She swore he had excess energy to burn this morning, and he was itching to use it up. She got the impression he was always on the move, and sitting idle for him wasn’t really his style.
She was that way too, until she was on vacation. Not that this was what she had in mind when she went on the trip.
He began filling up the second of the fire rings. Then headed out for more timber.
Kate wrapped potatoes with sausage and shredded cheese in foil and began heating them over the fire.
“Breakfast will be ready in a jif, but if you continue working that hard, you’re going to burn up all the calories I’m going to feed you before you even eat.”
He laughed. “Then you’ll just have to make triple the portions.”
Kate knew he was anxious to trek out of here. Despite the storm and the bear intruding last night, she really believed they’d been better off staying here. Well, and the car had been perfect for both scaring off the bear, and taking refuge during the storm. Though their heightened senses would give them an advantage over humans lost in the wilderness, if they had to leave on foot. They weren’t lost. They had the road to hike out on. It just wouldn’t be easy to reach the road and civilization. Beyond that, it was about ninety miles to their destination if they hiked on the road, which meant a lot of climbing up and down hills. Now that they were feeling better, maybe they could plan to hike it out. If they could just haul a travois up to the road, they might be able to do it.
Leyton returned, sat down on the log next to her, and filled a mug with coffee. “Sorry, Kate, relaxing is just not my thing.”
“It’s probably good that it isn’t. In your line of work, you need to keep moving. Will your workplace worry about you?”
“No. I’m deep undercover. The guy is a cop on the force so they had to send someone who wasn’t involved or couldn’t be bribed.”
“Instead, he has to take you out,” she said softly, passing over the foiled breakfast.
“Try. I’d take him out but… There are other issues involved.”
She wished he could be honest with her. But she guessed that was the deal with being undercover too. “Is Leyton your real name?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Makes it easier for me to remember.”
She smiled, then got serious. “Depending on how much the road climbs up and down the mountains, it would take us to our destination, and we could manage to hike it out of here in two to three days. If we start really early. The problem was my back and your shoulder injuries giving us fits for carrying the backpacks. And we really need to carry water and food with us if we’re to make it.”
“Not giving up on your initial plan to stay here and wait for a rescue, are you?” he asked, then ate his breakfast. “Damn, this is good.”
“Thanks. Well, I still think it’s a good plan to stay put. Especially because of our injuries. My back is feeling better. Maybe I should go up to check out the road and see if we can get reception on my phone instead. Or we should go together.” Kate finished her sausage and potatoes. It really was delicious. She was glad that she had brought the fixings for it, never believing she would have had a companion to share her food with.
Leyton had worried about her injures but also about the climb. Even though cougars were excellent climbers, he couldn’t help worrying about her safety because she was still feeling so much back pain. But what if he left her behind and she had trouble with the bears again that were undoubtedly drawn to the food?
“We could go together if you think you’ll be all right.” He finished off his coffee and poured himself another mug.
“What about you? Are you sure you can carry the backpack?”
“My shoulder’s getting better.” Not really. Not after the work he’d done yesterday, and this morning gathering wood only made it ache all over again. But he was determined to try and get a signal on the phone and leave a sign up on the road, indicating they were down below. They really had to do something, even though he knew they’d be fine here for days if they rested up and tried to signal for help with the fires. He knew it was just as good a plan as any other. Yet, mentally, he was having a time agreeing to the plan to stay there. He wanted to get moving. He wanted to get the doc to safety and he needed to catch Butch. Leyton had to before anyone found the evidence pointing to him in the killing of his informant.
“If you think your back can take it, we’ll go together. I’ll still carry the backpack,” he said.
“Okay, good.” She quickly cleaned the dishes and he banked the fire.
Then they worked together to remove the sopping wet sleeping bag and laid it on the rocks to dry, doing the same with the tent. The clouds had dissipated and the day would warm up after a while as the sun began to rise. The breeze would help also.
He figured when they returned from the trip up the mountain to the road and back down again, he would gather more wood for the fire rings. He hoped to keep them going today and maybe some aircraft would see the smoke in three different locations near the creek and believe a fire had begun to spread.
Once they were done taking care of the tent, sleeping bag, and everything else that had been left in the tent in their rush to leave it in the middle of the night, they quickly stripped off their clothes and they tucked them in the backpack. Then he shifted so she could fasten the pack to his back. He waited for her to shift, taking in her long-legged beauty, her dusky rose nipples peaking in the chilly morning air, her breasts full, her skin alabaster except for a smattering of red freckles, and the thatch of curls at the apex of her thighs just as red as her lovely tresses. Beautiful. Then she shifted into her golden cougar form, her green eyes catching the soft sunlight, and he couldn’t move for a moment, mesmerized.
She licked his cheek as if to break the spell or say thanks for the compliment, and he rubbed against her in a cat’s way of ownership, telling her how much he’d love something more with her. She really had bewitched him from the moment he’d tackled her in the clinic and gotten her scent all over him as if she’d claimed him.
For a moment, she just stared at him with a look of surprise. He smiled, showing off his canines in a predatory, hungry way.
She bit at his shoulder as if to say, “Move it, we haven’t got all day, and this is not the time for anything else.”
But he was seriously rethinking his need to get her to safety, and chill out a bit more with the hot she-cat.
He led the way then into the trees, trying to find the easiest route for them to go.
They were powerful and agile climbers, leaping from one narrow rock ledge to another, climbing higher and higher. He paused to see her jump, loving the beauty in her form, the agile spring, the powerful leap until she’d joined him again. He brushed his whiskers against hers, then continued up, stopping to make sure she made it, then going higher until they finally reached the road and doubled back to where the car had sailed off it.
Too his disappointment, the path the car had left behind wasn’t as noticeable as he’d hoped for. Lots of spruce saplings, willowy enough that during the car’s reckless path down the mountain, sprang back into place after the vehicle passed over them. So except for a few larger trees that had snapped off during the assault, the smaller saplings now stood in front of them, hiding the newly fallen spruce. A plane might be able to see the destruction, or if someone was hiking on the road, they could see a couple of trees that had broken from this vantage point, if they were observant. A car passing by? Probably not.
He listened, like Kate was doing, trying to observe if cars were headed their way, the rumble beneath their paws, the sound of an engine climbing the mountain. Nothing. Only nature intruded up here. Wondrous. Peaceful. The wilderness, except for the pavement under his paws.
Kate shifted next to him and removed the backpack from his back and he shifted. Then he began to dress, but she didn’t.
“I’m going to run as a cat and check out the road up ahead. I can move much more quickly.”
“All right. I’m going to m
ove a pile of rocks to indicate we had trouble here, an arrow to point downhill, and create an SOS next to it. I’d block off the road to force someone to stop, but I’d be afraid they wouldn’t see if in time and end up having an accident.” He quickly pulled out the phone first and shook his head. “No reception. When you return, I’ll take the phone up as far on the mountain as I can go to see if I can get some bars. Don’t take any chances. If you hear anyone coming…”
“I won’t.” She shifted and then she sprinted off down the road.
He hated to see her leave his sight, but splitting up and doing some recon was a good idea too. She disappeared around the bend of the road, and he got to work. Unfortunately, the road didn’t have any shoulder, and loose, easily lifted rocks weren’t all that accessible. This could take a lot more time and a hell of a lot of energy than he had accounted for.
* * *
At breakfast that morning, Hal Haverton noticed Ricky, the boy he’d taken in when he’d been turned into a shifter, was checking out the clock, picking at his sausage and eggs, and not asking for seconds and then thirds like he usually did.
“What’s wrong, Ricky?” Hal asked, thinking Ricky needed to shift, and he didn’t want to admit he was still having trouble with controlling it, or he wasn’t feeling well.
His older brother, Kolby, who Ricky had turned so that he could remain with them, glanced over at Ricky. “He thinks something’s wrong with the doc. He’s got a mega-sized crush on her after she read us the riot act when we were shifting and chasing the nurses all over the clinic.”
“I do not,” Ricky vehemently protested.
“So what do you think is wrong?” Hal asked. He really didn’t think anything was, but he certainly didn’t want to dismiss Ricky’s concerns if he was right.
His lovely mate, Tracey, a wildlife enforcer, was watching Ricky, just as concerned.
“Her kitchen light was on last night. I…I heard the nurses had a going-away party for her, and so I dropped in to say good-bye before she went on vacation and…”
Ted, Hal’s horse ranch foreman, frowned at Ricky, but in a way that said he was more amused than anything. “That’s what took you so long when you were supposed to be running by the feed store?”
“They offered to feed me. Man, was it great brisket. Not that you and Hal don’t make great brisket, well, Boss Lady, too, but…”
“I knew I should have gone to the feed store instead,” Kolby grumbled. “No wonder you didn’t ask when we were going to eat like you usually do when you got home.”
“So what about the kitchen light?” Hal asked, not getting the picture. Ricky usually took forever to get to the point of the matter, so this wasn’t unusual for him.
“Don’t you see? She was leaving right from the clinic. You know. To get a jump on her vacation. I even helped the ladies pack up the food in her cooler. She was going to finish up a few things and then leave on her camping trip, heading straight to the campsite. She said so.”
“The kitchen light, Ricky?” Tracey prompted.
“Oh, yeah, well, I asked her if she needed me to check on her house for her while she was gone. Cuz what if someone broke in or something? She said she always has the light come on and go off later in the living room. It’s on a timer, you see. But the light was on in the kitchen.”
“She must have forgotten something at home and dropped by to pick it up, or take care of some business she needed to do before she left for so long,” Tracey said.
Ricky looked glumly at his food.
“Okay, so you want me to check her house out,” Hal said, putting on his deputy sheriff hat, figuratively.
“I told the sheriff.”
Hal let out his breath. “Well, what did he say?”
“He called her, and then he said everything was fine. He didn’t even call me back to tell me. Here I am, pacing all over the place, and he won’t tell me what was said between them.”
“That’s probably because everything was fine. Like Dan told you.”
Ricky didn’t look convinced.
“I’ll give Dan a call.” Hal pulled his phone off his belt and called his boss, who would clear up the matter once and for all. “Hey, Dan, Ricky said—“
“That the light was on in Kate’s kitchen, so I called to check up on her. Doc was fine. Sheba startled her awake when she was taking a nap at the clinic before the trip. Kate ended up returning to the house, having supper, and sleeping there before she took off. I take it Ricky’s still bothered by it?”
“Yeah. Elsie’s got the key to her place and is going to water her plants. Tracey had offered, but Kate said Elsie was right there and would do it after work. Could you run on over to Kate’s place and just make sure everything’s okay?” Hal asked, watching as Ricky looked eager to hear what was being said.
“I’ve got two drunks in jail right now. Stryker’s out checking on a B & E. If you have the time, do you mind checking on it? Or you can stay here and listen to these two yahoos singing off tune.”
Hal chuckled. “I’ll check her place out. Thanks, Dan. Talk later.”
“I want to go,” Ricky said, jumping up from his seat, his brown eyes wide, his brown brows raised in hopefulness.
“You have chores to do,” Hal and Ted said.
“And you need to finish your breakfast,” Tracey added.
Ricky sank back in his chair and stabbed a sausage. “Okay, but you’re going to call me right away as soon as you’ve investigated her house, right?”
“Yeah. I’ve got some other errands to run in town. I’ll stop by there.”
“First thing though. The trail could already be cold,” Ricky warned him.
Hal fought smiling because he knew Ricky was really concerned. He must not have managed well enough though, because Tracey squeezed his thigh in warning.
“Yeah, first thing, and I’ll give you a call.” Hal was sure that Ricky was making a mountain out of thin air, but the kid’s heart was in the right place.
As soon as the boys and Ted headed outside, Tracey pulled Hal into her arms and kissed him. “I love you, you know.”
“The feeling’s mutual, honey.” He sighed. “I better do my investigating before Ricky wastes the whole day fretting about this.”
“Call me too about it, will you?”
Tracey’s expression told him she was now worried too.
8
Kate realized she wasn’t much different from Leyton as she ran along the road as a cougar, feeling the same need to get to where she had intended to go. She wished she could have run along here forever until she reached the exit for the road that would take her to the campsite, and report in.
But when she came around a bend in the road, it abruptly ended in trees and a drop-off, a heavy railing with warning markings say this was a dead-end, don’t proceed.
She stood there just staring at it in shock and disbelief. What the hell had happened to the rest of the road?
She wanted to scream her frustration, curse the world, but instead, her butt sank to the pavement, her tongue hanging out as she panted, unable to fathom how the GPS could have directed her this way.
Get it together, Kate Ellen Parker, she told herself. Leyton was back on the road killing himself to create a way to show help they’d had trouble and unless anyone took this road by accident, no one would ever see it.
Tears in her eyes, she headed on back, disillusioned again just as much as she’d been after the initial crash, furious with the GPS—at least she had that to blame—and herself for trying to make up for lost time.
They’d have to go in the opposite direction and that would mean another ninety or so miles before they reached any sign of civilization. Unless Leyton’s signal fires worked, no one would ever know they were here.
When she finally reached the bend where just beyond she would find Leyton and made her way around it, she saw no sign of him.
He’d moved a few rocks to the side of the road, the backpack still sitting there, but… He
r heart was already racing and she was trying to think. He wouldn’t just vanish into thin—
She looked up and saw him climbing to the top of the mountain, barely visible for the trees. She raced up to join him. He was struggling, the trek hard without climbing gear, and she imagined his shoulder was giving him fits too.
She startled him, but he held on, glancing down at her, sweat beading on his brow. She shifted, not at the best vantage point to do so as a naked human, but she had to warn him of what she had found. If they could get a signal, they might have some hope.
“The road dead ends up ahead about seven miles.”
“What?” He looked as shocked as she had felt.
“The GPS misdirected me, but it was my own damn fault. Why don’t I shift and you give me the phone. I’ll carry it up in my mouth. This is too hard to climb as a human. You’re dressed. I can do it.”
He still looked so stunned, she reached over and pulled the phone out of his pocket and handed it to him. “Give it to me as soon as I shift.” Then she shifted and he handed her the phone.
“Don’t swallow it.”
She grunted at him and headed up the mountain and within minutes, so much faster than he would have climbed in his human form, she shifted on a more level ledge. Then she tried to find a signal. The low battery signal began to flash and then the cell phone died.
* * *
Leyton was busily figuring an alternate plan while Kate was climbing up the mountain. How long had she been driving after they’d left civilization? He didn’t think the plan to stay here was an option any longer. Though again, he reminded himself that they could live out here for eons fishing out of the stream and drinking the water from it. If they headed out on a road, they would have to carry what water they could, and food too. They’d have to make this climb up here again, taking both backpacks and lots more gear than when he did it with just their clothes, no food or water. As steep as the mountain was, he didn’t think they’d make it up it if he was pulling a travois. He was afraid it would weigh him down too much and make him topple over backwards. With no climbing gear, it would be a risky venture even with heavy backpacks, considering their recent injuries.