Текст книги "Secrets of the Highlander"

Автор книги: Джанет Чапмен

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

She walked back and fed the fire some twigs, then sat down on Jack’s leather suit. The gravy was a lost cause, since lichen and moss had fallen into the open pot, so she ate both sandwiches, the crackers, and all four candy bars, then ripped open the cheese curls. She scoffed down half the bag before she decided she was more tired than hungry. With a sigh of contentment, she finally settled back on the bed Jack had made.

It was surprisingly comfortable. She rolled over and lifted the jacket sleeve, and saw that he’d arranged more than a foot of fir boughs on the ground, which kept her off the cold snow, just as her father had taught her. Apparently Jack had been listening when his great-grandfather had passed down his survival skills.

Which probably explained why he didn’t know squat about courting a woman. Being raised by an old man in the middle of the wilderness wasn’t exactly conducive to learning about the opposite sex. Still, Jack must have learned something once he’d gotten out in the real world. He’d been in the military, for crying out loud. Megan laced her hands together over her belly with a snort. That’s probably where he’d acquired his sex education.

Although, once he’d gotten over her surprise attack, he’d certainly…performed well enough. Oh, okay. He’d done better than merely perform. He’d actually taken her beyond the stars and back, she remembered with a shiver.

And then he’d done it all over again. And again.

“Don’t go there, Meg,” she growled, snapping her eyes shut. Only that merely made the memory stronger, to the point that she could practically feel his intimate touch.

“Damn,” she muttered, rolling onto her side, grabbing the blanket, and balling it up against her belly and chest. “Think of something else,” she commanded herself. “Think about your baby.”

Megan fell asleep a few minutes later and did dream about her child—of a little boy doing somersaults in the air as he flew from one trapeze to another.

Chapter Fourteen

J ack walked into camp three hours later to find Megan curled up on his suit. He also found four empty candy wrappers and half a bag of cheese curls on the ground beside her—which explained the orange powder all over her face.

“Trust me, playing possum only gets a person in trouble,” he said, knowing damn well she was awake. He picked up the bag of cheese curls and stuffed them in the pack basket. “Been snooping, have you? And eating my stash?”

“You ate my lunch,” she shot back, as she snuggled deeper into his suit. “What time is it?”

He picked up the candy wrappers and threw them in the basket. “Time to dig out the satellite phone and let Greylen know you won’t be back by sunset. The last thing I want are your uncles and cousins coming out to search for us.”

She still didn’t move. “You call him. He won’t lecture you.”

“No, he’ll just be waiting on my doorstep with a shotgun.”

“Daddy prefers a sword,” she mumbled.

Jack straightened with the pot in his hand. “A sword?”

Megan cracked open one eye, and one corner of her mouth lifted in a lopsided grin. “He’s pretty good with it, too. I’ve seen him cut a four-inch sapling clean through in one stroke.”

“What’s he doing with a sword?”

“It belonged to his father. All my uncles and cousins have swords,” she added, finally rolling onto her back and opening both eyes—likely to better gauge his reaction. “They’re very skilled with them, too. They clean up at the highland games down on the coast every summer.”

Not wanting to disappoint her, Jack looked stricken. “Damn, and I left my bow and arrows in Medicine Lake. They wouldn’t come after a defenseless man, would they?”

She finally sat up, stretching her arms over her head with a yawn. “That depends on whether or not I get home in one piece.”

“Hit the bushes, then. We’re leaving in ten minutes,” he told her, plucking the blanket from her lap and folding it.

She stood up with a little giggle and sauntered toward the bushes. “Gù Brath’s number is programmed into the phone. You might stand a chance if Mom answers. If Daddy does, you better have a good story ready.”

“Are you nuts? I’m not lying to your father.”

She stopped and looked back, arching one delicate brow. “It’s your funeral.”

“I’m telling him our trip is taking longer than we thought because of the baby, and that I didn’t realize how out of shape you’ve let yourself get.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Did you find the deer yard?”

Jack bent down to hide his grin and continued packing up camp. “I found a herd of thirty or forty of them holed up about three miles due north.” He stopped to look at her. “They seemed healthy. They certainly had plenty of feed. I did come across a yearling moose carcass, though. It looked to me like a mountain lion brought it down.”

She had just started into the bushes, but swung back around to face him. “A mountain lion? You’re sure? There’s never been a documented sighting of one around here that I know of.”

“It was definitely a large-cat kill.”

Her face beamed. “Do you know what this means?”

“That you were smart to bring your gun?”

“It means that if I can confirm a mountain lion is living in the area, they can’t build a resort here.”

“Do you think the developers will be as happy with this news as you are?”

“Of course not. But that’s why the state requires a study. That way the developers won’t put too much money into a project before they find out they can’t build.”

“And if the developers send someone out here to quietly shoot the cat, will that make their little problem go away?”

“Not if I’ve already documented it. All I have to prove is that this area has had a mountain lion living here recently. It will then be designated a large-cat habitat, and all development will be banned.”

He waved her away. “We can discuss this later. We’re burning daylight.”

She didn’t move but frowned instead. “You said three miles north. You couldn’t have covered that much ground in the time you were gone.”

“Actually, I zigzagged a lot. I really traveled a total of eight miles.”

She eyed him dubiously. “In three hours? That would mean you went…” She calculated in her head and then glared at him. “Nobody can do that on snowshoes.”

“He can if he thinks a hungry cat is dogging his trail. That kill was over a week old. Will you get going? I’m hungry, and I can’t wait to get home and slap a TV dinner in the microwave.”

Jack gave a silent chuckle when she stomped off into the bushes. He pulled his revolver from the back of his waist and stashed it in his tank bag, then walked over to Megan’s sled and rummaged around in her saddlebag for the phone.

“Greylen,” he said when the sword-wielding laird answered. “This is Jack. I just want to let you know that we’re still at the north end of the lake. We should be back home in three or four hours.”

“What happened? Did ye have sled trouble? Where’s Megan? I’d like to speak with her.”

“She’s in the bushes at the moment. You have seven daughters. Surely you remember what it was like traveling the backcountry with a pregnant woman.”

There was a pause on the line, then a soft laugh. “Aye, I remember. So what delayed ye, other than bathroom breaks?”

“A detour down an unmarked trail,” Jack told him. “And a couple of naps. The weather’s been good, and Megan is thoroughly enjoying herself. I think she’s missed being out in the field. She’ll call you as soon as she gets home.”

“Take your time traveling back, and don’t overrun your headlights. The deer and moose like to use the trails at night.”

“We’ll be careful. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Chief.”

Jack hit the disconnect button with a chuckle. Apparently Greylen wasn’t acknowledging they were on a first-name basis. But if Jack was going to run the MacKeage gauntlet, he would do it as an equal. Highlanders had nothing on Cree warriors.

“Was my father very mad?” Megan asked, emerging from the bushes, a bit winded and pink faced.

“Would you be worried if he was?”

“No,” she said with a laugh. “He’s all bluster. At least with us girls,” she clarified. “I’ve decided to come back up here tomorrow or the next day. If I can document a mountain lion in the area, it will shut down the study before it’s even begun.”

“And you’ll be out of a job.”

“That’s the way this business goes.”

“Megan, did you notice anything…oh, I don’t know, anything strange when we were on the tundra? Did you see any sign that there might be oil under that section?”

“Oil? You mean like bubbling tar pits that swallow up woolly mammoths and sabertooth tigers?”

Jack shook his head seriously. “I’ve been thinking about Mark Collins’s connection to Billy Wellington, Billy’s connection to your study, and your connection to Collins by way of this job. Honestly, don’t you find it odd that the common factor here is Collins?”

“It’s what he does, Jack. Mark is in the consulting business, and he hires biologists for studies all over the world. Why are you so convinced there’s something fishy going on?”

“Because a man was murdered.”

She sat down on her sled and looked up at him. “Okay, just for the sake of argument, let’s say Mark was involved in that man’s death. What has it got to do with me?”

Jack sat down on his own sled, which was parked beside hers. “This is just a theory. Call it a hunch if you want, but I think Collins was hired by someone—an energy company, maybe—to make sure your study didn’t expose the fact that there’s oil or natural gas under that area of tundra. So Collins put Billy Wellington on the study to keep an eye on things.”

“But that implies Billy might have killed that man.”

Jack shook his head. “There would be too much money involved to trust something like that to a kid. And Billy was really shaken by that guy’s death. I think he told Collins that the government worker had discovered something, and Collins sent someone more experienced to deal with the problem.”

“That still doesn’t connect anything to me.”

“Unless you discovered the same thing the government worker did.”

“But what? I didn’t see anything that pointed to oil.”

“What about that dead arctic fox you found, and those half-eaten ptarmigans? Did you ever find out what killed them?”

“No. I took DNA samples, but I gave the carcasses to—” Her eyes widened. “To the government worker! He was supposed to send them to Ottawa.” She stood up. “And remember that dead snowy owl I found three days earlier? I gave him that carcass, too.”

“Did he send them out?”

“No. He was waiting for the supply plane to arrive.” She sat down again, stunned. “My God, do you think those dead animals are the link?” she whispered. “Could that man have been killed because of what had killed them?”

Jack took her hands in his. “It’s a good possibility, if those birds ingested oil, and the fox and owl ate them and also died. It’s also possible that Collins wants those DNA samples you took.”

“But why wait four months to try to get them from me?”

“You’ve been surrounded by a small army since you’ve been home, and Gù Brath is a veritable fortress. I suspect Collins did send someone to Pine Creek, but when he realized he wasn’t going to get your samples by stealing them, he decided to simply hire you to get close enough to find them.”

“I—I suppose that makes sense. Except that I found the job on the Internet. How could he know I’d even be looking?”

“I suspect the job was posted just to make it look legitimate. Chances are if you hadn’t seen it, you would have gotten a letter from Collins soon. Then, when you checked it out, you would have believed him because the job had been posted long before he contacted you.”

She pulled her hands free and stood up. “Then we need to get going. I want to get home and find those samples.”

“Where are they?”

“In my mother’s lab. I stashed my trunk there when I came home, and forgot about it.”

Jack felt like he was finally making progress. He kicked snow on the fire to put out the last of the dying embers. “First thing tomorrow, you find those samples and bring them to me at the police station.”

“But they need to go to a lab.”

“I’ll get them to one.” He strapped the basket on the back of her sled, then looked around to make sure they had everything. “I have connections in the Canadian government. This isn’t an academic problem, Megan. It’s a government one.”

Jack would swear he heard her mutter something about a nerd as she climbed onto her sled and pulled on her helmet.

“Wait!” he shouted as she reached to start her engine. “Which trail are we taking back?”

She flipped up her visor, then pointed west toward the lake. “The one we’re on should continue to the ITS trail that runs down the east side of Pine Lake.”

“Are you sure, or just pretty sure?”

She just flipped down her visor, started her sled, and shot off down the trail. Jack waited until the snow dust had settled enough for him to see, then followed.

It was dark by the time they broke out of the forest and onto the lake—not the ITS trail. Jack’s gut tightened; he did not want to travel the lake in the dark. He pulled up beside Megan, who had stopped and shut off her sled.

“I have no idea where the ITS trail is,” she told him. “I don’t know how we could have missed it.”

Jack unzipped his tank bag and dug out his map. “We’re going to have to find it, because we’re not traveling the lake at night.”

“I bet we’re just a few miles north of where we should be, and I’m pretty sure there’s a club trail that runs the length of the lake,” she offered. “We just have to find it, follow it south until we pick up the ITS trail, and we’ll have a straight shot home.”

Jack walked to the front of his sled, bent down in the beam of the headlight, and studied the map. “It’s a lot more than a few miles to the ITS trail,” he told her when she walked up beside him. “More like ten or twelve. See,” he said, pointing out where they were. “This trail brought us out here, and the ITS takes a sharp eastern turn way down there.”

He stepped back for the headlights to illuminate the area in front of them, and saw sled marks splaying out in all directions. “We should go back the way we came.”

“But that will take all night.”

“It’s better than taking a cold swim.” He folded the map and turned her to face him. “I don’t like traveling on ice at night.”

“We’ll be on the club trail, for crying out loud. The local club will have marked it with small trees. They check it almost daily and set it well away from any dangerous spots. I vote we take the lake. Ten measly miles, Jack. And we’ve had subfreezing temperatures for nearly two months.” She reached out and laid her hand on his chest. “Are you forgetting that I grew up here? I know this lake like the back of my hand.”

He didn’t point out that she’d gotten them lost twice today, since he suddenly realized this conversation was no longer about getting home. It was a test to see if he was capable of trusting her. And how could he persuade her to trust him again if he didn’t do the same?

Dammit to hell. “Okay,” he growled. “We’ll take the lake. But I lead.”

Her grin slashed broad in the headlights. Megan patted his chest and practically skipped back to her sled. “Not a problem, Jack. Better your taking a cold swim than me. Don’t worry, I’ll throw you a rope if you fall through the ice.”

Jack climbed on his sled, headed toward the well-marked trail a couple of hundred yards out from shore, and set a comfortable pace down the lake. Megan stayed behind him for exactly ten minutes. Then she pulled up beside him and matched his pace for about a mile, gave him a cheerful wave, and zoomed ahead.

Jack sighed.

They traveled another four miles, and Megan had just shot through a narrow cutting in a peninsula when the…thing appeared in the beam of her headlights. Jack didn’t know who was more surprised—him, Megan, or it.

About the size of a small horse, the startled animal dropped whatever it had been eating, reared up on its hind legs, and let out a bloodcurdling roar just as—holy hell, those were wings on its back!

Realizing it was impossible for her to stop in time, Jack watched in horror as Megan veered to the right to avoid hitting it. The beast lashed at her sled with its tail as if trying to slap her away, and flapped its massive wings in an attempt to get airborne.

Jack gave his sled full throttle, shot over the peninsula, and aimed directly for it.

The—honest to God, it looked like a damn dragon!—swung around at his approach, gave another deafening roar, and charged toward him. Jack waited until the very last second before turning to the right, barely dodging its lashing tail. He wasn’t able to avoid the wildly flapping wings though, and was nearly unseated when one of them slammed into his helmet.

He immediately swung his sled in a circle back toward the beast. Thick, rolling smoke started to billow around him as his snowmobile slowed down, plowing into heavy, sucking slush. The sled ground to a halt, and Jack barely ducked in time when the beast suddenly appeared through the cloud of smoke, flying directly over his head with another bloodcurdling roar.

He turned the key and tore off his helmet, jumped off the sled, and immediately sank up to his knees in slush. The sudden, stark silence was broken only by the soft, rhythmic woosh of the dragon’s wings as it flew into the darkness.

Several of the threads suddenly knit together. The slime at the break-ins. The bloodcurdling scream. That…that prehistoric throwback was what had flown off over the lake that night!

Jack finally tore his gaze away from the disappearing beast and looked around to see if Megan was just as awestruck as he was.

Only he couldn’t see her anywhere. Not even her headlights.

Nor could he hear her sled’s engine.

Dammit, she’d literally vanished into thin air!

“Help! Jack, help!”

Cold dread tightened his stomach. She’d broken through the ice!

“I’m coming, Megan!” he shouted, unzipping his saddlebag and grabbing a rope before running toward the sound of her splashing. He was forced to slow down as he approached the black pool of water, the slush sucking at his boots like quicksand. “I’m here, Megan!” he called to her. “Float on your back! Try to get your helmet off!”

He could barely see where she was struggling in the water. He heard her sputtering and coughing as she slapped to stay afloat. The ice beneath him suddenly started to sag, and Jack stopped dead in his tracks.

“You’re okay. Don’t panic. Try to bring your feet up and float on your back,” he called out, uncoiling the rope. “I’m going to toss you a line. Don’t try to catch it, just float there and I’ll throw it across your chest.”

“My suit is dragging me down!”

“No, it’s not! It’s got enough trapped air to float you. Now, get ready for me to throw the rope. Megan! Are you listening to me!”

“I’m sinking!”

“No, you’re not!” Jack dropped to his hands and knees and crawled closer. The moment he felt the ice start to buckle he stopped again, though there was still a good twenty feet between him and the pool of dark, frigid water. He inched back several feet, knowing that his getting wet wasn’t going to help Megan. “Kick your feet to bring yourself closer to the edge of the ice,” he commanded. “I’m throwing the rope. Wait until I tell you to grab it.”

He tossed the rope at the blob in the middle of the pool. “Grab it, Megan. Pull off your gloves if you have to.”

He could make her out struggling in the water, and then she finally said, “I’ve got it! Pull me out!”

“Not yet. Wrap it around your waist a couple of times. You won’t be able to hold it tight enough.”

He watched her struggle some more while he slowly inched closer on his belly to distribute his weight.

“Okay. Pull me out!”

Jack took up the slack in the rope and gave a tentative pull to see if she would come with it. “Stay on your back,” he commanded. “Keep kicking, but gently.”

Inch by inch, second by interminably long second, Jack reeled her in. He watched her slowly rise up onto the ice, only to have it break beneath her. “Don’t struggle! You’ll eventually reach solid ice. Keep kicking softly.”

She broke through two more times before the ice held.

“That’s it, you’re doing great, sweetheart. I’ve almost got you. Stop kicking now,” he told her when she finally came fully out of the water. “I’m going to pull you away from the hole, but I have to keep us apart so we don’t stress the ice. Just lie still and let me do the work.”

“I-I’m s-so cold,” she cried in a whisper, her voice still muffled by her helmet. “I-I can’t feel my hands anymore.”

“I’ll have you warm in just a few minutes, I promise,” he said, scooting backward and dragging her with him.

The moment he felt the ice was solid beneath him, Jack stood up and dragged her another fifty feet out onto the lake. Only then did he run to her, drop to his knees, and lift her shoulders up to his chest. She was crying uncontrollably and panting heavily, violent shivers interspersed with heaving coughing. He fumbled with the chin strap on her helmet, pulled it off, and pressed his face against hers.

It felt like he was holding a block of ice, which was fast becoming a reality now that she was out of the water. “I’ve got you,” he whispered, holding her tightly. “You’re okay, sweetheart. You’re going to be okay. I’ve got you.”

She tried to say something, but her gasping sobs and wracking shivers made her unintelligible.

“Shhh, don’t talk,” he told her, standing and scooping her up in his arms. He only made it a few yards before he had to stop and strip off her wet boots and snowsuit because they were weighing him down. He continued plodding through the deep snow to the main shoreline, since the peninsula had outcroppings of ledge dotting its length. He needed to get her someplace he could build a fire. He glanced at his snowmobile on the way and saw it was stuck in the slush up to its hood. It was no use to them now; he’d be lucky to get it out of there before spring.

It took him ten minutes to reach shore, and he set Megan down under a spruce tree where the snow wasn’t deep. “Can you stand?” he asked, holding her under her arms to keep her steady. “We have to get you out of these wet clothes.”

She tried helping, which only made it more difficult for him. He brushed her hands away, pulled her sweater, turtleneck, and long johns off over her head, then took off his leather jacket and wrapped it around her. Keeping one hand on her arm for support, he wrestled out of his own ski pants and set them on the snow.

“Okay, so far so good. I’m going to pull down your pants and set you on my suit. Then I’ll pull yours all the way off and slip your legs into my ski pants, okay?”

He wasn’t expecting an answer and didn’t wait for one. Jack pulled her pants down to her knees, set her on his suit, and then stuffed her legs inside, zipping the bib closed up to her chin. He then stripped off his outer shirt and wrapped it around her wet head several times before hunching down in front of her.

“You’re okay now, Megan. The worst is over, sweetheart, and you won’t get any colder. I’m going to leave you long enough to get wood to start a fire, okay? Nod if you understand.”

Hugging herself and shivering violently, her face ghostly white in the moonlight, she nodded. Jack kissed her cold cheek, then stood up and pulled his knife from the sheath on his belt. He headed into the woods to gather material for a fire, thanking God and his ancestors that he’d gotten her out in time.

He had a roaring bonfire going in less than ten minutes, and five minutes later Megan was showing signs of thawing. Jack took his first painless breath in thirty minutes, and the knot in his gut started to loosen. But only a little. Because they were without transportation in the middle of nowhere, and had no phone, no food or shelter, and only one set of dry clothes between them.

The food and shelter he could deal with readily enough; it was the transportation that bothered him. Though he could keep Megan warm and even comfortable, he would prefer to get her home sooner rather than later.

“Oh my God. The baby,” she whispered.

Jack looked up from stoking the fire to see her hugging her stomach. “Are you having cramps?” he asked, unzipping the ski bib. He reached in and splayed his hand across the bare skin of her belly, relieved to discover she was no longer dangerously chilled.

“N-no. But what if…what if the cold water hurt the baby?”

He crawled behind her so that she was sitting between his thighs facing the fire, placed his hand on her belly again, and pulled her back against his chest. “The cold didn’t hurt the baby, Megan. He’s very well insulated, and you weren’t in the water long enough to bring your core temperature down that far.” He rested his cheek against hers. “Besides,” he added with a forced chuckle, “with his genetic heritage, he probably just considered this a refreshing dip in the lake.”

“You can’t keep calling it a him,” she said, relaxing against him with a deep sigh. “I don’t want to get used to the idea that it might be a boy.”

Jack also sighed, knowing she was going to be okay. “Even if I have a hunch that it is?”

“There’s a 50 percent chance you’ll be disappointed.”

“Naw,” he whispered against her cheek. “My hunches are at least 90 percent on target.”

They fell silent after that, staring into the fire, soaking in its life-sustaining warmth. Jack felt as if it had been a hundred years since he’d held Megan like this. He was loath to move, partly because he was so damned relieved she was going to be okay, and partly because he was in no hurry to head back onto the lake. But they really did need the survival gear in the saddlebags.

“I have to leave you for a few minutes. Will you be okay?”

She tilted her head back onto his shoulder to look up at him. “Where are you going?”

“To get some of our stuff.”

She turned in his embrace to face him. “It’s too dangerous. Wait until morning, when you can see what you’re doing.”

“We’re twelve hours away from daylight, and the temperature’s going to drop below zero tonight. We need the survival gear on your sled.”

She clutched his shoulder. “My sled’s under water, Jack!”

“It’s probably only nine or ten feet deep next to that ledge. And I noticed that your survival gear is in a dry sack. I’m betting there’s at least one sleeping bag in there, some food, and possibly a radio.”

“One frozen person is enough for tonight. You can’t take care of me if you’re a block of ice yourself.”

“I’ll strip off and be in and out in two minutes flat. I’ve done it before. If I have dry clothes to put on, I’ll be fine.”

“No.”

Seeing that she was recovered enough to argue with him, Jack peeled himself away from her and stood up. He walked over and pushed the two half-rotted logs he’d dragged from the woods deeper into the fire. “Any other suggestions, then?”

“Yes. We sit right here, keep the fire roaring, and we wait. Trust me, they’ll be looking for us before daybreak.”

“Not here. We’re still four or five miles north of where we should be.”

“They’ll use a plane to scour the lake, and they’ll see our smoke.”

“You’ll be well on your way to developing pneumonia by morning if I don’t get you settled into a sleeping bag in some sort of shelter.”

“No.”

“And then there’s that…whatever the hell we saw. We need our guns.”

“You can get your gear, but you are not going after my stuff.”

He stood up. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

“Jack,” she growled, stretching out his name to emphasize her warning. “If something happens to you, then I’m stuck out here alone. I don’t even have boots. If you die, I die, too. Along with our baby,” she tacked on for good measure.

“Believe me, I understand the consequences. I’ll bring back your boots and suit and get them dried out.” He pointed toward where he’d hung her wet clothes on a branch. “As soon as something is dry enough, put it on.”

He walked onto the lake. “If an hour goes by and I’m not back,” he called, “then you may worry. But not before.”

“It doesn’t take an hour to walk out there and back!”

“I’m going to see if I can free my sled. You just concentrate on keeping warm so our son doesn’t catch a cold.”

Our son. He liked the sound of that.

Chapter Fifteen

D amn him, he was going after her gear! She knew it because he hadn’t actually promised that he wouldn’t—apparently thinking that if he didn’t lie to her, she might start trusting him again.

He’d obviously forgotten about lies of omission.

Megan settled back on the bed of fir boughs he had made after he’d built the fire, and opened his jacket to feel the heat on her neck and chest. She cupped her belly in her hands. “Oh, baby,” she whispered. “I nearly killed us both trying to avoid that…that thing. No, make that all three of us, because Jack would have died trying to save you and me.”

She scooted closer to the fire. “So what do you think?” she asked her belly. “Is Jack Stone the sort of man we want in our lives? I think he really does love me.” She patted her belly. “He definitely loves you. I can’t count the times I’ve caught him staring at my stomach. You’d think he’s never seen a pregnant woman before.”

She picked up a stick and poked at the fire. “He said he used to have a brother—is he dead, or are they just estranged?” She unzipped the bib of her ski pants, hoping it would help her bra dry. “He must have died, if Jack wants to name you after him. I was planning to name you after my uncle Ian if you’re a boy, but maybe we can compromise. Are you feeling cozy in there, baby, like your daddy said?”

Could a fetus even catch a cold, or had Jack only been trying to distract her? Megan leaned to the side and looked out at the lake again. She could just make out the position of his sled because the moon was reflecting off its windshield. She couldn’t, however, see any shadow moving around it.

A violent shiver wracked her at the thought of Jack trying to retrieve her gear. That water was so numbingly cold, and she’d come so close to dying. She’d been so surprised when that…that…

What in hell was that creature? It had looked like a dragon. But they were reptilian, not amphibious, weren’t they? She snorted, settling back in front of the fire and picking up the stick again. “They aren’t either, you crazy woman, because dragons do not exist.”