Jake had seen someone drown once. When he was sixteen years old, he’d seen Jimmy Baine fall through the ice on a pond during a hockey game not far from his father’s ranch. It had taken the rescue team more than forty minutes to retrieve Jimmy’s body. That was the day Jake had decided to get into search and rescue.
He didn’t intend to let this lovely young woman die such a horrible death.
Twenty yards away, he could see Abby’s head above the water. She tried to grab onto the jagged edge of the ice and pull herself up, but the ice kept breaking away. Jake knew in another five minutes she wouldn’t have the strength. Another ten and she would be too weak from hypothermia to keep her head above water.
“Hang on!” he shouted to her. “I’m coming in for you!”
“Jake!”
He looked desperately around for a branch. A long, strong one that wasn’t rotted from lying on the ground too long. He felt the seconds whizzing by as he sprinted over to an aspen and broke a good-size branch from the trunk. Stripping off the smaller branches, he raced to the frozen bank of the pond. He didn’t pause to think about the consequences as he stepped out onto the ice. A crack sounded on the other side of the pond. A terrible, hollow sound that reminded him of a power line snapping under pressure. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled, crossing the ice at a dangerous pace.
“Abby!”
“I’m here.” Her voice was already thready and weak.
Jake feared the hypothermia was already taking hold. It could set in within minutes under these conditions. He stopped three feet away from her, afraid to get any closer without risking breaking through the ice himself. “Grab onto this branch. I’m going to pull you out.”
“Okay. Hurry, it’s…c-cold.”
“Don’t think about the cold. Just do as I say.” Lying as flat and still as he could, he shoved the end of the branch toward her. “Take the branch.”
Her hand came up and out of the water, her fingers closing around the branch.
“Good girl,” he said. “Put both hands around it.”
Even from three feet away he could see that her fingers were blue as she wrapped them around the branch. “Okay.”
“Hang on. I’m going to pull you out.”
The ice cracked beneath him. Water turned the snow to slush as it seeped through the cracks. Jake rolled, felt the ice sag beneath him.
Damn, he didn’t like the way this was shaping up.
Extending his arms over his head to more evenly distribute his weight, he inched toward the shore. He heard the ice around Abby breaking as he pulled her through it.
“I—I can’t g-get out,” she sputtered. “It keeps b-breaking.”
He glanced at her, saw terror in her eyes. Her lips were blue, her face ghastly pale. She’d only been in the water a few minutes, but it didn’t take long for hypothermia to zap the life from someone. “Don’t let go of that branch,” he snapped.
Pushing himself onto his knees, he tugged on the branch. Abby’s shoulders came out of the water. She put her knee up on the ice. Her coat was soaked, her hair dripping and wet. Jake held his breath, prayed she kept her grip, that the ice would hold. He pulled steadily, hauling her halfway out of the water.
“Hold tight,” he said, and dragged her out of the water so that she was lying on her stomach on the ice.
He knew better than to go to her. The ice couldn’t possibly hold their combined weight. But for the first time in a long time, Jake broke the rules. He went to her, swept her into his arms and carried her to shore.
* * *
Abby figured if Jake didn’t kill her for running away, the cold was going to finish her off for sure. It was brutal and tore into her like a voracious beast whose fangs sank all the way to her bones. It sucked the air from her lungs, the warmth from her blood. The air was so cold against her skin it seemed to scorch her until she burned all over. Her entire body quaked violently as Jake carried her to shore.
All of her clothes—including Jake’s extra duster—were soaked. Considering it was just a few degrees above zero, she didn’t think things could get much worse. Well, if she didn’t take into consideration the guy with the rifle taking shots at them.
“Abby. Look at me. I’m going to take you back to the cabin and get those wet clothes off you.”
“God, Jake, I—I’m…f-freezing.”
“Just keep talking, okay?”
She focused on him, felt her world tilt when she saw the sharp-edged concern in his eyes. There were a hundred things she wanted to say, but her teeth were rattling together uncontrollably. The shivers were so violent, she couldn’t speak.
“I guess I s-screwed up again, huh?” she managed to say after a moment.
“I reckon you did.”
“I—I’m s-sorry.”
“I know. Just…hang on. I’m going to get you up on Brandywine and we’re going back to the cabin, okay?”
She tried to nod, ended up jerking her head once. “You’re g-getting w-wet.”
“Not as wet as you. You feeling okay?”
“Just…r-really c-cold.”
But the cold didn’t seem quite so savage when she was cradled in his arms. In fact, she was beginning to feel almost comfortable. Her hands and face were numb, but there wasn’t really any pain. The cold burned, but it no longer hurt. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine it as heat. She relaxed against him, imagining his warmth sinking into her.
“Keep your eyes open for me, okay?”
The edge in his voice tugged her back. She opened her eyes, found him staring down at her, his gaze suffused with worry. “Stay awake for me.”
“I’m okay, Jake. Really. I just…”
“Abby, damn it, keep your eyes open.”
She hadn’t even realized they’d drifted shut again. “I’m okay. I’m not even that cold anymore.”
“That’s because you’re hypothermic.” He struggled through the snow toward the horse. “Talk to me.”
“About what?”
“Anything.” He looked down at her. “Except the weather.”
She smiled, intending to answer, but the words drifted from her mind. Exhaustion tugged at her. She knew everything would be okay, knew he would take care of this. He felt so strong and warm and solid against her as he carried her toward the waiting horse. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt safe wrapped in his arms. He’d saved her life. With a little luck she could still make it to Grams’s….
Abby tried to keep her eyes open. She tried to think of something to say to him. She wanted to ask him about the sniper, but her mind seemed to drift aimlessly. Vaguely, she was aware of him struggling through the deep snow, breathing heavily in the cold, thin air, his arms tight around her. He said something, but her mind wasn’t listening….
Abruptly he set her on her feet. “Come on, honey. On your feet. I want you to walk. Let’s go. One foot in front of the other. Can you do that?”
“Yeah…okay.” She hadn’t intended to slur her words. She felt light-headed, as if she’d had one too many glasses of wine. Must be the cold zapping her.
“Come on. Walk.”
Vaguely, she was aware of her arm around his neck. Her feet were numb. Her hair was beginning to freeze. She looked down at the ground and ordered her legs to move. She could do this. She’d spent the past six months getting into top physical condition. It wasn’t as though a little cold water was going to put her down.
The instant he let her go, her legs melted like butter on a hot skillet.
Cursing, Jake swept her back into his arms. “I should have known you wouldn’t cooperate,” he growled.
Abby rode the haze, fighting the sleepiness plaguing her and the confusion playing with her mind. She knew she should be afraid, knew she was in trouble. As a nurse, she knew hypothermia was serious business. She just couldn’t muster the energy to get too worried about it.
Jake kept talking to her, pressing her, asking her questions. She tried to rally her mind to answer, but after a while the responses got all jumbled and she could no longer find the words.
* * *
Jake Madigan never panicked. The emotion just wasn’t part of his persona. Panic caused smart people to act stupid. It caused even pros to make mistakes that could end up costing someone a life. Panic was the kiss of death in any emergency situation.
But even knowing all of those things about himself and about what he did for a living, Jake felt the sharp edge of fear slice him and go deep. The woman in his arms couldn’t weigh much more than a hundred pounds soaking wet. She looked incredibly fragile, her face as pale as death….
“Abby. Abby! Come on. Open your eyes. Talk to me.”
“I’m…okay.”
Her words were slurred, her voice so low he had to crane his neck forward to hear her. Hell, she was already in the first phase of hypothermia.
“Didn’t mean to…screw up,” she whispered.
“You’re going to be all right.” She had to be all right. Jake would never forgive himself if something happened to her. She was his responsibility. His. And he didn’t intend to let either of them down. “Just hang on, okay?”
His legs shook as he caught Brandywine’s reins, then set Abby gently in the saddle. Swinging onto the horse, behind her, he nudged the animal into a reckless gait through the snow.
He knew he should have his rifle unsheathed and ready, but there was no way he could handle a semiconscious passenger and the rifle at the same time, so he did his best to approach the cabin from the opposite side—out of the shooter’s line of vision—praying whomever had been using them for target practice earlier had gotten the message that Jake was armed and more than ready to retaliate.
He stopped Brandywine at the back of the cabin a few minutes later and jumped to the ground. The place looked deserted, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Abby was as still as death when he eased her down off the horse. He would have felt better if she’d been shaking, but she wasn’t.
Unholstering his H&K .45, he kicked open the cabin door and quickly searched the premises. No one had been there. Back outside, he tied the horse to the lean-to, then scooped Abby into his arms. It had been more than twenty minutes since she’d fallen through the ice. It was imperative that he warm her body quickly. He had to get those wet clothes off of her. If she was aware enough, he needed to get some warm fluids into her.
He didn’t relish the idea of undressing her. He didn’t want to know what she looked like beneath those clothes. But Jake was too much of a professional to let anything as banal as lust interfere with his job. Setting her on the floor a few feet from the fire, he quickly tossed two logs onto the embers, and put a pail of water on to boil. When he turned to Abby, she was sitting up, trying to toe her shoes off, but her movements were sluggish and weak. Her eyes focused on him, but they were glassy. Blue tinged her lips.
“I’ve got to get these wet clothes off of you,” he said. “Can you help me out?”
Embarrassment flared briefly in her eyes. “I can…do it.”
“Sure you can. I’ll just…give you a hand, okay?”
“Just let me…” Her hands fluttered at the zipper of her jumpsuit, but her fingers were too stiff to function.
“This isn’t the time for modesty, Abby, okay? I’m a professional. You can trust me.”
“I can do it….” Her fingers fumbled the zipper. “Damnit.”
“Let me take care of you, okay?”
Jake knew he couldn’t wait any longer. Every minute counted when her body temperature was dropping. They were hours away from the nearest medical facility. The cabin was barely above freezing inside. He didn’t have an IV or heated oxygen or even a warming blanket to treat her with should this turn serious.
He knelt beside her. “I put some logs in the fire. It’ll be warm in here in a few minutes.”
She had the zipper partway down, but he could see she wasn’t going to succeed. Her hands were blue. The ends of her hair had frozen. Setting his jaw, he reached for the zipper. She tried to push his hands away, but he firmly set them aside. With impersonal efficiency, he stripped the jumpsuit from her. Lifting her slightly, he worked the wet material from her body and tossed it aside. Down to her bra and panties, her flesh was colorless and cold to the touch.
Jake handed her one of the blankets. “Here.”
“Thanks.”
“Sit up for me.” Putting his hand beneath her shoulders, he helped her to a sitting position. He kept his eyes averted as much as possible when he unhooked the wet bra from around her. He tried not to think about that crazy kiss they’d shared, or the way his body jumped to attention every time he thought about doing it again.
Quickly he wrapped her in his sleeping bag. “Better?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Take those wet, uh…underwear off, too,” he said. “I’ll hang them by the fire to dry for you.”
Looking embarrassed even through her weakness, she reached down and removed her panties. Without looking at them, Jake moved to the hearth and draped them over the rustic mantel. He tossed another log onto the fire. The cabin was beginning to warm up, but it wasn’t well insulated. The water had started to boil, so he lifted it from the embers and took it over to the table. He removed a package of instant soup from his saddlebag and made a cup, and took it back over to her.
“I want you to sip this,” he said. “Slowly.”
Her eyes were clear when she looked up at him. Relief swamped him when he saw that she was shivering again. That was a good sign; her body was trying to warm itself.
“What kind of soup?” she asked.
“Hot.” Kneeling beside her, he helped her to sit up again.
“I hope it’s better than your coffee.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever be glad to hear one of your smart-aleck comments.”
“I’ve got more where that one came from.” She took the cup, but her hands were shaking so violently, she could barely hold it. Jake steadied the cup, and she sipped tentatively. “You saved my life,” she said after a moment.
Her gaze locked with his. The impact made him feel gut-punched. How was it that this woman could undo him without saying anything? Just hit him with those violet eyes and he was a goner? He tried to blame his reaction on the close call with death and the remnants of fear left in its wake. But he knew there was a hell of a lot more going on between them than that.
“You didn’t leave me much choice,” he said.
“I thought the ice would hold.”
“If you’d gone under I might not have been able to get to you.” The thought made him feel nauseous. He tried to be angry, but he was still too scared. “Hell, Abby, you could have drowned.”
“I warned you I was really good at screwing up, so stop yelling at me.”
“I’m not yelling. I’m just trying to figure you out.”
“Don’t bother. I don’t even have myself figured out, so it’s probably a losing proposition for you.”
He thought about that for a moment, then let it go. “You gave me your word you wouldn’t run away.”
She turned those eyes on him. Even though he’d moved back to a safe distance, her gaze touched him with the intimacy of a caress. “How far would you go to stay out of prison if you were convicted of a crime you hadn’t committed?” she asked.
“I’d go through the proper legal channels before I’d risk getting myself killed.”
“Those proper channels failed me, Jake. They cost me a year of my life. A year of hell that I won’t ever be able to get back. Am I supposed to just stand by and let the legal system destroy my life?”
“The legal system is all you’ve got.”
“No. I’ve got the truth.”
He hadn’t expected her to say that; felt his walls go up. She was going to tell him something he didn’t want to hear. She was going to ask him to trust her. Jake wasn’t up to it. Not now. Not ever. It didn’t matter that for an instant, when she’d told him about the death of her patient, when he’d seen the devastation in her eyes, he’d almost believed her.
Rising, he scooped his rifle off the floor and set it on the table within easy reach. He looked out the windows on the east side of the cabin, studied the ridges beyond for the sniper, but the snowscape outside remained serene. Without looking at Abby, he picked up her jumpsuit and sneakers. The jumpsuit was waterlogged and still frozen in places. The bra was nothing more than a thin scrap of cotton. Hell. Trying to ignore the silky feel of it in his hands, Jake hung both over the back of a chair and set it next to the fire. When he turned back to her, she was still watching him with those eyes. Those beautiful, haunting eyes that had kept him awake until the wee hours of morning.
“Are you warm enough?” It was a dumb question considering her teeth were rattling like dice in a roulette wheel.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be warm again.”
“Yes, you will.” He went to her and knelt, putting the cup of soup to her lips. “Drink it. I’m not kidding around. You need fluids. It’ll help warm you up.”
She sipped. “Why was someone shooting at us?”
He held the cup for her and urged her to take another sip. “I was just going to ask you the same question.”
What little color she had in her cheeks fled. Her eyes were troubled and dark against her pale flesh. Jake steeled himself against the sudden need to raise his hand and touch her cheek. But he wouldn’t do that to himself. Wouldn’t do it to her. Certainly not after what had happened between them earlier.
“Maybe it was a hunter, and he didn’t even realize—”
“Hunters don’t shoot at people, Abby.”
“Well, maybe it was an accident. A stray bullet.”
Frustration, with her and the situation, made his voice gruff. “Those shots were taken from at least a half mile away. Those bullets were close. Too close. That takes some marksmanship. The guy has a long-range rifle and knows how to use it.”
Jake didn’t want to ask her about who might be trying to kill her. But after what had happened with the sniper just now, he was forced to reconsider his original judgment about her guilt. “Last night, you told me you thought someone was trying to kill you.”
She didn’t respond, but he saw the dawning realization in her eyes, the quick stab of fear.
“Who do you think is trying to kill you?” His own words echoed inside his head like the cliff-hanger of a badly written play. Jake studied the soft lines of her face, her worried eyes, and wondered how she’d gotten herself into such terrible trouble.
“You’re not going to believe me,” she said after a moment.
“Try me.”
She hesitated, and Jake got an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach. A gut feeling that told him there was more going on than he’d initially realized, a hell of a lot more than she’d told him. And he knew none of it was good.
“My guess is that Dr. Jonathan Reed wants me dead,” she said after a moment.
“Who’s that?”
“He’s the chief of surgery at Mercy General.”
“Why does he want you dead?”
She pulled the sleeping bag up to her chin. Jake could see that her teeth wanted to chatter, but she kept them still by clamping them together. “Because I know something about him I’m not supposed to know.”
“Like what?”
Abby didn’t answer.
Jake studied her closed expression, felt that feeling in his gut augment. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was that had his suspicions kicking in. Maybe the way her entire body had stiffened when he’d pressed her about Reed. Jake couldn’t pinpoint what was going on, but his years of experience in law enforcement told him she wasn’t lying. Still, it didn’t make a damn bit of sense that she wouldn’t talk to him.
“Why do you think he wants you dead, Abby?” he repeated.
A tremor went through her body. With a sudden burst of insight Jake knew her shaking wasn’t from the cold. She was trembling because she was afraid.
She started to turn away, but Jake reached out and grasped her bicep, stopping her. “Why?” he pressed.
Easing her arm from his grasp, she looked directly at him then. The kind of stare that was so intense he wanted to look away but couldn’t.
“Because he’s a murderer,” she said after a moment. “And he knows I know it.”