Mountain Refuge. Sarah Varland
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couldn’t bear it.
She’d felt safe here. And now that had been stolen from her.
Just like life had stolen so many things from her over the past three years.
She couldn’t think about any of that right now, all she could afford to focus on was running, the fall of her feet, pushing harder, faster, as her lungs screamed for air. She silently chastised them. Better to be burning and in pain than dead.
Please, God... She’d prayed more tonight than she had since the night three years ago when everything had changed.
Summer didn’t even know what she was praying for at this point. But she knew she needed all the help she could get.
She heard a twig snap behind her. Legs screaming, lungs burning, she sped up even more, one last sprint, that’s all she had in her.
The woods grew lighter. Was that...?
There was a dirt road in front of her. A beautiful road that hopefully led to town. And people.
Still running, she whipped her phone out and used her voice-to-text feature to send a message to her siblings. Help. She wasn’t willing to chance it by taking the time to say anything else, but she needed help. One of her brothers was a police officer in Moose Haven—she didn’t know if they could GPS track her or anything, but it might be the only chance she had.
She emerged from the woods and ran into the road.
And almost ran straight into the path of a red pickup truck not fifty yards away, driving straight toward her.
Summer froze when she saw it, took only a second to make up her mind and then ran toward it, waving her arms. This couldn’t be her attacker—he wouldn’t have had time to get a truck to come after her, not when she’d heard his footsteps behind her only minutes before. It could be a getaway car, driven by another criminal, but it was a measured risk on Summer’s part—it was more likely the driver was someone who could help her. Besides, she couldn’t outrun a pickup, and if the driver of it wanted her dead, he’d just run her over while she sprinted down the road. Better to take a chance, maybe get out alive. Still, her heart pounded a crazy rhythm in her chest. How had her night gone from enjoying her usual route to this—running for her life? The driver stopped when she reached him, and she threw the door open.
“Drive.”
Amazingly, he didn’t ask questions. He just floored it down the road, eating up the gravel and throwing up dust.
Clay’s world felt like it had gone from zero to sixty in less than ten seconds. He didn’t know why he was so surprised he’d found Tyler’s sister—at least he was pretty sure that was who he had found—because he’d prayed for that very thing. Still, seeing her dart into the road, clearly running from something, and jumping into his truck like she trusted him to protect her, it was overwhelming.
“Are you Summer Dawson?” he asked as he drove. He glanced down at his search directions and planned a quick route back to the lodge.
He caught her frown out of the corner of his eye. “Why?” she asked.
“Your brother has people out looking for you and I’m supposed to call if I find you.”
“Which brother?”
“Tyler.” Clearly he’d overestimated the amount of trust she’d have in a stranger. She needed to get out of her situation badly enough to jump in the truck, but now that she was momentarily safe, she was trying to keep herself that way by being guarded. Clay understood, but needed a way to convince her he wasn’t a threat.
“My phone is on the dashboard. You can call Tyler from it if you want—you’ll see that I have his number. He’ll also confirm who I am if you ask him to. I’m Clay Hitchcock and I’m guiding at the lodge this summer.”
She reached for the phone and pressed the screen a few times. Calling Tyler, he assumed.
“It’s Summer. I’m safe and I’m with Clay, your friend?”
He didn’t miss how that last part was a question. When he’d found out she was missing, he’d assumed that in this remote area of Alaska, she’d had a bad encounter with a wild animal or had issues with the terrain. The darker possibilities of meeting a human who wanted to cause her harm had crossed his mind, but he hadn’t thought they deserved a great deal of consideration up here in this small, picturesque Alaska town and had written them off as paranoia. Now he wasn’t sure. She was too upset, too skittish and hesitant to trust to have been running from an animal.
He stole a quick look at her and thought her frown had eased slightly. Good. With that tension on her side out of the way, he could focus on getting whatever information he could out of her about her encounter. He knew law enforcement would want to talk to her as soon as they got to the lodge, but it wasn’t uncommon for the edge of a person’s memory to fade the longer they were out of a traumatic situation. Maybe talking about it now would help cement some of the details in her memory.
“I’m okay for now, Tyler. I’ll be okay, alright?”
Not a very convincing voice she was using, and Clay didn’t blame her. Whatever happened had clearly been extremely traumatic for her to get in the car with a stranger when she was so shaken up.
“Alright, bye.” She finished the conversation and set the phone down and looked back at him.
Clay kept his eyes on the road, though he could feel hers on him. After so many years in law enforcement, he was more used to being the one doing the assessing than the one being measured. Her stare disconcerted him.
“What happened out there, Summer? Can you go over it for me?”
“Who are you?”
“I told you, my name is Clay Hitchcock, and I’m your brother’s friend.”
“I mean, who are you and why are you asking me questions like that?”
“I’m just someone who wants to help.” That was the truth now. He may have the heart of a cop, the mind of a cop, but he was a civilian now. His choice, yes, but it was still taking some getting used to.
Her eyes narrowed but she took his answer. Not, Clay noticed, because he had done anything to convince her that he was trustworthy. No, the only reason she was willing to entertain trusting him at all was the fact that her brother liked him.
He made a mental note about her character—family was important.
Not that he necessarily needed to make notes about Summer Dawson’s character. After tonight they might only see each other in passing. Clay didn’t remember what she did at the lodge, but with as many warnings as Tyler had given him not to think about dating one of his sisters, especially Summer, Clay felt it was safe to assume he wouldn’t be assigned to any task that would lead them to cross paths often. But his old habit of analyzing people, observing things about them, died hard. He might not have a badge, but he was still a cop inside.
Maybe this was what the chief had tried to warn him about when he urged Clay to consider what he was doing by leaving the force in Treasure Point. But Clay hadn’t listened, couldn’t have. He’d needed to get out of there.
Out of that whole line of work.
He stole a glance at Summer. Much as he wanted to drive her back to the lodge and accept the no-trespassing sign she’d clearly placed in front of the details about whatever had just happened, he couldn’t. Despite himself.
Clay let out a breath. “How do I get to the Moose Haven Police Department?”
“What?” The edges of her tone were sharp from fear or surprise, it was hard to say which—the two were often so intertwined.
“You’re running from something,” he explained, keeping his voice calm