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.