A Fortune's Children's Christmas (23 page)

“Good. Now that we’ve got that settled, why don’t we go back to the cabin and see about digging up something to eat. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

Darkness had completely fallen, and any chance she had of following James’s tracks was now gone. Shiv
ering in the wind, she knew it was probably for the best. It had gotten dark faster than she expected it to, and the temperature was already dropping like a rock. If she’d lost her way, she could have quickly been in trouble.

Resigned to having to wait until morning to start the search again, she followed Hunter back to the cabin, where they had a cold supper. The kiss they’d shared wasn’t mentioned again, but when it came time to go to bed, they laid out sleeping bags at opposite ends of the small cabin. It had been a long, tiring day, and there was no question that they were both exhausted. But when Hunter turned out the small lantern he’d brought along, it was a long time before either of them fell asleep.

E
very bone in Naomi’s body ached the next morning when they started out again, but she climbed on the back of the snowmobile without a word of complaint. If Hunter noticed that she found a way to hold on to him without getting too close, he didn’t say anything, and for that she was grateful. During the long hours of the night when she’d lain awake, trying to forget a kiss that never should have happened, she’d had plenty of time to think about yesterday and how she’d clung to him as they’d wound their way up the mountains. She’d only been hanging on to him to keep from falling off, but she could see how that might have given him the wrong impression about her. That wasn’t, she promised herself, going to happen today.

So she kept her hands light on his waist and sat as far back on the seat as the gear strapped on behind her would allow. And if her palms were slightly damp in her gloves and her heart had a tendency to flutter just at the thought of touching him, no one knew that but her. Silently she prayed that they would find Laura soon.

Once it was light enough to see, they again began the tedious task of following James’s tracks. No new snow had fallen during the night, but the wind was
straight out of the north and blew snow right back in their faces, partially covering James’s track and half blinding them at one and the same time. Swearing, Hunter was forced to slow their pace, and they seemed to crawl as they slowly wound their way deeper into the mountains. And still there was no sign of James or Laura.

Refusing to give up hope, Naomi told herself they would find them today. But as hours passed and the pace began to wear on her nerves, she couldn’t help but get frustrated and discouraged. James had to know they were following him. What did he hope to accomplish by fleeing deeper into the mountains? He wasn’t going to get away—there was no way out except the way they had come. And she wasn’t going to give up and turn back. If she had to scour every inch of the mountains to get her daughter back, she would. Surely he had to know that.

But if he did, he showed no sign of it. His tracks continued, ever northward, quietly taunting them, leading them farther and farther away from civilization. And even as they followed, there was no way to know exactly how far ahead of them he was. It could have been minutes. But then again, it could have been hours. Her eyes steely with determination, Naomi told herself she didn’t care if it was days—she wouldn’t rest until she ran him to ground.

All her attention focused on the tracks in the snow up ahead, she didn’t realize that they led right up to a rocky cliff until Hunter suddenly braked well short of the edge and cut the engine. “What’s wrong?” she
asked in surprise, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the sudden silence. “Why are we stopping?”

“We may have reached the end of the trail,” he said somberly. “Stay here while I check it out.”

Confused, Naomi looked past him to the tracks in the snow that still stretched out before them. “What do you mean ‘the end of the trail’?” she began. Then she saw it. The cliff edge. The snowy ground that suddenly just seemed to fall away into thin air. The way James’s tracks led right up to the precipice and disappeared over the side. And her heart stopped dead in her breast.

“No,” she whispered in dawning horror. “Oh, God, no! Laura!”

She didn’t remember throwing herself off the snowmobile, didn’t hear Hunter yell at her to stay back. Suddenly she was running in the snow, stumbling, her blood roaring in her ears, terrified of what she would see when she reached the cliff’s edge.

The scene below was every bit as bad as she’d feared. The snowmobile had sailed right over the edge of the cliff to a rocky ridge forty feet below. Battered and broken and half-covered in snow, it lay on its side like a dead soldier, still and unmoving. Naomi took one look at it and could just see Laura flying over the edge of the cliff, clinging to her father as he sent them crashing to the rocks below.

Horrified, her pounding heart lodged in her throat, she didn’t think—she just reacted. Tears flooding her eyes, half blinding her, all she could think of was Laura. She was down there somewhere, hurt, possibly
dead. She had to get to her. A sob catching in her throat, she practically threw herself over the edge of the cliff and began making her way down the rocky escarpment to the ridge below.

Fear driving her, she didn’t give a thought to her own safety. Hunter shouted at her to stop, but she couldn’t have if her life had depended on it. Not when Laura was in danger. Half-blinded by tears she scrambled down the steep incline, and didn’t even see the thin layer of ice coating the rocks she climbed over until it was too late. Her foot slipped, and with a startled cry she went tumbling.

Hunter couldn’t catch her. Ten feet above her on the cliff face, he moved like lightning, but there was no way in hell he could reach her before she went down hard on the rocks. And it was his fault. He should have expected her to panic when she realized Barker’s snowmobile had gone off the cliff, and he should have tackled her if he’d had to to keep her from going down there. But, dammit, he hadn’t thought she could move so fast!

Her cry of pain went through him like a lance. Swearing, he hurried down the icy rocks to her side, cursing all the while as he came down beside her. Collapsed on her side, moaning, her cap missing and her hair tangled around her ashen face, she looked like a broken doll. She’d landed hard on her left hip and shoulder and had instinctively moved to catch herself. In the process, her hand had landed at an odd angle on the rocks, and that’s when she’d cried out.

Fear making his voice rough, he reached for her.
“Are you all right? Dammit, I told you to stay by the snowmobile! Here—let me see.”

“No!” Whimpering, she cradled her wrist to her breast protectively and curled in on herself, silent tears streaming down her pale face. “I’m okay. Just g-give m-me a second.”

Okay, hell! Who did she think she was fooling? She was hurt, dammit, possibly seriously! He’d seen the unnatural way her wrist had bent when she’d tried to catch herself, the jarring blow that her hip and shoulder had taken when they’d connected with the rocks. If she hadn’t broken something, he’d be surprised. She had to be in severe pain, and if he didn’t do something damn quick, she could easily go into shock.

“You can’t stay on the side of this cliff, sweetheart,” he said gruffly. “I’m going to carry you back up to the snowmobile. Do you think you can hang on to me?”

“Find Laura first,” she groaned. “She could be hurt—”

“After I get you back up to the snowmobile,” he said firmly, and carefully picked her up before she could come up with another objection.

When she gasped and went stiff with pain in his arms, he cursed himself for hurting her further, but there was nothing he could do to make the climb up the side of the cliff any less painful for her. He found himself silently pleading with her to just pass out, but she didn’t. Stubbornly clinging to consciousness, her face wet with a steady stream of tears, she clenched
her jaw against the pain and didn’t so much as whimper as he began the long climb up the side of the cliff.

Hunter had never seen anything like it. She’d already proven that when it came to her daughter, she would take on the devil himself to keep her safe; but he’d just thought her fierceness was nothing more than a mother’s natural instinct to protect its young. He’d never suspected that beneath her soft, vulnerable beauty was one tough lady. And if there was one thing he admired in anyone, it was inner strength. She was really something.

Careful to jar her as little as possible, it seemed to take forever to make it back to the snowmobile. Hunter would have given just about anything to be able to take her to a warm cabin to check out her injuries, but that wasn’t an option. Grim-faced, he carefully set her on the ground next to the snowmobile, then immediately dug in his pack for his first aid kit.

Shaking, whether from the cold or shock Hunter couldn’t be sure, Naomi stuttered, “L-Laura…”

“You first,” he growled. “Let me see your wrist, honey.”

She wanted to argue—he could see the protest in her eyes—but she didn’t have the strength. Without a word she dragged in a bracing breath and held out her wrist to him.

Hunter didn’t think it was broken, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He carefully splinted her wrist, then frowned at her. “How’s your hip and shoulder? You think you broke anything?”

She didn’t give him an immediate no as he’d ex
pected, but instead took the time to gingerly test both joints before she shook her head. “No,” she sighed in relief. “Laura—”

She was so single-minded in spite of her own pain that he had to smile. “I know, honey. I’m going. Sit tight. I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

The afternoon was quickly slipping away, but the light was still good as he made his way down the side of the cliff to where Barker’s snowmobile lay. There was no sign of Barker or Laura, and a quick inspection of the snowy ground near the snowmobile convinced Hunter that they weren’t on the machine when it went over the cliff. There were no tracks in any direction and no evidence that it had snowed since the crash.

Wondering why Barker would be stupid enough to send his only mode of transportation over the cliff, Hunter righted it and turned the key in the ignition. When the only sound was a click, he had his answer. Barker had obviously had some kind of mechanical trouble and hoped to buy some time by making them think they’d crashed. If the man knew anything about Naomi, he had to know that she wouldn’t go any farther until the area was thoroughly searched and she was convinced that Laura wasn’t there.

Just to be sure that Barker hadn’t somehow gone over the cliff and managed to not only crawl off somewhere to nurse his injuries but cover up his tracks, he inspected the ground for a hundred yards in every direction. Only when he was convinced that the other man had never even stepped foot over the side of the cliff did he return to Naomi.

She was sitting right where he’d left her. Huddled in her coat, as pale as the snow, she struggled to stand as she saw him climb over the side of the cliff. “Laura…did you find her?”

“No,” he said flatly. “She wasn’t on the snowmobile when it went over the edge. Neither was Barker. They couldn’t have been. There was no sign of them and no tracks.”

He told her his theory then, and she glanced around. “Then their tracks must be up here somewhere. They couldn’t have gotten far on foot. We can follow them.”

Even as she spoke, it started to snow, and Hunter knew they’d lost whatever chance they had of finding Barker for now. She was hurt and needed to rest, and he needed to find them a place to stay for the night. And judging from the darkness of the clouds gathering overhead, he didn’t have a lot of time to do it. A storm was coming—he could smell it—and he didn’t intend to be caught out in the open when it hit.

Quickly moving to repack the first aid kit in his pack, he said, “Not today we can’t. There’s a storm coming, and we’ve got to find a line cabin before it hits.” With an economy of movement, he secured his pack on the snowmobile, then turned to look her over searchingly. “How’s your wrist? Do you think you’re going to be able to hang on to me without hurting yourself?”

“It’s not my wrist I’m worried about,” she said stubbornly. “It’s Laura. We have to find James’s tracks before they’re covered by the snow—”

“No, what we’ve got to do is find shelter while we still can,” he retorted. “If Barker is the survivalist you say he is, he’ll be doing the same thing. After this all blows over, and he digs out, then we’ll find him. For now, we’re getting the heck out of Dodge, sweetheart. So how’s your wrist? If you don’t think you’re going to be able to hold on to me, I may have to put you in front of me so I can cradle you with my body. We couldn’t go very fast that way, but you wouldn’t fall off, either.”

Naomi couldn’t believe he was worried about such a trivial thing, when, after two days of searching, they were about to lose James’s tracks. What if he hadn’t found shelter? Just because he was a survivalist didn’t mean he could read the weather in the sky. Right that very minute he and Laura could, for all she knew, be trudging along in the snow on foot, unaware that the mother of all storms was bearing down on them. Her baby could be caught in it, and Hunter expected her to just forget that and find shelter for herself? She didn’t think so!

Suddenly furious with him, she snapped, “I won’t fall off because I’m not going anywhere. Not until I know we’re going to be able to find James’s tracks tomorrow. And don’t glare at me like that,” she continued, scowling at him. “You’re not going to bully me into doing what you want this time—”

“Bully you?! I never—”

“Yes, you did. You’ve done nothing but throw one order after another at me like some kind of drill sergeant ever since we left town yesterday morning, and
frankly, I resent it. Despite what you may think of me, I do have a brain in my head—”

“I never said you didn’t!”

“Not in so many words, no. But you act like I haven’t got the sense to come in out of the rain, when all I’m worried about is my daughter, and I’m not taking it anymore!”

Wound up, all her worry and frustration coming to a boil inside her, she leveled a finger at his chest and told him what she thought of him and every other man, including James, who’d tried to tell her what to do and run her life. She was tired of it and she wasn’t putting up with it a second longer—not from him or anyone else.

It wasn’t like her to go off on a tirade, and she knew that later she was going to be appalled. But she’d held too much back for too long, and the words just came spewing forth. To his credit, Hunter didn’t say one word to stop her. But his eyes narrowed to a laser glint, and his jaw turned hard as granite. And when she poked him in the chest once too often with that accusing finger of hers, he grabbed her hand, trapping her fingers in his. But still, he let her have her say.

It was snowing hard when she finally ran out of words, but neither of them noticed. In the fading light his nearly black eyes glittered with anger. “Are you through now?”

“Yes, dammit! Let go of my hand!”