Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Trapper’s head jerked toward the door, and his tail snapped straight. His low growl made Glenn pick up his rifle from beside the door and inch it open.
Summer started to cough.
“Quiet.”
She pulled the blanket over her mouth and nose and muffled the noise.
A mountain lion stood not ten feet away and snarled in his direction.
Glenn raised the rifle and stared it down.
It was a beautiful animal, but he didn’t like the fact there was a cat this big in the area. Sneaky fuckers who liked to creep up on you from behind and sink those long fangs into an unwary skull.
Summer was as naive as they came. She’d probably try to pet the damned thing.
Trapper growled again, hackles raised, teeth bared, more than willing to take on the feline that must weigh three times what he did.
“Quiet.” He didn’t want the dog to bark in case there were people around, which was probably overcautious. The cougar was a more immediate problem than some imaginary search effort in this sort of weather.
The dog stopped growling.
“Good boy.” His fingers hugged the trigger, tempted, but he couldn’t bring himself to risk the noise of a shot. He searched for the slingshot he usually kept in his back pocket, but it was gone.
He scanned the floor, but it wasn’t here. Must have fallen out. Dammit.
With the rate this snow was coming down, it wouldn’t surface until May, and he’d be long gone by then.
“What is it, Papa?” Summer’s voice was a plaintive cry. “Is it the bad people?”
“No. It’s nothing. Stay here. I won’t be long.”
He grabbed a can of refried beans off the shelf and went back to the door, picked up his pistol. His knife was in his belt if he needed it.
He and Trapper slipped out the door. He closed it behind him, leaving Summer alone, but safe from would-be predators.
He weighed the can in his hand and walked purposely toward the tawny creature, whose amber eyes glinted with ire.
The cat snarled, and he hurled the beans with all his might at the animal’s ribcage.
The animal yelped and jumped four feet in the air, spun away, and ran toward the trees.
The world could thank him later when the cougar didn’t eat some hiker or cyclist who was out enjoying the scenery.
Something made him turn his head. He raised his nose and sniffed the air. Something acrid rode the breeze. Smoke? Fuck. Definitely smoke.
Sonofabitch.
He squatted, then made his way west through the boulders, hunkered down out of the wind and out of sight.
He carefully threaded his way down toward the river, staying hidden, his hand on Trapper’s collar, when he spotted a figure in the distance, carrying skis and rifles, headed in the other direction.
Glenn froze, the hairs on his nape standing at attention.
Who the fuck was that?
A tall man. Military bearing. Glenn didn’t have his binoculars with him so he couldn’t see details of the weapons.
Could be a poacher. There were plenty about, but he doubted it. The guy didn’t move like a poacher.
Cop? FBI? Navy SEAL?
Someone who seemed to know what they were doing… Glenn eyed the large patch of open water that hadn’t been there earlier. Had someone fallen in?
Whether they had or not, that open water meant whoever was on the other side of the river would need to go up or downstream to cross—unless it refroze overnight. Considering this frigid wind, that was a distinct possibility.
He swore. Someone was looking after him—that was for damned sure. He sent a little thanks up to the Heavens.
He glanced at his dog whose ears were pricked and eyes locked on the figure as it disappeared into the swirling snow.
How many of them were there?
Should he go down and finish them off? Or not? He thought about the cougar and his child. About all the things he needed to be prepared to do to keep his little girl safe from predators.
Would it be better to eliminate the threat? Take them out one by one?
By the time their bodies were found, he’d be long gone. Or should he disappear like a ghost into the night?
Unsure, he crept closer.
Back at their makeshift emergency camp, Sebastian grabbed his sleeping bag from his pack. It was something he should have done earlier, but his brain had almost shut down when he’d seen Nora fall through the ice into that river.
Everything had switched to slow-motion.
Following her out onto that weak ice had been foolish, but there was no way on this earth he wouldn’t have done so—even if he’d had time to think about it.
He’d thrown down his weapons and ski poles and launched himself across that frozen surface in a slide that would have made Babe Ruth proud, stretching out his hand to reach her, digging in with the side of his skis to stop him from going right into the water beside her.
It had been sheer luck the ice had held his prone weight. He’d fully expected to go through. But he’d been determined to do everything in his power to save Nora.
Everything.
And it had been so fucking close.
He still shook—a vibration that sang in his bones, a tuning fork to primal terror. It revealed a vulnerability that scared the ever-loving shit out of him.
And she wasn’t out of the woods yet. He took the blanket from around her shoulders and laid it on the ground close to the fire but not so close it would burn.
Her fingers were bone-white where she gripped the survival bag, up around her chin.
The danger of frostbite loomed on top of hypothermia and death.
“Lie down.” The fact she complied without arguing told him how bad it was—she didn’t even seem to know it. Another sign of hypothermia was confusion. He stripped down to his socks and underwear, then wriggled inside the bag next to Nora. Flinching at the iciness of her skin.
Once inside, lying on their sides, chest to chest, he dragged his proper sleeping bag over the two of them, then wrapped his arm around her as she burrowed into his heat.
She was so fucking cold it almost took his breath.
The socks had probably saved her toes. Her fingers formed icy fists against his heart. Her legs pressed against his, and so he wrapped his around hers.
“Put your fingers under my arms.” He shifted so she had better access and he was on his back.
She sank her hands into his armpits, and he tried not to yelp.
Her frozen nose buried itself into the crook of his neck, her legs wrapped around his like vines, her breasts pressed against his chest sending a heightened sense of awareness into every cell of his body.
And this was not how he’d wanted to get Nora Deacon naked. Never in a million years.
She shivered like a jackhammer, and he held on to her with an intensity born of desperation.
Fuck.
She would not die.
He couldn’t lose her.
He didn’t even know her yet.
The fire on their left produced a fair amount of heat that helped combat the rapid drop in ambient temperature.
Chance curled up against his right hip—another heat source.
The snow fell more heavily now, but they weren’t as exposed as they could have been with the undercut bank above and behind them, and the massive snowdrift on their right.
He should have radioed Novak already, but everything had happened so fast. Plus, there was no chance a chopper could have gotten out here quickly enough to save Nora’s life, and possibly not at all given the low cloud ceiling and incoming blizzard.
He’d had to act immediately and continue to act until she was warm again and they could figure their way out of this mess.
The two of them would not be able to get back to the cabin tonight. They were going to have to ride out the storm here, together, and if Nora was to have any chance of getting through this alive, he needed to raise her core temp back to normal ASAP.
Then he’d figure out a shelter and clothes and a plan for tomorrow.
He had some spare things she could wear in his pack. He’d have to arrange her clothes in a way they could dry overnight. And her boots. Which meant a decent shelter and a constant fire.
If he couldn’t find her ski beneath the ice and retrieve it without falling into the river, they’d be on snowshoes from here on out, which would slow them down immensely. Unless he decided to call for a heli-vac as soon as the weather cleared.
Nora wouldn’t want to leave without knowing what had happened to Summer.
He knew that. And, if she’d brought her sled and portable shelter the way he knew she’d wanted, she’d already be inside and undercover, and he could have dragged her back to the cabin easily enough as soon as she was warm enough to travel.
He should have erred on the side of caution.
He rubbed his hands up and down her arms.
Was it his imagination or did she feel a tiny bit warmer?
“Nora?”
“Yeah?”
“Just making sure you hadn’t fallen into a coma.”
He felt the stutter of a laugh against his collarbone. “G-give it t-time.”
Her sense of humor never failed. Even in the most extreme of circumstances. It made him sad for reasons he couldn’t explain.
He squeezed her. “Not on my watch.”
“P-promise me s-something.” She tilted her head back, and he got the full force of those unusual eyes.
Her dilated pupils—another bad sign—made the thin crescent of her irises look almost purple in this light.
“P-promise me that if I do f-fall into a coma and d-die, you’ll find Chance a good home, s-somewhere he can be a working dog but where he’s l-loved. ”
“You are not going to die.”
Her fingers clenched against his skin. “But if…”
No way was he even thinking about that, so he went with sarcasm instead. “I’m sure Max would volunteer.”
“Not Max, n-no. His dog, B-Bruno, doesn’t like Chance, and so C-Chance would always be tolerated, but never loved the way he needs to be loved.
” She groaned dramatically, and he felt a piece of the ice encasing his heart chip away.
“And Max would probably use the tragic tale of his l-long-lost l-love’s poor sad black Lab to s-seduce the next woman who c-catches his eye. ”