What he saw through the Cub’s open window stopped him dead in his tracks.
***
“Don’t move.” Leo’s voice was miraculously steady. So was her gun.
With her hands occupied, she blinked in an effort to get rid of the blood dripping in her eyes. It coated her lids, clogged her vision, made breathing difficult.
Everything wavered so much, she couldn’t focus on the bulky creature.Please, God, don’t be a bear.The ground shifted.Or a yeti.“S-said stop.”
“Didn’t move.” Okay, so not a bear, unless they talked around here. She wasn’t entirely prepared to rule out yetis. She could, however, say with absolute certainty that this massive man was not the one she was after. Sure, they were both white, but that was about where the similarities ended. Campbell Turner topped out at five nine. This guy was well over six feet tall.
Great—then who the hell was this? Had her landing somehow attracted the attention of one of those wilderness freaks? Seemed unlikely that one of her pursuers had already reached her, but then again, her head wasn’t on straight. For all she knew, she’d blacked out for an hour. No. No, it was still light out. She squinted at the man. Mountain man seemed about right. He didn’t look like he’d seen civilization in a while.
He raised massive, gloved hands to wide shoulders and wiggled his fingers, as if they itched to reach out, like one of those Wild West characters just dying to unholster their weapon. Though he didn’t, technically, have a holster, since he wore his rifle strapped across his chest. “You, uh, okay?” Like an afterthought, he added a “ma’am.”
“Step back,” she panted. Why was it so hard to speak? To breathe? There was too much pressure on her chest.
Her unfocused gaze skimmed over a thick beard and wild hair, managing to home in on bright eyes that narrowed, picked her apart from the top of her head to wherever her blood flowed, and finally disappeared when he stepped off the float. Whoever this person was, he did not fit Campbell Turner’s description.
Without his weight to anchor it, the plane lurched for a few nausea-inducing seconds before settling again.
Belly heaving, she tried to release the harness and wound up sinking into her seat again, blinded by the pain as much as the blood.
“I’m coming back up,” growled the man.
Her stomach swam. “I can manage.”
“Gotta get you out. Fast. Or you’ll wind up drowning.”
Drowning? What the hell was he talking about? And why would he care?
His weight made everything lurch again. Something fell from her hands with a metallic clunk, her eyes shut out the painful light. She concentrated on sounds and smells and textures. Her stomach settled, thank God. Now if her head would stop throbbing, maybe she could figure this mess out.
If this guy wasn’t Campbell Turner and he wasn’t part of the Chronos team, could he really be a random mountain man who just happened to be strolling by when she crash-landed in the location Amka had given her? Leo didn’t believe in coincidences. At all.
Somewhere not too far off, a helicopter’s blades beat the air, dull but present. Way too close.
“Climb to the front.” Quick as a flash, the man undid her harness and backed out of the cockpit. “Now, dammit! You’re sinking!”
Sinking?
“Put your hand here.”
She started to shake her head and stopped. “Trying not to vomit.”
“No time for that,” barked the angry bass and, hell, the man was right. “Come on.”
It took every bit of willpower she had to set her distrust aside and let him help her onto the float and then to solid ground.
Her feet slipped out from under her and she careened painfully to the ice. Not solid ground at all.
Something wet touched her face. Leo’s eyes opened. She grunted in surprise at the sight of a dog or a wolf, maybe, with those weird, colorless eyes.
“Back up, Bo,” the man said, then leaned down to offer his hands. After a second’s hesitation, she clasped them and let him haul her back up to standing.
“Let’s move.”
Concentrating hard, she slid beside him. After a few slippery steps, the vise tightened around her skull and her stomach convulsed. Dropping to hands and knees on the pocked ice, she gagged. The effort twisted her insides, but didn’t bring up a thing.
