Ellie’s breaths came quickly, one after another, as her brain rattled through memory after memory, fear after fear. Sean’s family was behind all of this. They had sent two men in search of her. How many more were out there? And then there was this: she had just put Michael’s life in danger. Michael, who had trusted her story, no matter how outrageous it sounded. Who had stayed with her instead of letting her go into the storm alone. In return, she had put him in danger. She needed to convince him to go separate ways before that happened again. That meant she needed to get at what was waiting for her at the cabin and then disappear as soon as possible.
But first, Michael wanted answers. He deserved them. Where did she start with the string of memories that bombarded her as she tried to follow one after another?
Without the helmet’s visor, the snow glowed bright white against the gray clouds that enveloped the mountain. Michael had taken off his helmet, too, and that unwavering gaze was focused solely on her. Warmth spread through her. His eyes were so dark and serious, and yet, up close, she could see fine lines that fanned from the corners. Laugh lines, despite the heaviness he carried. How long had it been since he’d laughed? Loss had changed him, just as it had her. The connection brought a closeness as he gazed intensely at her. What she would have given for Sean to look at her like that in those last months. Instead, he had closed himself off. The thought caught her off guard, strong and so...disloyal. Ellie quickly pushed it away and focused on what to tell Michael, where to start.
“I saw the car, and memories came back,” she said. “It’s a lot.”
Michael’s expression softened. “I’d say take it slowly, but we’re not in that position right now.”
Ellie took a long breath. “When my husband, Sean, died, everything went to me, including his third of the family’s real estate development business. At first, I was too shocked to register what part-ownership meant, but as I started to get his affairs in order, I read up on everything. To be a responsible owner. I mean, how could I be an owner if I wasn’t involved?”
Michael nodded. She thought that sounded reasonable, but Aidan and Clint hadn’t.
“The company buys up land and builds houses, upscale houses, on it. They built all the houses we just passed.” She gestured in the direction of the development they’d driven by moments before.
The next part was the hardest to speak aloud and another rush of discomfort flooded her. It felt disloyal to talk about any of this. But her danger was his right now. He needed to know.
“Aidan and Sean had some sort of argument about regulations. I don’t know exactly what happened, but from what I could tell in the emails, they paid a small fine for environmental violations but still made record profits. And then there were other payments to two of the city council members that looked a lot like bribes.” She closed her eyes. “I don’t know if the evidence is enough to hold up in court. But my husband was one of those people you were talking about before. One of the people who came in, breaking laws and ignoring the environmental regulations.” She swallowed and added, “I’m sorry.”
Michael looked at her with those serious eyes. “You’re not responsible for the choices he made.”
A gust of wind blew through the forest, sweeping her hair across her face and making her shiver. But Michael didn’t seem to notice the cold or the snow. He was focused solely on her.
Ellie tucked the stray curls behind her ear and continued. “I dug further and found some environmental reports from the development we drove through. I didn’t know what to do.”
She frowned. “Then Aidan and my father-in-law, Clint, called a meeting to get me to sign off the paperwork for a contractor in a new development. But when I brought up the emails I’d found, they both turned angry. Enough that I walked out of the meeting.
“I made the mistake of telling them my thinking.” She took another deep breath as embarrassment flooded through her. “Not a good move, but I guess I just couldn’t quite believe that they were up to something underhanded. Because that meant...” This was the hardest part. She swallowed and pushed herself to say her worst fears aloud. “That meant that Sean was probably involved, too.”
This was the dread that had been sitting in her, lurking, the darkness that had consumed her. “Someone followed me home and, the moment I realized it, I must have swerved into the snowbank...”
The fear, the car crash, the bump on her head she couldn’t even remember—all of that had a role in this feeling that the ground had shaken below her, toppling her life with Sean, which had seemed so solid, so steady. Is this the man I married? It was another layer of dread hiding in those memories of the crash—one she could feel, buried deep inside—and as she spoke, this fear stirred, threatening to awaken. It was fear that her whole life with Sean, the love she’d thought they shared, wasn’t real. Had she loved a man who had pulled off harmful things right under her nose?
Ellie had tried so hard to live a life that her parents could be proud of. Her parents had worked hard on their ranch, but it hadn’t seemed to matter. It was a dying way of life, taken over by big farms and the grab for land to extend the never-ending suburban sprawl. But they had hung on, tooth and nail, scraping by and saving to make sure she could go to college. And she’d studied, never forgetting how much was riding on her success. Still, college would have remained out of reach without the grants and scholarships she had gotten, both from her little town and from the State of California.
So it was both a source of pleasure and a touch of embarrassment when she’d found out how easily money flowed in the Alexander family. She’d never told her parents all the details, though they must have suspected when they’d showed up for the lavish wedding Sean’s mother had insisted on. Still, she’d believed that Sean was a good man, an honest man. How could he have broken her trust like this?
She studied Michael’s expression for censure, but she didn’t find any. “Was he involved?”
“I don’t know,” she said quietly. That was the hardest part—suspecting but not knowing. “We didn’t get far in the conversation because, as soon as I asked to see the full financial records, the tone of the meeting flipped. They refused, so I wouldn’t sign off on the contract for the next phase of the project.”
She shivered as the scene played in her mind. “Aidan followed me out to my car and told me that if I didn’t let this go, he wouldn’t leave me alone.”
Michael’s expression hardened.
“I needed to know if Sean was involved. So I headed back home, to search Sean’s office for some sort of proof, one way or another.” She shook her head. “I can see what a bad move that was now. I mean, both of them were outright hostile. What did I think would happen? But I just...couldn’t let it go.”
“We don’t always make the best choices when so much is on the line,” Michael said quietly, and she could feel that there were layers to that comment, a depth to it, and for a moment, a haunted look crossed his face. Yet the look disappeared almost immediately. “Who followed you home?”
“I’m not sure. I didn’t go straight home, so I’m not sure how they knew exactly where I was. I have this feeling that I do know who followed me, somewhere inside. But after my car crashed into the snowbank... Everything after that is still gone.”
“You need to go to the police,” he said. “I’ll drive you there. Right now.”
She shook her head. “Aidan and Clint have almost certainly already talked to the authorities. You don’t know what those men can be like. They’re both really charming, friends with everyone, including half the police force. And they think they have a right to what they want.” She closed her eyes. “I wish I could trust calling the police right now, but I can’t take the risk. Not now, after I saw how they turned on me.”
She was trying so hard not to panic. She had to focus on the next move, the path to safety.
“Sean left what he called a ‘go bag’ for me,” she added. It was that last piece that was so damning. Why would she need survival supplies unless he had known that something was wrong?
Just in case, Sean had said. Looking back, it had happened a few days after the fight he and Aidan had had on the back porch. But the go bag was supposed to be for the two of them, for a quick departure. How long had he suspected they might need it?
“How could he say he loved me when he kept something this big from me?” she whispered. He must have known the danger he was putting them in.
She closed her eyes as the grief overwhelmed her. Sean had known something was wrong and he’d died without telling her what it was. What she wouldn’t give to talk to him, to argue, to demand an explanation. Or even just to see him again. It was too much, and she fought to keep the tears inside. Now wasn’t the time.
When she opened her eyes, Michael was crouching in front of her in the snow. His brown eyes were filled with so much compassion.
“I’m sorry this is happening to you,” he said.
Ellie wasn’t so sure she deserved his compassion. “It was my husband’s company that leveled the trees and destabilized the mountain. And now it’s my company, at least a third of it. You should be angry with me.”
Michael shook his head. “I’m not. You didn’t know. And it sounds like you were trying to make sure something like this didn’t happen again.”
“I can’t believe Sean did this,” she said quietly. “If he loved me...”
“No, Ellie. Don’t go down that path. If you thought he loved you when he was alive, hold on to that feeling.”
She took a long breath. Could she accept that she may never know Sean’s reasons? It all came down to belief. Could she trust her experience, that their life together was truly filled with love?
The snowfall had eased in the little valley where they stood, and the forest was silent. Thick wet flakes lay everywhere, on her jacket, in Michael’s hair. She looked at the man in front of her, reminding herself how good God had been to her despite everything. He had brought Michael into her life when she’d needed someone to trust.
Michael’s eyes were so warm and caring, his face so handsome and rugged, and her heart thumped in her chest. His gaze was steady on her, and something strong, something big, passed between them. She swallowed. Grateful—that’s what this feeling was, she told herself. She was grateful that he’d listened and hadn’t judged... Or was this attraction?
A thunderous rumble echoed down the mountain, jolting her back to the present. It sounded like a cannon that wouldn’t stop.
“Avalanche,” said Michael. “Not close, thank God. But we need to get out of here.”
She knew he wasn’t going to like what she was about to say next. “I need that go bag. I need to go to my house for it.”
Michael shook his head. “You know that’s not safe.”
“It’s the only way,” she said. “I need to disappear.”
“If it’s money you need, I can help you work that out,” he said.
She shook her head and tried for levity. “Do you offer money to everyone who shows up on your property?”
The hint of a smile told her the answer might be yes, but he said, “Only the people with no memories.”
Ellie found herself smiling. He was a good man, with such a generous offer. All the more reason not to get him involved in whatever was going on—any more involved.
“All I need is to be dropped off near the property.”
“Drop you off?” He gave a humorless laugh. “Not a chance.”
“I get to decide where I go, remember?” she said. “I’m going back to my house.”
Michael couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Ellie wanted him to drop her off at her house? She may as well have asked him to paint a target on her back, too. Helping Ellie run from danger was an easy choice, but helping her run toward it? That stirred up emotions he had buried years ago, emotions he had no interest in uncovering.
Except this whole situation wasn’t about him or what he wanted. It was about what she needed. And he needed to keep his emotions out of this entirely.
Reluctantly, Michael admitted to himself that even if he didn’t agree with her next move, he understood it. He looked into her eyes and saw steely determination. He admired this, that in a day full of more danger and fear than most people faced in their lifetime, she was determined, not defeated. He needed to accept the risks she was willing to take.
“And what happens if someone is waiting for you there?” he asked.
“Obviously, I won’t go in if anyone is there. But I need to try.”
He swiped a hand over his face. “How can you ask me to leave you alone at your house in a snowstorm?”
“I have an escape plan.” Michael lifted an eyebrow and she added, “A good one, I promise.”
“I want to stay with you until I see that plan in action.”
She tilted her head to the side, like she was studying him.
“Your choice,” she finally said. Then her expression softened. “We’ll check the property for footprints and car tracks first.”
Michael frowned. “I don’t like this.”
“Noted.”
He gave a wry laugh and a hint of a smile twitched at the corners of Ellie’s mouth. Then she sighed. “I don’t like it either. What else am I supposed to do? Keep running with no money, no ID, nothing? Where does that take me?”
His family had helped many people over the years, whether it was his cousin who’d needed a little time away from city life or a woman who had wandered onto their property, hungry and with nowhere to go. Growing up, his father had offered support to more people than he could count, enough that Tang Ranch was known for generosity all the way back to the San Francisco Bay Area, where his aunties and uncles and cousins lived. And yet, help had never felt like this. Michael didn’t want to think further about what this was, blooming inside him.
He opened his mouth to tell Ellie that he’d figure out how to help her, but she shook her head, like she could hear his thoughts. “No offense, but I need to be able to keep myself safe. On my own.”
“Then we better get up there right away,” he said. “Before the people in that truck dig themselves out of the snowbank. And let’s hope they don’t have cell service.”
She nodded. “It’s spotty over there, but no guarantees.”
Michael’s mind was at work, calculating their odds. Even if the men were working with the Alexander family and had made contact with one of them, they wouldn’t know Ellie’s exact location right now...though the snowmobile made enough noise to figure it out. He listened for others in the area, possible decoys, but there was only the wind. If someone wasn’t already at the house, they’d need to get in and out of it fast enough to stay ahead of their pursuers.
He climbed onto the snowmobile again and pulled on his helmet. “Ready?”
“Yes.” She put on her helmet and slipped her arms around his waist. He started the motor and, as he moved forward, her voice came through the intercom again. “Thank you. For believing me. For listening to me.”
“You’re welcome,” he said as another rush of warmth spread through him.
It had been so long since he’d felt alive like this. The danger was part of it, but there was something more, a connection with Ellie. It feels good to be helping someone else again, he told himself as the snowmobile started over the wintry terrain. That was all this was. Don’t overthink it.
Michael stayed lower on the mountain as they made their way over the bumpy terrain of the park toward private land. The mountain dipped into a valley then over a ridge. The forest ended as they crested the ridge, exposing the bare rocky land of the new development.
The Gibson family had once owned the strip of mountain between the park and Tang Ranch, but that was before ranching had gotten too hard and they’d needed to cash out. Michael hadn’t faulted the family—they’d needed the money to start a new life for themselves—but Michael didn’t like the fact that selling had been their only good option. Pete Gibson had apologized to the Tangs one night, just after Christmas, not long after he’d signed the deal. He’d told the family that the developers had promised to work with the community. But as soon as the snow had cleared that spring, the builders clear-cut all the trees on the mountainside—for fire safety, they’d said. And while this was true, there were other ways to avoid the forest fires that swept through the Sierra Nevada too often these days. First and foremost, not building right in the middle of forestland.
Once the trees were gone, there was nothing to be done about it, no matter how many codes they’d violated. Now the whole area was at a higher risk for avalanches in the snow and landslides in the rain.
Michael understood why Ellie would be stunned and hurt to find out her husband had been a part of that underhanded move—and then hidden it from her. But hearing more about what had happened with Sean’s family, Michael wondered if there wasn’t more to the story.
He turned the snowmobile up the mountain. They passed a sheer face of granite and a house came into view. They were now directly under the development.
“Which one is yours?” he asked through the intercom.
“The third one in on this side of the street.” She paused. “What are the chances someone is waiting for us?”
“I’ve been trying to figure that out.” He sounded worried. “We’ll circle the area first to make sure.”
He steered them farther up the mountain at an angle until they were riding just below the bushes and trees that marked the edge of the properties. They passed one enormous house then another. Each one seemed to be a variation on a theme: an oversize blend of traditional wooden cabins often seen in this area but with more grandiose sensibilities. The backs of the houses were lined with windows that towered up two stories and looked out over the mountain.
“These places must cost a fortune to heat,” he said.
“They do. And when the power goes out and the generator is on, it’s twice as much,” she said. “Green Living Construction was having trouble selling these houses at first, so Sean and I took this one over informally. Just so more of the houses looked occupied, Sean said. It’s technically still owned by the company, which means Aidan and Clint can sell it out from under me at any time. I think that’s why they thought I’d be more cooperative—so I could reap the benefits of the arrangement.”
“You think both Aidan and Clint would agree to do that?”
Ellie gave a humorless laugh. “They’d probably sell it tomorrow if there weren’t still two more lots for sale.” She sighed softly before admitting, “The place was too big for just two of us, and now it’s ridiculous for just me.”
“Are you ready to let the house go?”
“I guess I am,” she said quietly, though he heard hesitation in her voice. Maybe she felt the same push and pull with the reminders of her past, too.
Michael slowed the snowmobile as they approached the back of the third house. He steered through the low trees then cut the motor. The embellished A-frame rose up out of the mountain, all wood and windows. The inside was dark, as far as he could see, and an untouched blanket of snow lay between them and an enormous deck that lined the back of the house and shot out into the yard. A motor droned in the distance, but it wasn’t close.
Behind him, Ellie shifted, first in one direction then the other.
“Any signs of life?” he asked.
“Nothing yet.”
“I’ll circle the perimeter.”
Michael started the snowmobile again and they puttered past the enormous deck, where the snow lay on the railing in towering white mounds. He pulled along the side. At one time, the trees would have separated one yard from another, but the newly planted saplings just barely poked through the feet of snow. It was bare, with each house looking into the next. They slowly moved into the front. Michael continued across the yard, out toward the street. He pulled up next to the bank left by the snowplow and came to a stop. Over the top, he could just barely see a long stretch of the road, snow-covered and empty in both directions.
“I see tracks in the driveway,” said Ellie.
Michael drove along the snowbank up to the driveway to get a better look. Below the bank from the plow, there was a layer of new snow interrupted by a fresh set of thick tire tracks.
Footprints came out from both sides of the cab of the truck. One set led to the front of the house and another ventured into the deeper snow, leading to the far side of the house. Two people had been there, checking out the place.
“The men in that white truck,” she said softly into the intercom. “You think it was them?”
“Let’s hope so,” said Michael. “Otherwise we have more problems on the way.”
“Both Aidan and Clint have access to a set of keys since the company still owns the place,” she said. “We never bothered changing the locks. But they don’t have the code to the alarm.”
The alarm wasn’t going off, so it was likely no one was inside. Yet.
Ellie motioned to the far side of the house, next to the garage, and he followed that route. As they rounded the corner, a snow-covered mound came into view.
“This is my escape plan,” she said, pointing at it. “There’s a snowmobile somewhere under there.”
“Do you have the keys?”
“We keep a set to everything in a lockbox next to the back door,” she said. “I drove it into town a few weeks ago, after the last storm. It’s gassed up, so all I need to do is pull off the cover.” She patted him on his arm. “Satisfied with my plan?”
It was, in fact, a good plan, though he didn’t feel any more comfortable leaving her on her own.
“Yes, I’m satisfied. But I don’t want to leave until you have the money and your ID in your hand and I watch you drive away.”
“Got it,” she said, but there was a softness in her voice. Then she blew out a breath. “Pull up in back, and let’s do this.”