Sarah Varland - Alaskan Ambush

These men who were after them now?

They didn’t play by the rules.

And that was exactly why she was terrified.

* * *

Following Kate, Micah ran through the darkness, through the trees that were thick on this lower half of the mountain. He supposed he should be thankful they weren’t above the tree line, where there would be no way to avoid detection and nowhere to take shelter.

The way he figured it, they’d have to stop for at least an hour or so later. Neither had to sleep if they didn’t feel like it, but they’d need to eat and rest a little before continuing on. And he needed to pack something around his arm, since over the time he ran it leaked a little more blood. It wasn’t enough to cause problems, at least he didn’t think so, but when they could stop, he’d take better care of it. The pain was a wave of intensity as he ran, but with enough focus he could ignore it, power through it. It was when they stopped that the constant throbbing made him grit his teeth.

His mind turned to his partner again and he felt anger seethe in his middle. The arrest should have gone smoothly. They had done their due diligence to assure that it would and it had still gone wrong and they’d missed something, gotten a huge part of the case wrong.

Who had the third man been? The other man with the Delaneys? He wore a mask over his face, so all Micah knew was that he was a male of average build—not much to go on especially in a state where men outnumbered women.

He felt his frustration grow, this time with himself. Even with his partner, Stephen too, though that made him feel worse—once people were dead weren’t you supposed to think only good things about them? Either way, neither of them realized there was a high-ranking third person involved in this operation; while Micah knew if he was honest that it hadn’t been his fault or Stephen’s that they’d missed it, the criminals had just hidden it well, it still burned that they’d made a mistake, been outnumbered.

Lost one of the good guys.

Micah shook the ache, the events of the last few hours out of his mind. The loss of his partner stung, cut deep. But this wasn’t the time for grieving. He owed it to Stephen to finish what they’d started. Right now that meant focusing on following the woman in front of him. He’d never have thought he’d run into Kate Dawson up here, and wished in a way it was anybody else. Besides Noah, his best friend growing up, Kate had been his favorite of the Dawson siblings. He’d admired her daring, her ability to keep up even though she was two years younger than he was and even more years behind her oldest brother. She wasn’t like other girls he’d known then and she wasn’t like any women he’d met since.

He hated that she was in danger now.

Although if he was honest, she was one of the best-equipped people to handle it. The Kate he’d known years ago didn’t back down, didn’t give up. She seemed even tougher now.

And now that he was down one partner and running for his life, Kate was exactly the kind of person he needed on his team. Already she’d saved him from finding his way down the mountain in the dark, and her determined attitude was infectious too. He could use some more of it right now.

“I’ve got to stop soon.”

Kate slowed her pace, came back to where he was, looked around as though Micah himself hadn’t been keeping himself highly aware of their surroundings and looked at his arm. “Pain getting worse?”

“No but the bleeding keeps starting up again.”

She wrinkled her nose.

“You don’t do blood?”

“It’s not my favorite, but I can handle it.” She looked to the right, then behind them. “We are about half a mile from where I’d wanted to stop. Can you make it that far?”

“Yes.” Especially when he was looking at a pair of dark hazel green eyes practically daring him, challenging him.

He hadn’t been fair to her earlier, when he’d thought about her as a kid. She’d always done more than keep up, just like now. She was the one who set the pace.

The half mile to Kate’s planned stopping place was slower going than the trail had been earlier, and more than once a spruce branch that Kate had pushed back without holding it slapped Micah.

“I’m sorry. I’m usually alone—I’m not used to thinking about someone behind me.”

“You just go. I’m fine. I can handle it.”

So she’d listened. The trees were thicker here, and he suspected Kate wanted to make sure their trail was as difficult to find and follow as possible since they’d soon be stopping to rest.

Micah was already making plans for that—one of them would be awake at all times. Unless the situation changed for the worst, he might even take a quick nap. He’d seen the way Kate handled that .44. She could more than handle protecting them for a short time; that was how confident she’d seemed with her weapon. And it was a good thing because he needed a nap, at least half an hour. He’d lost count now of how many hours he’d been awake but it had to be edging toward or past the twenty-four-hour mark.

Just as he was starting to question how well Kate measured distance, the woods cleared. Something ahead of them made a hill in the snow, but he couldn’t quite tell what. He looked around the clearing, but didn’t see anywhere that seemed like a good place to stop. It would be difficult to find where someone would start attempting to track them from, with all the tight trails through the trees Kate had taken, but they also needed shelter. He didn’t see anything that fit the bill.

“Where were you planning...” Micah trailed off as he watched Kate walk over to the mound and a grin spread across his face. A cabin. She’d found them an old cabin, sunken down into the earth and now covered with snow. They’d be protected, sheltered because no one who wasn’t looking for this would see it, and warm. A good thing since they couldn’t risk starting a fire for fear of being detected.

He glanced back at their tracks, noting how fast the still-falling snow was covering them. Another hour or so and all evidence of them being here would be erased.

“How did you know about this?” He didn’t even try to keep the admiration out of his voice and Kate could tell too—he knew from the way she smiled back at him, obviously proud of herself.

“I’ve hiked all over this mountain, on every marked trail I’ve found and some unmarked ones.” She shrugged.

“Why?”

Another shrug. “I like it out here. Life makes more sense.”

Interesting. He’d love to follow up on that later. The Dawsons lived a charmed life—cozy lodge, warm family. Even though their parents had died, the siblings’ bond remained strong and it seemed they’d all worked through their grief and were living pretty happy lives. Not like Micah. His parents had given him everything he needed in the physical sense, but their preoccupation with their jobs had kept them from spending time with him. As an adult he saw them maybe once a year. They always sent a Christmas card, though.

No, not like the charmed life the Dawsons lived at all.

What about Kate’s life could she not make sense of unless she was in the woods?

He followed Kate’s tracks to the cabin and helped her dig out the snow in front of the door enough that they could open it without letting a pile of snow into the structure, but not so much that it would make an obvious entrance to the snow covered mound if trouble did happen to follow them here.

“We should be safe here.” She nodded, looked around one more time, then climbed down into the cabin.

Micah followed, closing the door behind him and looking around. There was a stove in the corner. The cabin itself was decades old and in disrepair, but there was a box of blankets in the corner that looked like someone had put them there recently, at least in the last few years.