Big Sky Showdown. Sharon Dunn

love for Zane had been such a contrast to Willis’s harsh world of punishment and rewards.

      She seemed to relax even more in his embrace. “Why do they want you—or me, for that matter?”

      “I don’t know.” He had cut all ties with Willis and anyone who knew the man or held similar views.

      “Maybe they’re looking to punish you because you didn’t want to be with them anymore,” she said.

      “That was years ago. Willis is a little crazy, but he’s also very calculating. The law was breathing down his neck when he left here. He wouldn’t risk returning just for revenge.” Something had drawn Willis back here.

      She slipped from his embrace, stood up and moved closer to the fire. “So what do we do?”

      “We need to get across that river so we can get to town, contact the authorities,” he said. “There’s another crossing ten miles down.”

      Her expression didn’t change. She held her hands closer to the fire. “They’ll be looking for us there, don’t you think?”

      “Probably. Willis knows these mountains better than I do.” Though he didn’t want to scare her, he couldn’t lie to her.

      “It’s never easy, is it?” She crossed her arms over her body. “I just wanted to spread Stephan’s ashes, do the right thing.” She turned slightly away from him.

      He wondered what she was thinking. She must be afraid, yet she hadn’t fallen apart, and she hadn’t blamed him for the violence she’d been dragged into.

      “We’re pretty well hidden here. Once we’re dried out, we’ll put the fire out and wait until dusk. The darkness will provide us some cover.”

      She turned back toward him and nodded. Then she sat down beside him again, watching the glow of the fire. He kept thinking that she would cry or get angry with him, but she didn’t. Brave woman.

      “This fire saved us,” she said.

      “Yes, it did.” He studied her profile as the firelight danced on her pale skin. This was way more than she had bargained for. “I’m sorry. When all this is over and done with, I’ll take you back up to that mountain so you can do what you came here to do.”

      A faint smile crossed her lips and she nodded. But something in her expression suggested that she didn’t believe him. Did she think they were going to die out here? “Was it really because of my father that you were able to leave Willis?”

      “With Willis you were always scrambling for his approval, trying to accomplish things so he’d pat you on the back. Your father’s love was filled with grace. His support gave me the strength I needed to get away from that life.”

      “I wish I could have known that Stephan.” She shook her head, and her voice faltered. “I wish I could have known him at all. If he loved me, why didn’t he try to get in touch with me when he was alive? I couldn’t have been that hard to track down. His lawyer found me easily enough.”

      “Maybe he did try once he stopped drinking. Did your mom ever say anything to you about that?”

      She shook her head. “Mom died a year ago, so I can’t even ask her now.”

      He stood up beside her and touched her shoulder lightly, knowing that there were no words that would take away her pain and confusion.

      They waited until the light faded. Hunger gnawed at his belly as they headed back toward the river. He’d grabbed protein bars from the saddlebags. Since that was their only food, he didn’t want to eat them until they had no calorie reserves left. They might be out here for a long time. He needed to be smart about when they ate their only food.

      Behind him, Heather’s footsteps stopped. He turned to face her, barely able to make out her features in the fading light.

      “Something wrong?”

      “Thought I heard something.”

      He studied the landscape, tuning his ears to the hum of the forest. He understood her jumpiness. He felt it too. Willis taught all his protégés tracking skills, so he had to assume that sooner or later they would encounter one or more of the followers who had been assigned to bring Heather and him in.

      As he listened, nothing seemed amiss and nothing sounded human. Still, better safe than sorry.

      He turned and headed back down the hill. He heard Heather’s footsteps behind him but nothing else. The silence was unnerving as they moved through the forest.

      A flood of memories of his time with Willis came back to him with each step he took. He’s been barely seventeen when Willis had caught him breaking into his car to sleep. Jordan—Jordie—had only been thirteen when they decided a few months earlier that living on the run was better than foster care. His little brother had been even more impressionable than he had been.

      So many of Willis’s antiestablishment rants hadn’t rang true or lacked a certain logic, but that was easy to overlook when Willis’s ragtag community finally gave Zane a place where he felt like he belonged. It was the pats on the back and the way Willis would take the time with him to teach him to shoot, build a lean-to and hunt that had made him want to stay in the wild. The camaraderie with the other boys and men filled a void for him, too. It had been hard to leave that behind, even when he’d known it was the right thing to do. The hardest part had been parting from Jordie, who’d refused to leave with him.

      His brother would be twenty now, a man. Jordan had gone with Willis and the others when they left the area, but had he stayed with him all these years?

      Zane stuttered in his step. Heather came up close to him. Her shoulder pressed against his as he heard her sharp intake of breath. To the east, the river murmured.

      Though he heard nothing amiss, his heart beat a little faster. “You hear something?”

      After a moment, she shook her head. “I guess not. I’m just a little nervous.”

      His warning system was on high alert as well. Now that they were out in the open, he had to assume they were being tracked.

      “Stay close,” he whispered.

      He moved slower, choosing each step with a degree of caution, not wanting a single sound to alert anyone tracking them to their location. Heather seemed to instinctually know that she needed to be quiet. Her steps were almost lighter than air.

      A wolf howled somewhere in the distance. Zane’s heart hammered out a steady beat. He pushed through trees, seeking more cover. The gray dusk light turned charcoal. Stars glimmered above them, but he could not take the time to notice their beauty. He dared not let himself relax or let his guard down.

      “I’m thirsty,” whispered Heather as she came up beside him.

      She was probably hungry, too.

      He just wasn’t sure if stopping to eat the protein bars was a good idea right now. “Don’t eat the snow. We’ll drink from the river.”

      He followed the sound of the water rushing over stones. He crouched low and chose a sheltered spot where the cottonwoods grew close to the water.

      Heather knelt beside the river.

      “It’s cold. Drink just enough to keep you going. I have food. We’ll eat in a while.”

      He positioned himself beside her and cupped his own hands and placed them in the icy water. After several handfuls, he stood up and tugged on Heather’s coat. She rose to her feet and they slipped back into the shelter of the forest.

      The canopy of the trees and the encroaching darkness made it hard to see. He heard a yelp that was clearly human off to his side, maybe ten feet away. He grabbed Heather’s hand and pulled her to the ground.

      Both of them remained still as the footfalls of a human being overwhelmed the other forest sounds. Heavy boots pounded past them.

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