Chapter 29
Steph
In your socks. In the snow.
Those were the words Steph landed on, and she didn’t regret them. She had about ten seconds of satisfaction watching them hit before the rest of Jack’s words settled in, and the satisfaction curdled into something else entirely. Anger.
She saved his life. She assessed the situation, identified the threat, used the tools available to her, and executed. Bear spray at close range, element of surprise, and a solid branch. And it worked. The man was down. Jack was free. They were out of immediate danger.
Careless.
The word circled back and bit again.
“We need to keep moving.” Her voice came out even, and she was grateful for that.
Jack said nothing. He adjusted the rifle under his arm while scanning the trees, and he didn’t look at her.
Fine. There was no need to look at each other. The goal was to reach the meadow, grab the sleds, and make it back to Silver Mane’s Lodge. All of that could be done without eye contact. Waiting for the rescue team was no longer an option. The best choice was to get out on their own.
She turned in the direction of the meadow.
The timber was thinner than where they’d been, the trees spaced wider apart, and the snow between them was wind-packed enough to move over without post-holing. She was grateful for that. Her legs had been through enough.
Steph set a pace that was fast but sustainable and mindful of Jack’s lack of footwear. She listened for sounds coming from behind them and tried to stop replaying the last two minutes.
Easier said than done.
That was reckless.
She’d been crouched in a deadfall pile. Done exactly what he asked her to do. She hid, sent the message, and waited. And when she heard the shooting, she made a decision. A deliberate, calculated decision, not a panic response, not recklessness.
Steph had spent years teaching people how to make decisions under pressure. Now she used that knowledge and did what she had to do.
And it worked. One poacher was down, and Jack was free.
Ungrateful and rude, but free.
Jack moved up alongside her, his socked feet crunching across the packed snow. She didn’t look at him.
“I’m not saying what you did wasn’t effective,” he said.
“Good.”
“I’m saying you took a risk that— ”
“I took a calculated risk.” She kept her eyes on the trees ahead. “There’s a difference.”
“He had a rifle.”
“He had a rifle on his back while he was looking at the trees.” She adjusted her direction slightly around a drift. “I had bear spray and the element of surprise. That’s not reckless. That’s assessment.”
“You’re not trained for that.”
Steph stopped walking. She turned to look at him and let the look say everything it needed to say before she opened her mouth.
He held her gaze without flinching, and that was actually worse. He believed what he was saying. He meant it.
“I went to school to learn about the outdoors,” she said.
“I have certifications in wilderness first aid, search and rescue, and field emergency response. I’ve been leading groups into potentially hostile terrain for years.
I live this life.” She watched his face. “Don’t tell me what I’m trained for.”
“Potentially hostile terrain is not the same as armed men who will kill to keep their secret.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
Something shifted in his expression. He didn’t back down, but the certainty in his face changed quality, the way it does when someone is revising their argument without admitting it.
“We need to keep moving,” she said, turning away from him.
They needed to grab the sleds and get out of there. Taking the road wasn’t an option. It’d be far too easy for the snowmobiles to chase them.
And Jack had to be miserable with his feet exposed. Maybe he had an extra pair of shoes in his sled. She kept an additional pair of trail shoes in her sled but hadn’t thought of asking if he had a second pair.
“I didn’t mean you were incompetent,” he said.
“I know exactly what you meant.”
“Steph— ”
“You told me to hide.” She kept walking. “I did exactly what you asked of me until I heard the shooting.” She pushed through a light crust of snow and kept her footing.
Jack slowed to step behind her and used the prints she’d made.
“At what point was I supposed to keep waiting?”
He didn’t answer.
“I made a choice. My choice. I don’t answer to you for it.”
“I know you don’t.”
“Then why are we talking about it?”
“Because I watched you walk into a situation that could’ve gotten you killed. And I can’t— ” He stopped midsentence.
She kept moving and waited, but he didn’t finish.
“You can’t what?” She turned around.
He was standing six feet back, the rifle cradled in his damaged hands, blood showing at his wrists and the cut sling from the rifle still hanging free.
She’d seen that look before. Not on him, specifically. But she recognized it. She’d worn it herself often enough in recent years, standing at the edge of something and calculating whether the crossing was worth the cost.
Steph didn’t want to recognize it. She wanted to stay angry. Up until now, she’d been doing a good job of it, but he was making that harder.
“The other two are still out here,” she said. “We need to keep moving and hope the rescue team shows up before the poachers do.”
She turned forward and walked, and he followed without argument.
The tree line dropped away to the left, the open ground of the meadow beyond it. Relief flowed at the sight, and she picked up her pace.
“You were right.” He touched her shoulder. “About staying together. I was wrong.”
She kept walking toward the sleds, moving faster so his hand fell from her shoulder.
“Splitting up was my idea,” he said louder. “My idea and it was wrong, and you told me it was wrong.”
“I know I told you it was wrong. I was there.”
“I’m trying to— ”
“I know what you’re trying to do. And I don’t want to hear it right now.”
“Steph.”
“What you said to me . . . ” She’d managed to keep the anger clean up to that point, functional, the kind that kept things moving. What came into her voice now was something underneath the anger, and she couldn’t stop it. “After what I just did, what I risked, you called me careless.”
“I know.”
“I’ve been out here all night, the same as you. I ran from the same people and hid from the same spotlight, and I did everything you asked me to do.” Her voice was controlled. She made sure of that. “And the moment I saved your life, you stood there and told me I was reckless.”
He looked at her and said nothing.
“I was right about you from the beginning. I told myself I was wrong. I let myself believe I was wrong.” She paused and took a deep breath. “I wasn’t wrong.”
“That’s not— ”
“I think you should know that whatever I thought was happening between us, whatever I thought the last several hours meant, I was confused. The situation was intense, and I read it wrong.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re hurt, and you’re pulling back. I understand why, but that’s not fair.”
She snorted. “You want to talk to me about fair?”
“I want to talk to you about what’s actually happening.” His voice was still controlled, but the control had an edge to it now. “Yes, I said something wrong. I said it badly and from the wrong place, and you didn’t deserve it. All of that is true.”
He reached out again, this time touching her on the forearm. “But you telling me you misread our time together is not you being honest. That’s you deciding it’s safer to go back to the version of me that’s easier to be mad at.”
She opened her mouth.
“You just told me you weren’t reckless. That you made a careful, tactical decision.
So did I. And mine got me captured. Yours got me free.
” The edge in his voice was something she hadn’t heard from him before.
Not anger, exactly. Something more complicated and less comfortable.
“One of us was right today, and it wasn’t me. ”
The acknowledgment landed somewhere she hadn’t braced for.
Steph kept walking but looked over at him to see him looking back.
She’d been reckless, that much was true.
When she’d looked at him in the dark of a rock crevice and decided to believe what she was starting to feel, that had been the actual recklessness.
She’d known it going in and had done it anyway.
And now she was tromping through the snow on the other side of it, trying to figure out what was left.
“Steph.” He touched her hand. “I need to tell you about Celeste.”
An engine turned over.
Her head snapped toward the sound.
“They found Todd,” Jack said.
Another engine started.
He reached for her hand. “We need to hide.”