Alaskan Ambush Page 4

  “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.

  “Yo
u’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.

  FOUR

  Kate hit the ground hard after the blast, the snow softening the impact only slightly. Everything hurt, her head especially, since she’d fallen on it.

  The darkness that had threatened to take her under was gone, though, and she managed to sit up, look around enough to see Micah beside her.

  “What was that?” The question didn’t encompass everything she wanted to know, didn’t touch the depth of frustration, terror, anger that were clamoring inside her.

  Because whatever the specific answer was, Kate knew all she really needed to. Whoever was after her wanted her dead. For sure, no questions.

  “Trip wire.”

  So whoever had shot at her had been following them, but wasn’t confident enough he’d make the shot to attempt another one? Kate could see that as a possibility. It was equally possible that whoever he was knew the area and knew this was the best way off the mountain.

  She shouldn’t have brought them somewhere so obvious. That mistake was all her.

  Kate swallowed hard, pressed out against the heaviness settling around her at the knowledge that her decision could have gotten them both killed, not just her but Micah too. She darted a glance at him. She knew from their younger years that he’d view her as his responsibility. He and Noah were the kind of people who liked keeping everyone around them safe. They were protectors.

  But Kate was too. And she couldn’t live with herself if anyone else who was counting on her ended up dead.

  She stood, started back the way they’d come.

  “Kate.”

  She kept walking. He could follow or not, either way. But she wasn’t going back to Moose Haven. Not when she didn’t know who was after her, and didn’t know if going back to town was going to put her family in danger.

  “Kate.” His voice was more insistent this time, but she wasn’t a kid, wasn’t his responsibility.

  This time she whirled around, found him closer than she’d expected and stepped back. She hadn’t heard him stand up and walk toward her, another bit of evidence that she was getting too emotional, letting fear crowd her brain. Situational awareness could be the difference between life and death and she was slipping.

  She couldn’t slip.

  But she also couldn’t go back.

  “I’m not going to Moose Haven.”

  “Okay.”

  Not what she’d expected. High school Micah would have argued with her, tried to convince her to listen to reason, but this man version of him in front of her just nodded.

  For reasons she couldn’t explain, it just made her more frustrated. She turned around and kept hiking. She didn’t lose her cool, not ever. More than once, one of her siblings had teased her about her frozen heart.

  Micah Reed was not going to be the one to end her streak of keeping her emotions level and even-keeled no matter the circumstance.

  As she hiked, she worked on her plan. They’d go back to the cabin where they’d stayed last night. She’d seen no evidence that its location had been compromised. Either someone had picked them up along the trail this morning and followed them enough to know where they’d try to come down the mountain, or they’d just correctly assumed that they’d take the best path to the bottom.

  She was still frustrated with herself for that mistake. She’d debated this morning if she should tack some time onto their hike by taking a longer route, but after so long without bullets flying, the immediacy of the danger had dissipated some in her mind and she’d thought they’d be okay.

  Obviously not.

  “Where are we going?” Micah asked after a solid half an hour of hiking. She had to give him credit for how long he’d followed her without saying a word. It was more than she could say some of her siblings would have done. Noah would have followed her in the first place. Summer would have too, but then probed in her quiet way to figure out why they were going somewhere. Tyler would have tried to reason with her.

  Micah just...let her be angry.

  Wind whispered through the spruce trees they were hiking through as they headed back up the mountain. She’d have to turn soon, avoid getting above the tree line, where shelter would be difficult to discover. It was hard enough to find a place to feel safe here, the winter trees missing their leaves and the branches thin and skeletal.

  No, this wasn’t going to work. They needed to get back down, pick a new trail themselves if they had to, through the tangles of trees. This wasn’t safe. She could feel it.

  Kate stopped.

  “Whoa.” Micah ran into her, and she lost her balance. His hands went around her upper arms immediately, stronger than she’d realized they would be—not that she’d been thinking about such things—as he steadied her. “Are you okay?”

  She turned to face him. He didn’t flinch from her eye contact.

  “No, I’m not.”

  The sound of a bullet exploded in the quiet.

  “Get down!” Micah yelled, even as he tackled her. She hadn’t been ready for it; the force of her body hitting the ground, so soon after the explosion earlier, jarred her, added a few
new bruises she’d guess.

  Kate kept her breathing even, reminded herself that she had to stay calm, tell her body not to react to the situation, but she would make decisions and act when necessary. It was not only part of her Search-and-Rescue Training, but she’d learned it when she’d been scouring books and online articles about law enforcement aptitude tests, years ago when her life had centered around another dream.

  “Where is he?” she whispered, throat tightening slightly in spite of her effort.

  “Can’t tell.”

  Another shot. Kate listened like she was tracking something in the backcountry, then nodded to the right with her head. “That way.”

  “Is there anywhere we can go that has better shelter?”

  “The cabin we were at earlier?”

  “Closer.”

  “There’s nothing closer but acres of wilderness.”

  Another bullet came close enough to them that Kate actually heard it whizz past, and a wave of dizzy nausea washed over her until she shook it off.

  “No, there’s...” She trailed off. The fallen tree, halfway between here and the cabin. It had left a hole in the ground where the root system had pulled out when it had fallen in a bad windstorm several winters before. “Maybe. It’s halfway to the cabin, is that too far?”

  “It’s better than sitting here. Run as fast as you can, okay? I’ll be behind you. Whatever you do, don’t stop.”

  “Okay, unless you get hit and then—”

  “I said, don’t stop. No matter what.”

  Kate looked over at him, eyes catching his as some weird energy passed between them. Her breath stalled in her throat again. This wasn’t one of her brothers, wasn’t someone who should be willing to take the danger in the back. He was a friend, yes, but someone she had lost touch with years ago. She’d been another person back then, with so much less life experience. Much more naive. Hopefully.

  He didn’t even know her now. Didn’t know that she wasn’t much, certainly wasn’t worth dying for.

  She nodded anyway, his expression making it clear that he wasn’t taking no for an answer. “Okay. When?”