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A groan summoned Russell James Adams to his bedroom, but first, he stopped outside the doorway and donned the mask dangling from his left ear. Despite the stranger’s lack of fever and cough, he wasn’t about to risk exposure to a deadly virus, not when he’d finally found some relative peace in his life.

The woman lay tangled in the blanket he’d draped over her, the mask he’d straightened prior to assessing her condition still in place and her dark hair forming a halo on the white pillow. A flash of lightning illuminated a few silver strands at her temples, much like the gray starting to make an appearance in his own hair.

Forty wasn’t old, even if his body felt like it had aged that many years since the day he’d nearly died.

With another groan, she lifted her hand to her forehead and blinked. “Ouch. What happened? Where am I?”

“A tree fell across the road in front of your car.” The tightness in his neck and shoulders eased somewhat now that she’d regained consciousness…