Alaskan Ambush

THREE

Kate pulled a blanket tighter around herself and leaned against the cabin wall. She didn’t remember the last time she’d pushed herself that hard physically and it felt good. No wonder her sister ran around mountain trails for fun. Today was almost enough to convince Kate to take it up herself.

If only she’d been doing it for fun, and not to save her own life. She shuddered, tried to push the past twenty-four hours out of her mind, but she knew she shouldn’t bother. Micah needed to know what had happened, for the sake of his investigation, and she was the only one who could tell him.

Time to admit defeat and do it. Almost. “I’ll tell you as soon as I call Noah.”

She’d just reached her backpack when Micah stopped her, his hands coming down on hers. “Stop.”

“I need to tell him where I am.” She stared at him, trying to figure out why he wouldn’t let her... “Oh. Right.”

“Your satphone will give the Delaneys something to trace.”

In all her efforts to make sure they weren’t tracked, she hadn’t thought of electronic issues. Micah had mentioned it earlier but she’d forgotten.

Micah seemed to read the look on her face. “Is it on?”

Kate shook her head. She was thankful for that at least. She’d been in too big of a hurry when she packed her bag to power the phone on. Her siblings would have said God was taking care of her. Kate didn’t know. “No, it’s off.”

“We should be okay, then, but don’t use it.”

“My siblings will worry.”

“Better that they worry tonight and have you get back safely tomorrow than make them feel better now and tell the Delaneys our exact location.”

She nodded and pulled the blanket tighter around herself. Her hands had started to shake slightly. She gripped the blanket and took a deep breath, willing her body to calm down. “Everything about today was normal until lunchtime.”

“What happened then?”

“I’d been out this morning, at the lodge taking some pictures to include in the new brochure Tyler and Emma made up to advertise the lodge. I went home to get lunch and my house had been torn apart. Drawers open, mess everywhere and furniture cushions slashed, just like at the cabin here.”

It had been jarring, helping her brother and new sister-in-law, seeing their excitement over the shots she’d gotten, and then finding the destruction at her house.

“Someone trying to threaten you? Warn you away from something?” Micah asked.

She shrugged. “Could be, but it looked more like they were searching for something. Any idea what?”

She studied his face, but he gave nothing away with his expressions. Something he’d probably learned from being a cop, because when he was a kid Kate had been able to read practically every thought on his face. She’d never told him that, but apparently someone had pointed out his lack of poker face and he’d fixed it at some point in the last few years. It disappointed her, and then surprised her that it had.

“Did I tell you what the Delaneys are accused of doing?”

“Yes. You didn’t mention any violent crimes, though. Do they have a history of assault? Or murder?”

“Not until today.” This time she could read his face. His partner. She winced, almost feeling his pain for herself, shutting out the memories that threatened to overtake her. They were always there, waiting in the edges of her mind, no matter how high she climbed, how many rivers she white-watered down, how many ocean passages she kayaked.

But she’d probably never give up trying to outrun them.

“They do kill people that get in their way, though.” Kate said the words to ground them both, focus them both back on the present.

Micah nodded slowly.

“How did I get in the way?” She tried to wrap her mind around it, come up with some kind of working theory, but couldn’t settle on anything. She’d had a low-key week, besides more rescues than usual due to the avalanche conditions. Four backcountry skiers had needed to be rescued within the span of five days and two had died from injuries suffered in the avalanches they’d been caught in.

Every single loss hurt. Kate took every one personally, despite the fact that she told the new SAR recruits to never do that. Mountains and avalanches weren’t sentient, weren’t out to get anyone.

But when it came down to it?

It sometimes seemed that was the truth.

Micah hadn’t offered any new thoughts, yet, so Kate used the silence to go back over her week again, see what she could be missing. Had she acquired something they needed to search for? Had she talked to one of them unknowingly? The avalanche rescues did tend to attract crowds and one of the Delaneys could easily have been in one of them.

But that didn’t give them any motive to kill her.

Unless... She wondered...“Do you know all of the people involved in whatever kind of criminal group this is?”

“We don’t. We’re missing quite a few people.”

“I’m going to give you two names. Both of them area skiers I tried to rescue last week and both died. Different avalanches. Gabriel Hernandez and Jay Twindley.”

“You think they might be connected?” He’d taken a seat beside her but he sat up a little straighter now. Kate nodded.

“I don’t know how but...it’s the only explanation for how I could have gotten on anyone’s radar, at least that I can think of.” She felt her eyes narrow. “Gabriel. Look him up first because we know how the avalanche that killed Jay Twindley broke loose but the one Gabriel was caught in was remotely triggered and something about it felt...off to me.”

“That would be unusual, wouldn’t it? For an avalanche to be used as a way to intentionally kill someone?” Micah asked. She appreciated that he was able to follow her train of thought without long explanations, because she wasn’t good at those. Didn’t enjoy them.

“Extremely.” She shook her head. “I don’t know if it’s likely at all. But it’s all I’ve got. I don’t have anything of anyone’s. I know that much.” She looked over at Micah, met his eyes and found so much familiarity there, even after all these years, that she looked away. She hadn’t let a friend get as close to her as Micah since Drew.

And Drew had died. She hadn’t been able to save him.

Making friends had been harder since then.

She looked away from Micah’s eyes, from the gut-wrenching, heart-cleansing kind of honesty she was tempted to proclaim when she looked there. She wanted to tell him everything that had happened since he’d left, how it made her feel, all the things her siblings had asked that she hadn’t been able to articulate, things the counselor she’d seen exactly once had mentioned but she’d not been interested in discussing.

In her struggle to avoid Micah’s eyes, his arm caught her eye. They’d both forgotten about it, though she didn’t know how Micah had; it must be hurting intensely.

“Let me see what we can do for your arm, okay?”

Before he could answer she’d already pushed the blanket off herself and moved to a kneeling position. Her backpack had some basic first-aid supplies in it and she should be able to do a better job with it than what had been done so far—not a difficult proposition, since that added up to exactly nothing.

“Take your jacket off.” He did so without complaint and she rolled her eyes. “You have on a short-sleeved T-shirt.”

“I would think that would make what you’re doing right now easier.”

“Sure, yes, it does.” Kate tried not to laugh but failed. “But I can’t believe you’re not hypothermic. You’re from here—don’t you remember how to dress in the woods in the winter?”

“I wasn’t planning to be in the woods for this long.”

“No one ever is. Be more prepared next time.”

She felt his gaze without meeting it. She knew she’d sounded too serious, given away too much, betrayed the terror that still lurked inside at the idea of being unprepared.

“This is going to hurt a little.” She cleaned the wound the best she could, thankful that while it was worse than a graze, it was just on the edge of his arm. She didn’t have any experience doing first aid for gunshot-wound victims, but this seemed like it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. She handled it the best she could, then looked over at Micah. Hopefully he wasn’t planning to use this time to catch up, because she was exhausted, and while part of her wanted to know what he’d been up to for the last decade, she reminded herself that keeping him at arm’s length was the best idea. He was here temporarily, just until he closed this case and then he’d be back to Anchorage. And the life she was living was in Moose Haven.

“We should get some sleep. At least one of us.” Her shoulders sank with relief at his words. No small talk.

“Sure, go ahead.”

“You can’t sleep?”

Couldn’t? Or wouldn’t? In addition to the fact that someone shooting at her didn’t do wonders for her ability to wind down, she didn’t want to sleep in a room with Micah. The nightmares didn’t come every night. They were down to just a few times a month. But she didn’t want to risk tonight being the night she had one.

She shook her head. “Not yet anyway,” she said to soften her words.

“Okay, you take first shift. Wake me if you hear anything off.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re seriously going to sleep?”

“I’m going to catch a nap, yeah. This cabin is secure, you have a gun and you know how to use it and I have no need to play hero and stay awake when it’s not necessary. Wake me in an hour.”

“Okay.” Kate didn’t argue, just sat there and watched him as he closed his eyes. His shoulders fully relaxed seven minutes later, not that she’d been staring at those broad shoulders.

Micah Reed was back in Moose Haven. Someone had shot at her.

Both improbable situations chased each other around her mind, like the irritating black miniature poodles her neighbors had. Eagle bait, she called them when no one was listening. If only the issues facing her now were as innocuous as those annoying dogs.

Neither made sense, unless one of the avalanches she’d worked recently had been caused by humans. In that case, though, why target her? She’d been the first one to the scene, but not the only one. Moose Haven Police Department had come too and as far as she knew, none of them were being threatened. She’d double-check with Noah to make sure, but that explanation didn’t seem right to her at the moment.

Having thought through that subject, she moved back to Micah.

Yeah, she had nothing there either.

He was tall, handsome and all grown up, but still very much the same as he’d been from everything she’d seen in the last few hours. He didn’t take himself too seriously, but he was sure of himself. Enough so that it didn’t threaten his masculinity or his legitimacy as law enforcement to let Kate take the first shift while he napped.

She liked that kind of attitude in a man.

Or would, if she let herself spend any time thinking about men. About anything, really, besides work. Search and rescue had become her existence, the entirety of it. It was easy to justify. They needed her; it was her paying job; so many of the workers were volunteers... Blah, blah, blah. Her siblings usually addressed those issues when they tried to convince Kate to have a life outside it.

But that wasn’t the reason she was a workaholic. Only Kate knew the truth—that saving lives was all she deserved to give her time to doing now. She owed it to Drew, for not being able to save his. And she had to stay focused.

The hour dragged on, and the quiet, usually something Kate appreciated, only magnified the thoughts in her mind that she’d rather not be wrestling with right now. When sixty minutes had finally passed, she set a hand on Micah’s upper arm, feeling the firmness of his muscle beneath her hands. His eyes immediately opened.

“Your turn.” He grinned at her.

Kate shook her head.

“Come on, close your eyes. Humor me.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” she returned with a smile, but she closed her eyes, just to make him happy. And to make him stop talking...

Kate blinked her eyes open, jerked out of sleep and realized she’d nodded off. She stole a glance at Micah, who was looking around the cabin, seeming fully awake and watchful.

She trusted him to keep them safe, she realized as she blinked her eyes, more slowly this time, and let sleep claim her again.

* * *

Micah didn’t know what surprised him more—the fact that he’d been able to catch a short nap while Kate was awake, or that she’d trusted him enough to nod off and sleep for almost two hours. She’d trusted him when they were kids, and there hadn’t been this awkward distance between them, but years had passed. He hadn’t earned her trust yet as an adult, something he felt the truth of deep into his heart.

She’d downplayed her own level of exhaustion on that run, or he just hadn’t picked up on it, because she seemed drained in an extreme way.

“Ready to go?”

But she was in control again this morning, no hint of the shaking she’d experienced when she first realized she couldn’t use her satphone and the reality of someone being after her had sunken in. Micah was pretty sure she’d be mortified if she realized he’d seen that; she appeared that committed to the strong, brave front she liked to put forward.

But she’d let it drop last night, just for a little while, even if it had been unintentional, maybe from exhaustion. There was something in her eyes that hadn’t been there years ago, and it was more than just evidence that she’d grown up. She was different. It was as if she was more cautious inside. Eager to be prepared.

He glanced over at her, where she stood now without a trace of hesitation on her face.

She’d always been one of the strongest people he’d ever known but even she had a breaking point. He just hoped she was aware of that. Wondered if she was trusting God to help her or just powering through alone.

“I’m ready.”

Taking one last look at the cabin that had been shelter when they needed it so badly, he sent up a quick prayer of thanks and then followed Kate back into the outside.

And almost ran into her. She’d stopped right outside the door.

“What—”

“Shh.”

He stopped talking. Listened like she was doing but heard nothing.

“Let’s go.” She started walking and he followed.

The woods were easier to navigate in the daylight, but Micah was still thankful he had Kate with him because she took several turns down trails so narrow he’d never have seen them. Some of them were already packed down by animals, which would keep them from leaving tracks.

“How much longer to town?”

“We’re close.”

They walked for another hour in the woods before they came to a lower spot on the mountain that had more cleared areas. Micah felt his muscles tensing. It was the ideal location for an ambush. Would the Delaneys have realized they’d come this way? Or had Kate managed to lose them last night?

“I don’t like how open this is.”

She raised her eyebrows. “I don’t like a lot of things about it, but if you want to get back to Moose Haven, this is the best way.”

But she was tense too—he could see it in her jawline, in her shoulders. Still, he followed her down the slope, noting the way she kept looking all around them, head tilted slightly to the side like she was listening for something. Expecting something.

“You’re worried about avalanches?” He was guessing but by the way she whirled around, he could tell he’d probably come close.

“I’m not worried about anything except whoever is after us. But there’s nothing wrong with being cautious when conditions are ideal for there to be trouble.”

So that was a yes, then.

With every step they took, she grew more circumspect and while Micah knew he hadn’t been able to see well last night, he felt that the routes she was choosing today were a little safer. A little more careful than last night’s sprint down the mountain at what could have been literal breakneck speed.

Thankfully they made it down without incident and Micah watched Kate relax a little more.

“Almost there.”

“Where will we come out?”

“At the main trailhead.”

Micah nodded. “Okay, that works. You have a car there?”

“Yes. Not much farther.”

They moved into another area thick with trees that Micah recognized from years ago. Another couple hundred yards and they’d be to the trailhead. They just had to navigate this last section, steep with rocks littering the dirt pathway.

Kate slipped at the top of an incline, kicked one of the bigger rocks. Micah caught her, closed his arms around her out of instinct. They were closer than they’d ever been and his heartbeat quickened. Letting her go was the last thing he wanted to do, which was why he removed his arms the second she seemed to catch her balance. He never would have guessed he’d have reacted this way to the feeling of her in his arms, even for a second, even though he’d known his feelings had danced over the line between friendship and attraction. This was part of the reason he’d not returned to Moose Haven, even after he’d graduated high school and had been free to. Because it didn’t matter if he’d had a crush on Kate then or felt a slight attraction to her now. She was one of the Dawsons, a family who knew how to be there for each other, something he knew nothing about. Much as he’d envied their closeness when he was a kid, he knew he’d never be able to duplicate it if he ever had a family one day, and Kate deserved better. She was far out of his league, and he could only think of her like the little sister he’d never had.

They were only ever going to be just friends.

He stayed still for a minute, with Kate, waiting for the rock to finish crashing down the hill, on edge and alert in case someone heard the sound and attacked them.

But the assault didn’t come in the form he was ready for.

Instead a concussive blast shook the mountain beneath them, loosening more rock.

Kate screamed as the puzzle pieces came together in Micah’s mind.

Someone had set a trip wire for them. Someone who could still be here, watching.

Waiting for them.

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