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She stepped off the porch. “Lorelei.” She sank down into the deep snow as she followed footprints away from the cabin.
A mechanical noise, the sound of an engine starting up, broke the silence. Headlights sliced through the darkness and then the snowmobile emerged from a three-sided shed. The tall man in the leather coat who had tried to rob them earlier was driving. Lorelei stepped out behind him. When the thief saw Merci, he grabbed Lorelei and pulled her toward the snowmobile.
Merci raced toward them. The man pulled a gun out of a coat pocket and pointed it at Lorelei. He said something to her, and she got on the snowmobile.
He pointed the gun at Merci and then at Lorelei. “Back off or she dies.”
“You better do what he says.” Lorelei’s voice cracked.
“No, Lorelei, I won’t let them take you.” She grabbed Lorelei’s sleeve.
The man reached up and hit Merci hard against the jaw with the butt of the gun. She fell backward. Pain, intense and hot, spread across her face. Her eyes watered. When she looked toward the house, Nathan was standing up at the far side of the stairs.
The man revved the motor, preparing to take off. Merci turned to face the thug as Nathan’s footsteps pounded behind her.
Nathan, dressed in his boots and an open coat, jumped in front of Merci. “Get off my snowmobile.” He hit the man across the face with a right hook.
Lorelei screamed and scooted back on the seat.
The man leaned sideways, recovering just in time to lift the gun as Nathan grabbed him and yanked him off the snowmobile. The gun flew out of the thief’s hand.
Merci crab-walked backward in the snow. The two men struggled, rolling around on the ground. The thief freed himself of Nathan’s grasp, scrambling for his gun where it had fallen in the snow.
Out of breath, Nathan lunged toward the man.
The man hit him with the butt of the gun just as he rose to his feet. Nathan reeled backward and fell in the snow, not moving.
The man crawled back on the snowmobile. Lorelei sat stunned. Her eyes glazed as though she didn’t really comprehend all that was happening. The man revved the snowmobile and lurched forward. Merci waited for the backward glance from Lorelei, but it never happened. She tried to get to her feet to chase them, but sank down in the snow. The snowmobile disappeared into the trees, and the engine noise faded.
Out of breath and shaking, Merci crawled over to where Nathan lay. Blood dripped from his cheek.
She shook him. “Please, please be okay.”
His eyelids fluttered. Brown eyes looked at her. “Hey,” his voice was weak, but his eyes brightened when he saw her.
She breathed a sigh of relief, then noticed he had thrown his coat over his pajama bottoms. “You’re shivering. Take my hand. Let’s get you inside.” The struggle had chilled her, but he was probably nearing hypothermia. She was dressed for the cold and hadn’t had to roll in the snow with the thief.
He sat up swaying and blinking rapidly. “What about the snowmobile and Lorelei?”
“It’s too late. We can’t catch them.” She slipped in under his arm and helped him to his feet. “Let’s get you warmed up.”
“I’m an EMT. I know what to do. I just need to…” His voice trailed off.
She helped him up the stairs and through the door, easing him down into the chair by the fire.
“The coat needs to come off, it’s wet.” She peeled it off his shoulders and put it aside. She drew the same blanket he had offered her earlier over his muscular shoulders. His lips were drained of color, and he was still shivering. She touched his cheeks with her palms, forcing eye contact. “Better?”
He drew the blanket closer as he crossed his arms over his bare chest. “Getting there. I…he knocked me off the porch…hit my head.” He touched the back of his head and winced.
She hadn’t even seen Nathan as she had raced down the stairs in search of Lorelei. “How long were you there?” She covered his freezing hands.
“I was only out for a few minutes. I came to, and I saw you struggling.”
She pulled his boots off. The inside lining of his boot was wet from where the snow had seeped in. His bare feet weren’t blue, but they looked cold. She cupped her hand over one. “Can you feel that?”
He nodded. “Exposure wasn’t long enough for frostbite, just kind of cold.”
She grabbed a throw from the couch and secured it around his feet. “Now it’s my turn to make you tea.” She rose to her feet and went into the kitchen. She allowed herself only a momentary glance out the window. Lorelei was out there somewhere with those animals. They were going to have to find her before anything bad happened. If it hadn’t already.
* * *
Heat slowly returned to Nathan’s body as he listened to Merci work in the kitchen. A tingling sensation came into his feet and hands. He wasn’t accustomed to being the one needing first aid. She had handled herself like a pro.
In the kitchen, the kettle whistled. Merci hummed while she made the tea. He caught an undercurrent of tension in her singing. Her feet padded softly on the wood floor. She brought the steaming mug on a tray and set it on the table beside him.
She picked up a wet washcloth and pointed to his cheek. “You have blood on your face that needs to be cleaned.” She leaned toward him and touched the warm cloth to his face.
He drew back, surprised by the pain. “It must be pretty bad, huh?” He was going to have a knob on the back of his head where he had been hit, too.
She dabbed at the cut. Her face was close enough to his that her cool breath fluttered across his lips. “It’s a pretty big gash.”
“I have a butterfly bandage I can use to get it to close up,” he said.
“Let me get it. Where is it?”
He really wasn’t used to being the patient. “There is a first-aid kit in my bathroom, but I can get it.” He rose to get up.
She placed a gentle but firm hand on his shoulder. “Sit.”
Something in her tone told him argument would be futile. He listened to her open and close several drawers and then she returned, placed the first-aid kit on the table by his chair and tore the bandage out of the wrapping.
“Hold still.” She leaned close, her touch as delicate as feathers brushing over his skin.
Her proximity sent a surge of heat up his face. Surprised by the sudden smolder of attraction, he turned slightly away.
“Hold still.” She grabbed his chin and readjusted his head.
She was all business. Obviously, the feelings were not mutual. “Really, I could do this myself if I looked in a mirror.” She ignored him and finished the job.
“There, that should do it.” She sat back on the hassock between the two chairs. Her hand brushed over his cheek as she scrutinized her work. “You shouldn’t have any scarring.”
He touched the bandage and then looked at her. He studied her full lips, delicate—almost invisible—eyebrows and her freckles. Her green eyes widened. For a moment, time stood still and he forgot what they had just been through and what they faced. She was a lovely young woman.
She cast her gaze downward at the bloody cloth where she had placed it on the tray. Her expression grew serious and her soft full lips drew into a tight line.
She didn’t have to say anything for him to know what she was thinking about. It had been on his mind, too. Lorelei was out there with armed men who had no qualms about using violence.
“What’s going to happen to her?” Merci couldn’t hide her anguish.
“I don’t know. He must have come back for the snowmobile, thinking that would get him and the others off the mountain. They might get a little ways, but even that won’t be good in the deeper snow.”
“But why would they take Lorelei?”
He shook his head. “Maybe he thought it would be easier to get away if he had a hostage.”
Merci nodded. “He did say if I came close, he would hurt Lorelei.”
“The others must have been waiting for him in the trees. You can’t fit four people on that snowmobile. He might let her go once he thinks he’s gotten far enough away.”
Her eyes widened with fear. “That would mean she would be wandering out there in the cold.” She brought her fingers up to her mouth and shook her head. “Or he might just kill her when she is not useful to him anymore.”
Judging from what he had seen so far, that was a possibility. He kept the thought to himself. Merci was worried enough.
“She went outside in the middle of the night like she was not in her right mind. I remember reading stories in history class about pioneer women who just walked out in the cold and died because the struggle for survival just got to be too much for them.”
Still feeling a little wobbly, Nathan rose to his feet. “She was kind of falling apart.”
Merci shuddered, then lifted her chin. A look of resolve came over her face. “We have to rescue her.”
He didn’t disagree, but they were no match for armed men. If they were to get any distance at all, they needed a break in the storm. “We don’t have any way to defend ourselves.”
“She saved my life when they attacked us in your truck.” Her eyes pleaded. “We have to do something. Maybe they’ll just let her go in the woods.”
That would be the best case scenario. “We might be able to bring her back to the cabin, but not if the thieves are close by.”
Her jerky movement as she ran her fingers through her hair revealed how anxious she was. “Maybe the police will try harder to get up here now that they know what we are dealing with.”
He hated hitting her with more bad news, but he needed to tell her the truth. “The phone line is not working. I wasn’t able to make that second call.” He braced for her reaction.
Merci sucked in a sharp breath before responding. “We have no way to contact anyone?”
“Do you have a cell phone?”
She shoved her hands in the pocket of her purple coat. “I thought I put it back in my pocket when we were at the car, but maybe I didn’t…or it might have fallen out of my pocket outside.” She rose to her feet and looked up at him. “What are we going to do to help her?”
His mind reeled, searching for possible solutions. “If they came back for the snowmobile thinking it would help them escape, they’ll get bogged down in the snow eventually.”
Merci’s eyes brightened. “So they would be on foot. That means we might be able to catch them and get Lorelei back.”
Nathan nodded. “If we get a break in the storm, we can follow the tracks. I have snowshoes and warm weather gear.”
She moved away from him and collapsed on the couch. “It’s not a smart plan, is it?”
“It’s the only viable plan we have.” He paced. “We’ll only go out a short distance. When the snowmobile becomes unviable, they might head back toward the cabin. We’ll have the element of surprise on our side.”
She laced her fingers together and bent her head. She stared at the floor for a long time as though she were mulling over what they were about to do. “We can’t leave her out there. And we can’t just wait here and hope they come back and that she is with them. You saw what those men were capable of.”
“There is a lot of ‘ifs’ to this plan.” He shook his head. “Taking her just doesn’t make a lot of sense even if she was some sort of insurance policy to get away. Maybe this isn’t a simple robbery. Is your friend rich?”
Merci shrugged. “I really don’t know her that well.”
“But you took a ride with her.” He hadn’t intended to sound accusatory.
“I was desperate. I had a terrible finals week. Someone stole textbooks out of my dorm room. I failed chemistry. My dad sent me a letter saying he and mom weren’t going to be in the States for the spring break. He thought it would soften the blow if he sent a care package, too. The final insult was that my car broke down two days before I was supposed to leave. All I could think about was how being with Aunt Celeste would make the world seem right again. I was checking the Share a Ride bulletin board when Lorelei came up to me and said she was driving to western Oregon and could drop me off.”
College students caught rides with fellow students all the time. Still, it seemed a little impulsive on Merci’s part. “So how well did you know her?”
“We weren’t best friends or anything.” Merci gathered her long hair in her hand and twisted it while she talked. “We’re in the same dorm, and we had a marketing class together last year. We worked on a project together. She’s a serious student.”
Nathan walked to the window and stared out at the deep snow. The wind wasn’t as bad as it had been earlier and the snowfall was lighter.
Merci came up behind him. “We have to do this, Nathan. She saved my life. There is no one else to help her. I’m afraid for her.”
He hated putting Merci in harm’s way. But going alone would be foolhardy, too. His resolve solidified. They had to at least try. “I have an extra pair of snowshoes. I don’t have another coat, so you will have to wear the one you have. Let’s see if we can find all the winter gear we can.”
In twenty minutes, Nathan gathered together everything he thought they might need and filled their backpacks with food and water. When he looked out the window, the storm seemed to be breaking up. There was less snow and wind.
Merci followed Nathan out onto the porch. Darkness still covered the sky, but the wind had stopped blowing. He took a moment to show her how to strap the snowshoes on. “Step lightly. Don’t waste energy pulling yourself out of the snow.”
She nodded, her face filled with trust. “Is that it?”
He picked up a silk balaclava that had been his
brother’s. “Wear this under your hat. It’ll keep your face warm.” He slipped it over her head.
“And it makes me look like a ninja.”
He smiled, grateful for the moment of humorous relief.
“Stay close. The wind isn’t bad now, but it’s important that we always be able to see each other. I’ll slow down if I need to. Are you sure about this?”
The trusting green eyes gazed up at him. “I couldn’t live with myself if something bad happened to her, knowing that I didn’t at least try to help her.”
“Me, either,” He said before taking in a prayer-filled breath. “Let’s do this.”
Nathan clicked on his flashlight and took the lead. Merci followed in his tracks. Snow swirled out of the sky. When he looked over his shoulder, she was keeping up, but the distance between them had increased.
The snowmobile tracks were easy enough to follow, making clear grooves as the snow got deeper and deeper. They were only about half a mile from the cabin when they found the abandoned snowmobile stuck in the snow.
Nathan lifted his head and shone the light. “Footprints lead off this way.”
Merci came up beside him, breathing heavily. “Do you suppose the other two thieves were waiting for them somewhere?”
“Maybe.” He studied the two sets of prints partially drifted over from snow. “I can tell you one thing. He’s not taking her back to the cabin.”
Merci came up beside him and shone her flashlight. “There’s not any blood. No sign of struggle. She must still be okay. Where are they going?”
“These footprints point toward the camp.” He took off his gloves and tightened the drawstring around his hood. The temperature had to be below zero, but at least the wind wasn’t blowing too bad.
“How would they even know about the camp?”
Nathan shrugged. “Maybe they saw the signs when they drove in and remembered it.”
“How far is it to the camp?” She clamped her gloved hand on his forearm.
He turned and shone his light on the cluster of trees and the trail behind him. “It’s only a little farther to go to the camp than it is to go back to the cabin.” He remembered something that lifted his spirits. “My father used to keep a rifle in the camp office to use in case of bear attacks. Only the stuff that varmints will damage gets taken out of the camp in the off-season. I think the rifle is left there.”
“If we had a gun, it would be easier to get Lorelei back.” Hope tinged Merci’s voice.
The decision was not a hard one to make. He knew the layout of the camp like the back of his hand, had keys to all the buildings and a rifle meant they could defend themselves if they had to. The odds had shifted a little. “Let’s keep going.”
They trudged forward in the dark. The flashlight beam illuminated a small path in front of them. Merci fell a few paces behind him. After about thirty minutes, the wind picked up again. The break in the storm had been short-lived as the snowfall became heavier again.
He felt a tug on his coat. “It’s getting worse. I think I need to stay closer.”
Nathan draped an arm over Merci’s shoulder as both of them put their heads down and leaned into the wind. He only hoped they had not made a mistake. They had taken a gamble that the weather would hold. Conditions were hazardous at best. A little more wind, a few degrees’ drop in temperature and they would be fighting for their lives.
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