Survival Instinct

“No.” Abby chuckled, but it sounded strained. Then she lifted a rock, plucked a slender object from the earth and announced triumphantly, “This.”

Abby wiped the key on her jeans and took the stairs two at a time. She slid the key into the deadbolt and opened the door to the keeper’s quarters.

“I’m glad you came along today,” Scott said.

“Thank me after we’re rescued, okay?”

Scott spotted the radio communications box on the counter just as Abby reached it and began flipping switches, waiting impatiently and then scowling when she didn’t get a response.

“I don’t understand,” she muttered, flipping a toggle up and down.

“I think I do.” Scott reached past her to the lifeless power cord. He held up the severed end for her to see. “It’s been cut.”

RACHELLE MCCALLA

ate seventeen pounds of chocolate while writing this book. She also did 143 loads of laundry during that same time, and thinks folding towels is one of the best cures for writer’s block (the other best cures are exercise and insomnia).

A graduate of Hastings College and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, Rachelle has lived in Iowa, Illinois, South Carolina (briefly!), and Wisconsin, and now makes Nebraska her home. When she’s not writing, Rachelle spends most of her time at the church where her husband is pastor, or running after their four energetic children. For more information on forthcoming titles, plus fun background notes on the places and characters in this book, visit www.rachellemccalla.com. You can also find Rachelle on the message boards at www.eHarlequin.com.

Survival Instinct

Rachelle McCalla

Two are better than one because they have a good return for their work:

if one falls down, his friend can help him up.

But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!

—Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

To Ray, without whom there would be no book.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the congregation of Bayfield Presbyterian Church for calling us to Bayfield. I would never have known there was a Devil’s Island if it hadn’t been for you.

Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read this book. I’m honored.

Thank you to Emily Rodmell, for believing my manuscript could become a book.

And to Ms. Henre, for making me learn English.

And most importantly, to Jesus Christ, who brought me to this place. Only You know what it cost to get me here. Thank You.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

PROLOGUE

Someone was watching her. Abby Caldwell clutched her keys and hastened her steps, reminding herself that for all the times she’d felt eyes on her over the past few weeks, she’d never actually seen anyone. For all she knew, the feeling was a figment of her imagination. Perhaps she was overworked and in need of a vacation.

Abby reached her back door and jammed the key in the lock. She’d half twisted the knob when a huge hand covered hers. A voice she thought she’d left behind years before rumbled above her ear. “Hey, Abby.”

He must have seen she was about to scream, because his other hand immediately covered her mouth. “Don’t get too excited. I just want to talk.” He pulled his hand slowly away from her mouth.

Abby swallowed her cry and nodded, even though she didn’t believe him. Trevor Price never just wanted to talk.

She tried to make her voice sound light, to play along. “I thought the Coast Guard had you stationed somewhere else. Near Canada?”

“I was.” His voice sounded even more menacing than she remembered it. “I’ve been back for a few months now. I’m surprised you haven’t seen me. I’ve seen plenty of you.”

So she hadn’t imagined the feeling of being watched. If the six-foot-five-inch gorilla hadn’t been holding her wrist so tightly, she might have accused him of stalking her. Instead she asked in a whisper, “What do you want?”

“The ring.”

Her heart beat so hard she thought she’d choke. “I don’t have it,” she told him honestly. She hadn’t had it in years—not since she’d buried it, along with all its bitter memories, in the spot where he’d proposed to her on Devil’s Island.

“Well, then, find it.” Trevor trailed one finger down the side of her cheek, his icy eyes holding hers. “Or I’ll have to come look for it myself.”

Abby pinched her eyes shut. Trevor was a bully, that was all. And he couldn’t bully her without her permission. She opened her eyes and stared him down.

“Why do you need it? Why now? It’s been what—six years?”

His hand loosened slightly at her wrist. “Five. And that ring never should have been yours. I never should have proposed to you.”

Finally, something they could both agree on. Their entire relationship had been the biggest mistake of her life, but she thought she’d put it behind her.

As she watched with fearful eyes wide, Trevor lifted Abby’s left hand up in front of her face. He pinched her ring finger and slowly bent it back.

“It fit perfectly, didn’t it?” Trevor’s mouth hovered close to her ear. He pulled her finger back farther, and she blinked back tears. “Return the ring to me within forty-eight hours, or you won’t have anywhere to wear it.”

“But, I don’t—” she started to protest.

“Find it!” He jerked her finger back until she thought it would snap. “You have two days.” With that, he dropped her hands, let her go and strode away.

Abby hurried to unlock her door and slid inside, locking it after her before Trevor could change his mind and come back. Then she leaned against the door frame and flexed her fingers, the lowest joint of her ring finger throbbing where Trevor had wrenched it.

She wasn’t sure exactly what his threat meant, but she knew Trevor Price enough to know he wouldn’t have any qualms about following through with it. If she didn’t get the ring to him within two days, he’d cut off her finger—or worse.

ONE

The dark gray-blue water faded to the blue sky as the speedboat Helene cleared the western side of Bear Island and entered the open water of Lake Superior. Abby Caldwell shivered and pulled her jacket more snugly around her, glad she’d opted for the fleece-lined windbreaker instead of a sweater. October could be cold in northern Wisconsin, and it was invariably colder on the lake. She’d hoped this Saturday would turn out warm, but it was already midmorning and the sun had yet to peek out of the clouds.

Captain Sal steered the Helene east, at cross-angles with the waves that were higher here away from the protection of the islands. Abby felt the rhythmic slap, slap, slap as each wave smacked the twenty-foot craft, jarring her already nervous stomach. If she didn’t fear Trevor Price so much, she would never be out on the deadly Gitche Gumee this late in the season.

She could see the autumn colors of Devil’s Island in the distance, and though she’d never liked the island, she was glad to see it now. The sooner she got there, the sooner she’d be off the stomach-rocking boat and onto solid ground. And the sooner she’d be able to get the ring and Trevor out of her life for good.

Abby said a silent calming prayer and glanced over at the other passengers. She’d shared water taxi rides with tourists before, and was thankful to find this group less talkative than many. She wasn’t in the mood to chat. To her relief, the three tourists were looking ahead to the island and appeared to have forgotten she was even with them. Abby squinted at the figure in the Northwoods College ball cap, the one closest to the boat’s tiny cabin, the one with the broad shoulders and square set jaw.

She recognized him. It had been nine years since she’d last seen him, and though his face had grown firmer with age, the sight of him still set her insides quivering with awareness. Scott Frasier had been the star quarterback of the Northwoods College football team the year they’d almost won the championship, the only year they’d made it to the play-offs in college history. Everybody from Northwoods College knew Scott Frasier. According to the school’s alumni magazine, he was a psychologist of some sort in the Twin Cities area now.

Scott wouldn’t recognize her. She’d only been a freshman his senior year, and seniors never bothered with freshmen, even if they had been in the same poetry class fall semester, and often ended up in the same discussion group. In some ways, she was glad he wouldn’t remember her, and equally grateful the noise of the boat and wind discouraged conversation. She didn’t want to have to explain what she was doing on this trip.

The other two, a man and woman who looked to be in their early fifties, were probably Scott’s parents. The woman looked like him, anyway, with the same statuesque height and aquiline nose. The man was certainly shorter, softer, rounder, but the way he clung on to the woman’s side, he was bound to be her husband. Her fingers were covered with diamonds, and the particularly huge stone on the ring finger of her left hand matched the setting of the masculine ring he wore.

“Coming about,” Captain Sal announced, his voice thick with a Wisconsin brogue. There had been a time when the accent would have sounded foreign to her ears, but after nearly a decade in northern Wisconsin, Abby would have probably pronounced it much the same way. She watched carefully as he steered the craft well wide of the southern tip of the island, knowing that even on the sandy side, boulders hid just below the surface, ready to scrape their underside and send the Helene sinking like the Titanic.

As soon as Sal had positioned the boat alongside the long wooden dock, Abby stood, ready to get on with her errand. Scott leaped agilely onto the faded wooden planks, then reached out toward her.

“Need a hand up?” he asked, his smile friendly.

Abby already had one hand on the high metal support that held the dock, and she’d never been one to lean on anybody. She gave a shrug and started to pull herself up, hoping he wouldn’t think she was being rude. The idea of being in physical contact with him made her stomach flutter in a different sort of way than it had on the rough water of the lake.

Waves from the Helene’s wake hit the pier, rocking the boat in a dipping, unsteady rhythm. With one foot on the boat and one on the dock, Abby felt her legs wobbling madly beneath her, and she braced herself for the impact of the wooden planks as her face keeled toward them, while she clung to the metal support. The last thing she wanted was to end up in the cold water of Lake Superior.

Scott’s arms were around her in an instant, hoisting her upward effortlessly. They stumbled backward together down the long dock for three or four steps before Abby managed to gain control of her feet. Her face pressed against the soft cotton of Scott’s T-shirt where it was exposed by the open buttons of his quilted flannel shirt. For a moment, she was aware of the strong beat of his heart and the thick muscles that told her he hadn’t lost his college football-player physique.

Then she pushed away, instantly self-conscious, as Sal’s voice carried behind her. “Just wait till I get her tied up, now,” he chided in his thick brogue.

“Are you all right?” Scott asked, peering into her face.

“Yes, fine.” She brushed at her clothes as though she could as easily brush away the feeling of being in his arms. Oh, how the Abby of nine years ago would have swooned at the thought of that moment! “Thanks to you.” She smiled up at him, trying to appear grateful and confident and not the least bit affected by him, though she was. Now she needed to get on with her hike and get away from him before she made an even bigger fool of herself.

She cleared her throat, which had gone inexplicably dry, and started off down the pier. The island drew her attention, so wild and remote, and so deceptively beautiful in its fall colors. Then she glanced back at the other couple, still on the boat, who appeared to be arguing in low tones. The woman grasped her necklace and shook her head firmly. Abby wanted to thank them for letting her share the water taxi out to the island, but at the same time, she didn’t want to interrupt.

Turning her attention back to Scott, she smiled. “Thanks for the ride. I’m going to take a quick hike. I should be back here well within an hour.”

“Take your time. We’ve hired Captain Sal for two hours. Where are you off to?”

“There’s a lighthouse on the north side of the island,” Abby explained simply, “and a road leading up there.”

Scott looked off in the direction she’d indicated. “I might like to see that,” he said in a musing voice, then looked back to the older couple. “But my mother will want to look for driftwood. I’ll have to check it out later.”

Impatient to get on with her search, Abby figured Scott’s plans weren’t any of her business. “Right. Thanks again.” She threw a wave his way and headed up the dock, breathing deeply of the crisp air as the scent of the lake gave way to forest smells, pine and birch and hemlock, and the earthy aroma of wet fallen leaves. She had a mission to accomplish, and the chilling memory of Trevor’s tight grip hastened her steps.

Abby tried to stick to the middle of the path, where a tangle of weeds gave the moist clay-topped drive some measure of traction. The rest of the road was slick from a heavy rain that had drenched the Apostle Islands and most of Lake Superior the night before, so Abby was glad for her thick-soled hiking boots. Still, keeping a fast pace was nearly impossible. When she spotted a sturdy-looking fallen tree branch, she snapped off the narrow end over her knee and used the remainder as a hiking stick, which gave her a greater measure of balance and allowed her to move more quickly.

In six minutes’ time she’d reached the old keeper’s quarters, where Coast Guardsmen had lodged year-round in the decades before the lighthouse had been automated. She’d been a tenant there, too, one summer. But that was a time she preferred not to think about.

The road leveled off and became a narrow, grassmatted path. Glad for the added traction, Abby dropped her walking stick and picked up her pace to a jog. Two minutes later, the woods opened up to the wide sea before her. Had the sky been clear, she could have seen the lake’s northern shore, with Minnesota on the left and Canada off to the right. Instead an uncertain haze blanketed the horizon.

With a glance at the lighthouse to her right, Abby turned off the trail to her left, surprised at how quickly she was able to locate the narrow rabbit run she’d followed only twice before.

Her nervous stomach rose like a lump in her throat, and she realized she’d clenched her hands into tight fists. The ring finger on her left hand still ached, a reminder of Trevor’s threat. Forcing herself to relax, she prayed silently, Lord, please let the ring be there, and please help me find it.

The small clearing hadn’t changed, its brownstone outcropping as solid as the island itself. Abby spied the distinctly shaped rock quickly and dropped to her knees, praying again as she lifted it, her eyes blind to the brassy coiled centipedes and moss-gray roly-polies that fled for cover when she exposed them to the light.

The ring had not tarnished. Its gold was still vibrant, its central diamond brilliant. She grabbed it up, dropped the rock and poked the ring deep into the tiny fifth pocket of her jeans. Then she inhaled a cleansing breath and exhaled a prayer of thanks before heading back toward the dock.

The downhill trek seemed easier now, and though she slowed her pace, the hike of just over a mile passed quickly. As she reached the southern end of the island and stepped free of the woods, she saw Scott heading toward the dock with driftwood in his arms. He smiled as she approached. “Back so soon? That wasn’t nearly an hour.”

Abby shrugged. She didn’t bother trying to fight back the smile she felt at seeing him. He was such a handsome man, and with the ring now safely in her pocket, she could relax a little and enjoy being on the island with him. “How’s the search for driftwood going?”

Scott looked down at the meager pile of wood he’d set on the concrete slab at the head of the dock, then turned his head toward where the older couple walked along the rocky shore, nearly out of sight around the curve of the island. “My stepfather,” he began, his eyes stormy, but then apparently decided against voicing his opinion. His expression softened. “I don’t suppose you’d want to show me the lighthouse?”

His request brought a smile to Abby’s lips in spite of the fear she still felt. He wanted to spend time with her, too? “I thought you were spending this trip with your mother.”

“I have, and I will.” His voice sounded resigned. “But I need a break. You were up there and back so quickly, and they’re busy enough with their bickering I’m sure they’ll hardly notice if I slip away.” He looked imploringly toward her.

Abby’s eyes widened and she looked him full in the face for the first time. From close-up his face appeared more manly than boyish, with smile creases branching out from his eyes. She realized how much they’d both aged since college. “Sure. It’s right this way.” Suddenly self-conscious, she diverted her eyes from his face and focused instead on watching her feet as they made their way up the slick path.

They reached the road and began the steady uphill trek. The woods quickly closed in behind them. Abby felt she ought to make conversation with her hiking partner to break the awkward silence, but the only thing she could think of was the need to confess their shared history, however long ago it had been.

“You probably don’t remember me,” she started hesitantly, “but I believe we were at Northwoods College around the same time.”

“Abby Caldwell,” Scott stated with assurance. “We had a poetry class together.”

Abby’s heart nearly stopped, and one foot took a wild slip on a patch of slimy clay.

Scott grabbed her arm, steadying her. “I’m Scott Frasier, by the way.” His grin was broad, and he looked pleased.

“I remember,” she said breathlessly, far too aware of the stable, comforting grip of his hand on her arm. “You were on the football team. Starting quarterback. I went to every game.”

Scott grinned. “So what are you up to these days?”

“I live and work in Bayfield.” Abby tried to keep both her voice and feet steady as she continued up the road, Scott’s hand still on her arm. “Have you heard of the Eagle Foundation?”

“They’re a conservation group, aren’t they?”

“Yes, that’s right. I represent the northern Wisconsin region.”

“I seem to recall you being active in environmental causes in college,” Scott noted.

Abby giggled. It was a foolish, schoolgirl kind of giggle, and she immediately felt embarrassed, though the fact that Scott Frasier remembered anything about her made her giddy on a level she’d thought she’d left behind years ago.

Before she could make a bigger fool of herself, Scott’s head cocked to one side. He dropped her arm and took a step back in the direction they’d come.

Then Abby heard it—the distinct sound of a motor running, revving higher, much as the Helene had sounded when they’d first left the Bayfield pier. Concern immediately replaced embarrassment. “Is that our boat?”

“I believe so.” Scott nodded and took a few more steps downhill.

Abby moved soundlessly toward him, listening carefully for some indication that would tell them what the boat, now hidden by thick trees, would be doing running its motor when Captain Sal had promised to wait for them.

“Perhaps he’s just going around to the other side of the dock. Maybe it’s a better spot there,” Scott suggested.

Abby shook her head. “No chance of that. The west side of the dock is the only decent anchorage. On the east side the bottom is flat sandstone, which won’t hold an anchor.”

“You know the island pretty well.” Scott sounded impressed as he picked up his pace and began to trot down the hill.

“I spent most of one summer living here while I worked for the Park Service.” She just managed to keep up with him. A second later they cleared the edge of the trees, in time to see the Helene nosing for the gap between Rocky and Otter Islands.

“Hey!” Scott shouted, waving his arms in the air as he raced after the boat. “Hey, where are you going?”

He came to a stop near the end of the pier and Abby trotted up beside him, panting slightly, not just from the run, but from the oppressive fear she felt creeping up from her stomach to her lungs, its cold fingers gripping her, making it difficult to breathe. “He’s leaving us.” She could still see Captain Sal sitting at the wheel of the boat. He looked back twice and had to have seen them but made no move to communicate. Instead he hunched his shoulders, almost as though he was trying to shrink smaller and hide.

“Why would he do that?” Scott stared out in the direction the Helene had gone, though she’d soon be out of sight around Rocky’s southern tip. “Do you think he forgot something? He said he’d give us two hours. It hasn’t even been one.”

Abby shook her head, the fear sending shivers up her arms. She’d never liked Devil’s Island. It had only ever brought her trouble and heartache. And now she had a very bad feeling she was going to be spending far more time there than she ever would have wanted. “There isn’t really anywhere he could go and be back in that short of time. I think he was just waiting for all of us to be out of sight before he left. It looks to me like he’s headed back toward Bayfield but he doesn’t want to be seen.”

“So he’s just leaving us here?” The Helene was out of sight now, and Scott turned back to Abby.

“That’s what it looks like to me.” As she spoke, Abby tried to push back her fear.

Scott didn’t like the helpless feeling that crept over him when he saw his mother, Marilyn, picking her way back across the rocky shore toward the dock with Mitch beside her. He had no idea why Captain Sal had made off with the boat. At least Abby had some familiarity with the island. He could only hope she’d know how to get them back to the mainland.

As he could have predicted, his mother’s face was blanched white by the time she reached the dock. “Please tell me he’s coming back,” she insisted.

“I don’t know,” Scott told her, though he had a pretty good idea, given the man’s body language, that he’d purposely left them.

“Didn’t he say he’d be back in two hours? We did say two hours, didn’t we? Maybe he thought we said ten hours.”

Before Scott could reply, Mitch barked, “Where’s the boat?” He gave Scott a look as though he’d somehow been behind its disappearance.

“Somewhere south of here,” Scott responded vaguely. His mom had been emotionally fragile ever since his father had died four years before. Scott knew the current situation would shake her even more. He wished he knew how to keep Mitch from making it worse.

“Why’d he take off? When’s he coming back?” Mitch’s face turned red from the combined effort of shouting and tromping down the dock. “Where’s your mother’s purse—and her diamonds?”