“Cooper Wilde. He runs Wilderness, Inc. here in the mountains out of Gideon. It’s an adventure excursion and wilderness training business. Anyway, I guess this answers the question about what happened to Rich.”
“What do you mean?”
“I followed the snowmobile tracks from the house. There was blood, Zach. Blood on the snow. It had to be Rich’s. The guys shooting at us? All I can think is they were after him and he took a bullet, maybe, before he ran and got away on his snowmobile.”
“We can’t know for sure, but that sounds like one possibility. Regardless, it seems they want to kill us, whatever the reason.”
If those men were after Rich and he had led them here, to his sister... Zach paced the cave, fisting his gloved hand and squeezing the pistol grip with his other. Every choice a person made could have catastrophic effects on everyone else. He’d experienced that firsthand and felt the repercussions of his own decisions to the marrow in his bones.
“If only we could find Rich,” Olivia said. “Make sure he’s safe, help him if he’s hurt. I’m worried about him out there in this storm, maybe even bleeding to death.”
“Nothing we can do about it.”
Olivia shot him a glare. He knew she saw the change in him—that he’d hardened over the years. Inwardly, he sighed, wishing for the younger version of himself.
He didn’t like the thought of Rich suffering out there either and should be more reassuring to his friend’s sister. “If I know anything about your brother, it’s that he has survival skills, and he’s out there surviving, making it through this storm, just like us. We have to trust that Rich will rely on his training.”
If he isn’t already dead.
Olivia had seen Rich’s pack on the bed. He hadn’t taken time to gather supplies before he fled for his life. She couldn’t share Zach’s confidence in her brother’s training.
She studied Zach as he watched the cave entrance. Her heart skipped a little. Back in high school, he’d been the kind of guy every girl could fall for, and now, to her chagrin, he looked even better.
He exhibited a kind of masculinity that was hard to resist. Skilled and confident. But those skills were the very thing that stood between them and had torn them apart. That and the choices he’d made.
Olivia shoved thoughts of the past away and focused on the very real and dangerous present. What else did Zach know about her brother? Why had Rich asked him to meet at the house? Her teeth chattered, preventing her from voicing the questions.
Shivering, she tucked her knees up against her chest and rested her chin on them again. How were they going to make it through tonight without a fire, even in this cave? It wasn’t deep enough to prevent the snow from swirling in, ushered by the ice-cold wind that had ramped up.
She buried her face in her knees, trying to keep the cold at bay.
Zach clomped across the cave and stood next to her. He slid down the wall and scooted right up close to her.
“What...what are you doing?” she asked.
“You’re cold. I’m cold.”
She thought to shift away from him but his body heat drew her, though reluctantly. Then he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her closer to him, nice and tight. “Come on, Olivia. We have to keep warm. The past is the past, and we can keep it there. No need to dredge up what happened before. At the moment we’re just two people doing what we have to do in order to survive, right?”
She nodded. “Well, when you put it that way.”
When she peeked at him, he showed her that half grin she remembered and liked. What was he thinking? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but she accepted the warmth he offered then pressed her face into her knees again. Maybe she’d warm up enough after a while to scoot away from him. But right now, she couldn’t think straight. Somehow she had to come to grips with everything that had happened over the last several hours. Images swirled like snowflakes in her mind.
Rich’s disappearance.
The blood in the snow.
The snowmobile tracks.
The men with the guns.
And...Zach.
She could hardly believe she was waiting out a storm in this cave with him and that he had his strong arm around her. Life had a way of going in circles. He was right—without survival gear, they had no choice but to use their body heat to stay warm. They couldn’t risk discovery by building a fire when lunatics pursued them, openly firing at them, shooting to kill. She hated that these men had turned the woods she loved into a crime scene.
And Rich. God, please, please keep him safe wherever he is out there.
“So, what’s the plan then?” she asked.
“It’s pretty simple. Stay warm and alive until the storm passes. We might even be here all night. Then in the morning we find our way back to civilization and keep well away from those shooters. Maybe we can find Rich, too.”
“Tell me about Rich. Until he showed up yesterday, I hadn’t talked to him in a long time.”
“I haven’t spoken to him that much myself. I’m sure you at least know he’s been in the Middle East working security for a private military contractor.”
“That was the last thing I knew about.” Grief thickened in her throat. So much of what she felt inside couldn’t be spoken out loud because it involved Zach’s own personal tragedy.
And the mistake he’d made that had cost his sister’s life. Olivia wouldn’t add to his torment by bringing it up. He seemed to sense she needed a moment to process. His thoughts had likely turned to the past, as well.
But in this moment, regret permeated her bones.
Why hadn’t she talked to Rich? Why had she been so quick to blame him for their mother’s death? Four years ago, he’d been grieving the death of his fiancée—Zach’s sister, Sarah—and after his tour of duty was over, he decided he wouldn’t return to the States, after all, because there would be no bride waiting for him.
No wedding.
So he took that job in private security instead.
Their mother had taken his absence too hard, just like she had Dad’s death when he’d been killed in the line of duty with the Portland PD. Her mother had used alcohol to console herself for a couple of years after their father’s death but had found her way to sobriety and had been sober until Sarah had been killed and Rich made the decision to stay away. Mom had needed him, perhaps too much. Their mother had been killed in a drunk-driving accident when her vehicle ran off a bridge.
Olivia had blamed Rich and hadn’t spoken to him since Mom’s funeral three years ago.
She
