“He’s being extra good today,” Jake murmured, his voice small against the howling wind outside. “Finding this cave for us.”
“He has.” Doreen nodded, throat tight with unexpected emotion.
“I wish Deputy Pike were here,” Jake said, as if reading her thoughts. “He would know what to do.”
Last night, wrapped in his arms, she’d felt as if nothing could touch them. Out here, she clung to that feeling like a lifeline.
Doreen swallowed hard and forced a smile. “Well, we know what to do, too, thanks to him.”
She added another small branch to their fire, watching the flames lick at the new fuel. The smoke curled upward, disappearing into the shadows of the cave ceiling. Outside, the storm’s voice grew louder, wind shrieking through the trees.
A cold certainty settled in her chest as she listened. No one would find them here, not in this weather, not on this forgotten trail. If they waited, hoping for rescue, they might wait too long.
“Jake,” she said, keeping her voice light despite the fear fluttering beneath her ribs, “I’m going to step outside for a minute to check on things, okay?”
Jake looked up, his face serious in the firelight. “Is it getting worse?”
“The storm’s pretty strong,” she admitted. “But you’re safe in here. I just want to see if I can spot the road to the cabins; it runs alongside this one.”
“Don’t get lost,” Jake told her.
“I won’t, because you have the whistle, remember.” She took it out of the tin and looped it around his neck. “You keep blowing it every couple of minutes, and it will lead me back to you.”
“Okay.” To test this theory, Jake blew into it hard. The sound was so shrill it hurt her ears.
“That’s it.” She zipped her coat higher, tucking her scarf over her mouth and nose. “Keep feeding the fire, but just the small sticks, nothing bigger. And don’t go near the entrance, okay? The wind is tricky.”
Jake nodded solemnly. “I’ll take care of Bash.”
Doreen smiled despite herself. “I think he’s taking care of you, honey.”
The moment she stepped outside, the wind nearly knocked her backward. Snow flew sideways, stinging her exposed skin like tiny needles. She squinted against the assault, shocked by how quickly conditions had deteriorated. The car, barely twenty feet away, was already half-buried, its shape blurring beneath accumulating snow.
Her footprints from earlier had vanished, filled in as if she’d never walked there at all. But Jake’s whistle cut through the storm, giving her the confidence to move a little further away to a small incline that might give her a better view.
The incline proved steeper than it had appeared, with ice hiding beneath the fresh powder. Doreen dug her boots in with each step, using exposed tree roots as handholds. At the top, she turned in a slow circle, searching desperately for any sign of the main road.
Nothing. Just an endless sea of white, trees emerging like ghostly sentinels before disappearing again behind veils of snow.
Her heart sank, but she forced down the panic rising in her throat. She would find a way. She had to.
Snow continued to fall around her, erasing her presence from the forest even as she moved through it. But beneath the howling of the wind, beneath the crunch of snow under her boots,something else stirred—a connection she couldn’t name, pulling like an invisible thread through the storm, guiding her forward into the white unknown.
She didn’t know if she was following that pull or if it was following her. Either way, she walked on, trusting two truths at once: she would do everything she could to save Jake… and James Pike would move heaven and earth to find them.
Chapter Eighteen – James
The moment James lifted his eyes from the accident report, he knew something was wrong. The wind howled down Main Street, slicing through his uniform jacket as if it were made of tissue paper. Snowflakes no longer drifted; they attacked, driven horizontally by the gale that had descended while he’d been taking statements about the fender bender.
He jogged to his truck, ducking against the wind’s fury, his thoughts already racing ahead to Doreen. This morning had been... perfect. Waking with her in his arms, watching her move around his kitchen in his flannel shirt, the quiet intimacy of breakfast together. His bear hummed contentedly at the memory, even as James fumbled with stiff fingers to unlock his truck door.
He yanked open the truck door and slid inside, shaking snow from his hair. The instant he slammed the door shut, a muffled ringing sound caught his attention. James frowned, tilting his head to pinpoint the source.
There on the floor beneath the passenger seat. Doreen’s phone.
It must have fallen out of her pocket this morning when Doreen had leaned across the seats to kiss him goodbye. He reached for it, but the moment he saw Sorcha’s name on the screen, a thin blade of instinctive fear slid under his ribs.
His bear went rigid, ears-up alert in a way that had nothing to do with human logic and everything to do with mate-sense.
