Janet bounced on her toes and rubbed her arms. “Damn. I think it’s snowing harder than it was a half-hour ago.” She looked around. “I’m going to do another sweep back by the garage.” She motioned at the small structure behind the house.
“What about the woods?”
“We found two right at the edge. Julito wants to go back in there, but there’s a few inside in rough shape.” Janet nodded toward the porch. “I told him to stay with them, get a couple of heat lamps rigged up and find any blankets and towels he could. We’ve got to get them back to the shelter ASAP. Kevin’s got a friend with a van. He should be here soon.”
Janet didn’t say the words. She didn’t need to. They should focus on saving the ones they had instead of going after ones they might not even find.
Becca squinted into the dark. “Do you have an extra flashlight? And a pair of gloves?”
“Bec, tell me you’re not. You’re not dressed for it.”
“If we don’t have all twenty-one, I have to try. I won’t go far. Just to see if there’s any prints, any sign they went in there.”
“The guys have extra supplies in the house.”
“Where’s Helen’s son?” If Becca had any strength left at the end of this night, she’d throttle him with her own bare hands.
“Don’t know. Staying in a hotel somewhere, I think.”
Becca darted inside the porch, took a quick look at the cats huddled in their cages, then pulled on a pair of thick leather gloves and took the Maglite Kevin handed her. “Be careful,” he said. “Remember there’s a ravine about a hundred yards in.”
“Thanks.” She took another thirty seconds to breathe in the protective warmth and light. Then she bent her head against the wind and headed for the darkest, thickest part of the woods. If she were an animal, lost and scared and seeking shelter, that’s where she’d go. No question about it.
Chapter Nineteen
The limo moved slowly through the storm, its tires cutting an even path along the road that led over the mountain. Zane’s legs jiggled with nerves. He checked his phone half a dozen times and finally sent Becca a text that didn’t go through. When he looked outside, all he saw was white against dark. Falling snow and sky. Suddenly, the limo came to a sharp stop, and Zane pitched forward.
“Sorry, sir,” said the driver. “Looks like there’s an accident up ahead.” As he spoke, red lights whirled through the dark, and an ambulance squeezed by them on the shoulder.
Shit. Double, triple shit. Zane thumbed through the numbers in his phone. He couldn’t sit there unmoving. “Whereabouts are we?”
“Just over the top of the mountain. Think we got a pickup that went into the ditch.”
“Can you get by?”
“Not right now. They probably called for a tow.” The wipers flicked snow from the windshield, but as fast as they cleared the snow, it fell and stuck again.
They were about four or five miles from the edge of town. Zane went through the contacts in his phone again. Ten o’clock on a Saturday night, the roads fast shutting down, and he was stuck in the back seat of a limousine that wasn’t going anywhere. You can take that white Christmas and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine, he thought with a scowl. Who’d wished for snow, anyway?
A tow. Zane blinked. If he hadn’t been so caught up in thinking about Becca, he would’ve realized his answer ten minutes ago. He jabbed a button and waited for his friend to pick up. If anyone could help Zane tonight, it was Mike Springer, who in addition to owning a gym also ran the only towing company in Pine Point. He just hoped Mike was on his way to this wreck, and not on the other side of town pulling someone else out of trouble.
Becca took her time picking through the drifted snow. It took her a long five minutes to reach the edge of the woods, but by the time she stepped inside the thickly packed pines, the wind and snow ceased. Silent. Almost peaceful, if not for her constant shivering. Becca shone the flashlight ahead of her.
There.
Without the wind blowing snow every which way, the paw prints showed up clearly. One set wove a serpentine path through the trees. She bent down to make sure they weren’t rabbit or deer tracks. Someone shouted behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder to see Janet holding two cats, one under each arm. Becca wiped her nose. Good. Maybe only the last one had ventured this way. She straightened and pulled off her gloves to blow on her hands. She could barely feel them. She could barely move them. Her eyes watered, and suddenly the wind must have shifted, because the far-away sound of church carols floated to her.
She jammed her hands back into the gloves and pulled her hat down as far as it could go. At least it wasn’t below zero tonight. The temperature had actually warmed up to almost fifteen degrees, according to the weatherman. Thus all the snow.
Becca followed the footprints. “Hey, baby,” she called into the dark. “You out there? You don’t have to be afraid. I’m right here.” She swept the flashlight left to right, straining for a glimpse of anything that looked alive. As she walked, the branches brushed her shoulders, dumping snow onto her again and again. Twice, she had to stop and rub her face. Her eyelashes felt stiff. Her nose and lips burned.
Five more minutes and I’m turning around. She’d be no good to the other twenty cats if she caught frostbite tonight.
Something moved in the stillness. Becca froze. She lowered her flashlight and let her eyes adjust to the dark. She whistled low. A meow echoed from the trees to her right. In tiny, incremental movements, Becca turned. She whistled again. It meowed again.
“Okay, I’m coming in there,” she said quietly. She eased her way to the tree and pulled back the low-hanging branches. A terrified-looking black cat, its long hair dragged down with snow, looked back at her. It opened its mouth and meowed again.
Becca squatted and reached forward, but the cat turned and bolted. “Shit.” Thankfully, it was easy to spy against the white snow, and the drifts were so deep in places, it made little headway. It emerged from the other side of the tree and stopped, panting.
“Baby, let me help you,” Becca said. She propped the flashlight against a fallen limb and took halting steps through the snow. This time, exhausted, the cat didn’t even meow a protest. When she bent down and scooped it into her arms, it closed its eyes and nestled into the warmth of her chest.
“There you go,” she murmured. “Everything’s all right now.” Tears slipped down her cheeks but froze in an instant. “We’ve got heat and warm blankets and your friends waiting for you.” She turned back toward the house and stopped. The flashlight must have burned out; either that or the snow had picked up enough that she couldn’t see its beam anymore. Which way do I go?
“Just follow your steps back,” Becca said to herself, but that was easier said than done. She couldn’t see the lights from the house either, which meant she had to bend over to find her earlier tracks. A branch swiped her across the cheek, and she almost lost her balance. The cat dug its claws into her chest, trying to climb up her shoulder. “Oh, no you don’t.” She tucked it inside her coat and tried to circle around an enormous tree, but almost at once, the ground sloped downward.
“The ravine. Damn.” Becca eyed the subtle shift in the drifted snow. It wasn’t steep or particularly deep, but the ravine ran about a quarter-mile along this part of the woods. She and Ella had played here as children a few times, before her sister had discovered boys and makeup in middle school. I wonder if it would be easier to go this way. Though Kevin had warned her about it, the ravine was a straight shot back to the road, without any trees blocking her way.
As if making up her mind for her, Becca’s feet slipped in the snow, and before she knew it, she was tripping down the slope. She gripped the cat tightly, but it barely moved in her arms. You know, don’t you? You know I’m trying to save you. Zane was right about one thing—animals did have tremendous intuition. She ran her gloved fingers over
its head, trying to soothe it. “Five minutes, ten tops, we’ll be back safe and sound,” she said aloud.
She yawned. Events from earlier in the night—Zane, the kitchen counter, the party—seemed to have happened a hundred years ago. Or perhaps not at all. Her eyesight fogged. One foot in front of the other, she trudged through the snow, now up above her ankles. Take your time, Bec. But she could barely feel her extremities, and fatigue crashed over her in waves.
Maybe I’ll just rest for a minute. Catch my breath. That seemed like a good idea. With the sound of Christmas music still in her ears and the cat pressing into her ribs, Becca sank to her knees in the snow and closed her eyes.
Chapter Twenty
“Thanks, man.” Zane leapt from the passenger side of the tow truck before Springer had come to a complete stop in front of his garage. Mike tossed Zane the keys to his spare beat-up Volkswagen before heading out to pull another car out of a snow bank.
It took a couple turns of the key, but Mike’s car finally roared to life. Zane hoped to hell the thing had some decent snow tires on it, because the skies had opened up and the roads were damn slick. He pulled onto Main Street and downshifted as the car caught an icy spot and drifted. Thankfully, it didn’t look like many other people had braved the storm, so it wouldn’t matter if he couldn’t quite stay in one lane. He blew on one hand and steered with the other, back and forth to warm his fingers as he made his way through town. He wasn’t dressed for tromping around in the snow, but he didn’t dare waste time going back to his place for boots and a warmer coat. Plus, he wasn’t sure he’d make it out of his private road again, not the way this stuff was sticking to the ground.
He curled and uncurled his fingers around the steering wheel. He was pretty sure he knew the turn for the Kramer house. He’d spent a few nights partying there back in high school because Jared had had an unlimited supply of pot and a mother who worked the night shift. He turned on the wipers and the defrost, but both whined and sputtered and did little to clear his view. Thankfully, the plows were keeping downtown Pine Point drivable, so it was only when he turned onto County Route 78 that the trip became treacherous.
Zane had tossed his phone onto the seat beside him, and he glanced at it every few minutes. No call from Becca. No text. What did he expect? She probably thought he was still enjoying the glitz of Villa Venezia. That’s not my scene. Never was, never will be. He slowed as the lights of Mountain Glen poked through the dark. A moment later, he spied tire tracks turning down a narrow road. He barely saw the sign covered with snow.
“Hope this is it.” He eased the car in a wide circle, turning the high beams to low to reduce the glare of the driving snow. He’d almost made the turn when all his traction went. Shit. The car slid a few feet and then went nose-first into a ditch.
“Hell!” Zane pounded the steering wheel. He tried to back out, but putting the car in reverse only spun the tires and dug him in deeper. Finally, he turned off the engine, opened the door and stepped into snow up to his knees. Still cursing under his breath, he struggled back to the road. Was this the stupidest idea in the world? Maybe Becca wasn’t here. Maybe he should’ve gone to the shelter first. For all he knew, she was already settling twenty-one cats into bed.
He bent his head against the wind, and snow peppered his bare neck. Suddenly, a horn squawked, and he looked up in time to see a truck bearing down on him. He stepped to the side as it pulled up and stopped. A dark-skinned man sat in the driver’s seat, with a middle-aged woman beside him. No sign of Becca.
“You’re Zane,” the woman said.
He nodded and realized the back seat was filled with cats in carriers. A few meowed. Most just stared at him with huge eyes. “Where’s Becca?” He drew one arm across his face to shake off the snow.
The man jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “She went into the woods. Kevin’s looking for her now.”
“The woods?”
“We called the police to come help,” the woman said in a small voice. “She’s been gone a long time.”
“How long?” Zane’s hands fisted at his sides.
“Ten minutes or so. Maybe it’s not that long, but—”
Zane turned away before she could finish. Not that long? This time, as well as he could manage, he jogged through the snow. It came up over his dress shoes and soaked everything below his knees, but he barely felt it. The only thing he did feel, the only thing that mattered at all, was the pain circling his heart every time he thought of Becca.
A dark shape flashed at his side, and he turned with a jerk. He hadn’t brought his pistol, and the last thing he needed was a wild dog or something else attacking him in the middle of nowhere.
“Well, son of a bitch.” Two yellow eyes stared back at him. “What the hell are you doing over here?” The stray resident of Mountain Glen stood a few feet away, panting. “Huh.” He supposed it made sense. The dog probably circled most of this square mile of town, probably had hiding places and sleeping spots from here to the Glen and all the way over to the interstate.
Zane waved both arms. “Shoo. Get back to the Glen. Or someplace warm. You shouldn’t be out here.”
The dog barked in response.
“I’m serious.” He looked ahead to where the road curved. The Kramer house lay around that turn, which meant every second he spent out here talking to a stray dog was a second he wasn’t looking for Becca.
The dog barked again, turned and trotted into the dark.
Zane shook his head and walked on. But the dog reappeared almost at once. This time it ran right up to him, swerving to avoid tangling with his legs at the last minute. It backed away a couple of feet but didn’t leave.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
As he stood there, the dog trotted into the dark, then turned and barked. Turned back and did it again. Then again. Until finally—
Zane squinted into the snow. About a hundred yards from where he stood, if he remembered right, an old creek bed split the woods in two and ran perpendicular to County Route 78. He looked at the road, the house up ahead, then back at the dog. “You trying to tell me something, boy?” Because if he was crazy and about to listen to a dog for no good reason other than some kind of instinct scratching at his brain, chances were pretty good he’d end up frozen in a snow bank.
The dog barked again, and that was all it took. Zane left the road and followed the animal across an open field and down the ravine. Every so often, it got ahead of him and disappeared into darkness, but a few seconds later, he’d catch sight of it again. Always waiting for him. Always barking if he got too far behind. By the time they reached flat ground, Zane was frozen through. He couldn’t feel his fingers, his feet, his nose. His breath whooshed out in long, slippery white strings, and more than once he wondered if that would be the last sight he’d see, his own air running out against the sky.
The dog walked more slowly now, picking its way through the snow. It didn’t bark, but it looked back every few steps to make sure Zane followed. He blinked away flakes that caught in his lashes. “If this is a wild goose chase…” he muttered. Then he saw it, a flash of long red coat against all the white. As if to confirm, the dog let out a long, soulful howl.
All Zane’s energy returned, all his hope, every thought of Becca that had kept him going through the last long hour. The dog nosed his leg as if to urge him on. Well, would you look at that, he thought as he stumbled toward Becca. All this time he’d thought he was the one saving the stray animal. Turned out it was the one saving him—saving both of them.
It’s a dream, Becca thought more than once as she walked. Everything foggy at the edges, the heavy warmth that dragged at her bones—it reminded her of some long, lazy dream that looped over and over.
Except she was freezing. And shivering. And trying not to listen to the very small voice inside her head that kept telling her it was okay to just sit down, curl up and go to
sleep for real. Somewhere on the edge of her consciousness, bells pealed. Christmas Eve wouldn’t be the worst night to die. Maybe there would be angels to welcome her, or a baby Jesus with his arms stretched wide.
“Becca!”
She stopped walking. Strange. She didn’t usually hear voices so clearly in her dreams. She brushed the snow from her face.
“Becca!” Out of the dark emerged a figure, waving one arm and staggering toward her.
Zane?
A siren whooped close by, and along the edge of the woods, red lights flashed. Becca stood perfectly still. The cat, still snuggled at her breast, lifted its head and blinked at her.
“I think,” she said in a small voice that barely creaked out of her, “I think we’re being rescued.”
Then he was there, taking her into his arms, real and strong and smelling of cologne and fresh air and everything she wanted to breathe into her veins.
“Are you okay?” Zane murmured against her hair. He pulled back to look at her. “God, Bec, you’re frozen through.”
She managed to nod. “I’m okay.” A movement caught her eye. “Is that the stray dog from the Glen?”
“Yup. Brought me here.” He shook his head and whistled. “I wouldn’t have found you otherwise.”
The snow eased as they stood there, and Becca looked up at a sky filled with stars. “It’s clearing.” So beautiful. So endless and frightening. The realization of how much she’d risked, rushing out ill-prepared into a frozen night, spread over her. Not the best decision she’d ever made, that was for sure. Thank God, Zane had ignored her stupid comments and come after her.
He rubbed her arms and then peeked inside her coat. “Well, damn, doll. Is it alive?”
“Kept me warm, so I think so. If I am, then it still is.”
He leaned down and kissed her, frozen lips to frozen lips, and she would have laughed at the sight they must have made, if she’d had the energy.
Winter's Wonder: Pine Point, Book 2 Page 11
