by Kat Mizera
“Yeah, Kendall’s been puking since yesterday and Kyle just started.”
“Ugh. Okay, never mind. I’ll call her later.”
“She just yelled out to ask if everything’s okay with Aaron.”
“Yes, Aaron’s fine.”
“Is someone else the problem?” Erin asked slowly.
Lana hesitated. Erin and Mark were like brother and sister. Anything she and Erin talked about would undoubtedly get back to him, but with Kate unavailable, she had no one else.
“Is it Mark?” Erin pressed, her voice dropping slightly.
“He’s mad at me,” Lana whispered.
“Why?”
Lana told her about their conversation. “I need to go home. Him avoiding me is worse than fighting.”
Erin sighed. “If it’s any consolation, he’s had a thing for you for a long time, so you probably broke his heart a little and he doesn’t know how else to behave. It’s not personal.”
“Of course it’s personal—but this was exactly what I was trying to avoid. I didn’t want either of us to get hurt.” She sighed sadly. “I fucked up royally, huh?”
“Hang on.” Erin spoke quietly in the background to Kate for a minute or so and then came back on the line. “Kate said you’re not leaving until after the event at the skating rink tomorrow and then the two of you will reassess.”
Lana groaned.
“Listen.” Erin’s voice dropped. “I talked to Mark the other day and he’s crazy about you. He said he thought the feeling was mutual. I get you’re nervous about the timing, but if you love someone enough, the compromise is worth it. Love isn’t always neat and tidy.”
“I don’t know if I love him,” Lana muttered.
Kate yelled something in the background that made Erin laugh. “Kate says you’ve been in love with him for two years, you were just too chicken to admit it.”
Lana groaned.
“She also said you’re just being a ninny because you don’t think you’re pretty enough for him.”
Lana rolled her eyes.
“And you should stop rolling your eyes because she can see you through the phone now that she’s a mom.”
Lana snickered and then she and Erin were both belly laughing.
“You guys aren’t helping,” she protested as she stopped laughing.
“If you break things off,” Kate panted into the phone, “you’re going to regret it.”
“And what do I do if we don’t?” Lana grunted.
“You work it out,” she huffed.
“I’m done with New York,” she admitted. “I want to be able to afford a house, go on vacation… With what you pay me, I’d live really well anywhere else.”
“I know, doll.” Kate was quiet for a moment. “Can you hang on for another six months to a year?”
“To what end?”
“We build up our West Coast clientele and maybe train Leslie to take over New York.” Leslie was their part-time assistant.
“But—”
“Hon, I can’t do this today, but when you leave Montana, come back to Vegas and we’ll regroup, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And Lana?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t give up on Mark that easily. I’ve known him almost as long as I’ve known Erin and he’s a special guy.”
“I know.” She swallowed. “Talk to you later. Kiss the babies for me.”
“Bye!” Kate disconnected and Lana tucked the phone in her pocket. She had so much to think about.
12
Mark switched assignments with Swede and wasn’t in the house the rest of the day, so though Lana got a lot of work done without being distracted, she missed him. She missed the sexy winks he’d give her when no one was looking or the way he’d surreptitiously grab her ass in the kitchen or on the stairs. Most of all, she missed their late-night conversations and instead of going up to bed, she fell asleep on the couch by herself.
She was cranky the next morning but forced herself to put on her professional face as Swede drove her and Aaron to the rink.
“We’ve got six guys there today,” he said. “There’ll be two next to the ice, watching everyone who gets on and off as well as the perimeter. There’ll be someone by the front and back doors, someone keeping an eye on the back offices and I’ll be wherever you are, Lana.”
“Okay.” She nodded. “Thank you.”
“Yes, Mark will be there,” he said with an impish grin.
She pretended not to hear him and studied an imaginary message on her phone. The guys obviously knew something had happened between them.
When they arrived at the rink, Aaron took her arm, whispering in her ear, “Are you okay? What’s going on with you and Mark? He won’t tell any of us and it’s kind of freaking me out to see you so quiet.”
She shrugged but gave him a soft smile. “Don’t worry about the event, I’ve got it under control. I’m fine.”
“I’m not worried about the event,” he said, frowning. “I’m worried about you. You’re my friend.”
She sighed. “Obviously, we had an argument.”
“Don’t you like him?”
She frowned. “Well, yeah, of course I do. It’s just complicated.”
“If you like him and he likes you back, why is it complicated?”
“We don’t have time now, Aaron. We can talk about it later,” she spoke under her breath as they walked inside. She was immediately immersed in the event, taking pictures with her phone and making sure the kids were having fun.
The only downside was that Mark was assigned to the entrance to the ice, so he was nearby whenever she was with Aaron and it was hard not being able to touch him, feel him, even talk to him. She’d really made a mess of everything and had no idea how to fix it or if it was even worth it to try. Apologizing and making up wasn’t going to make their problems go away, and they’d only have to go through this again in a week or a month or whenever they figured out what they were doing.
Laughter came from the ice as Aaron demonstrated a goalie move called the butterfly and purposely fell over. It was a good way to end the seminar and the kids headed back to the locker rooms as the crowd that had been watching made their way out to the lobby.
“Let me take my skates off and then we can go thank management and stuff,” Aaron said, sinking onto the bench.
“Perfect timing.” She turned to Swede. “I really need to use the ladies’ room. Can we sneak away now before we get swarmed for autographs?”
“Sure.” He fell into step beside her as they walked to the restrooms.
“I’ll be right out,” she said, smiling.
“I’ll be right here.” He smiled back.
“Thanks.” She went inside and took care of business. She washed her hands, touched up her lipstick and came back out. To her surprise, Swede was a few feet away, surrounded by what looked like a mob of teenagers much older than most of the kids who’d been there for the clinic. Her eyes met his over the melee and he motioned for her to wait as he tried to get past the teens without being overly forceful with anyone. One of them had his arm now and Swede did his best to extricate himself without actually hitting the kid, who seemed to be taunting him.
“Make a sound, and you’ll bleed all over the nice new floors in here.” A low but distinctly feminine voice hissed in her ear just as something sharp pressed against her side.
Lana opened her mouth but the voice spoke again, “Just walk out the front doors. One twist of my wrist and I’ll shove this between your ribs before your bodyguard gets anywhere near you.”
Lana took a breath, trying to look for Swede but he was even further away now, the crowd louder and more rambunctious than before. “Joyce, you’re never going to get away with this.”
“Don’t use my name like you know me,” she hissed, pushing her out the door. “Fucking my husband doesn’t give you the right to talk to me.”
“I’m not—” Lana yelped as Joyce dug the knife in a little dee
per.
“One more word… Go ahead. I’m dying to cut you, you home-wrecking bitch!”
Lana looked in Swede’s direction frantically, but the teens surrounding him had begun yelling loudly and the sheer number of kids in the lobby made everything chaotic. The last thing she saw before being nudged out the door was Swede holding two of the teens in headlocks, one in each arm, and yelling for Duke.
“Get in!” Joyce shoved her into the back seat of a car just as something hit the back of her head so hard she saw stars. She fell forward onto the leather seats, thinking how cold she was without her coat. She tried to sit up but everything got blurry and a wave of nausea washed over her as she drifted into unconsciousness.
Mark heard his name and turned to Montana with a frown.
“Lana! Have you seen her?” Montana looked panicked, which was rare for him.
“What do you mean?” Mark frowned. “Swede went with her to…” His voice trailed off as Swede came running in their direction, his shirt torn and blood dripping from his nose.
“She’s nowhere,” he panted. “Someone grabbed her while they surrounded me. Shit!”
“Are you kidding me?” Mark hissed, pointing a finger at him. “You had one job—what the fuck? Aren’t you supposed to—”
“Enough!” Montana stepped between them. “We can hash this out when we find her.”
“Find her? Find who? Lana?” Aaron joined them with a frown.
“Joyce set us up,” Montana sighed. “She paid someone who looks like her to pretend to be breaking into the back door. When we spotted her, everyone took off in that direction except for me and Swede.”
“And I was surrounded, literally, by a dozen wannabe gangbangers, and my gut says they were underage.”
“Sent specifically to make it hard for you to fight back,” Montana rumbled in disgust.
“By the time I broke free without assaulting anyone…” He sighed in frustration.
“Lana was gone.” Mark closed his eyes.
“Description,” Montana barked out.
“Shorter than Lana, built more like a woman, but wearing a big heavy coat, so I’m not positive.”
Montana held out his hand, listening to something in his earpiece. “Bear saw a dark SUV squeal out of the lot like a bat out of hell. He tried to follow but by the time he got to the truck, they were gone. He’s heading towards the highway just to be sure, but we probably lost them.”
“Sonofabitch,” Mark growled.
“Okay, we came in three vehicles today,” Montana said. “Let’s split up. Aaron, you and Mark come with me. Let’s move.”
Lana was freezing. As much as she wanted to go back to sleep, she’d become increasingly aware of how cold she was. Despite the pounding in her head, she forced herself to open her eyes. Based on the lack of sun and the clouds in the sky, it was probably late afternoon and there was more snow coming. She’d seen the sky look like this almost every day since she’d come here and it meant more of that cold white stuff.
Trying to focus, she took in her surroundings. She appeared to be on the side of a hill wearing nothing but the thin sweater and slacks she’d been wearing to the event at the rink. She also had on cute leather flats with lightweight, nude knee-highs, none of which would keep her warm or help her hike her way back up this hill to the main road. As her vision cleared and adrenaline kicked in, the first few snowflakes fell.
She felt in her pockets and was grateful to find her gloves, but nothing else. Her phone was gone and her purse and coat had been locked up in the manager’s office during the event. Looking around, she got to her feet and paused, waiting for a bout of dizziness to pass. She rubbed the back of her head and felt a scabbed over area that left bits of dried blood on her fingers. Oh, boy. This wasn’t good. Cold temperatures, sun essentially gone, darkness coming, no warm clothes and a possible concussion. Nope, this was bad on every level.
Joyce had brought her out to the middle of nowhere and just dumped her. She had no tools and zero experience with the terrain or this kind of weather.
“Thanks a lot, Mark,” she muttered under her breath. This wasn’t his fault, though. If she was going to pin the blame on anyone, it would have to be Kate, but that wasn’t fair because the true culprit was Joyce. Bitch.
She scowled as she stared up at the hill in front of her. It was steep. Far too steep for a New Yorker wearing pretty shoes who had no experience climbing. There was no way to know what was beyond the top of the ridge she could see, so even if she climbed it, it might be even worse than where she was. Turning her head, she looked at what was in front of her. Snow, rocks and shrubbery as far as the eye could see, set amidst the majestic mountains. She’d thought they were pretty to look at, but now that she was about to freeze to death, she was less enthralled.
Shelter, she decided finally. The only way she had any chance at all of surviving the night was to find shelter. A cave, a thick group of trees or bushes, anything that would protect her from the cold. Even ten degrees might make a difference, and though she knew that probably wasn’t true in these sub-zero temperatures, she was damned if she’d let Joyce get the best of her.
She started to walk towards something that resembled a trail and though it led up towards the nearest peak, she didn’t have any delusions of going that far. All she could hope for was to find a place that would protect her from the snow, ice and freezing cold that was already making her shiver. She wouldn’t last long in these clothes, so she had to get moving. She also had to be careful; if she got too sweaty, the dampness would make her colder.
“I fucking hate this place,” she grumbled.
She walked for almost an hour, getting colder and colder until she reached a plateau that had small areas carved out of the rock. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time and when she looked back in the direction from which she’d come, she was amazed she’d gotten so high from a trail that seemed so flat. It wasn’t, though, and she was now far enough away from where she’d started to see just how remote an area this was. The trail had twisted and turned a bit so she was turned around. And she was really cold. The tip of her nose was numb, her feet were killing her and her nipples were so hard she could feel them rubbing up against the inside of her bra. Dammit, dying wouldn’t be so bad in a nice hospital bed with good drugs, but this was the pits. Freezing to death was definitely not on her bucket list.
Walking back and forth, she located a nice indentation in the rock that could pass for a cave in a stretch. It was probably four feet deep and five feet high, so it would provide a little protection, though certainly not enough. It was starting to snow in earnest now and it occurred to her she could start a fire if she had any idea how. She’d read about people who could start a fire by rubbing two rocks together, but you needed some kind of kindling and anything within reach was wet. Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.
Gathering every branch, rock and lump of solid material she could carry, she stacked it in front of the entranceway to provide some semblance of a barrier against the wind. She couldn’t stop the cold, but she would protect herself as best she could. Fatigue had started to set in, and though she tried not to think about it too hard, common sense told her frostbite had to be imminent as well. She held her gloved hands over her nose and mouth as often as she could, but her ears were starting to burn.
When she couldn’t find another rock or stray branch she could lift, she dumped the last load inside and crawled in after it. Though it barely made a difference, she surrounded herself with shrubs and made sure the rocks were stacked as high as possible. Then she leaned back and pulled her knees up to her chest, rubbing her legs and arms, and burying her face against her knees to protect as much of her skin as possible. There was nothing else to do.
Please find me, Mark, she thought sadly. Please come save me.
13
Mark had never felt helpless before, but the panic surging through him as they tried to find a clue as to Lana’s location would have paralyzed him
had he not been a Marine with combat experience. He’d seen a lot of horrible things, including watching his best friend get blown up on the side of a road in Afghanistan, but that had been war. This wasn’t. This was a stupid, petty, jealous woman who was hurting another woman for something she hadn’t even done. He was so angry it was hard to breathe, and he paced outside the waiting area of the local police department. They’d finally picked up the teenagers who’d surrounded and distracted Swede, and one of them was actually 18, so they didn’t have to wait for his parents in order to talk to him.
“What are they doing in there?” he demanded of Montana. “We need to know where Joyce is.”
“They know that,” the other man said quietly. “They’re trying to get the information before he lawyers up.”
“Give me five minutes,” Mark growled. “I’ll get the information.”
“You and me both,” Swede muttered. “This is my fault, dammit.”
“It’s not,” Mark shook his head, some of the anger dissipating. He wanted to be pissed at Swede, but he couldn’t. It had been a carefully orchestrated maneuver, one that was hard to circumvent. Getting physical with kids—boys that were under 18—could have landed Swede in all kinds of trouble. And there had been ten of them. In a public place filled with even younger children. There hadn’t been anything more Swede could have done without hurting one of the kids, and that wouldn’t have ended well either. No, this Joyce woman was to blame and he planned to find her, one way or another.
Montana had been pulled aside by a detective he knew from high school and suddenly was heading towards the door. “Let’s go,” he murmured out of the corner of his mouth.
They followed him quickly as he headed for his SUV. “My buddy listened in on the interrogation. Joyce is staying at a motel at the edge of town and we need to get there before the cops. Mark, Swede, you’re with me.”
“No, I need to come too,” Aaron ground out. “This is my fault.”
“You’re supposed to be staying out of trouble,” Montana said quietly. “Lana wouldn’t want you getting arrested because of her.”
