Abbie picked her way carefully between snow-crusted evergreen bushes and scattered boulders blocking the easiest route off this frozen mountain. She’d traded in her oversized flight suit from last night for a less oversized pair of worn-but-clean jeans, two long-sleeved T-shirts, a dark green cotton sweater, thick socks, and boots a size too large she’d found in a bedroom down the hall from the one she’d slept in.
The bedroom Hunter had shown her to early this morning when they arrived and ordered her to stay put until he came to get her.
Yeah, that always worked well with her.
Did he really think she’d just sit there for a week or more? He might have all kinds of time, but she didn’t.
First, her mother was dying, dammit.
Second, what about her job? Stuart would be foaming at the mouth by now, fielding questions from other media outlets, and the board and slow-but-not-stupid Brittany wouldn’t be far behind wondering why he’d given Abbie an invitation to the Wentworth event.
Third, what if the police wanted to ask more questions about Gwen’s shooting? Would they think Abbie had skipped out or would they think she’d left against her will?
Fourth, fifth, sixth… her mother was dying, dying, dying.
She kicked a loose rock that disappeared in a snowdrift. A beautiful but desolate landscape she could better appreciate with a down coat. She might have hunted for one before leaving if the sun hadn’t been shining outside and she hadn’t been worried over getting caught sneaking around downstairs. If she’d gone to that trouble she’d have left by the front door instead of climbing down a knotted-sheet rope like a teen on a hormone adventure.
No alarm went off when she opened her bedroom window on the second floor. Landing in a pile of snow had been fortunate, except for ending up with wet jeans.
And if she didn’t get out from under these evergreens and back into the sun she was going to turn into a Popsicle.
Suck it up and keep moving before Hunter found her missing.
He wouldn’t be happy, but that was his fault.
When she arrived at his cabin last night, she’d asked when she could get back to her mother. Hunter’s blunt “Not any time soon” had severed her last patient nerve. But, not to go off half-cocked, as her dad would have warned, she’d asked what he intended to do with her. He’d answered, “Depends on how much information you give me.”
She kept coming back to one thing.
He was a trained operative of some sort. He could have been lying to her about everything last night and manipulating her by pretending not to hand her over to WITSEC. She had little information left to trade, so the minute Hunter figured that out, what would he do with her?
He couldn’t let her just walk away after what she’d seen.
Her best bet was to locate the Jeep. Soon.
Pushing a branch out of the way, she dodged the clump of snow that smacked the ground, then she carefully moved forward, stepping on dirt patches and testing snow-covered areas for a hard bottom or ice before she put her weight on her foot.
If Hunter had been reasonable she wouldn’t be out here freezing her bottom off.
She wanted to be angry with him for everything that had happened and blame him for the crazy guy in her apartment, but that guy had called her Abigail. He’d said she did a good job and admitted shooting Gwen, so was he thanking her for getting Gwen outside? That might have been coincidental if he hadn’t known her name. He hadn’t known Hunter by name, though.
She couldn’t figure it all out and Hunter wasn’t sharing a thing. She still couldn’t reconcile this man with the one she’d met six years ago.
He’d looked different back then, but the animal attraction she’d felt for the hairy version of Hunter had been the same as what hit her last night at the Wentworth party. Her first impression of Hunter back then had been rugged and earthy with thick coffee-brown hair to his shoulders, clean but unkempt. He’d reminded her of men she’d grown up around in flannel shirts, brogan boots, and work gloves softened by hard labor.
And God help her, she sort of remembered asking-not begging-him to take her home with him years back. A pathetic memory she’d like to erase. He’d been exactly what she’d gone hunting for when she strutted into the bar looking for a man. Sweet, attentive, sexy in a scruffy way, and so very human. But the somber green eyes hadn’t changed.
She should have realized at the Wentworth party why she recognized Hunter’s eyes.
He’d seemed so free of cares that night long ago.
She couldn’t reconcile today’s suave Hunter with the hairy guy who hadn’t appeared capable of affording a decent hotel.
He’d said very little about himself back then, only that he’d just finished a job she’d assumed was some type of manual labor-hah!-given his beefed-up size and that he wouldn’t be staying a second night in Chicago.
One night. No ties. Perfect.
She’d thought.
She hadn’t been quite so thrilled with her rash decision the next morning when she woke up in a hotel room hungover and lying next to a bohemian wearing Brad Pitt’s naked body from Troy.
Based on waking up in her bra and panties with no indication of any physical activity, she had passed out on him.
She’d slinked from the bed and shimmied into the hooker-red slut dress that had looked sexy hanging in a store twelve hours before when she bought it during a moment of shopping rage. After pulling herself together, she’d tried to sneak out but made the mistake of taking one last look at all that buff body.
He’d been watching her the whole time, not saying a word.
They’d stared at each other silently for a while until he asked in a sleep-rusty voice, “Need money for a cab?”
She’d shaken her head, her iron-straightened hair swishing against her arms.
When he hadn’t said anything else, like “What’s your last name or phone number?” she’d backed out of the bedroom and fled the hotel, mortified to her curly roots.
She’d never gone home with a stranger before… or after.
Would Hunter believe her if she told him that?
Why did she care?
Because he’d surprised her last night when she’d been close to panic in the dark. He’d soothed her when he could have ordered her around. He hadn’t handed her over to a bunch of strangers. Somewhere hidden inside that emotionally isolated operative was a man capable of tenderness even if he kept it well hidden.
She remembered being kissed, but alcohol had wiped out one amazing memory if he’d kissed her like that six years ago.
Inside that lethal package was a Hunter she wished she’d met under different circumstances.
And, yes, as long as she was out here alone with her thoughts, she’d admit one more truth. She’d like another shot at getting her hands on all that naked male for one night.
But if he’d been interested in her that way, he’d have taken advantage of what she’d offered six years ago.
Talk about a washout in bed. The charming and funny “Samson” hadn’t jumped on what she’d offered, but the gun-toting, private-jet-flying, too-sexy-for-her-sanity Hunter sure as hell had kissed her.
She slapped a low-hanging pine branch out of her way. Melting snow sprinkled her head. When would this romantic hookup happen with everything she had on her plate, not to mention some lunatic who might be trying to kill her?
Oh, and she was currently heading away from Hunter, which would make any interlude a bit hard to orchestrate.
Besides, she had a higher priority than finding out what it would be like to peel Hunter down to that buff body again. Such as finding a way off this freezing-ass mountain.
Had to be a neighbor somewhere or hikers or a fire tower. Didn’t they have radios in fire towers? She hadn’t seen anything in the dark last night, but she was fairly certain this was the direction they’d come from after leaving the Jeep. The minute she found the truck, she was so gone. Her dad had taught her a lot about old trucks, like how to hot-wire the ignition.
Wind ruffled pine-needle fingers on branches behind her and cut through the layers of cotton shirts she wore. So damn cold.
She rubbed her hands and picked up her pace, squeezing through the next thicket of bushes, and picked her way six steps to the left before she could turn downhill again.
How far was she from the cabin now?
She took a step down. Something made a snap sound.
Loose sand and gravel fell away from beneath her foot. She jumped sideways to grab a swooping branch on a tree. The one-inch-thick limb bent with the strain and swatted her hands and face with pine needles.
Ground disintegrated under her backpedaling boot heels.
The branch creaked with strain, wood fibers separating.
“Don’t you dare break,” she worried aloud.
She flailed one hand for another branch just out of her reach and twisted her body. Her knee bounced against the ground. Pain shot up her leg. She snarled at the worthless piece of vegetation and lunged for the waving branch again.
And missed.
Blood pumped loud through her ears. She tried not to breathe hard for fear of disturbing her tenuous position, but hyperventilating required some amount of priming.
The wind cried her name.
She paused, listening, her heart thundering with hope.
Hunter might be pissed off, but he wouldn’t let her fall to her death. Screw it. She couldn’t help her mother if she ended up in a body cast… or worse.
Licking her dry lips, she opened her mouth to call out.
The limb snapped.
She took off down the hill like a bobsled.