Leah sucked in a breath, trying to push down the rising panic. Except for her right arm, she couldn’t move her body. But at least she could breathe. She blinked up at her rescuer—warmth and respite spilling from his determined eyes, the fierce green of a country spring in the mountains. Streaks of snow clung to his coffee-colored, wavy hair, and though he looked a little rough around the edges, he wasn’t Snyder—the man who needed her dead.
Relief filled her and overflowed in an exhale accompanied by a few whimpers. She hated the sound, hated the weakness it conveyed. If she were standing right now, her legs would quiver, unable to hold her weight.
“It’s okay. You’re going to be fine. I’m digging you out now.” Though his eyes held an urgent and untempered concern, his smile reassured her. “My name’s Cade, by the way.”
That’s right, keep talking in those soothing tones.
Cade, wearing the usual thick snow-country gloves, breathed hard as he expertly thrust the snow shovel in and around her, moving the iced powder almost as efficiently as a mechanical snowplow. He’d uncovered her torso and had started digging out her legs.
“What’s your name?”
She wasn’t sure what name she could trust him with. She didn’t want anyone to know she was here, much less know her name. Telling this man could put him in danger, too. She’d been hiding in the remote wilderness cabin, in fact, when Detective Snyder had sniffed her out and come to kill her. Panic set in and she glanced around at her limited view. Where was he? Had he been buried, too?
Oh, God, please... But she hated herself for wishing him dead.
“It’s okay if you’re unable to give me your name,” he said.
He probably thought she was in shock. And she was.
“Is there someone I should call? Friends or family?”
“No.” Her cold answer iced over her heart. It wasn’t a lie.
“Can you tell me if you have any pain—how bad it is on a scale of one to ten?”
She felt numb and cold at the same time; stiff, as though rigor mortis had already set in. Oh, no...was she paralyzed? Had the impact broken her back?
With the shifting snow she tried to move her body. Her legs responded. Thank You, God. And there wasn’t any pain.
“No, I don’t think I’m injured. I don’t know.” How could she be sure if something hurt until she was completely free? She felt so numb, she couldn’t really tell.
His chuckle lightened the seriousness of her near death. By the look in his eyes, that had been his intention. She liked his laugh, but it was hard to trust, even in someone who had rescued her.
“Almost there.” He threw the shovel aside and began scooping snow away from her back and legs.
Leah shifted and moved, and the sheer freedom of that act left her with the daunting awareness that she’d almost died on this mountain today—twice. The thought pressed in on her, suffocating her. This man digging her out only knew the half of it.
As she started to climb to freedom, Cade grabbed her and gently lifted her out as though she weighed nothing at all. He then set her to the side, away from the hole that had almost been her tomb.
“You sure nothing’s broken?” He assessed her limbs with practiced skill.
Again she moved her arms and legs. “No, nothing’s broken. Nothing’s crushed inside or I’d be in pain, wouldn’t I?”
He pulled something from a pack—a thermal blanket—and wrapped it around her. Crouched next to her, he wouldn’t stop staring at her, until finally Leah had to look away.
“You’re more fortunate than you know.” The solemn tone of his voice pulled her gaze up.
She figured he’d ask her why she was skiing in the back country with the avalanche danger high, but he didn’t even ask her what had happened to her skis. She hadn’t been skiing, so didn’t have any, of course, but she had no idea how she’d explain her presence here if pressured.
Cade frowned and stood tall, squinting as he skimmed the slope behind Leah. “What can you tell me about your friend? The man you were with?”
Leah’s heart stuttered. She forced a calmness into her expression she didn’t feel. “What man? I wasn’t with anyone.” True enough.
What am I doing? Why lie about Snyder now? Confusion crept over her like the cold trying to slip into the thermal blanket. She wasn’t sure how to handle this. But one thing she felt all the way to her chilled core: she wasn’t out of danger yet.
Snyder might not be working alone. That meant she had to stay on her guard and she couldn’t trust anyone. Until she discovered why he’d killed Tim that night and what he wanted from Leah besides her life, she couldn’t be safe. That meant she needed to disappear again somehow. And when she was gone, the less people in this area knew about her or what had happened to her, the better.
Cade stared down at her, his pensive gaze taking her in once again, wringing her insides as though he’d have the truth from her.
“Okay, then,” he said. “There was a witness—someone who’d seen the avalanche and called it in. He reported seeing a man and woman go under. We have another victim out here somewhere, and I need to help find him. If you think you’re not hurt, and are able, you can search, too. There’s only me and my partner until another team arrives, but they’ll take too long. And our witness seems to have disappeared after pointing me in your direction.”
What? He had no idea what he asked of her. How could she make herself help find the man who only moments before had tried to kill her?
Cade must have noticed her reaction. She saw suspicion in his eyes.
“Are you okay to rest here, then, while I help?”
No. She wasn’t okay. She didn’t want him to go. She hadn’t felt this safe, this secure, in so very long. And those things poured from this man. She’d never needed that before, and the realization stunned her. But she reminded herself she couldn’t afford to need anyone. To trust anyone. “Sure, I’ll be fine.”
“Someone will be here soon to evacuate you.”
Leah nodded and searched the canyon, reliving that moment only a few days ago when Detective Nick Snyder had shot and killed her boss, Tim Levins, in cold blood.
Tim was a lawyer and Leah was his legal investigator. She’d been leaving town that night for a three-week vacation. Tim had insisted she go and use the bonus he’d given her as thanks for her two years of service in his office. He’d bought her a present, too—a necklace that she’d forgotten on her desk in her rush to put everything in order before leaving. She’d stopped by the office late that night to pick it up, not wanting to hurt his feelings if he noticed that she’d left it behind.
Deep down, she knew she had wanted to stop by the office for more than just the necklace. She’d had a feeling something was wrong...that Tim had been trying to hide things from her. He’d been a little too insistent that she use the bonus to go on a long vacation. So she’d gone back to investigate.
She’d liked Tim, but thanks to the trauma of her childhood, she’d never met anyone she trusted, her lawyer boss included.
She’d arrived just in time to witness Tim’s murder. And Snyder—a decorated, trusted police detective and the town’s hero—had come for her.
So she’d disappeared on her own to figure it all out. It had seemed impossible that he’d find her in the remote cabin hidden deep in the Inside Passage of Alaska, hundreds of miles from Kincaid, the small town in the Seattle metropolis where she