“Whoever was here is gone. Aren’t you giving it a little overkill?” Mary asked from deep in the shadows of the cabin.
A surge of anger came and went. She was probably right. If her father had been there, he’d definitely left.
Unbidden, an image of Frank Richards’ blood-soaked body rose in his mind. Nick’s chest tightened as he imagined Mary dead because he didn’t take precautions. No, his actions weren’t overkill.
An arctic blast reminded him they weren’t in the clear yet. The best they could hope for was to get back to town before they couldn’t see the trail at all. Nick studied the snow falling in the dusky shadows. Hell, they might already be too late. “Let’s go.”
Mary hurried out of the cabin, her blue gaze darting to the left and right.
Hiding a grin, Nick turned and slogged his way through the mounting snow to the snowmobile they’d left down the trail. Mary might make a good agent if she weren’t so impetuous. She was growing on him, and he had to admit he liked it when she fit snugly against him on the back of the snowmobile.
His snowsuit tightened at the thought and tightened even more when he slid in place on the vinyl seat.
Mary hopped on behind him, slipped her arms around his waist and tucked her body against his. Okay, maybe riding double wasn’t such a good idea. At this rate, he’d run into a tree if he couldn’t keep his mind off the blond beauty with the bizarre name.
In his head, Nick reminded himself about rule number one of being a special agent: never fall for the beautiful woman. They’re always trouble.
Remember Elaina?
Nick turned the key and revved the engine, spinning the snowmobile around in a circle.
Mary’s arms tightened around his middle.
Maybe he wasn’t being fair to Mary. Elaina had been a dark-haired, sultry beauty, working as a double agent. He’d fallen for all her lies and, because of his lapse in judgment, almost got himself and fellow agent Casanova Valdez killed. Nick had deserved to die for his lapse in common sense, but his mistake shouldn’t have endangered his friend. Of course, Mary wasn’t Elaina.
Mary’s bright blue eyes and silky blond hair gave her the appearance of an angel, innocent and gullible. But he’d seen the strength of devotion to her father. She’d be a force to reckon with if someone threatened her or her father.
Nick wondered what it felt like to love a father the way Mary loved hers. He hadn’t stayed long enough in any foster home to form an attachment to a father figure. The closest he’d come was his respect for Royce Fontaine, his friend and mentor.
With the thickening snow drowning out any bit of light from the winter sun, the going was slow and took twice as long as the trip out. The wind kicked up, biting through his gloves, making his fingers numb.
Mary shivered behind him, her face buried in the back of his jacket. His hands and feet were cold, even with the miniature heaters on the hand- and footrests. Mary had to be freezing. He increased his speed, carefully negotiating the turns in the trail.
So intent on avoiding a head-on collision with a boulder or giant spruce, Nick wasn’t prepared when another snowmobile erupted from a side trail, swerving within inches of their front end.
Nick jerked the handlebar too late to miss the other vehicle. The front runner of their snowmobile clipped the back of the other machine. At the edge of an embankment, the sudden movement sent them over and sliding down a twenty-foot slope toward a frozen creek.
Holding on with everything he had, Nick tried to steer the machine to a halt, but they were moving too fast toward a huge boulder.
“Jump!” he yelled, kicked against the footrest and threw himself to the side.
At the same time, Mary’s arms let go of his waist.
Nick crashed into the snow, his shoulder hitting a rock before he rolled and continued his wild tumble down the hillside. Pain radiated from each point he rammed into an obstacle beneath the snowy surface. He reached out, grasping for something to slow his fall, but his gloved fingers couldn’t find anything but snow and loose rocks.
More snow and debris slipped down the hillside with him. If he continued to fall, he wouldn’t stop until he crashed through the ice in the creek. And if he didn’t break all his bones getting there, he’d die of hypothermia before he got back to civilization. As this thought crossed his mind, his back hit against something solid and his downward spiral ended in a bone-jarring halt. The rest of the hillside continued tumbling down on top of him, pelting him with rocks, snow and sticks. Then Mary’s powder-blue-clad body slammed into him and knocked the air out of his lungs.
* * *
Mary lay with her face smashed against the solid wall she’d crashed into, her nose smarting from hitting it. Nerves throughout her body reported in, detailing all the aches and pains collected on her death slide down the embankment. She’d lost her gloves somewhere on the hillside, knocked from her hands as she scrambled to find a handhold. Too soon, the cold seeped into her fingertips, spreading up her arms into her body, and she shivered.
The wall beneath her moved, a coat-padded arm curling around her. “You okay?” Nick’s breath warmed the top of her head, her hood having fallen off in her fall.
“I just fell twenty feet down a rocky slope—you do the math.” She tried to move but felt wedged against him, her chest and torso firmly smashed into his. The shock of the attack, on top of the terror of free-falling, made her movements slow and unwieldy.
An engine revved on the trail above them.
Nick seized her shoulders and shoved her away from him, then rolled behind the tree he’d been leaning against.
