Spotting the ravine a dozen yards away, he motioned toward it. “I want you to run to that ravine, get down on your belly and don’t move until I get there.”
“But where are you—”
“Just do it. Don’t argue. I’m going to get the horse.” He looked over his shoulder to where Brandywine pawed at the snow twenty yards away. “We’re in big trouble without the horse.” He gazed at Abby, felt his heart do a weird little dip in his chest. He knew she would probably make a run for it. But to keep her out of the line of fire, he found himself willing to take the risk.
“Can you do that for me?” he asked.
She nodded.
Another shot echoed.
“Stay low. Go!” Jake shoved her toward the ravine, then sprinted toward Brandywine, praying the sniper’s shooting wasn’t as good as his timing.
What the hell had he been thinking kissing her like that?
Another shot rang out just as Jake snagged the reins. Vaulting onto the horse’s back, he nudged her into a racer’s sprint toward the ravine. A bullet ricocheted off a rock face less than three feet away. Staying low, he unsheathed the rifle, turned in the saddle and squeezed off two shots in quick succession in the general direction of the sniper. Re-sheathing the gun, he took Brandywine down the side of the ravine. The terrain was too rough for a horse, but he figured it was a lot safer than getting shot at.
Who the hell was shooting at them, anyway?
He reached the bottom of the rocky ravine a moment later. He was shaking, anger and fear and the remnants of arousal hot in his blood. He sat there, reining in his emotions for several seconds before realizing Abby was nowhere in sight. A ribbon of fear slithered through him. He found his eyes scanning the area for blood. Relief crackled through him when he spotted the tracks. Out of the sniper’s line of vision, but barely. He took Brandywine down the ravine, through snow that was chest-deep.
Damn crazy woman was going to get herself killed.
Pulling up on the reins, he tracked the path to the bottom of the hill. He spotted her just as she entered a sparse copse of aspen. She was running away from him again.
Clucking to Brandywine, Jake eased the animal over the rough terrain and into deep snow. The horse lunged, but he moved with her in perfect balance. Not wanting to be left alone, Rebel Yell picked his way down the rocky side of the ravine, lagging about thirty feet behind.
At the bottom of the hill, Jake urged Brandywine into an extended trot. Because of the deep snow, Abby wasn’t making very good time. But she hadn’t stopped, either, hadn’t so much as looked back since they’d started this crazy chase.
What could the woman possibly be thinking? It wasn’t as if she was going to get away. And who had been taking pot shots at them? In the back of his mind, he’d been hoping it was a stray shot from a hunter. But Jake knew better. And for the first time, he considered the possibility that there was a sliver of truth to what she’d told him.
He was less than fifty feet behind Abby when he realized what she was going to do. The realization made his blood run cold. “Abby! No! Stop!”
The pond was a hundred yards wide, the frozen surface covered with new snow. Abby stepped onto the ice without hesitation and began trudging across, slipping, her gait broken.
Jake brought his horse to a sliding stop at the edge of the ice. “Abby! The ice is thin! Abby! Damn it!”
She didn’t look back.
Working the duster from his shoulders, Jake watched, his chest so tight he could barely breathe. Surely she knew the ice wasn’t thick enough in the center of the pond to hold her weight. When he’d started his ride yesterday, the temperature had been nearly forty degrees. He wondered what kind of desperation would push someone to do something so foolhardy.
A loud crack! sounded.
Feeling helpless and angry and scared, Jake stepped out onto the ice. “Stop! Abby, damn it, the ice isn’t going to hold!”
Thirty yards away, she came to an abrupt halt and froze, her arms out. She didn’t turn to face him, didn’t speak. Jake could see her breaths puffing out into the cold air in front of her.
“Okay, Abby, I want you to stay calm,” he said. “I want you to take a deep breath. Then I want you to get down on your belly and slide back over here. Can you do that for me?”
Slowly, she turned. “Are you lying to me, Jake?”
Her face was almost as white as the snow. “I wouldn’t lie to you about something like that.”
“Is the ice going to break?”
He didn’t know for sure. But he’d heard the crack. Surely she had, too. “I want you to get down on your belly. Right now.”
Holding her body perfectly still, Abby knelt, then lay flat on her stomach.
“Good girl. Now, I want you to crawl over here.”
“What about the jerk with the gun?”
“One disaster at a time, okay? We’ll deal with him in a minute. You just move nice and slow.”
“Okay.”
Jake scrubbed his hand over his face. He felt the cold sweat beading on his back. Abby crawled across the ice, her hands and knees digging into the snow. He could see where the water was coming through the cracks in the ice, darkening the snow. She paused to look at it.
“Don’t look at it,” he said harshly. “Look at me. Don’t stop. Come on.”
Her gaze met his. The power of her gaze made his knees go weak. He remembered the feel of her beneath him when they’d kissed. The softness of her body. The sound of her laughter the day before. All of those things collided in his mind. Abruptly, he realized how important it was to him that nothing happen to her.
“You’re doing fine,” he said.
“That’s what people always say right before they screw up.”
“You’re not going to screw up.”
“That’s what I thought, too.” She tried to smile, but he saw fear in her eyes. “I’m really good at screwing up, Jake. I do it all the time. My entire life is one big screwup.”
“No it’s not.” He rubbed his temple. “Keep moving.”
“I’m getting wet. The water—it’s coming through the cracks.”
“When you get close enough, I’m going to toss you a branch. I want you to grab it and hang on to it. Then I’ll come out and get you, okay?”
The ice cracked again. A sickening sound that echoed off the surrounding trees. Jake saw Abby jolt. He saw terror in her eyes, and then the pond simply swallowed her.
CHAPTER 7
Jake had seen someone drown once. When he was sixteen years old, he’d seen Jimmy Baine fall through the ice on a pond during a hockey game not far from his father’s ranch. It had taken the rescue team more than forty minutes to retrieve Jimmy’s body. That was the day Jake had decided to get into search and rescue.
He didn’t intend to let this lovely young woman die such a horrible death.
Twenty yards away, he could see Abby’s head above the water. She tried to grab onto the jagged edge of the ice and pull herself up, but the ice kept breaking away. Jake knew in another five minutes she wouldn’t have the strength. Another ten and she would be too weak from hypothermia to keep her head above water.
“Hang on!” he shouted to her. “I’m coming in for you!”
“Jake!”
He looked desperately around for a branch. A long, strong one that wasn’t rotted from lying on the ground too long. He felt the seconds whizzing by as he sprinted over to an aspen and broke a good-size branch from the trunk. Stripping off the smaller branches, he raced to the frozen bank of the pond. He didn’t pause to think about the consequences as he stepped out onto the ice. A crack sounded on the other side of the pond. A terrible, hollow sound that reminded him of a power line snapping under pressure. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled, crossing the ice at a dangerous pace.
“Abby!”
“I’m here.” Her voice was already thready and weak.
Jake feared the hypothermia was already taking hold. It could set in within min
utes under these conditions. He stopped three feet away from her, afraid to get any closer without risking breaking through the ice himself. “Grab onto this branch. I’m going to pull you out.”
“Okay. Hurry, it’s…c-cold.”
“Don’t think about the cold. Just do as I say.” Lying as flat and still as he could, he shoved the end of the branch toward her. “Take the branch.”
Her hand came up and out of the water, her fingers closing around the branch.
“Good girl,” he said. “Put both hands around it.”
Even from three feet away he could see that her fingers were blue as she wrapped them around the branch. “Okay.”
“Hang on. I’m going to pull you out.”
The ice cracked beneath him. Water turned the snow to slush as it seeped through the cracks. Jake rolled, felt the ice sag beneath him.
Damn, he didn’t like the way this was shaping up.
Extending his arms over his head to more evenly distribute his weight, he inched toward the shore. He heard the ice around Abby breaking as he pulled her through it.
“I—I can’t g-get out,” she sputtered. “It keeps b-breaking.”
He glanced at her, saw terror in her eyes. Her lips were blue, her face ghastly pale. She’d only been in the water a few minutes, but it didn’t take long for hypothermia to zap the life from someone. “Don’t let go of that branch,” he snapped.
Pushing himself onto his knees, he tugged on the branch. Abby’s shoulders came out of the water. She put her knee up on the ice. Her coat was soaked, her hair dripping and wet. Jake held his breath, prayed she kept her grip, that the ice would hold. He pulled steadily, hauling her halfway out of the water.
“Hold tight,” he said, and dragged her out of the water so that she was lying on her stomach on the ice.
He knew better than to go to her. The ice couldn’t possibly hold their combined weight. But for the first time in a long time, Jake broke the rules. He went to her, swept her into his arms and carried her to shore.
* * *
Abby figured if Jake didn’t kill her for running away, the cold was going to finish her off for sure. It was brutal and tore into her like a voracious beast whose fangs sank all the way to her bones. It sucked the air from her lungs, the warmth from her blood. The air was so cold against her skin it seemed to scorch her until she burned all over. Her entire body quaked violently as Jake carried her to shore.
All of her clothes—including Jake’s extra duster—were soaked. Considering it was just a few degrees above zero, she didn’t think things could get much worse. Well, if she didn’t take into consideration the guy with the rifle taking shots at them.
“Abby. Look at me. I’m going to take you back to the cabin and get those wet clothes off you.”
“God, Jake, I—I’m…f-freezing.”
“Just keep talking, okay?”
She focused on him, felt her world tilt when she saw the sharp-edged concern in his eyes. There were a hundred things she wanted to say, but her teeth were rattling together uncontrollably. The shivers were so violent, she couldn’t speak.
“I guess I s-screwed up again, huh?” she managed to say after a moment.
“I reckon you did.”
“I—I’m s-sorry.”
“I know. Just…hang on. I’m going to get you up on Brandywine and we’re going back to the cabin, okay?”
She tried to nod, ended up jerking her head once. “You’re g-getting w-wet.”
“Not as wet as you. You feeling okay?”
“Just…r-really c-cold.”
But the cold didn’t seem quite so savage when she was cradled in his arms. In fact, she was beginning to feel almost comfortable. Her hands and face were numb, but there wasn’t really any pain. The cold burned, but it no longer hurt. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine it as heat. She relaxed against him, imagining his warmth sinking into her.
“Keep your eyes open for me, okay?”
The edge in his voice tugged her back. She opened her eyes, found him staring down at her, his gaze suffused with worry. “Stay awake for me.”
“I’m okay, Jake. Really. I just…”
“Abby, damn it, keep your eyes open.”
She hadn’t even realized they’d drifted shut again. “I’m okay. I’m not even that cold anymore.”
“That’s because you’re hypothermic.” He struggled through the snow toward the horse. “Talk to me.”
“About what?”
“Anything.” He looked down at her. “Except the weather.”
She smiled, intending to answer, but the words drifted from her mind. Exhaustion tugged at her. She knew everything would be okay, knew he would take care of this. He felt so strong and warm and solid against her as he carried her toward the waiting horse. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt safe wrapped in his arms. He’d saved her life. With a little luck she could still make it to Grams’s….
Abby tried to keep her eyes open. She tried to think of something to say to him. She wanted to ask him about the sniper, but her mind seemed to drift aimlessly. Vaguely, she was aware of him struggling through the deep snow, breathing heavily in the cold, thin air, his arms tight around her. He said something, but her mind wasn’t listening….
Abruptly he set her on her feet. “Come on, honey. On your feet. I want you to walk. Let’s go. One foot in front of the other. Can you do that?”
“Yeah…okay.” She hadn’t intended to slur her words. She felt light-headed, as if she’d had one too many glasses of wine. Must be the cold zapping her.
“Come on. Walk.”
Vaguely, she was aware of her arm around his neck. Her feet were numb. Her hair was beginning to freeze. She looked down at the ground and ordered her legs to move. She could do this. She’d spent the past six months getting into top physical condition. It wasn’t as though a little cold water was going to put her down.
The instant he let her go, her legs melted like butter on a hot skillet.
Cursing, Jake swept her back into his arms. “I should have known you wouldn’t cooperate,” he growled.
Abby rode the haze, fighting the sleepiness plaguing her and the confusion playing with her mind. She knew she should be afraid, knew she was in trouble. As a nurse, she knew hypothermia was serious business. She just couldn’t muster the energy to get too worried about it.
Jake kept talking to her, pressing her, asking her questions. She tried to rally her mind to answer, but after a while the responses got all jumbled and she could no longer find the words.
* * *
Jake Madigan never panicked. The emotion just wasn’t part of his persona. Panic caused smart people to act stupid. It caused even pros to make mistakes that could end up costing someone a life. Panic was the kiss of death in any emergency situation.
But even knowing all of those things about himself and about what he did for a living, Jake felt the sharp edge of fear slice him and go deep. The woman in his arms couldn’t weigh much more than a hundred pounds soaking wet. She looked incredibly fragile, her face as pale as death….
“Abby. Abby! Come on. Open your eyes. Talk to me.”
“I’m…okay.”
Her words were slurred, her voice so low he had to crane his neck forward to hear her. Hell, she was already in the first phase of hypothermia.
“Didn’t mean to…screw up,” she whispered.
“You’re going to be all right.” She had to be all right. Jake would never forgive himself if something happened to her. She was his responsibility. His. And he didn’t intend to let either of them down. “Just hang on, okay?”
His legs shook as he caught Brandywine’s reins, then set Abby gently in the saddle. Swinging onto the horse, behind her, he nudged the animal into a reckless gait through the snow.
He knew he should have his rifle unsheathed and ready, but there was no way he could handle a semiconscious passenger and the rifle at the same time, so he did his best to approach the cabin from the opposi
te side—out of the shooter’s line of vision—praying whomever had been using them for target practice earlier had gotten the message that Jake was armed and more than ready to retaliate.
He stopped Brandywine at the back of the cabin a few minutes later and jumped to the ground. The place looked deserted, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Abby was as still as death when he eased her down off the horse. He would have felt better if she’d been shaking, but she wasn’t.
Unholstering his H&K .45, he kicked open the cabin door and quickly searched the premises. No one had been there. Back outside, he tied the horse to the lean-to, then scooped Abby into his arms. It had been more than twenty minutes since she’d fallen through the ice. It was imperative that he warm her body quickly. He had to get those wet clothes off of her. If she was aware enough, he needed to get some warm fluids into her.
He didn’t relish the idea of undressing her. He didn’t want to know what she looked like beneath those clothes. But Jake was too much of a professional to let anything as banal as lust interfere with his job. Setting her on the floor a few feet from the fire, he quickly tossed two logs onto the embers, and put a pail of water on to boil. When he turned to Abby, she was sitting up, trying to toe her shoes off, but her movements were sluggish and weak. Her eyes focused on him, but they were glassy. Blue tinged her lips.
“I’ve got to get these wet clothes off of you,” he said. “Can you help me out?”
Embarrassment flared briefly in her eyes. “I can…do it.”
“Sure you can. I’ll just…give you a hand, okay?”
“Just let me…” Her hands fluttered at the zipper of her jumpsuit, but her fingers were too stiff to function.
“This isn’t the time for modesty, Abby, okay? I’m a professional. You can trust me.”
“I can do it….” Her fingers fumbled the zipper. “Damnit.”
“Let me take care of you, okay?”
Jake knew he couldn’t wait any longer. Every minute counted when her body temperature was dropping. They were hours away from the nearest medical facility. The cabin was barely above freezing inside. He didn’t have an IV or heated oxygen or even a warming blanket to treat her with should this turn serious.