Текст книги "Secrets of the Highlander"
Автор книги: Джанет Чапмен
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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 16 страниц)
“Foreplay? You call the last hour foreplay?” She wanted to smack him, but she pointed her finger at his face instead. “You are one second away from taking another swim in the lake, buster. Do you think you can possibly stay focused for ten minutes so we can actually do this?”
“Ten?” he repeated in surprise. “All this work for ten measly minutes?” He grabbed her pointing finger, gently bucking her off him and turning so he was looming over her. “I’ll tell you what. You can have your ten minutes, but then I’m taking another…” He cocked his head in thought. “Another thirty minutes for myself.” He lowered his mouth to within inches of hers. “You want to go first, or shall I?” he whispered, inching even closer but not quite touching her lips, apparently waiting for her answer.
Megan reached down and wrapped her fingers intimately around him, grinning when he jerked in surprise. “I’ll go first.” She used her other hand to push his shoulder, sending him onto his back, and rolled with him until she was once again straddling his thighs. “Pay attention and see if you can’t learn a little something about foreplay, will you?”
“Yes ma’am!” he said in a half-shout when she started fondling him in earnest.
She lovingly tortured him for several minutes, until she could see beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead and the cords in his neck bulging. Deciding he was one second away from losing control when his hands balled into fists at his sides, Megan finally took pity. She wiggled forward until she was directly over him, braced her hands on his sweating chest, then gently lowered herself down over his shaft.
They both moaned, the sound mingling with the crackling fire to drift off into the stillness of the night. “Oh God, that feels good,” she whispered, moving slowly as she adjusted to the fullness, then quickening the tempo. “It’s been way, way too long,” she ended with another moan.
His hands went to her hips, his fingers gently kneading her flesh as he slowed her motions, moving his own hips to alter his angle and depth. His actions increased her pleasure, and Megan tilted back her head and closed her eyes, savoring the feel of him moving inside her. He brought one hand to her feminine center and used his thumb to caress her sensitive bud while he continued to guide her gentle rocking.
“Go on, sweetheart,” he softly petitioned. “That’s my girl. Go visit our beautiful place.”
Megan felt herself tightening, spiraling inward, deep into the depths of the magical place he always took her. She crested with a shout of release, her entire body convulsing in waves of blinding heat. Time stopped and the physical world receded as she floated in a wondrous landscape of colorful, energized light.
“Come back to me, Megan,” she heard from a distance. “That’s it, sweetheart, come back so we can go there together.”
Megan suddenly found herself back in Jack’s embrace; he was stroking her hair, gentling her with soothing whispers as wave after wave of energy continued pulsing through her.
“That’s my girl,” he whispered in her ear. Megan realized he was sitting up, she was still straddling him, and he was still embedded deeply inside her. “Was it as beautiful as ever?” he asked, calming her with caresses to her body and tender kisses to her face.
“You weren’t there with me.”
“I’ll go with you next time, I promise.”
He lifted her off him, then turned them both until she was lying on the sleeping bag. Kneeling between her legs, he pulled her backside up onto his thighs, and Megan realized that the baby wasn’t in his way in this position.
He slowly entered her, his gaze locked on her face with such intensity, waves of heated awareness washed through her again. “Beautiful Megan,” he whispered, slipping deeply inside her, then pulling nearly out, then sliding even deeper. “I see our magical place every time I look in your eyes.”
She reached out, wanting to hold him, but he took her hands and set them over her head, wrapping her fingers around a fir bough. “Lie still,” he tenderly commanded, grasping her hips, “and let me watch you blossom. I’ll go with you this time, I promise.”
He set a gentle and thoroughly mesmerizing rhythm, and Megan felt herself focusing inward again, sensing she wasn’t alone this time. Jack definitely was present; she could feel the power of his energy threatening to take her into a storm of such intensity that she cried out.
“Shhh,” he soothed, even as he quickened his pace. “You can let go, sweetheart. You’re always safe when you’re with me,” he said, touching her intimately as he continued his gentle assault. “Come with me,” he commanded, thrusting deeper.
The storm he had conjured sucked her into its swirling vortex, and Megan was suddenly floating through a wondrous landscape of shimmering light. And this time Jack was right beside her as they explored the beautiful world together. The colors were intensified tenfold, the warmth more penetrating, the sense of wonder intoxicating.
“We can’t stay,” Jack whispered, cupping her head in his hands and kissing her deeply. “We’ll come back again soon, I promise. But you need to sleep now.”
She reluctantly let him lead her back, not wanting to leave such euphoric beauty where she felt so warm and safe—and so loved. She yawned, cuddling into his embrace.
“That’s it, little one, let me hold you in my arms. Dream with me, Megan, and let me introduce you to our son.”
She snuggled against him with a sigh of profound contentment. She didn’t know how he did it, but every time they made love, he carried her off to this beautiful place that existed only when she was with him, and then she would wake up in his arms, feeling utterly and completely loved. It had happened the very first time they’d made love, and had only intensified over the next month. If she didn’t know better, she might wonder if Jack really did possess some sort of magical power that…
A beautiful woman suddenly stepped out of the shimmering ether, carrying a baby in her arms.
Chapter Seventeen
I t was just breaking dawn when Megan opened her eyes to find herself wrapped up like a mummy in the sleeping bag. The fire was roaring, her clothes were in a pile beside her, and Jack was nowhere to be found. He’d left a beer bottle full of water next to her clothes, along with a power bar—which meant he’d had at least one more stashed someplace yesterday.
Megan squirmed free of the sleeping bag and sat up, only to scramble back under the covers when she realized how cold it was. She reached out one hand to her clothes, sighing in relief to find that Jack had set them by the fire to warm up. She pulled everything under the sleeping bag with her, then contorted in every position imaginable while getting dressed.
She was panting by the time she slipped into her boots and stood up. Not bothering to put on her ski suit yet, she headed behind her favorite tree to take care of business, then hustled back to the fire and slipped into her suit. She grabbed the bottle of water and power bar and headed toward the lake in search of Jack.
She spotted him standing beside his snowmobile, his feet planted wide and his hands on his hips. And though he was a fair distance away, she’d swear she could see a look of disgust on his face. She took her time walking out on a snowpack hard enough that she barely sank in, eating the power bar and drinking water that tasted faintly of beer.
The closer Megan got to him, the more her heart raced with the memory of last night. He looked…he looked…oh damn, she had fallen in love with him all over again!
“Good morning,” she said when she finally reached him.
Jack started to say something, but when his gaze met hers he snapped his mouth shut without saying a word. Two flags of color appeared on his cheekbones. Megan took another bite of her breakfast to cover her smile. The man was actually blushing!
Over their lovemaking last night?
He was such an easy mark. “Do you think you’ll be able to get it up soon—I mean unstuck soon, or are we going to have to walk? Or,” she purred, “we could just cozy back up to the fire and wait for the cavalry to arrive.”
His cheekbones turned nearly purple. He walked around her and headed to shore, still without saying so much as good morning. Megan polished off the last of the power bar and gulped down the rest of her water as she grinned at his back. She was such a bad person, but really, a saint couldn’t have passed up an opportunity like that. Teasing Jack was easier than shooting fish in a barrel.
She stuffed the wrapper and bottle in her pocket and walked around his sled, eyeing it in sympathy. It was stuck up to its running boards in slush that had frozen solid overnight. They’d need a chisel, if not a blowtorch, to free the damn thing.
She turned in a circle studying the landscape, trying to figure out where they were, and realized she had absolutely no idea. She hadn’t been this far north on the lake in ten or twelve years. Megan started walking to the ledge sticking up through the ice, curious about where her sled had gone in.
She could see the tracks Jack had made dragging her out, the rope he’d used, and her helmet lying on the ice several yards away. There were more tracks indicating where he’d walked up onto the north side of the ledge, where the ice wasn’t weak. From there his footprints moved down into the water. She couldn’t see any sign of her sled, since the hole had skimmed over with a thin layer of ice, and she gave an involuntary shiver. Jack must have stripped off his clothes on the ledge, gone into that dark, freezing lake to get the dry sack, then scrambled back out and quickly dressed.
She really shouldn’t have teased him this morning.
There were other tracks going in and out of the hole, as well. Megan walked toward them, giving the ledge a wide berth, and stopped beside the carcass of a half-eaten fish. So, she’d been right, some…thing had been fishing. Something heavy. The impressions in the snow were deep, seven or eight feet long and about three feet wide, and if she wasn’t mistaken, some of them looked to be from a tail. She hunched down and touched the snowpack where what appeared to be a wing had brushed against it, then stood up and started following the tracks away from the hole.
“Get back here!” Jack shouted.
She turned to see that he was stopped halfway out to his sled, his arms full of the fir boughs from their bed. Had he just shouted an order at her?
“Excuse me?” she shouted back.
“I don’t need you wandering off and getting lost. Get back here and help me.”
She propped her hands on her hips. Oh, she was sooo glad she’d teased him this morning. “I never get lost!” she hollered. “And I don’t respond well to orders being shouted at me, either.”
He dropped the boughs. “O-kay then,” he said, his voice turning dangerously low—just like her father’s did when he was nearing the end of his patience. Somehow, no matter how softly her papa spoke, his voice carried an unreasonable distance, just as Jack’s did now. “Would you please come back here and help me get this sled out?”
Megan eyed the tracks leading out onto the lake, heaved a heavy sigh, and started trudging back to his snowmobile. He was mad at the sled, not her, and now was not the time to push him over the edge. Besides, the sooner they got home, the sooner she could ask Kenzie about the creature she’d seen.
But someday soon, she would have to find out what happened when a self-professed pacifist exploded. He could deny it until the cows came home, but Jack Stone was a warrior, and when warriors exploded…they rarely took prisoners. That’s why a smart woman learned the consequences of going too far before she found herself married to one.
Megan stopped to pick up some of the boughs he’d dropped, and tossed them down with the others when she reached his sled. “Do we have something we can use to chisel the ice?” she asked, deciding to defuse the tension with a show of cooperation.
Good Lord, she was turning into her mother!
He took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves—even though it was likely only ten degrees out—then pulled a small hatchet from his belt. He got down on his knees and started chopping the ice along the running boards.
“Great. Do we have another hatchet I can use? Wasn’t there one in your saddlebag and one in the dry sack?
“I’ll chop, you watch for planes.”
Wow, a whole sentence. She was making progress. She plopped down on the fir boughs with a sigh. Since he seemed to be more in the mood for listening than talking, Megan decided to broach the subject of how they’d gotten into this mess in the first place.
“Um…about what we saw last night,” she said.
He stopped chopping.
“I think we should keep it to ourselves.”
He straightened to his knees, studying her. “Why?”
“Well…in the first place, nobody would believe us.”
“And in the second?”
“If they did believe us, then everyone in town would likely get all scared. And when people get scared, they sometimes do foolish things.”
“Like?”
Megan sighed. This wasn’t going at all well. “Like they might decide to hunt it down and kill it.”
“It,” he repeated. “Exactly what is it, Megan?”
She lifted her shoulders. “How would I know? I saw exactly what you did, and I swear, I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“Exactly what did we see?”
Okay, if he wanted her to spell it out, she would. “We saw what must be a long-lost descendant of a dinosaur. You know, like they think the Loch Ness monster is? Only our creature seems to be a cross between a ptero-dactyl and a…a large lizard of some sort. It can fly, so maybe it’s a winged reptile…or something or other.”
Oh, that had sounded intelligent. But she’d be damned if she would say what it really looked like.
Jack apparently had no such reservations. “You don’t think it looked like a dragon?”
“Dragons are mythological. And what we saw was definitely real, so it’s likely reptilian.”
“And the slime I found at the break-ins? Was that from a reptile?”
“It couldn’t be. Reptiles have scales and they’re dry. Amphibians are slimy.”
He sat back on his heels. “So we’re talking about two different creatures, then? Is that what you’re suggesting?”
“I have no idea who or what broke into those shops. Maybe the kids concocted some sort of slimy goo to throw you off their trail.”
“Forensics can’t break it down to any known substance in their data banks.”
They were getting off track here. “You’re assuming one thing has to do with the other, Jack. Just because we saw something last night that we can’t identify doesn’t mean it’s responsible for your break-ins.”
He studied her in silence for several seconds, then started chopping again.
“I’m just saying we should keep this our little secret,” she said through gritted teeth. “What would be the point of telling anyone?”
He stopped chopping and looked at her. “So you don’t think I should ask Kenzie Gregor what the creature is?”
Megan couldn’t stifle her gasp of surprise, and she wanted to kick herself when Jack’s eyes narrowed at her response. She quickly tried backpedaling. “What makes you think Kenzie would know anything about this? Have you even met him?”
He started chopping again.
“Jack,” she growled, just as a fast-moving plane crested the mountain to their east, diving toward the lake and swooping over their heads with a high-pitched roar.
Megan scrambled to her feet and started waving and shouting. The plane nosed up into a steep turn, circled around, and roared past them again, this time not a hundred feet above the lake a few hundred yards away.
“It’s Matt!” she yelped, watching it circle a nearby island before finally setting down on its skis and taxiing toward them.
“You’re not riding back with him. He flies like a maniac,” Jack said, coming to stand beside her.
“He won’t fly like that with a pregnant woman on board,” she called back, running toward the four-seater Cessna that had come to a stop a hundred yards out on the lake. But she skidded to a halt, her excitement turning to dread when she saw Kenzie climb out the passenger door.
Instead of rushing to her, Kenzie stood hunched over beside the plane, his hands braced on his knees as he sucked in large gulps of air. He looked so sick, Megan realized this was probably his first plane ride. She turned her attention to Matt, who was speaking into his radio mike. He finally climbed out his side, focused not on her but somewhere over her shoulder.
“Did you radio Dad to tell him you found us?” she asked Matt, drawing him to a stop in front of her. She finally got his attention, his expression fierce as he gave her an assessing, visual inspection.
“I just spoke with your mother, and she’s calling him now. Grey and Robbie headed out on snowmobiles around midnight last night to look for you. Why in hell haven’t you been answering your satellite phone?”
“Because it’s at the bottom of the lake,” Jack said, walking up beside her. “Along with her sled.”
Matt snapped his gaze to Jack. “What happened?”
Megan stepped between them. “I got ahead of my headlights and ran into open water,” she said. “Jack fished me out.”
She heard a heavy sigh behind her, just before Jack took hold of her shoulders and moved her off to the side. “My sled’s frozen in the slush,” he told Matt, who was suddenly looking amused. “We were chopping it out while waiting for someone to show up. Why don’t you take Megan back with you, and I’ll finish getting it free.”
“And if you can’t get it free?” Matt asked.
“Then I’ll walk back.”
Matt eyed him in silence, then nodded.
“I’ll stay and help,” Kenzie said, finally joining them, though he looked as if a soft breeze might knock him over. He extended his hand. “Kenzie Gregor.”
Jack shook it. “Jack Stone. And I’d appreciate the help, if you don’t mind riding back on a sled designed for only one rider.”
“I’d just as soon walk back, thank ye.”
“I think we should all fly home,” Megan said, not wanting Jack and Kenzie to spend any time together. She looked at Jack. “Dad or Robbie will come back with you tomorrow to get your sled and see about pulling mine out. We can’t leave it in the water for more than a week without getting fined by Inland Fisheries.”
Jack shook his head. “I’ll get mine out now, then come back with your father tomorrow or the next day.” He turned and started walking away.
Megan ran to catch up with him, grabbing his sleeve to make him stop. “Jack, I want you to come back with us now.”
“No, you just don’t want me alone with Kenzie,” he told her quietly, turning so the others wouldn’t hear. “Which makes me wonder, are you worried about his welfare or mine?”
“Fine, then. I hope you both get frostbite,” she snapped, turning to flounce off to the plane.
He pulled her around to face him before she had taken two steps, completely ruining her dramatic exit. “Forget those DNA samples and everything else for today,” he told her, seemingly unaware of—or more likely ignoring—her outrage. “The moment you get home, I want you to go to your doctor and get checked out. You might have gotten some lake water in your lungs and you could develop pneumonia. Have your mom go with you.”
“Any other orders before I leave, Chief Stone?”
“As a matter of fact, yeah,” he said, pulling her against him and kissing the scowl right off her lips. He leaned back just enough to look her in the eyes. “Fasten your seat belt, and see if the name Walker works for you, for our son.”
“We’re having a girl!” She shoved him away, and this time she ran to the plane.
She climbed in the passenger side and fastened her seat belt. “I don’t care what I dreamed last night; you’re a girl,” she told her belly, giving it a pat. “And don’t you worry, I’ll teach you to hold your own in this world. Especially against men.”
Matt climbed in beside her with a chuckle. “Sorry, sis, but you’re having a boy.”
She gave her brother-in-law a smack in the arm. “I wanted to be surprised!”
“Hey, don’t kill the messenger. I didn’t decide the kid’s sex, his father did. Speaking of which, I see he’s back in your life.” He put on his headphones before she could form a comeback. He started the engine, ran through his preflight check of gauges and controls, then gave the plane enough throttle to turn them facing up the lake into the slight breeze. Megan stared out her window, watching Jack and Kenzie on their knees, chopping the sled free.
As the plane’s skis skimmed over the snow and rose into the sky, her gaze moved to the shoreline, where she could see the fire trailing up a thin plume of smoke. When Matt banked left toward Pine Creek, Megan lost sight of their cozy little camp, effectively putting the most wonderful night of her life behind her.
Chapter Eighteen
“I would ask what yer intentions are toward Megan.”
Jack stopped chopping and looked across his snowmobile’s seat at Kenzie. “Funny, I was just about to ask you the same thing.”
If his expression was any indication, the huge Scot obviously didn’t like having his question answered with another question.
Jack was beginning to see why Grand-père admired these historically fierce Highlanders. Kenzie Gregor could be a throwback himself; despite his modern clothes and short hair, Jack could easily picture the man on a medieval battlefield, wearing a kilt and wielding a sword with lethal accuracy. The guy was well over six feet tall, and when he’d taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, Jack had seen enough muscle to make a bear turn tail and run.
Or make a woman’s heart melt?
“Megan’s like a sister to me,” Kenzie said as he began chopping again.
“It’s just as well you feel that way about her. She doesn’t particularly like tall men, anyway.”
Kenzie looked over the sled at him, his eyes narrowed. “For the last five months she hasn’t liked men in general. I’m still waiting to hear your intentions, Stone.”
“I intend to marry her, preferably before our son is born.”
“Are ye, now?” Kenzie said, suddenly amused. “Then I hope you’re prepared to drag her kicking and screaming to the altar. I didn’t exactly see her returning yer kiss a moment ago.”
Jack shrugged and started chopping again. “She’ll come around.”
“Matt said you did what ye did because Megan was in danger in Canada. He also said ye think the problem may have followed her here.”
Jack straightened and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “News runs through your families like fire through sagebrush. Yes, I think she has something Mark Collins wants.”
“And ye don’t want her to give it to him?”
“A man was murdered because of the information Megan has. So she’s going to give it to me, and I’m going to turn it over to the Canadian authorities.” He began chopping the ice away from the rubber track, being careful not to damage it.
“Ye intend to let the authorities deal with Collins?”
“Yes. Once I turn over the information, Mark Collins will leave Megan alone, and that’s all I really care about. What was the favor you asked Megan for the other night, when you came to her house?”
Kenzie bent down and started chopping again, this time up toward the ski. “That’s none of your business.”
“Anything that involves Megan is my business.”
“It’s a simple favor a brother would ask of a sister, so ye needn’t worry about it.”
Jack flinched at the sound of metal striking metal. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t chop off the ski,” he said, tossing down his hatchet and standing up. “Let’s see if we can rock it loose.”
Kenzie also stood up, tossed down his hatchet, then grabbed the running board of the sled. Jack did the same on his side, and they alternated lifting until Jack skipped a time and lifted when Kenzie did. The track suddenly broke free.
Jack walked to the front, grabbed the handle on the ski, and lifted it free. Kenzie did the same, and together they dragged the heavy snowmobile forward twenty feet onto the packed snow. Jack stepped back to the handle-bars and turned the key. The starter engaged, but the sled didn’t start. He flipped the choke, turned the key, and the starter whined and the engine sputtered, but it still didn’t start.
He plopped down on the seat with a muttered curse and gave Kenzie a speculative look. “You know anything about snowmobiles?”
Kenzie shook his head. “About as much as I know about airplanes, which is that I don’t care for either.” He eyed the sled. “I’d be more help if it were a horse.”
“Tell me something, Gregor. Before MacBain interrupted you that night of the break-in, were you trying to kill me to protect your little pet, or just disable me?”
“What in God’s name are ye talking about?”
“You ambushed me when I started after whatever the hell it was that ran out of that store.” Jack shrugged. “I was wondering just how far you’d go to keep your dragon a secret.”
“A dragon? Ye think I have a pet dragon?” Kenzie actually took a step back. “Are ye touched in the head, mon?”
“No, I believe that of the two of us, I’m probably the more grounded. Where you, my friend, seem to be straddling two worlds.”
The towering Scot crossed his arms over his chest. “Am I now? And just which two worlds would those be?”
Jack reached over and gave the key another turn on the off chance the sled would start. The engine only whined and coughed, so he gave his attention back to Kenzie. “I’d say you’re standing on the wrong side of society’s door right now, Gregor. Or maybe you’re simply wrestling with life in general.” He stood up, squaring off against the giant. “I don’t want Megan caught in the middle of this, so drop whatever favor you need from her.”
“Caught in the middle of what, exactly?” Kenzie asked, his expression implying he had no intention of dropping anything.
“Megan and I both got a good look at your pet last night when it crossed in front of our headlights, then flew toward that mountain,” he said, pointing east. “Megan startled it when she came through that opening in the peninsula, and she broke through the ice when she tried to avoid hitting it. She knows that you know where it lives.”
“She’s guessing.”
“She’s a scientist, Gregor, and what she saw last night is akin to waving a bone under a dog’s nose. So either you get rid of the beast, or I will—before it goes from stealing doughnuts to hurting someone.”
Kenzie stared at him in silence, apparently trying to decide how much of a threat Jack really was. Then he suddenly headed back to where the sled had been stuck, grabbed his jacket, and started walking toward shore.
“One week, Gregor. Then I start hunting your pet,” Jack called.
Kenzie lifted a hand to indicate that he’d heard, and kept walking. Jack glared down at his snowmobile, wondering if confronting the Scot directly had been wise, or if he’d just plastered a bull’s-eye on his own chest. Because if Grand-père was correct, he had just backed the brother of a very powerful drùidh into a corner.
Jack was just popping the cap off his second Canadian lager when he spotted the two snowmobiles three miles down the lake, headed toward him. He crossed his feet at his ankles, settled back against the cowling of his sled with a sigh, and used the bottle cap to draw in the snowpack.
He outlined an upright body with a long tail, took a sip of his beer, then added a set of large wings coming out its back. He glanced up to find that the snowmobiles were about two miles away, took another sip, then added a head to his sketch, complete with beady little eyes, a long snout, and flared nostrils.
Yup, it sure as hell looked like Puff the Magic Dragon to him.
The muted whine of the two sleds told Jack they were about a mile away. He checked the position of the sun, figured it was about an hour before noon, and took a long guzzle of the ice-cold beer, swishing it in his mouth before swallowing. He sure would love to have a power bar right now, or even better, another roast beef sandwich slathered with mustard. He tilted the bottle all the way up and drained the last drop of beer just as the sleds stopped ten yards from his feet and suddenly went silent.
“Morning, gentlemen,” he said when the two men pulled off their helmets. “Nice sleds. I see they’re both two-seaters.”
They sat on their snowmobiles, eyeing him. Well, Robbie MacBain was eyeing him. Greylen looked more like he was deciding exactly how he intended to kill Jack.
“You promised to bring my daughter home safe and sound.”
“She is safe and sound,” Jack told him. “And I had Matt Gregor take her home, so she’d get there quicker. You don’t happen to have any food, do you? Megan ate my last power bar this morning.”
Grey’s scowl intensified.
Robbie unzipped his saddlebag and tossed Jack a package of beef jerky.
“Thanks,” Jack said, setting down his empty bottle and ripping open the small bag. He pulled out a strip of jerky and shoved the whole piece in his mouth.
“What happened?” Greylen asked.
Jack chewed. He knew he was pissing off Laird MacKeage, but he wasn’t exactly in a happy mood himself. He’d lost a three hundred dollar helmet, his brand-new sled was likely ruined to the tune of another thousand bucks, he was hungry and tired, and his knee was hurting again. And then there was the fact that as soon as Kenzie told his brother about Jack’s planned hunt, he was going to have a damn drùidh dogging his heels.
He finally swallowed and stood up—smudging his drawing with his boot as he did so—and walked over to where his sled had been stuck. He drove his empty beer bottle into a small patch of slush that hadn’t frozen, filled it up, then faced the men as he held the bottle between his hands to warm it.
“Something ran across in front of us as we were heading down the lake, and Megan had to leave the trail to avoid hitting it.” He used the bottle to point toward the ledge. “She broke through over there. I fished her out, then built a fire to warm her up and dry her clothes. It was my decision to stay put until daylight, when either I could get my sled out, or you came and got us.”
“What was the something?” Robbie asked.
“What were ye doing running the lake at night?” Greylen asked at the same time.
Jack answered Greylen, as he still hadn’t decided how much to tell them about the creature. “The trail we were following came out on the lake ten miles north of where we wanted to be, so we decided to connect up with the ITS trail another six or seven miles south of here. We weren’t speeding, and we were following the club trail.”
