” I say as I take off my jacket and hang it on the other chair. She doesn’t move, just sits there, her eyes closed, her arms wrapped around herself as she shivers. “Laney, I need to get you warm.” She still doesn’t move, even as I unclip my boots and kick them off. The zipper to my ski pants is next and as I push them down, I shiver as the cold air hits my skin, before hanging them and the long-sleeve thermal I was wearing under my jacket, up to dry.
When I’m standing in nothing but my socks and underwear, shivering because it’s fucking freezing, I pull Delaney up. She doesn’t protest as I slide her gloves and beanie off, hanging them over the chair she was just sitting in. Doesn’t say a word as I unclip her boots and pull them off, leaving them next to mine.
When my fingers move to the zipper of her suit, I expect some kind of reaction, but I get nothing as Delaney stands in front of me, her teeth chattering with the cold and her whole body shivering. Without thinking, I unzip her suit, pushing the whole thing off her before I hang it up beside my clothes on the drying rack above the table.
She’s standing in nothing but her socks, underwear and a tight tank, her arms wrapped tightly around her body. I pull her close, wrapping her in my arms for a second, as I say, “We need to get warm. I need you to come with me.”
She still doesn’t say anything and I turn and walk us over to the fire, which is now pushing out a solid wall of heat. Pulling her down onto the mattress with me, I sit her between my legs, wrapping my body around hers and then the musty blanket around both of us.
I can see the steam slowly rising from the pot on the stove as the water starts to heat and I tighten my arms, Delaney’s body now enclosed in mine.
“Laney,” I whisper, my mouth at her ear.
She lets out a small murmur as she burrows in closer to me, her shaking finally starting to slow down. I hold her tightly, desperately trying to get her warm as we sit here in silence. Eventually, I hear my name, the whispered, “Alex,” that falls from her lips.
I glance down to find her looking up at me, her face a mix of fear and worry. I give her a small smile as I lean in and press a kiss to her forehead. “Do you remember what happened?”
“Ye— yeah,” she chokes out.
“Are you okay?” I ask. “Does anything hurt?”
Delaney shakes her head even as she says, “My head, it’s…it’s bleeding.”
“It’s stopped now,” I tell her, brushing her hair back. “I’ll clean it up for you in a minute, but we need to get warm first.”
I feel her hands grip my forearms, her fingers digging in tightly. “Alex, what are we going to do? What—”
I tighten my hold on her, pulling her even closer as a spike of fear lances through me at the reality of our situation. We got taken by an avalanche. No one knows where we are. I lost my beacon and my phone, we have limited supplies and no form of communication. And we were thrown god knows how far off the mountain when we got hit.
Exhaling, I force myself to stay calm as I whisper, “I’ve got you, Laney. I’ve got you.”
2
DELANEY
I can’t seem to stop shaking, my body is trembling so hard that every single inch of it aches, and I start to wonder if this is all a dream. It feels fake, like there’s no way I’m sitting in an old hunting cabin out in the wilderness. But more so than that, it feels like it can’t possibly be real because that would mean Alex and I survived an avalanche.
I’ve been skiing almost my entire life and I’ve never once seen an avalanche happen at Badger Creek. How did this happen to us? How are we still alive and where the fuck are we? We’re going to die out here. And it’s with this thought that the tears come.
I don’t have my avalanche beacon and I can’t even bring myself to ask Alex if he has his. I wasn’t even supposed to be on the mountain in that remote part, the far off side that’s reserved for the best skiers. I was meeting Zoey after she got off work to go for a ski and then have dinner. Alex and I had been arguing and I was angry at him, so instead of trying to talk it out, I wore the sexy neon pink ski suit with a plan to make him jealous. I was going to flaunt myself in front of him when he came into the lounge after his shift. But then Elissa asked me to help clear the mountain as the storm rolled in.
