Karl glanced at the woods again and so did his friends. The sight of all of them on edge was oddly satisfying.
“Cougars get real peckish in winter too. Your friends were probably easy pickings for them.” She held back her smile when Cooper’s green eyes widened and darted to her.
“That’s like a mountain lion, right? They live up here?” He stumbled over those questions, betraying his nerves.
“Yup. Plenty of mountain lions up here. Big ones too.”
Karl scowled at her and then Cooper. “She’s just trying to scare you.”
She wasn’t. Every year there were reports of some big cougars up in the valleys and some equally as impressive bears and wolves. This whole area was a hotspot for the biggest beasts, ones that put those in the record books to shame. The trouble was, not a single hunter had managed to bag one of the big ones. The only thing they brought back with them from their hunting trips were tales of legendary beasts that had outsmarted them.
Or attacked them.
“If your friends are up here, they’re either in real trouble or they’ve managed to find shelter somewhere.” She began to feel a little less scared of the men as they looked around them again. Even Wade looked worried. Cooper looked ready to relieve himself in his pants.
Karl, however, didn’t look impressed by her attempt to scare his friends.
His tone was hard and unyielding as he stepped up to her, coming to tower over her, forcing her to tilt her head back to keep her eyes locked on his.
“Enough of your games, Miss Callaghan.” Karl sneered at her and unzipped his jacket enough to reveal the gun holstered against his black sweater. “You mentioned cabins. Where are they?”
She swallowed to wet her dry throat. “I mentioned cabin. Singular. I know where one is. It’s on the other side of the valley to those coordinates though.”
“But you believe our friends might have made it there?”
She nodded because she didn’t like her odds of survival if she said she doubted his friends were alive, not if they were from the city and had been caught outside in the most recent storm.
Plus, it dawned on her that knowledge of this cabin was valuable to him and she was the only one who knew where it was. Score a point for her. She had given him a reason to keep her alive and had bought herself time to figure out a plan of escape. The cabin she knew was a long trek from where they were.
“Does anyone live there?” Karl’s gaze took on that shrewd edge again as he held hers, his fair eyebrows lowering to narrow his eyes.
Skye tried not to think about the one person who allegedly lived up this valley. She was done thinking about him. She should have gotten over him two years ago. It had been one night—one wild, life-altering night. She huffed at herself for thinking that way and wanted to change it, but it was too late. She had already thought it.
“There’s some who live in the valleys, but not normally in winter. If your friends made it to the cabin, they’d be the only ones there.” She didn’t like how pleased he looked to hear that.
“Lead the way.” Karl zipped his jacket up again, a stern note in his voice.
Skye pivoted away from him and started walking, keeping her gaze on her boots as she followed the uneven terrain, picking her way over roots and fallen branches and around the trees. For a heartbeat, she wondered if she could somehow turn the men around and accidentally lead them back towards town.
Wade grunted, “Quit being so fucking jumpy, Cooper.”
She glanced back at the men in time to catch the young blond, Cooper, aiming his rifle up the slope.
“I swear I heard something.” Cooper swung wild eyes towards Wade. “Think it might be mountain lions?”
She listened hard, straining to hear anything over their incessant talking and the breeze that swept through the trees, numbing her face.
“Don’t be so dumb. She was just trying to scare you.” Patrick shoved Cooper in the back, making him stagger forwards.
Cooper swung his gun from right to left, sweeping it across her, Karl and Wade.
She ducked on instinct, her heart shooting into her mouth, and then straightened and glared at him. “Calm down!”
“Don’t order my men around,” Karl barked at her.
Order. Men. It cemented that feeling she had that these people weren’t friends at all. Karl was a boss of some kind, and alarm bells rang in her mind as it raced through all the possible ones. Were they in the mafia? Or maybe it was guns? No, she doubted it was guns. They were looking for someone who was on the run from them. Mafia sounded about right. This woman, whoever she was, had done something bad or she had seen something, and now these men wanted to kill her.
She somehow managed to keep calm as that all hit her, followed by a thought about them killing her once they found this woman and had dealt with her. As soon as Skye had outlived her usefulness, she was done for. So she just had to remain useful for as long as she could, devise a plan and get the hell away from them.
“Your man is the one looking ready to shoot every bird or small animal he hears.” Skye scowled at Karl, sticking to her confident act when the sensible side of her was screaming at her to keep her mouth closed.
Cooper proved her point by taking aim at the trees and firing off a round as a stronger gust of wind blew through them.
“Calm the fuck down,” Karl snapped at him.
Cooper’s green eyes slid to him, his brow furrowing as he kept his gun aimed high. “Something isn’t right. Something is out there… stalking us.”
Scratch outliving her usefulness being the death of her. This man was going to be it if someone didn’t take his gun off him or calm him down.
“Listen, Wade is right. I was just trying to scare you. We don’t get many reports of predators up in these valleys.” She was lying through her teeth now and she feared Karl would notice it as he looked at her.
Only he didn’t look angry with her.
He looked quite the opposite.
She swore she had to be imagining that gratitude in his eyes.
She made a big show of looking around. “See, no predators. Just the wind and a few birds. Maybe a squirrel. Believe me, we’re making enough noise that any local predator can hear us a mile off and would have moved on. If it makes you feel better, you can talk all you want. Animals only tend to attack if they’re spooked.”
Also not true, but Cooper didn’t need to know that, not when he was looking relieved at last and had lowered his gun.
Skye turned back around to start walking again and tensed as her gaze caught on something around one hundred feet up the side of the mountain to her right.
Only it wasn’t an animal who slipped back into cover behind a large bush.
It was a man.
One she recognised.
Knox.
Chapter 5
Knox hadn’t meant to be seen by Skye, but now that she had noticed him, he was quick to check where the males were looking. All of them were occupied. Patrick and Wade were working to calm Cooper down, while Karl watched them. None of them were facing the same direction as Skye.
He eased forwards so she could see him again and knew when she had spotted him because she scowled at him, her beautiful face hardening. He pointed north-east with the flat of his hand, gesturing to his right, towards the mountains in the distance on this side of the valley.
A route that would take the males away from Cougar Creek and Black Ridge, into an area of forest that was dense enough to stop the humans from being able to see the cabins.
Karl turned towards her.
She looked away, bent and retied her bootlace, but nodded as she was doing it. Relief was quick to sweep through Knox, soothing him to a degree. He was glad she was onboard with his plan. He watched her as she finished tying her boot, couldn’t take his eyes off her or his mind off the powerful need that consumed him. He wanted to tell her somehow that he would get her out of there as soon as he could, but he didn’t get the chance.
; Karl pushed her onwards, forcing her back onto her feet. “Let’s go.”
“I have my bearings now.” Her tone was light, maybe a little too breezy, but Karl didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy looking back at his men again. She started walking, picking her way across the thin layer of snow that covered the ground, heading a few feet up the incline towards him. “I know where I’m going. It’s this way.”
He was thankful when she stopped heading up the slope and started walking in a straight line, following one of the natural ridges.
Knox scanned the males again, cataloguing everything about them. Wade posed the biggest threat to Skye and to him, but Patrick would be the easier target to take down first. The overweight male was struggling to handle even the slight incline as the animal track Skye was following began to climb higher. Leaving Wade until last was dangerous—the male would form a strong team with Karl—but taking out Cooper second made more sense. The kid was trigger happy, jumpy as hell, and there was a danger he might start firing more than just the one bullet at the trees soon.
The last thing Knox wanted was Skye getting caught in the crossfire when the kid snapped.
Knox’s gaze strayed back to her, his bear side growling and growing restless as he kept pace with her, moving with as much stealth as he could muster. It was difficult, but he forced himself to head higher up the side of the mountain, further from her, so Cooper didn’t hear him.
He couldn’t believe how brave she was as she walked with the men, showing no outward sign of the fear he could scent on her. He smiled slightly. She always had been confident and a little reckless. Those were two of the things that had pulled him towards her, had made him enamoured with her at the start.
The first time he had set eyes on her, she had been handling a fight that had broken out at her bar between two big guys, a petite little firecracker who hadn’t held back or hesitated as she had wedged herself between them and separated them.
She had taken a hit from a broken bottle on her chin, but she hadn’t missed a step. She hadn’t flinched or broken down, hadn’t even cried. She had cursed and smacked the bottle out of the hand of the shocked male, had given him hell as she had yelled at him. The other man had been swift to leave while she had been occupied.
Knox had stepped aside for him, had been tempted to collar him so she could unleash hell on him too, but he had been too enthralled by the sight of her bringing a grown man to his knees with threats of telling his parents.
And then she had fisted his shirt and shoved him to the door and out of it.
For a female, Skye had balls.
She had huffed and slammed the door, hadn’t seemed to notice the blood that had been tracking down her chin. Rather than wiping it away or finally breaking down, she had pivoted on her heel and begun righting the furniture.
Knox had stepped in to help her, pushing one of the rustic handmade tables back onto its feet and setting the toppled stools around it. One of them hadn’t made it and he had turned to mention it to her, the pieces of the stool in his hands. Her large, deep brown eyes had utterly bewitched him as they had sparked with gold fire. They had locked with his for a moment, stealing his voice, and then she had dropped them to the broken pieces of the stool and had muttered dark things as she had taken them from him.
And offered him a drink.
He had been quick to take her up on it, to follow her to the bar and ease onto one of the stools beside it as she had grabbed a towel and dabbed at her chin. When she had slid a double shot of whiskey over to him, he had risked it.
He had offered to take a look at her cut.
And gods, the way she had trusted him still floored him even now. Made him feel like a dick all over again. She had leaned towards him, her black Van Halen T-shirt pressing against the damp bar top, and had let him touch her. He could still remember the soft feel of her skin. It was seared on his mind together with the scent of her blood and everything else about her.
He had been lost in her as he had looked at the wound, inhaling her scent and marvelling at the effect it had on him, how it roused a fierce need to be closer to her. When she had softly asked whether it was bad, he had managed to find his voice and tell her it would be fine, but it was going to scar.
He had dabbed at the cut for her, gently cleaning it, and she had thanked him with a smile as she had taken hold of the towel, her fingers brushing his.
Had rocked his entire world on its axis as she had smiled warmly and told him that ‘men dig scars’.
Knox stopped behind a tree as the past rolled up on him and a feeling swept through him, and not for the first time. What he wouldn’t give to be able to go back in time and do things right with her. He huffed quietly and focused on Skye, closed his eyes as he pressed his back to the tree.
He had a second chance with her now and he wasn’t going to waste it.
His senses locked on to her as she moved below him, passing him, and he wanted to groan and sink into the tree as he smelled her. She still wore the same perfume, one he had never gotten the name of, which was probably a good thing. If he had, he would have bought a dozen bottles and spent the last two years tormenting himself with her scent.
He would have deserved that torture.
Gods, maybe it would have helped him grow some balls and head into town to face her wrath.
He angled his head to his left and stared at her back as she picked her way over the snowy, uneven ground. Wrath he deserved. Wrath he knew was coming to him. He hadn’t missed the way she had looked at him. The anger she felt towards him had been right there in her eyes when she had glared at him. She was going to give him hell when they were finally together, and whatever she needed to dish out to him, he would take it, as long as it made her feel better.
But first, he needed to get her out of this mess.
He studied the four males, and then the route ahead of them. There was a gorge caused by run-off from the mountains around seven hundred feet ahead of Skye. It would force her to head towards the river, but at a point where the cabins of Cougar Creek wouldn’t be visible. If he could get her to notice him again without being spotted by the males, he could try to direct her to head closer to the mountain instead, where she would be able to cross the stream before it cut into the dirt to form the ravine.
Knox pushed away from the tree and stalked through the forest, keeping behind the males and at a distance from them, ensuring they didn’t hear him. The recent snowfall helped in that respect, cushioning his footsteps, but it also meant he was leaving a track behind him. If one of the males cut away from the group, there was a chance they would see his trail of boot prints.
A thought struck Knox.
He grinned.
There was a way to make sure that Skye headed towards the mountain to go around the gorge rather than away from it, towards Cougar Creek.
Knox sprinted through the forest, heading towards the mountain, skirting around Skye and the men so they didn’t hear him. When he reached the deep gorge the stream had cut into the forest floor, exposing boulders that easily concealed the dangerous twenty-foot drop to the water below, he stopped and assessed the path that went towards the mountain and then the one between him and Skye.
His blue eyes scanned the ground and he grinned again as he spotted a fallen branch from one of the spruces. He grabbed it and brushed the snow with it, concealing his tracks as he walked towards where he hoped Skye would meet the gorge. He walked from there down towards the creek a little, enough that the humans wouldn’t be able to see his boot prints only started at a certain point.
Satisfied they wouldn’t be able to see the start of his fake trail, he turned back and walked up the slope, brushing the snow a little so it looked as if it had blown into the tracks over the last few days. He crossed the point where he thought Skye would meet the trail and carried on, following the ravine towards the mountain.
Knox glanced back at his trail, checking it, satisfaction pouring through him. It looked good. Convincing.
He continued up to the point where the stream tumbled over rocks on the same level as the forest floor during summer but was covered in a sheet of ice right now. He banked left and stopped near it. Beneath the ice, he could hear water still running, defying the cold weather. There must have been a warm spell before the cougars had woken him and his pride, the temperatures rising high enough that the ice on the mountain had melted to form a torrent beneath the top layer of snow. The speed of the flow was enough to kept the ice from forming thickly over the stream as it entered the shelter of the trees and grew shallower.
It wouldn’t take much to break through the brittle ice and get a boot full of water, so he used the rocks to cross to the other side and walked for a few more feet, until he reached a clearing. It felt like a sensible place to stop the trail as he looked around and found several large bushes that he could easily hide in as well as some big boulders dotted among the thinning trees.
Just beyond a bank of those trees, the side of the mountain loomed, golden light warming the snowy slopes and the grey cliffs as the day wore on. It would be dark soon. If he knew Skye, she would pick this spot as a place to rest for the night.
He busied himself with making his tracks disappear into the snow, giving her a reason to convince the males to stop there, and then skulked into the shadows, charting the terrain, picking out spots where he could hide as he ran over possible outcomes. He wanted to take out one of the men tonight. One of them was bound to stray away from the others, even if it was only to relieve themselves. If they were the sort of male who didn’t like an audience, then Knox could take them down while they were alone.
Knox rested near a boulder, planting his backside to it, and breathed deep of the cold air, trying to quell the dark needs that were stirring his bear side into a frenzy. The urge to shift was strong, constantly pressing him, but he held it back. His bear side was the more powerful of his two forms and the one he would need to use in order to take down the men without alerting them to the fact there was another male out here in the forest hunting them, but it had its drawbacks too.
Saved by her Bear (Black Ridge Bears Shifter Romance Series Book 3) Page 4