He wasn’t sure what she had done to get herself dragged into this mess, but he was damned if he was going to let anything happen to her.
No matter what it took.
He was going to save her.
Chapter 2
Skye began to get a bad feeling in her gut as the truck she was in rolled up the snowy forestry track. The mousy-haired man at the wheel glanced at her from time to time, as if he could sense her rising nerves and how close she was to calling this whole thing off.
Behind her, three other men were crammed into the back seats of the blue pickup, none of them speaking. In fact, not one of them had uttered a word in the time she had known them. The only one who had spoken was the man beside her, and what he had said had been enough to not only spark her interest but secure her as a guide.
Something she was beginning to regret agreeing to.
Karl had caught her at a low point. He and his friends had been the first customers she had seen in almost a week thanks to the abysmal weather, and she had been overjoyed to finally have someone to serve, even if it had only been for drinks.
Her bar, The Spirit Moose, was floundering and badly in need of a cash injection after two very short summers in a row and annoyingly long winters. If things didn’t improve soon, she would have to admit defeat, and that was something Skye Callaghan just did not do.
When Karl had asked where he could find a guide because he needed to go up a valley to visit his friends, she had told him there wasn’t a guide in the area crazy enough to head up the valleys in the dead of winter. With the current weather conditions veering towards another storm and recent snowfall, the valleys would be deadly.
He hadn’t seemed bothered by the potential danger though and had asked how well she knew the area. It had been on the tip of her tongue to tell him to find another crazy person.
And then he had slapped a fat wedge of cash down on the bar top, all of them fifty-dollar bills.
She had stared at all that money and had seen the lifeline The Spirit Moose badly needed. It would be enough to keep her afloat at least until summer and would pay off some of her debts. Not only that, but Karl had sweetened the deal by saying that when they returned to town, whether they found their friends or not, there would be another similar amount of money waiting for her.
So she had taken the job.
Skye stared out of the cab of the truck at the valley, at thick white snow that covered the track and made it slow going to crawl along it without plummeting into the trees, and at the mountains that surrounded her.
Now that the haze of seeing all that money was lifting and she had gotten a good look at the four men and had realised where they were heading, she had come to a conclusion.
She should’ve asked a lot more questions.
That feeling grew as they finally reached the trailhead and pulled up next to another car. It wasn’t the only one parked in the clearing either. There were several more trucks and SUVs, and none of them looked as if they had been moved in days, possibly even weeks.
She had heard rumours that there were cabins up this valley and now she had her confirmation. Someone was living up here. Quite a few someones.
“Does one of these belong to your friends?” She eyed the row of vehicles.
“The red SUV.” Karl was quick to answer.
Skye wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or more worried as she looked at the car in question and found it covered in a layer of snow that had drifted up its side, telling her it had been there during the recent snowstorm but not as long as the others parked further along. They were completely obscured by the snow.
“I said we would come up for the holidays but the storm closed in and we couldn’t reach the cabin.” Karl offered a smile, one that did nothing to warm his grey eyes. He shrugged. “I’m a city guy. Not used to this method of finding a place. Our friend was supposed to meet us at the start of the track near the highway, but when we reached it, he wasn’t there.”
Which was plausible.
“The storm blew for a couple of days and dumped a lot of snow. Might be they couldn’t get back to their vehicle from the cabin. Do you know which one it is?” She could only think of one cabin up this valley, but there had to be more than that judging by how many cars were parked here.
Karl offered her the piece of paper he had shown her back at the bar. “I only have these to go on. Sorry.”
He didn’t stop her when she took the piece of paper and studied the coordinates scrawled on it.
“I know the way to a cabin. We can check there first. It’s close to these coordinates.” She reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out her GPS unit.
Karl seized her arm. “What’s that? Is that a phone?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s a GPS. I use it for hiking. I’ll put the coordinates in it and we can use it to find our way to them.”
He eyed it, a look crossing his face that said he was debating demanding she hand him the device. Part of her was tempted, but she thought about the money. He would probably demand she give him back what he had already paid her too and she could definitely kiss goodbye to the second half of the payment even if he let her keep the first.
“We won’t be able to just walk in a straight line to it, of course.” She smiled at him, affecting an easy air to cover her nerves and how desperate she was for the money. “The valley has a lot of ravines and areas where we’ll have to go around. I know this place well enough to guide you there along the shortest route, no detours or backtracking necessary.”
His grip on her eased. “Are there other routes out of this valley?”
She wanted to frown at that question but resisted. “Sure. There’s a valley that joins it up towards the glacier. A pass cuts east and you can hike to the next valley along from this one.”
He didn’t look happy about that as he released her.
Why?
Skye shrugged it off and put the coordinates into the GPS. It revealed a point not too far north from her current position, on the left side of the valley. Strange. She looked in that direction, past the parked cars. She couldn’t recall seeing a cabin up that way, but then she had only been to this valley a few times. It was possible someone lived there. The vehicles were proof that people were staying in the valley in the dead of winter, and there were too many for only one cabin—the one she could think of.
That cabin was small. Too small for so many people.
She pocketed her GPS. “It’s a way up the valley, but I can get you there. It’s probably no more than a day or two’s hike. I’d say two given the conditions and how late it is now.”
Karl nodded and opened his door, allowing a blast of frigid air into the cab. “Let’s go.”
The men in the backseat all piled out of the vehicle and moved to the back of the truck. The biggest of the men, a real bruiser who needed to go on a diet, opened the tailgate and bent over to reach into the covered bed.
Skye grabbed her pack from the seat beside her and slipped from the truck, dropping to land on her feet in the snow. She zipped her black jacket up, covering her sweater, and pulled her gloves from the side of her green pack. She left the pack on her seat as she tugged them on and then grabbed it and slipped her arms into the straps.
She glanced at the men as she tightened the straps.