Prey

waiting out the storm. He and Angie had one big advantage, and that was that the guy who’d tried to kill her had no idea anyone else was nearby. He wouldn’t know about Dare’s camp, its location or even its existence. Dare wasn’t about to give up that advantage by hanging around.

Moreover, the storm was wiping out all trace of Dare’s tracks as soon as he made them. The farther he could get while it was still raining, the better.

Angie was on the skinny side, but the skinny was all muscle and she was heavier than she looked, plus she had at least ten, fifteen pounds packed into the saddlebags she’d been carrying. Still, he’d toted deer off this mountain that weighed more than she did, so he ignored the complications of weather, having to carry his rifle instead of slinging it by the strap on his shoulder, all the while trying not to jostle her ankle.

She was still too quiet, and that bothered him. He appreciated the lack of complaints, because dangling upside down over his shoulder couldn’t be comfortable, but she was too quiet. He’d have thought she was unconscious except for the tension he could feel in her body, and the fact that the flashlight remained in her hand instead of dropping to the ground.

After half an hour he asked, “You hanging in there?”

Her chest heaved a little; he could feel the movement against his back. “Uh… yeah. Literally.”

Had she laughed? He hadn’t meant to make a joke, but he was glad the question had come off as one. If she could laugh, she was okay.

On the other hand, she might have been gasping for breath.

She had been trembling and shivering, but the involuntary movements had stopped and he wondered if she was sliding into hypothermia. He plowed on for a few minutes, but when he saw a decent-sized boulder with a slight hollow on one side, he decided to make use of it. Stopping every half hour for a brief rest probably wasn’t a bad idea; it would keep him from making mistakes, and give him a chance to assess her condition.

“Let’s stop here for a minute,” he said, propping his rifle against the rock and gently easing her off his shoulder and down to the ground. He retrieved the rifle, then crowded into the small space with her and turned the flashlight so they had just a little bit of light. He wasn’t worried about the batteries going dead; LED lights lasted for months of normal use, and the batteries were new. He even had spares at the camp, just in case, but there was more than enough juice to get them there. Even if there wasn’t, Angie’s flashlight was in her saddlebags, so they had backup.

He sighed. Just being partially out of the rain was a huge relief. His boots were waterproof, but from the knees down his jeans were sopping wet and water had leaked down the inside of his boots. His socks weren’t completely soaked yet, but they soon would be.

His hands were cold, but not as cold as hers. He put his arm around her shoulders and tugged her in close, almost in his lap, then took her hands and folded them against his palms, tucking them against his neck. She made a small sound that could have been either a bitten-off protest or a hum of relief.

“You stopped shivering,” he said. “Are you warmer?”

A slow shake of her head.

Damn it. There wasn’t a lot he could do, no way in hell he could build a fire in this downpour even if he had a fire-starter kit on him, which he didn’t. There was a small camp heater at the cabin, which didn’t do him a hell of a lot of good right now.

Swiftly he unsnapped and unzipped his slicker, then did the same to hers. She didn’t protest, and when he got it open he saw why she was so cold. She was wearing a coat beneath the slicker, but the coat was wet through, and had been leaching her body heat away.

“Shit, we have to get you out of this,” he said, pushing the slicker down her arms.

She frowned, as if she couldn’t understand what he was doing, but didn’t protest. He didn’t have a lot of room to maneuver, and he banged his elbow against the rock; he cursed nonstop as he finished peeling her out of the slicker and the heavy coat. When that chore was finished, he had to put the slicker back on her. Then he unzipped his coat, pulled her across his lap in a half-lying position, and tucked her inside his open coat. Every stitch she had on was wet, and he caught his breath as water soaked from her clothes into his, but he pulled her even closer and did his best to wrap his coat and slicker over her, then covered them both with her wet coat.

That was the best he could do. It wasn’t the same as blankets and hot coffee and a fire, but maybe his body heat was enough to pull her back from the brink.

Her nose, buried against his neck, was as cold as a pup’s. He turned off the flashlight and sat in the dark with her, holding her as close as he could get her without stripping them both down to skin.

Ten minutes later, when she started shivering again, he felt grimly triumphant. He was shivering a little himself, but he wasn’t freezing, and when they started out again his physical effort would warm him up, as long as he didn’t push so hard he started sweating.

He checked his wristwatch, gave her another ten minutes. He’d do this every half hour: stop for a brief rest, get her warmed up a little, change positions. After this time she shouldn’t be as cold. The rest periods would keep him from getting stupid with fatigue, and changing positions would help keep both of them going.

“Time to saddle up,” he said when the ten minutes were up. “Piggyback this time. You ready?”

Reluctantly she sat up, but she was able to zip and snap her own slicker, and he helped her back into the wet coat. This time the coat went on the outside where it provided a barrier to the weather but wasn’t against her body. It wasn’t an ideal solution, but it would do.

They pulled up the hoods of their slickers, and Dare moved away from the shelter of the boulder into the heavy rain. After helping Angie up so she was balanced on her left foot, he knelt so she could climb onto his back.

They could do this.

They had to.

A touch of gray lit the sky to the east when Dare finally saw the cabin ahead. The darkness had been gradually fading for the past fifteen minutes, just enough that he could make out some details without the aid of the flashlight. The ferocious lightning and thunder had moved on, but the heavy rain hadn’t slacked off at all. The wind had blown rain against his face, down his neck, soaking into his clothes beneath the slicker. Angie had already been soaked. The oiled leather of the saddlebags had probably held up okay, but everything else, including his hat, was dripping; they might as well have swam here.

Angie was hanging over his shoulder again. They had changed position every time they stopped, but that was the position that seemed to be most comfortable for her, maybe because it required the least effort on her part.

The periodic stops had kept pulling her back from hypothermia, but each time she seemed to lose a little ground. Since the last stop she’d been just hanging there, limp and completely silent.

Two hours ago he’d decided they could relax their vigilance, at least as far as not needing to have the rifle instantly at the ready, and he’d been able to sling it on his shoulder and use both hands; he’d taken over carrying the flashlight, because Angie had begun drifting off and letting it drop. Each time she would startle awake and apologize, but the fact was she’d pushed herself almost as far as she could go.

He never would have thought it, but now he wished she’d light into him, giving him hell for everything he’d done wrong: for losing the horse, for not finding her sooner, for not making an appearance in her camp to let her clients know she wasn’t alone. The last two points wouldn’t be fair, but he didn’t care about fair right now, he just wanted her awake and spitting fire. He wanted her complaining about everything he did. He didn’t like it when she didn’t talk.

Keep them talking. He’d done that with wounded men, but Angie had stopped answering him a half-mile back. She was traumatized, hypothermic, possibly in shock. He’d forgone the last rest period, because getting her to shelter was more important than resting for ten minutes.

With nothing to distract him, he’d begun wondering about things he didn’t want to think about. The events she’d described were bad enough, but he couldn’t help thinking there might be more to the story, something she hadn’t told him. He and Harlan had talked about the dangers of a woman guiding two men, especially men like Davis and Krugman, the bastards.

Had she been raped? It didn’t make sense, not with the scenario she’d described, but then again he couldn’t be positive that her version of the incident had been a complete one. Was there something she hadn’t told him?

He hadn’t wanted to kill anyone for a long time, but at the moment he could cheerfully have put a bullet into Krugman.

All through the long trek he’d not only been watching for an armed man and a killer bear, he’d also been looking