Текст книги "Charming The Highlander"

Автор книги: Джанет Чапмен

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

And Grey knew then why he was here.

Grace Sutter was the other half of his soul, and it had taken a storm and eight hundred years to find her.

And the real journey was only just beginning.

Chapter Nineteen

Working with Ian MacKeage was like being in a fourth-grade science class. The man had more questions than a ten-year-old. All he knew about electricity was that when he flipped a switch, a light came on or a motor started. Grace was careful to hide her amusement while she patiently answered Ian’s questions.

“Electricity runs through a wire the same way a truck travels down a road,” she told him as she stripped a foot of casing off the end of the wire she was holding. “The energy we’re using runs only in one direction, then returns back to the circuit through another wire.”

“It makes a loop?” Ian asked, squinting to see what she was doing.

“Yes. But the switch is what interrupts the electricity’s journey, shutting it off. When you flip a switch, it allows the energy to travel, making the lightbulb glow.”

“That makes sense,” he said, nodding while he scratched at his beard. “So we’re going to run electricity through this lift cable?”

Grace smiled at his quick reasoning. “Sort of. Remember that truck traveling down the road I spoke of?”

“I do.”

“Well, if a bunch of trucks are traveling in only one direction and the first truck suddenly sees that the bridge is out and has to come to a screeching halt, what will happen?”

“An accident,” he said, giving her a narrow-eyed look. “All the trucks will pile up behind the first truck and not be able to move anywhere.”

“That’s right. And that’s what we’re going to do with the lift cable. We’re going to cause an energy accident by creating a dead short.”

Grace bent the wire to make sure it didn’t touch anything, then she began stripping the casing off the other strand of wire that was its twin.

“The energy will be diverted into the ground, where it will hit a dead end,” she continued. “Only, instead of dented fenders, this accident will produce heat that will melt the ice.”

Furiously scratching his beard now, Ian looked over at the ski-lift cable where it entered and exited the shed. Still narrow-eyed, he looked back at her.

“That cable isn’t covered with plastic like this one is,” he said, nodding toward the wire in her hand.

“Does that mean if I touch it I’ll get burned?”

Grace shook her head. “No. We’re going to put low volts into the cable. We’ll create the heat by pushing high amps through it instead.”

Ian’s harsh frown should have hurt his face.

Grace patted his arm. “It’s complicated, Ian. Simply put, we’re going to move energy through the cable very slowly and eventually stop it dead, causing an accident that will create heat.”

Ian shook his head and shot her a crooked glare. “Ya said something earlier about causing a fire,” he said gruffly. Grace nodded. “We’re going to convert this line to two twenty in order to get the amps we need.

And that can be dangerous. The plastic casing could melt and start a fire.”

Or the generator could blow up, but Grace was not willing to voice that possibility aloud. “Jonathan should have been back by now,” she said instead, glancing out the shed door toward the end of the hotel where the generator was. “It doesn’t take that long to splice a couple of wires.”

Ian walked to the door and looked out. “Maybe the bastard’s gone to look for those disks by himself,”

he said, turning to smile at Grace, looking for all the world as if he hoped Jonathan had. “And I wouldn’t cry none if he gets lost and freezes to death.”

Grace ignored Ian’s gruesome hope and carried the wire she’d prepared over to the lift cable. She studied the entire system, trying to decide the best—and safest—way to create her dead short. She needed for this to work without involving herself in the accident.

Grace rubbed her throbbing forehead. Lord, she was starting to think in terms of trucks and accidents, not scientific equations. Either she’d been away from her lab too long, or her mind was not on her work because it was focused on Grey.

She was worried about him. Fighting a fire was dangerous. All sorts of complications could arise. Water heaters could blow up, glass could explode and come flying out, or the grange could collapse on top of them.

What a sheltered life she’d been leading these last fourteen years, locked away with her work, pushing numbers around until they fit into whatever puzzle she was building. How safe she had been. How self-consumed.

And how trivial compared with baby giggles and smiles, flint green eyes boring into her soul, kisses that made her heart melt, and waking up with a man of steel draped over her body. Now, that was danger.

Risk. And the very fabric of existence that she intended to experience every day for the rest of her life.

“Are ya thinking it’s going to blow up right now?” Ian asked from right beside her.

Grace looked over to find him also staring at the wire in her hand. She stood on tiptoe and quickly wrapped the naked wire around the cable.

“No. Nothing will happen yet,” she assured him, taking the other piece of wire and wrapping it around the frame of the huge wheel anchored in concrete that turned the cable back up the mountain.

She darted a quick glance at Ian. “Have you ever been electrocuted?” she asked. “Touched a bare wire or been close to a lightning strike?”

He eyed her suspiciously. “What does lightning have to do with this?” he asked, waving at the lift.

Grace shrugged. “Nothing. You just wanted to know if touching this cable would burn you. And lightning bolts are shafts of electricity without the protection of wire casing. Lightning can kill a man, or sometimes it just knocks him senseless.”

“I know that,” he said, taking a step back. “Is that what we’re doing?” he whispered, his face suddenly paling. “Are ya making lightning, lass?”

Grace turned away to hide her frown. “No,” she said. “The voltage will be too low. Lightning strikes are much more powerful and impossible to predict.”

He took another step back. “I…I’m thinking I should go have a look for that Jonathan fellow,” he said.

“To see if he needs my help.”

He was out the door before she could protest. Grace moved to watch Ian’s limping but sure-footed retreat toward the hotel. She absently looked down at her own feet, turning an ankle to see the spare set of creepers Ian had brought her and insisted she put on. What had she said to upset him? The man had all but run away, looking as if he had just seen a ghost.

Actually, Ian looked much the same way Michael had when he’d told her his story of traveling through time.

Grace turned back to her work, thinking about Ian’s reaction and why she had felt compelled to bring up the subject of lightning in the first place.

Perhaps it was because she was unable to get Michael’s story out of her head. He had been so sure of what had happened to him. So believable in the telling, the attention to detail, from the lack of buttons all the way to noticing the difference in calendars. Granted, she didn’t know much about ancient Scottish warriors, but Greylen MacKeage owned a sword, Ian acted as if electricity were more magic than science, and all of them lived in a castle.

Four years, Michael had said. If for some phenomenal reason time travel was indeed possible, was four years long enough for medieval men to be assimilated into modern society?

Grace started to tremble at the realization of what she was thinking. It wasn’t possible. She knew it wasn

’t possible. The scientist in her knew that no one had ever been able to prove that manipulation of the fourth dimension was possible.

But then again, neither had anyone been able to prove it wasn’t possible.

A desperate shout suddenly came from the direction of the hotel, and Grace quickly ran to the door. She peered through the rain, saw movement just inside the generator shed, and started running toward it.

As she got closer, she could see more clearly that Ian was struggling with another man. Ian was holding the man’s wrist over their heads. Then she saw that the other guy was holding a gun. As she approached the shed, Grace frantically scanned the area for a weapon—a stick or a shovel or anything other than her bare hands. She saw nothing and decided that if she could just get close enough, she could kick Ian’s assailant in the shins with her ice creepers, which would distract him enough for Ian to overpower him.

But as she stepped into the shed, an arm came around her waist and lifted her off the ground. A hand covered her mouth at the same time, muffling her scream of surprise.

Chaos erupted as the small area filled with men, all of them scrambling in every direction. Grace flinched when a gunshot suddenly cracked through the shed, reverberating off the granite stones in deafening echoes. Grace screamed again into the hand over her mouth and lashed out with both feet as she watched Ian fall to the floor.

She was whirled around and slammed into the wall, the breath knocked out of her. Her assailant grabbed her hands, turned her to face him, and roughly wrapped duct tape around her wrists.

“Jesus Christ, Frank,” the man who’d fought Ian said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “You could have helped. The bastard is stronger than he looks,” he added, kicking Ian, who lay crumpled on the floor.

Grace could see blood seeping from Ian’s forehead and the corner of his mouth. She threw herself at him, but the man named Frank caught her and shoved her back against the wall. He roughly slapped a piece of duct tape over her mouth before she could protest. Grace kicked him as hard as she could in the shin.

With an angry curse, Frank drove his shoulder into her stomach and lifted her over his back. He turned, whirling her yet again, and Grace feared she would throw up and choke to death on her gag.

“Wayne, grab Stanhope, and let’s get the hell out of here,” Frank said, walking around the large generator in the middle of the shed and heading out the back door. “Tom, did you get that snowcat running? Where the hell is it?”

Grace lifted her head and saw Jonathan being hauled to his feet, bound and gagged. Jonathan’s assailant, Wayne, picked him up by the shoulder and shoved him toward the woods in Grace’s wake. The other man, Tom, held the gun that was still smoking from the heat of being fired.

Tom was the man who had shot Ian.

But Ian wasn’t dead. She knew he wasn’t. He had opened one eye just a slit and nodded his head slightly just before Frank had carried her out the back door.

Bless Ian. He knew he was no match for three men, two of whom had guns. He was playing possum and would go for help if he had to crawl to the hotel on his hands and knees.

Grace heard the snowcat’s idling engine before she saw it. Frank had carried her a ways through the woods up the mountain behind the hotel. Tom had jogged ahead and was already waiting at the snowcat, holding the door open while Frank unceremoniously shoved her into the backseat. Jonathan came barreling in beside her and was shoved up against her. Wayne followed him inside and finished filling the backseat, crushing Grace against the far wall with enough force to make breathing through only her nose nearly impossible.

Frank sat on the passenger side, and Tom climbed into the driver’s seat and sent the snowcat growling forward before his door was shut. Frank reached into his jacket, pulled out a map, and studied it.

Grace lifted her bound hands and carefully pulled the duct tape off her mouth, working her jaw and running her tongue over her lips to feel for missing skin. She looked at Jonathan. He was staring at her over his own gag of duct tape, his left eye swollen nearly shut, his nose bleeding, and his one undamaged eye leaking tears as he fought for breath.

Grace gently worked the duct tape from his mouth. Wayne tried to push her hands away with the barrel of his gun, but Grace refused to let go of the tape and ended up ripping it from Jonathan’s lips.

Grace batted at Wayne’s hands when he tried to replace it. “He’s suffocating,” she hissed, glaring at Wayne.

“Leave them alone,” Frank said. He turned in his seat and shot Grace a nasty grin. “You throw a mean kick,” he said, rubbing his leg. “You as smart with computers and rockets as they say you are?”

Grace didn’t know whether to nod or spit in his face, so she did neither. Frank’s grin widened. “Just as long as you’re smart enough to behave yourself, Ms. Sutter, we’ll get along fine,” he finished, turning back to study his map.

He squinted at the ski trail they were climbing. “According to the FAA, the crash site is on North Finger Ridge,” he said to Tom, pointing to the left.

Grace looked out the fog-covered window beside her toward TarStone’s summit. The rain had abated yet again, but the low-hanging clouds obscured the view of the peak. She turned and stared at Jonathan.

If Frank was headed for the crash site, that meant he knew about the disks. And that meant Jonathan had been in contact with either AeroSaqii or these men.

“What did you tell them?” she whispered to Jonathan.

He shook his head. “I was only trying to buy us some time, Grace,” he rasped. “I told them we needed the disks to fix Podly’s transmission and that they were up on the mountain. When we talked, Frank promised to give me some time.”

“Yeah, well, time’s up, Stanhope,” Frank said, obviously hearing their conversation. He turned and looked back again. “This storm’s not going away, and the roads out of Pine Creek are closed. I’m on a schedule and not giving you any more time.”

“Then how are you planning to leave?” Grace asked. “What’s the point of going after the disks if you’re trapped here just like we are?”

He lifted the map for her to see. “Interconnected Trail System,” he said in explanation. “According to this, there’s a main ITS snowmobile trail leading down the south side of the mountain. We go get your disks, and then the snowmobile trail takes us to Greenville. I’ve got men waiting there to take us to Bangor,” he finished, turning back to face front.

“The trails will be blocked by fallen trees just like the roads are,” Grace countered.

Frank shot her a glare over his shoulder. “Better hope not,” he growled. “Or it’ll be a long walk to Greenville if they are.”

Grace fell silent and watched out the window beside her, ignoring Jonathan and the three men who didn’t seem at all concerned that kidnaping was a federal crime. She wiggled her hands, putting pressure on the tape, attempting to loosen it before her fingers went completely numb.

She wasn’t dressed to walk over the mountain, no more so than she had been four days ago. At least she had ice creepers this time, and the other men also wore creepers. But Jonathan didn’t even have boots.

He was wearing Virginia’s version of winter shoes, and Grace knew they weren’t waterproof and only lightly treaded. Jonathan would never make it off the mountain if they ended up walking.

But truth be told, Grace hoped the trails really were blocked. Time is what she needed now, time for Grey to come after her.

And he would. That wasn’t even a question in her mind. Just as soon as Ian was able to get himself to the hotel, someone would go after Grey and Morgan and Callum and tell them what had happened. And then look out, Grace thought with a secret smile to herself. Superman would come to her rescue.

She only hoped he would bring a gun and not his sword.

Chapter Twenty

Grey adjusted his sword on his back as he crossed the bridge from Gu Bràth and headed toward the equipment garage. Morgan walked beside him, securing his own sword to his pack and slinging it over his shoulders. Morgan also carried a rifle.

“Dammit, Grey, I’m coming with you. The snowmobile will carry both of us,” Morgan said. “Ian told us there were three men who took Grace.”

“Three moderns,” Grey clarified.

“Moderns with guns,” Morgan countered, stopping just outside the open garage door. “I should be with you.”

Grey shook his head as he worked his fingers into his gloves. “I can travel quicker by myself.” He looked up at the mountain, then back at Morgan. “They stole one of our snowcats because the only way out of this valley is over West Shoulder Ridge. They’ll head for the snowmobile trail once they retrieve Grace’s disks from the crash site. And that’s exactly where I want you and Callum to go now. Take the snowcat, and head directly for West Shoulder Pass.”

Morgan held out the rifle he was carrying. “At least take this,” he said, trying to hand it to Grey.

Grey turned without taking the gun and climbed onto the snowmobile. “I donna want it,” he said, starting the engine. “I’ve no intention of getting into a gunfight with these men. Not with Grace in harm’s way,” he finished loudly over the growl of the snowmobile’s powerful engine.

He gave the machine some gas and edged it out of the garage and onto the ice-covered snow. He stopped when he saw Callum and Ian coming from the hotel. Ian, his head wrapped in a bandage, was holding on to Callum’s arm. He limped toward Grey like a man determined to help rescue the woman he’

d let down.

Grey wiped the rain from his face with his glove. More than four hours had passed since Grace had been taken. It had taken only minutes for Ian to stagger to the hotel and explain what had happened, but it had taken John Bigelow nearly two hours to travel the six miles from TarStone Resort into Pine Creek to give Grey the news. More trees had fallen across the road, and John had somehow managed to walk the last mile without breaking his neck, to tell Grey that Grace and Jonathan had been kidnapped.

Grey turned his gaze back to TarStone Mountain. The only reason he wasn’t out of his mind with worry was the fact that these men needed Grace for her knowledge.

They wouldn’t harm her. Not intentionally. But all manner of problems could arise, this accursed storm being the greatest threat. If the snowcat broke down or became damaged or was unable to continue through the trail, Grace would find herself walking the mountain again, this time with men who would care little for her welfare if their own survival came into question.

“I’m going with ya,” Ian hollered over the sound of the engine.

Grey shook his head. “You’ll slow us down.”

“I can drive the snowcat,” Ian insisted, determined not to be left behind. “I failed in my duty to protect your woman,” he said in a harsh whisper. “I ran like a worried child because Grace started talking about lightning. I’m sorry to ya, Laird MacKeage, that my cowardice caused our Grace to be in danger. And I’

m wanting to right my mistake.”

He stepped closer to the snowmobile, his hands clasped at his waist to cover their trembling. “The lass feels I’m mad at her for asking us to help MacBain,” he continued, his voice shaking. “It’s…it’s important that she knows I’m not. Let me go with Callum and Morgan. I promise not to get in the way. If I do, ya can leave me up on the mountain.”

Grey wiped at his face again and slowly took a settling breath. He could not leave his man behind. He looked at Ian and nodded, then turned his gaze to encompass Morgan and Callum.

“The four of us and Grace need only return,” he growled, tension lacing his words with anger. “The others, including Stanhope, can rot on the mountain for all I care. No mercy,” he finished, nodding curtly and then punching the throttle on the snowmobile.

Grey moved quickly up the mountain, turning the nimble machine onto the steeply rising ski slope to follow the tracks his stolen snowcat had made.

The men who had taken Grace had a four-hour lead over him, but that was their only advantage. Grey knew the mountain, and his snowmobile was quicker and easier to maneuver than the snowcat. He could travel around fallen trees, over stumps, and up steeper inclines.

Grey turned the snowmobile into the forest toward North Finger Ridge and the crash site, ducking low-hanging branches and ignoring the ice slapping his face. For the third time in only four days, Grey found himself repeating his litany of prayers that asked for God’s intervention.

Grace was surprised at how the sight of the plane crash affected her. Memories rose unbidden—the screeching sound of ripping metal, the smell of fuel stinging her nose, the terror of tumbling through chaos, the sudden silence.

And the strange blue glow that had lingered in the air.

She remembered Grey’s arms of steel holding her securely. His gentle breath bringing Baby back to life.

And his passionate kiss.

Grace wiped the moisture away from the window of the snowcat to see better and stared at the silent, abandoned remains of the airplane. It was barely recognizable, completely entombed in ice. She watched as Frank and Tom walked around the wreckage, beams from their flashlights reflecting like gemstones over the ground.

It was completely dark now, late into the bleak and drizzling February night. It had taken them hours of rugged and haphazard travel to make it this far, and Grace was worried that getting over West Shoulder Pass was going to be impossible.

Frank had foolishly endangered them all. And if Grey didn’t come after her soon, it looked as if she’d come full circle to die. She was back on the mountain, and for the second time in just four days, Greylen MacKeage was her only hope for survival.

Apparently unsuccessful in his hunt for the disks, Frank came striding back to the snowcat, opened the driver’s door, and grabbed her roughly by the chin.

“Where are they?” he growled. “Where are the disks?”

Grace pulled her chin free and gave him a negligent shrug. “I don’t know exactly,” she said, too tired to enter a battle of wills. “I remember taking them out of my bag when I was sitting just outside the plane.

They may have slipped under the fuselage.”

Frank plodded back to the plane without bothering to close the door, which caused the interior light of the snowcat to stay on, making it impossible for Grace to see outside anymore. Grace looked over at Wayne sitting beside a defeated and possibly concussed Jonathan. Wayne lifted his gun slightly and gave her a warning glare.

Tom and Frank suddenly came striding back. Tom climbed into the driver’s seat and reached down to connect two exposed wires, which he must have stripped earlier to hot-wire the snowcat.

“Wait,” Frank said, still standing outside, his head turned away. “Listen,” he commanded, waving a hand at Tom.

Tom opened his door and stood on the track, straining his head above the roof of the snowcat. Grace listened, too. All she could hear was the sound of the forest cracking under the strain of the ice.

“That’s a snowmobile,” Tom said. He ducked down and looked through the cab at Frank. “It’s coming this way.”

Frank climbed inside and slammed his door shut. Tom took his seat again and grabbed the wires, but he looked at Frank before he started the engine. Frank stared silently out the windshield.

“We keep going,” Frank said finally. “We just need to get up on West Shoulder. I should be able to get a signal from there to call Greenville. I’ll have our men come in by snowmobile and meet us on the trail.”

Grace lifted her bound hands to her chest, attempting to keep her suddenly racing heart from exploding.

Grey was coming after her on a snowmobile, and he was closing in on them.

“It sounded like only one sled,” Tom said as he touched the wires together and started the engine. “And it was still far away. Sound travels funny in these mountains.” He put the snowcat into gear and sent it rumbling away from the crash site. “If it’s carrying two men, it will be traveling slow,” he added.

Grace saw Frank’s head turn toward Tom. “We’re leaving a trail a blind man could follow,” he growled.

He reached inside his jacket and held up a small black case under the beam of his flashlight. “These your disks?” he asked, turning to see her answer.

Grace nodded. Frank tucked the case back in his jacket, then reached into another pocket and pulled out a small, strange-looking radio. He turned it on and scanned the face for a signal, holding it up and extending the antenna.

The red light suddenly turned green, and Frank immediately depressed the talk button. He spoke into the transmitter and was quickly rewarded with a faint but distinct voice from Greenville.

Frank and the mystery voice conversed for several minutes before Frank shut off the radio and picked up his map again.

“What about the snowmobile?” Tom asked. “You want to drop Wayne off and let him take care of the problem?”

Grace held her breath waiting for Frank’s answer. Grey would be an easy target for Wayne.

“Not yet,” Frank said. “We’re almost there. We’ll make our stand at the trail while we wait for the others.”

Grace started breathing again.

Frank suddenly chuckled. “Not that anyone from this boondock town will be much of a challenge.” He twisted in his seat to look back at her, his face an abstract of sinister lines and shadows in the beam of his light. “You got a local sheriff in Pine Creek, sweet buns?” he asked. “One with more brawn than brains?”

“No,” Grace answered calmly. “But we occasionally get a visit from Superman.”

Grey stopped his snowmobile several hundred yards down from the crash site and walked the rest of the way. He circled first, making sure no one was waiting to surprise him, then finally approached the plane.

He dug his flashlight out of his pocket and shone it over the ground. It was pitch-black now, with the moon hidden by cloud cover and fog, and without the light he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face.

What the light did show him were tracks, two distinct sets of creeper-covered boots that had churned up the ice and kicked it away from the gaping hole in the fuselage. Grey noticed where someone had dug a burrow under the plane, and he guessed that Grace’s missing disks had slipped under it four days ago.

He trailed his flashlight beam along the forest floor until he found where his stolen snowcat had stopped long enough for the engine heat to melt the ice. He sent the beam upward, letting the light follow the track the snowcat had made and decided that he was right. They were now headed toward West Shoulder Pass and would try to pick up the snowmobile trail on the other side.

Grey walked back to his own snowmobile, turned the machine northwest, straight toward the summit of TarStone Mountain. He could make better time despite the steeper terrain and be over West Shoulder Pass before Grace and her kidnappers. Ian and Callum and Morgan were approaching the pass from the south and should have arrived there by now. Grey knew he was betting Grace’s life on his gut instinct, but eight hundred years ago it was his gut that had most often kept him and his men alive. He’d been sure of very few things in these last four years, but tonight every drop of sweat pouring from his body screamed that he was right.

And his instinct would have been perfect if he had remembered the long, deep, high mountain pond carved into the southern slope of West Shoulder Pass.

Grace balked when Frank tried to pull her onto the frozen pond. It was still the dead of winter, but she knew these high ponds were usually spring-fed. The ice could be three feet thick in one place and two inches in another.

“Wait. It isn’t safe,” she said, finally getting him to stop. “There are springs.”

“It will hold us on foot,” Frank said.

He had taken the duct tape off her hands so walking wouldn’t be so awkward, but his grip on her wrist was unbreakable. And his sense of urgency was palpable. He looked down the ridge at their back trail through the weak dawn light, then turned and glared at her. “And I’m not going back empty-handed,” he finished, scanning the opposite shore.

“It won’t do you any good if we all drown,” she said, trying to reason with him. She used her free hand to tug on his sleeve and get his attention again. “The disks are all you really need. Your scientists can unscramble the transmission. Leave Jonathan and me here. You’ll travel quicker without us.”

Frank stared down at her, his eyes narrowed as he thought about her offer. He slowly smiled. “I’m getting an extra half million for you, sweet buns.” He shrugged. “Make me an offer I can’t refuse, and I’ll think about it.”

Frank started to pull her onto the ice then, but Jonathan, whom Tom was holding at gunpoint, finally spoke. “She has a five-week-old son, Frank. What if you take the disks to AeroSaqii and I pay you for Grace?”

Frank turned to face Jonathan. “How much?”

Jonathan straightened and stepped forward. “One million,” he said.

Frank laughed. “How about two?”

Jonathan paled but nodded. “Two,” he agreed. He reached out for Grace’s hand, but Frank pulled her away.

“No. You’re both going with us,” he said. “We get off this mountain and back to civilization, then we work out the details. You get the money, Stanhope, and then I’ll turn Grace over.”

That decided, Frank pulled her forward again, ignoring her now frantic struggles. “We’ll go with you,”

Grace said, “but at least go around. It’s not safe to walk across the pond.”

“There they are,” Frank said, not paying attention to her. “I can see the snowmobiles.”

Grace squinted through the increasing daylight and scanned the opposite shore. A good quarter-mile away she could just make out three snowmobiles with sleds attached to them, parked on the edge of the forest by the pond. But she didn’t see anyone standing beside them.

Grace sat down. Frank wouldn’t shoot her; she was worth too much money to him. He skidded to a halt and nearly fell backward because he wouldn’t let go of her wrist.

“Dammit. Get up.”

“No.”

He pulled a gun from his pocket and set the barrel in front of her nose.

She sneered at him. “Two million bucks, Frank.”

“Dammit to hell.” He shoved his gun in his pocket and grabbed her by both arms, lifting her up and tossing her over his shoulder.

They made it almost to the middle of the pond before the ice cracked. Frank suddenly stilled, slowly setting Grace on her feet and then moving several steps away. She immediately lay down on her back, hoping to distribute her weight over as large an area as she could.