Chapter Seven
Alice
The car hurtled along in the darkness, and Alice gripped the wheel firmly and forced her eyes to focus on the packed snow through the windshield, and not the man with the gun in the passenger seat.
“Faster,” Riggs snarled at her, jabbing the gun at her.
“I’m going as fast as I can,” she told him, swallowing her fear and keeping her voice as calm as she could. “If I go any faster, we’ll crash.”
“Risk it,” Riggs insisted, jerking the gun again. A trickle of tried blood clung to his hand where she’d bitten him, and her lip throbbed from the backhand he’d given her in retaliation. She’d have kept fighting if he hadn’t pulled out the gun. That changed things.
Reluctantly, she pressed her foot a little harder to the peddle, and watched the needle in the speedometer creep up to forty. Faster than she wanted to be going, but as slow as she dared with the armed man beside her tense with fury and hatred.
“Where are we going?” she tried again. How long had they been driving for now? Ten minutes? Longer? Hopefully long enough that someone had noticed she’d gone. Grant would be expecting her to come back; would he come looking when she didn’t, or just assume she’d gotten cold feet after their almost-kiss and gone back to the inn?
“Shut up and keep driving.”
That was the one thing she couldn’t do. She had no way of knowing if anyone was coming for her. She hadn’t been able to get out so much as a single cry for help before Riggs had pulled the gun, and there had been no-one around to see a thing. Even if Grant did come looking for her, he had no way of knowing which way she’d gone, or that she was in any trouble at all.
No. If she was going to get out of this, she would have to rescue herself.
Which sounded great, if she had the first idea how.
Grant’s tree farm flashed up on her right as the car hurtled through the darkness. The trees were orderly, but dense. And behind them, the wild forest stretched on for miles. It was her best chance to lose her abductor. And the trees would provide some kind of cover. It wasn’t as appealing as a fully armed SWAT team showing up, but it was all she had, and it would have to be enough. She might even be able to double back to Grant’s cabin and call for help.
She risked a quick glance in her captor’s direction. He was looking ahead. This was it—she’d never get a better chance.
Ignoring the terror churning in her gut, she jammed her foot on the brake and spun the wheel, sending the vehicle into a vicious skid. Riggs shouted in surprise, but Alice could do nothing other than grapple with the wheel. The car smashed into a snowbank on the passenger’s side with a deafening crash, and the impact threw her forward in her seat. Her head smacked into the wheel and she could feel blood leaking down her face, but she couldn’t afford to worry about that now. She thrust her hand into her pocket and pulled out her small cannister of mace, emptying it in Rigg’s direction. He howled in pain and swatted blindly at her. With shaking hands, she jammed the seat beat release and wrenched open the door, tumbling out into the snowy night.
She heard Riggs’s furious shout as he tried to open his door and quickly realized he couldn’t—the snowbank had jammed it shut. Finally, some luck. But it wouldn’t last long. It would take him only moments to recover and climb across, and she couldn’t be here when he did.
She took off at a sprint through the darkness, into the trees and away from the vehicle’s lights, grateful that she’d worn sensible rather than sexy clothing this evening. Her boots crunched easily across the snow, and her gloves protected her hands as she tumbled through the densely packed tree farm. Her coat was too bulky, though, and she could feel it hampering her as she tried to run. With a stifled sob of fear and frustration, she yanked it off and tossed it aside. Free from its confining weight, she moved more easily through the trees. The cold would become dangerous if she stayed out here too long, but right now that was the least of her problems.
Behind her she could hear heavy footsteps crashing clumsily through the underbrush as Riggs pursued her into the depths of the forest. She darted between the pine trees, trying desperately to lose him amongst the large trunks.
But with a sickening lurch in her stomach, she found herself staring at a dead end, the trees clustered too densely ahead to let her pass. Whirling around in panic, she saw Victor emerge from between the pines, his face twisted in rage as he stalked towards her, gun clenched in one hand.
“Nowhere left to run now, you stupid girl,” he sneered, leveling the gun directly at her. “You've ruined everything, absolutely everything. I've lost my company, my reputation, all of it gone thanks to your pathetic meddling. But no more. You’re going to pay for what you’ve done.”
Alice slowly raised her hands in front of her, willing him to see reason. “Victor, please listen to me. This won't solve anything. Let's talk this through, figure out a way forward without violence.”
For an instant his face seemed to flicker with uncertainty, the faintest hint of hesitation in his wild eyes. But then they hardened once more into flinty resolve. “It's too late for talking,” he said coldly. “Far too late.”
He thumbed back the hammer on the pistol with an ominous click that seemed to echo through the stillness of the forest. Alice squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself helplessly for the gunshot.
But instead, a ferocious, earth-shaking roar split air. Alice's eyes flew open in time to see a massive bear come hurtling from the shadows of the trees with terrifying speed. It slammed into Riggs with bone-crunching force, sending him and the gun flying in opposite directions. He struck the base of a pine tree and slumped, stunned. The bear rose up and loosed another furious roar, and just as Alice was sure it would kill him, the bear snorted and dropped back onto all four legs…and turned to stare at her.
She stumbled backward in sheer terror, her back hitting the unyielding trunks behind her.
The bear took a step toward her, then hesitated, standing in the snow, one paw raised a fraction as if it was undecided. Alice drew in a sharp breath as her heart pounded in her chest. She’d survived Riggs, and now she was going to be killed by an angry grizzly.
But something in the creature's dark, soulful eyes gave her pause. There was something familiar about them, as if… No, that was impossible. She must’ve hit her head in the crash harder than she’d thought.
But she couldn’t stop her feet taking one tentative step towards the huge creature, because some part of her knew this was more than a concussion. The bear stayed very still, watching her warily.
“Grant?” she breathed.
The bear dipped its great shaggy head a slow nod.
