The Way Home: Winter (Mandrake Falls Series Romance Book 3)

by Catherine Lloyd

  Hudson shook his head and handed her a cup of coffee. “Nothing. I hope you packed Band-aids.”

  Michael took a sip of her coffee. “Buying footwear isn’t brain surgery, Mr. Grace. Believe me I know what I’m doing in that department. These boots will be perfect for whatever the sheriff throws at me today. Speaking of which, what do you think the sheriff will throw at me today?” she asked, a little worried.

  “Most likely he’ll put you in the office filing or the old town hall might need cleaning.” He unzipped the back pack that was resting on the floor at his feet.

  “Cleaning?” Michael raised her head from Simon who was sitting at the kitchen table, stuffing a banana in his mouth. “You mean like with buckets and mops? Whoa, slow down there, little man. You’ll choke. Have you already finished the rest of your breakfast?”

  “A banana is all I give him. There’s no time in the morning.” Hudson was wrapping some sandwiches at the counter. “They’ll give him a snack at daycare.”

  “A snack is not enough to hold him. He’ll starve.”

  “He won’t starve. I gave him a vitamin.”

  Michael shook her head, mystified. How could this man who held his nephew through the night be so completely unconcerned about feeding him the next morning? “Where’s the cereal? I know you have some, I swept up enough of it yesterday.”

  “We don’t have time for a full breakfast. I have to get Simon to daycare and be on the mountain by eight. And I still have to drop you off at the Sheriff’s office and deal with that paperwork.”

  Michael ignored him, rummaging through the cupboards until she found a box of cereal. She poured it into a bowl and set it in front of Simon. “We have plenty of time. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

  “You’re stalling.” Hudson looked at his watch and then at her, meaningfully. “I’ll give ten minutes and then we’ve got to go. I’ll put your suitcases in the truck.” He picked up the pack and slung it over his shoulder and strode out of the cabin.

  Simon pointed to the red hat on her head. “I like dat,” he said behind a mouthful of cereal.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Michael said automatically but she smiled. At least one male noticed how good she looked, even if he was only three. Simon finished his cereal with gusto, confirming that he did have an appetite. Michael wiped his chin with a dish towel and lifted him out of his chair. “All right, little man. We better not keep your uncle waiting.”

  They dropped Simon at daycare, a bright clean room in the basement of the church. He trotted inside and Michael turned to Hudson.

  “I appreciate you not making a big deal about it in front of Simon. I’ll try to say good-by to him later.”

  Hudson only nodded but wouldn’t look in her direction. The storm had done some damage to the trees but the early morning snowfall had blanketed the town in brilliant white. Mandrake Falls was a busy place even at this hour of the morning, Michael noted. The bakery was open and the diner. People bundled in winter coats and scarves waved at Hudson’s truck. Accustomed to fans, Michael waved back and was usually met with confusion. “I’m a little hungry,” she said when they passed the bakery.

  “We’re already late. Sheriff McIntyre is expecting us.”

  He pulled in front of a low building with small windows and plenty of parking. Hudson turned off the truck and tried to smile at her. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

  “SHE CAN’T stay with us,” said Sawyer McIntyre. “I got an email from Judge Delaney last night. He says she can’t be anywhere near a reporter or the media for the duration of her sentence and Shelby owns the Gazette.”

  “But it’s the Gazette—not People magazine! Did you explain the situation? She’s a woman and I applied to supervise a man.”

  “I did and the judge was unmoved. If Miss Shannon is comfortable with the arrangement, meaning if she hasn’t issued a complaint through her lawyer, the arrangement stands. I’ll be honest with you, Hudson—Shelby was all set to run this story. You know how she is with a scoop. I stopped her, but only with great difficulty. Between the pregnancy, the morning sickness, the hormones ... you see where I’m going with this. It’s not my call.”

  Hudson nodded at his friend. The sheriff’s eyes were glazed and his hand trembled as he lifted his cup of coffee to his mouth. “I’m sorry to hear it, man. I’ve never seen you happier.” It was the truth. Sawyer used to have a chip on his shoulder when it came to Shelby Porter and now look at him—a physical mess and loving every minute of it.

  Sheriff McIntyre grinned. “I know—strange isn’t it?” His face softened. “I’m meeting her for lunch today. We do that every day now. She says seeing me keeps her from vomiting.”

  “That’s nice,” Hudson murmured, smiling. “I’m happy for you, bro.”

  “Excuse me!” Michael bellowed. She was seated on the bench against the wall, red in the face. “I hate to interrupt your chat, gentlemen, but this parka isn’t getting any cooler. What’s it going to be?”

  Sawyer raised a brow at Hudson. “Can you give me another twelve hours, Hudson? Mrs. Murdoch said she’s willing to assume supervision after the rehearsal tonight. She’s not an official but it’s the best I can do. If I knew this thing was going to turn out to be such a pain in the backside, I never would have signed us up for the program.”

  “No, no, it’s a good program, that’s not the trouble. They thought I was a woman and we thought she was a he. Honest mistake but we’ll have to double check in future if we decide to run with this again. Want me to bring it up at council or will you?”

  “Excuse me!” Michael huffed again, louder this time. “But could you conduct your business on your own time? If the judge is fine with the current arrangement, then so am I. I’ll continue to serve my sentence under the supervision of Mr. Grace and everybody is happy. Yes? All finished with your gossip, Mr. Grace? Can we get going now?”

  Hudson and Sawyer exchanged a look. “She’s still on New York time,” Hudson explained.

  “She calls you Mr. Grace?”

  He nodded. “Yep. And I call her Miss Shannon.”

  “For now,” the sheriff said under his breath as they left the office. He caught a glimpse of them getting into the truck and grinned broadly. “For now.”

  HUDSON STOPPED at the bakery at her insistence. “You just ate breakfast. Remember?”

  “I had a cup of coffee and some cereal. That isn’t enough food to keep a bird alive. Where was the bacon? Where were the pancakes slathered in butter and Vermont maple syrup?”

  “In the store with the rest of the groceries I never buy. Simon likes bologna and cheese so I usually have that on hand. We eat at the diner most nights.”

  Her appetite was sharper than it had been since she was a kid. She had lost interest in food years ago when she had to watch her weight for the show. Dining almost exclusively on chicken and lettuce was enough to diminish anyone’s appetite. Michael opened the bakery bag with lip-smacking eagerness. The smell of cinnamon and yeast rose to her nose. She stuffed half the cinnamon bun in her mouth and then tried to talk around it. “We’ll go shopping after work. We need real food if we’re going to be out all day.”

  “We’ll need more food if you’re going to eat like that.”

  The storm had long passed and the sky was gloriously clear and blue but Michael’s spirits sank. They were on a winding snow-packed road that climbed the mountain. “What exactly is it that I will be doing today, Mr. Grace?” She peered at the seemingly endless expanse of remote white forest and mountains.

  “After a big storm I like to snowshoe the trails and check the shelters for hikers or campers that may have got stranded in the park before the storm broke. We get by with a skeleton staff in the off-season. There’s no check-in or fees so visitors aren’t tracked as closely.”

  “Forgive me, but this sounds like something you could have done yourself. You don’t need an assistant to go snowshoeing. I should have been given another assignmen
t today.”

  “Was I the only one listening to the sheriff? We are stuck together for the foreseeable. I’m your supervisor and if this is where I am today then this is where you are today. I don’t have time to find you an assignment and a qualified supervisor at eight o’clock in the morning. You are serving a sentence, Miss Shannon. Something to make you pause—or better still—stop you dead in your tracks the next time you consider chaining yourself to a tree in rush hour.”

  IT WASN’T the snow so much as the wind that was the problem. Her cheeks were flayed with it, like an exfoliation with ice. But the rest of her was boiling hot. Cashmere itched horribly when one sweated, Michael discovered. She scratched her neck and then her forehead under the knitted hat and then her neck again. She’d looked so good when they first arrived but the grueling hike on snowshoes had rendered the whole morning’s grooming an exercise in futility. By mid-afternoon, The Look was gone. The red sweater was hot and stuck to her back. Her lipstick was smeared—she knew because she checked her reflection in the ski sunglasses. Her mascara was smudged too. Michael reapplied the lipstick wondering why she was bothering. Other than Hudson, there was no one around to admire her and Hudson hadn’t given her a second glance.

  “When do I get a break?” she complained loudly to his back as he tramped ahead of her. “I’m thirsty.”

  “You’ve got a water flask. Use it.”

  She looked down at the flask slung across her body with surprise. “I didn’t know you could put water in these things.”

  Hudson stopped for a moment to lift his eyes to the sky, a habit of his when she said something he deemed stupid. He’d done it several times that morning and it was beginning to get on Michael’s nerves.

  Ever since she woke this morning, completely cramped from trying to avoid Simon’s knees without falling out of bed, she noticed Hudson was different. It was like he went to bed last night with one thing on his mind and woke up in another man’s skin. There wasn’t time to dwell on the change earlier, except to note that he seemed a little standoffish. Michael puzzled over Hudson Grace. Could it be this one was different from all the rest? Did living in the bush make some men immune to attractive women? The playboy had make a pass sooner or later—it was in his DNA! At least tell her she looked good. A compliment would be nice.

  “We’re almost at the last shelter before heading home. We’ll take a break then.”

  Michael peered ahead. This trail was particularly remote. It wound off through trees that were bending under the snow and last night’s ice pellets. “Are there any wild animals I should know about?”

  “Not at this time of year. Maybe a mountain lion if we’re lucky. They won’t bother you if you leave them alone. But if you spot one, let me know so I can document it.”

  “As if,” Michael muttered, nervously glancing around her as she hiked closer to Hudson. Snowshoeing through a forest was not as easy and relaxing as it looked on TV. The trail was cluttered with fallen branches and debris that it was Michael’s job to clear away. A make-work project to keep her busy, she complained to an irritated Hudson. Why bother clearing the trails? It only encouraged people to go into the forest and no one should be encouraged to be in a forest in the winter. Hudson explained, with less patience the tenth time she had asked, that the trails were for recreation and clearing them was one component of the park service. They only had a few hours left of daylight to get the job done. It is a sentence, Miss Shannon. A sentence. As in not an option. She could parrot his intonation perfectly in her head by now.

  Her ski gloves protected her hands, but working on snowshoes was extremely awkward. She fell several times, once face first. Hudson had to help her up that time. Most often he just stopped and waited for her, his eyes dispassionate, as she struggled to her feet. More than once she had remarked that chivalry was dying an ugly death that day.

  As for clearing branches—at first it had seemed like light work. They weren’t heavy, just awkward. Three hours later, every muscle in Michael’s body ached with the effort. Hauling ice- encrusted brush off a trail was considerably more strenuous than the workouts with her personal trainer. Her fabulously expensive boots bit into her heel making blisters but she gritted her teeth against the pain. She had no choice—she didn’t pack Band-aids. The cream-colored cotton socks she assumed would offer protection had bunched down. Sport socks were better for snowshoeing Hudson told her, as if that information was any help to her now. Even her cute little red toque was bugging her. Her face felt burned. Anxiously, she reached for her sunscreen followed by an application of lipstick.

  Hudson turned to watch the ritual she had been performing all day. “If you’d concentrate for twenty minutes, we’d be done by now and on our way back to the cabin. You keep stopping to slather on that goop and you’re only dragging the agony out.”

  “I can’t go back to New York sunburned. My skin is very sensitive; I’ll wrinkle in about ten minutes. Besides, when my character wakes out of her coma, she can’t be sunburned.”

  “Maybe she’ll never wake up,” Hudson said testily. “If your acting is anything like your community service work, the producers have probably found a way to make sure you never come back.”

  “This, coming from a man who doesn’t own a TV. I’m practically the Queen of Daytime, Mr. Grace. My fans would go berserk if Vickie didn’t wake up.”

  Hudson looked skeptical. “If I were you I’d become the best damn trail groomer in the state. You never know when you’re going to need something to fall back on.”

  Michael surveyed the sweeping hillside critically. Purple was creeping over the mountains in the far distance. “It’s pretty up here but I need an occupation that doesn’t call for strapping aluminum paddles to my feet.”

  Hudson’s face broke into a grin. “Come on. This is the last shelter I have to check before we head back. We can rest up and have a bite to eat.”

  “Eat?” Michael scrambled eagerly after him. “You mean to say we have more food?” The trail opened to a circle of tall pines that surrounded a log shelter. Michael’s feet ached in her beautiful leather boots and she longed to take them off. “Is this it?” she asked hopefully. “Do you think it’ll be dry enough inside to sit down? I’ve got to get out of these boots.”

  “This is it, the last one. Next time, wear Band-aids on your heels. Who the hell wears new boots without breaking them in first?”

  “Vain people.”

  A noise coming from inside the shelter arrested their attention. It sounded to Michael like a growl or a groan only higher in pitch. A mountain lion! She clutched Hudson’s arm. “Let’s get out of here!” she whispered desperately.

  Hudson bent and unlatched one of his snowshoes and removed it. The snow was not as deep around the shelter thanks to the cover from the pines. He raised the snowshoe like a weapon and opened the door. Michael pressed back behind him and closed her eyes.

  “Oh hell. Michael, get in here!”

  Hudson was inside the shelter bending over an orange and green shape in the corner near a squat round wood stove. There was a stack of firewood nearby, paper and kindling—everything a person needed to start a fire, but the shelter was freezing.

  “What is it?” she whispered, bending over to unfasten her snowshoes and step out of them.

  “A young man, early twenties. Possibly hypothermic. Help me get his coat off and take yours off too. Good, okay get behind him now and hold him against you—tight—he needs your body warmth to warm up.”

  She did as Hudson asked, sitting down behind the boy and pulling him close to her chest. Hudson tucked their coats around them and opened his back pack. Michael was immensely grateful to the salesman who had made her buy the parka. Its dense insulation really held one’s body heat. The kid began to shudder and cry as his flesh warmed up.

  “Give him a few minutes,” Hudson said. “Then we’ll try to get some food in him.”

  “What was he doing out here on his own? Why didn’t he start the fire?”

>   Hudson glanced inside the firebox. “He tried to but it didn’t take. It looks like he ran out of matches. I swear to God, the first thing I’m going to teach Simon is how to start a fire. Ask him if there’s anyone else out there we should be looking for. Maybe he was with a group and he’s the only one who made it to the shelter.”

  “Kid! Hey! Hey! Kid! Wake up! Is there anyone else out there who was with you?”

  “No,” he gasped and spasms vibrated through his body. Michael held him tighter. “No, it’s just me. I came up yesterday. Got turned around and lost the trail and then the storm blew up. I couldn’t get back to my campsite. I found this shelter but I couldn’t get a fire started.” The young man started weeping.

  “It’s okay, you’re okay now. Mr. Grace is going to start a fire and when we’re warm and rested we’ll get you out of here. Don’t worry. You’re going to be just fine.” She hoped so. He was pretty weak and his hands were frozen and white.

  “There’s no time for that, Miss Shannon,” Hudson said tersely, looking at the boy’s hands. “We have to get him down the mountain as soon as possible. It’s going to be dark in an hour, we’ll lose the trail. I have a headlamp in the pack but the temperature drops after the sun goes down.”

  “I think we should stay here. Even if we have to go back down in the dark, you know the trails, right? I think we should make a fire and let this boy thaw out. His gloves are frozen solid.”

  The shelter was rustic, a square windowless log box, equipped with the necessities for survival: a heat source and low wooden platforms bunking down on if needed. A lost hiker or skier would be warm here, out of the wind and elements and even be able to cook on the woodstove if they had a full pack. “I think staying where it is warm is the best plan.”

  “If we stay then we’re staying the night because another storm front is rolling in—a big one. We could get stuck here for days if we don’t leave now. This could be our only window. Here, get some nourishment into him.” Hudson reached a thermos of tea out of the pack. It was still hot and there was about a cup left. He handed it to the kid and the boy drank greedily, possibly dehydrated. There was half a bologna sandwich left. He handed it to Michael; she broke off a bite and fed it to him. “That’ll help warm him up. Kid, what’s your name?”