She groaned.“You’re not going to tell me the cougar did this, are you?”
Snowflakes stuck to his beard.He flashed his teeth.“No,” he said with a chuckle.“Maybe a racoon?Hell, I don’t know.But no way of fixing this unless you’ve got another cord.”
“No, I don’t,” she huffed.“Well that blows.”
“I’ll bring in some firewood.Do you have any dry stuff in the house?”
“Yeah, I keep it in the cold room.”She trudged back the way they’d come.The storage shed, which sat almost in the trees, drew her eye.She sucked in a breath and stopped short.The normally bolted door was open a crack.
Jaxon bumped into her.“What’s wrong?”
She pointed.“The shed.The lock’s off and the door is open.I was just in there last night to get fuel to run the generator.I locked it...I’m positive.”
He pushed her behind him, hefted the gun, and strode toward the shed.
The icy wind whipped across her exposed cheeks.The inside of her nostrils stung with every breath that didn’t reach her lungs.Unease oscillated in her chest.
Something’s not right.
She watched as Jaxon stopped in front of the shed.He turned to her and waved her away.She planted her feet and crossed her arms across her chest.No way in hell she was running back inside.If something was happening on her property, she needed to know about it.
Jaxon’s face pinched with displeasure, but he returned his attention to the door and swung it open.He pointed the barrel of the gun inside the shed.His stance was wide, his shoulders braced as if he expected someone—or something—to leap out.His form relaxed.
She let out a breath.“What is it?”
He pointed to the ground and she traipsed closer.The snow was ridiculously high now, even more so at the side of the house where the drifts collected.If she fell forward, her face would go under before her hands could break her fall.
Jaxon held out an arm and she grasped his elbow.He towed her the remaining feet and she stopped.Her breath came out in short, hot puffs that cut through the wall of cold encompassing them.
“Get inside.Now.”Jaxon’s demand was hard and unrelenting.
On the ground in front of the shed was a set of deep footprints that disappeared into the woods.
Human footprints.
CHAPTER 5
Jaxon hustled McKenna’sass through the back door and slammed it behind him.She wheeled around and yanked off her hood.Her cheeks blazed bright red from the cold, accentuating the paleness of the skin around her eyes.
He unzipped his coat as she shed her winter gear.“What the hell was that?”she wheezed.
“Someone’s fucking with us—you—that’s what.”
She shook her head, making the tendrils of her hair dance over her shoulders.“That’s crazy.I mean, something’s not right, but why mess with the generator?Why sneak into my shed?”
“There’re holes in the gas tanks that are in there.”
Her mouth formed a large O.He shoved the arousing images from his head.Now wasn’t the time to be thinking of all the things she could do with her pretty lips.
“It has to be a mistake.”Her voice trembled.
He snorted and dropped into a kitchen chair.His hunger had vanished, but it didn’t change the fact that they needed to eat and stay warm.Her hands fidgeted in front of her as she slowly sank into the chair adjacent to him.
“They’re bullet holes.That’s what the noise was after the generator went out.”
Her face turned somber and fear shone in her eyes.
“Eat,” he said, shoving her plate closer.
