Mountain Refuge. Sarah Varland

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СКАЧАТЬ crowded his mind, pushed out any hope of peace he had been clinging to. Odds weren’t good that she was unharmed.

      Clay hoped, whichever sister it was, she could take care of herself.

      And hoped even more that God would take care of her.

      * * *

      Summer Dawson’s feet pounded the dirt beneath them as she rounded another corner in the thick spruce forest, desperately struggling to stay ahead of whoever was behind her, whoever this man was who wanted her dead. She could still hear his footfalls, the rocks in the trail scattering behind her, and knew he wasn’t far behind.

      If only she knew how long she’d be running. She was in good shape, leading hikes at her family’s lodge for so many years had seen to that, not to mention her training regimen—but she’d already been out for several hours. Fatigue wouldn’t take long to set in, and Summer didn’t know where she was—she’d had to divert from the path she knew after she’d rounded one of the corners and he had been there waiting.

      Summer hadn’t had time to react, hadn’t had time to assess the situation or use any of the self-defense training or survival skills she possessed. In the moment when she’d needed all of that most, all she’d been able to do was scream. Finally she’d hit him hard enough to be able to run.

      But first he’d been able to talk to her, say things she wouldn’t soon forget. First, he’d been able to run a knife up her arm and promise her that death wouldn’t come quickly.

      Summer wondered if, when she stopped, when she’d gotten away and didn’t have to run anymore, if she’d feel the cold blade against her skin like it was still there. Somehow she suspected she would.

      Determination renewed, she pushed herself harder. She was less than ten miles from her family’s lodge, she was fairly certain about that much. Summer didn’t recognize the trail she was on right now, but it had to connect eventually to one she was familiar with, didn’t it?

      As she ran, Summer went over her would-be killer’s description in her mind to make sure the details were cemented in her memory and to distract her from the burning in her lungs. He wore a mask. Black Carhartt stocking cap. She hadn’t noticed much more than that, his features—the ones she’d been able to see—weren’t etched into her mind the way the glimmering silver of the knife was.

      Were it not for the noise in the bushes distracting him, Summer would probably be dead right now, bleeding out on the floor of the forest where she’d so often come to feel alive again. The irony wasn’t lost on her. No, it cut deep inside, the pain so strong she almost couldn’t bear it.

      She’d felt safe here. And now that had been stolen from her.

      Just like life had stolen so many things from her over the past three years.

      She couldn’t think about any of that right now, all she could afford to focus on was running, the fall of her feet, pushing harder, faster, as her lungs screamed for air. She silently chastised them. Better to be burning and in pain than dead.

      Please, God... She’d prayed more tonight than she had since the night three years ago when everything had changed.

      Summer didn’t even know what she was praying for at this point. But she knew she needed all the help she could get.

      She heard a twig snap behind her. Legs screaming, lungs burning, she sped up even more, one last sprint, that’s all she had in her.

      The woods grew lighter. Was that...?

      There was a dirt road in front of her. A beautiful road that hopefully led to town. And people.

      Still running, she whipped her phone out and used her voice-to-text feature to send a message to her siblings. Help. She wasn’t willing to chance it by taking the time to say anything else, but she needed help. One of her brothers was a police officer in Moose Haven—she didn’t know if they could GPS track her or anything, but it might be the only chance she had.

      She emerged from the woods and ran into the road.

      And almost ran straight into the path of a red pickup truck not fifty yards away, driving straight toward her.

      Summer froze when she saw it, took only a second to make up her mind and then ran toward it, waving her arms. This couldn’t be her attacker—he wouldn’t have had time to get a truck to come after her, not when she’d heard his footsteps behind her only minutes before. It could be a getaway car, driven by another criminal, but it was a measured risk on Summer’s part—it was more likely the driver was someone who could help her. Besides, she couldn’t outrun a pickup, and if the driver of it wanted her dead, he’d just run her over while she sprinted down the road. Better to take a chance, maybe get out alive. Still, her heart pounded a crazy rhythm in her chest. How had her night gone from enjoying her usual route to this—running for her life? The driver stopped when she reached him, and she threw the door open.

      “Drive.”

      Amazingly, he didn’t ask questions. He just floored it down the road, eating up the gravel and throwing up dust.

       TWO

      Clay’s world felt like it had gone from zero to sixty in less than ten seconds. He didn’t know why he was so surprised he’d found Tyler’s sister—at least he was pretty sure that was who he had found—because he’d prayed for that very thing. Still, seeing her dart into the road, clearly running from something, and jumping into his truck like she trusted him to protect her, it was overwhelming.

      “Are you Summer Dawson?” he asked as he drove. He glanced down at his search directions and planned a quick route back to the lodge.

      He caught her frown out of the corner of his eye. “Why?” she asked.

      “Your brother has people out looking for you and I’m supposed to call if I find you.”

      “Which brother?”

      “Tyler.” Clearly he’d overestimated the amount of trust she’d have in a stranger. She needed to get out of her situation badly enough to jump in the truck, but now that she was momentarily safe, she was trying to keep herself that way by being guarded. Clay understood, but needed a way to convince her he wasn’t a threat.

      “My phone is on the dashboard. You can call Tyler from it if you want—you’ll see that I have his number. He’ll also confirm who I am if you ask him to. I’m Clay Hitchcock and I’m guiding at the lodge this summer.”

      She reached for the phone and pressed the screen a few times. Calling Tyler, he assumed.

      “It’s Summer. I’m safe and I’m with Clay, your friend?”

      He didn’t miss how that last part was a question. When he’d found out she was missing, he’d assumed that in this remote area of Alaska, she’d had a bad encounter with a wild animal or had issues with the terrain. The darker possibilities of meeting a human who wanted to cause her harm had crossed his mind, but he hadn’t thought they deserved a great deal of consideration up here in this small, picturesque Alaska town and had written them off as paranoia. Now he wasn’t sure. She was too upset, too skittish and hesitant to trust to have been running from an animal.

      He СКАЧАТЬ