She narrowed her eyes. “You sure you can make it any farther today?”
Nope.He wanted to pitch the tent right here, strip off his clothes, and snuggle up inside. Only this time, he didn’t want to do it to ward off death. He wanted to do it because it felt good. She felt good. Against him, beside him, talking smack with him. Yelling at him because he’d gotten himself hurt and hadn’t told her.
“Let’s go, then. Lead the way, you stubborn man.”
Man, she was one of a kind, wasn’t she? Not only beautiful, but strong, smart, and just grumpy enough to make him want to draw a smile from those lips. He’d always been a sucker for a challenge.
He wanted more than a smile, though. He wanted this to last—past the five or six days it would take to get her to safety.
Dangerous thought for a man who’d lost everything he ever touched. Pointless, too, since this—whatever it was—would be over before it began.
***
They hiked for another hour or so, their pace slow but constant, the ground drier and higher as they went, until they walked mostly over uneven shale. Each step was an unsteady quicksand dance over the flat, gravel-like rocks.
All the while, Leo kept an eye on Elias. And all the while, she got more anxious—although she couldn’t say whether it was his condition or something else about his demeanor that made her so.
She scoffed internally. As if she knew him well enough to gauge his demeanor.
When he finally stopped, she took a quick look around. “This where we’re staying?”
They stood at the top edge of the shale field they’d just traversed, high above the lake they’d raced across…was that just yesterday? Between them and the lake, the spikey boreal forest eased down to the water in an uneven carpet, warmed by the setting sun. The incline looked deceptively flat, as if she and Elias and Bo had just meandered up a rolling hill instead of climbing at breakneck speed all day. The trees appeared neatly spaced, too, as if the forest floor were an open, welcoming sort of place. Another of Alaska’s evil illusions.
At first glance, it didn’t appear to be an ideal location to stop for the night, but when she turned a full circle, she realized it was actually perfect. Walking over those loose stones was loud and slow. They’d hear anyone who approached long before they arrived.
When she turned back to look at Elias, she found him watching her.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Fine.”
“Head?”
She blinked for a second before realizing what he’d meant, and touched a tentative hand to the bandage. “Seems okay.”
“I’ll look at it.”
“Sounds good.”
They unpacked a few items from the bag—tarps, tent, sleeping bags, blankets—and spread their wet clothes out to dry. After chowing down on the food Elias gave her, Bo sniffed the area with her tail up, amazingly alert for a creature who’d put in as much time walking as they had.
“This is better. You were right.” Leo did another three sixty, noting that the flat ground was dry underfoot and the cliff rising above them not only served as protection from the wind, but provided at least one direction in which no one could approach.
She leaned her head back and stared up. Unless they came from the sky. Like a specter, thethumpof the spinning blades haunted her, and she listened hard before confirming that what she heard was her pulse—not their pursuers.
Not tonight at least.
He grunted a response. Or a nonresponse, as she’d started thinking of them.
“Which way do we go tomorrow?”
He pointed to the side.
“Isn’t Schink’s Station that way?” She indicated the cliff.
“Yeah. But it’s a climb. Goat paths. Not easy. We’ll go around.” He knocked a tent stake into the ground with quick efficiency. “Tomorrow.”
“Right. Tonight, we need rest.”
