Mara chewed on her conversation with Tanner as she let stinging water inject warmth into her body. If it was possible to store up heat and comfort, she intended to try her best to do both. With no hair dryer to be found, she didn’t risk shampooing her thick hair. It would not do to be on the run in freezing temps with wet hair. Soon they would be battling the elements again, but hopefully it would be the final leg of the sprint for survival. The danger hadn’t lessened one iota, but her spirit was more buoyant than it had been since April.
The shower washed another thought to the top. It wasn’t simply the trailer and the hot water and food that soothed her soul. It was Tanner. Why, she wondered? Regret, perhaps, that she’d never allowed herself to relax her defenses around him. Never tried to push through their easygoing, surface level banter. She hadn’t been willing to risk getting to know him or anybody, but Eli’s pursuit had peeled away all her pretensions and exposed a deep need to be authentic. Tanner with his quiet intelligence and deep reservoir of feelings attracted her like a warm ray of sunlight on a winter day. The new Mara realized she’d lost too many opportunities already.
She jerked off the taps. Don’t go getting yourself confused. He’s here to get you home. He’s told you he won’t love someone else after Allie, so shut down that line of thinking pronto, missy.
Dried, dressed, blissfully warm and clean, she double-checked the backpack and supplies she’d stowed and wrote a note with the PKN9’s contact information so Alice could reach out for reimbursement, affixing it with a magnet to the tiny fridge. On the counter, the opened box of pancake mix caught her attention. They’d need every calorie they could pack down to complete their arduous journey. There would be no way to cook after they left the trailer, but premade pancakes could be wrapped in foil and would be lightweight enough to carry along. A smart idea, she figured. Who knew when they’d have a chance to restock their food supplies? The biggest problem was that she couldn’t wrap up the delicious warmth of the trailer and take it along, but she had some ideas about that too.
After lighting the gas stove, she put a pan on to heat and stirred together the mix and water. When the cast iron sizzled, she grabbed a potholder to steady it while she poured in big spoonfuls of batter. After the pancakes had turned golden brown, she wrapped them in foil and stowed the warm bundle in her backpack. One more batch to go.
She was about to ladle in more batter when she heard Britta bark, loud and intense. The trailer floor vibrated. Someone was approaching fast. The door slammed open. Tanner and Britta charged in.
“Get down,” he shouted, shutting the door and bolting it.
Mara dropped the potholder and fell to her knees. Bullets sprayed through the trailer windows, chips of glass biting into her scalp. Eli and Vinny. She’d not heard snowmobiles. They must have come on foot.
You let your guard down. When will you learn?
Tanner yanked his weapon free. He popped up and fired through the fractured glass as another hail of bullets slammed in, gouging holes in the cupboards and tattering the curtains. The blast pierced her eardrums.
Tanner gestured to Britta and she belly crawled over to Mara. “Take Britta and go out the back. Get away from here.”
“Not without you.”
His brow furrowed. “We’re not going down this road again. I’ll buy you some time to get away. You have to go.”
“Eli knows my general location now, Tanner. I won’t survive by myself. I need you and Britta. Nothing has changed.” And she desperately did not want Tanner to wage a losing war against Eli. He would die at the hands of a man who had already ended two lives and would harm her father to get what he wanted. No scruples, no mercy. She couldn’t allow that. A bullet sailed into the kitchen, clanging against the cast iron pan and letting a spark loose before it ricocheted and bored into the ceiling. An acrid smell of smoke burned her nostrils.
He turned a tortured look at her, mouth twisted. “Mara, go...”
She tipped her chin up, touching Britta for encouragement. “Give me a count, then we all make a break for it.” She knew he would acquiesce. He had to. Part of her felt bad about forcing his hand, but not bad enough to change her mind. Another shot sizzled through the trailer and blew apart a cupboard door, spewing wood fragments down around them. She barely contained her scream.
While Tanner darted a look out the window, she grabbed the backpack and both sets of snowshoes. The potholder had touched the burner and ignited sending up a yellow flame. Smoke filled the trailer. There was no time to worry about that now.
Tanner returned fire again. He crawled across the floor, hooked the chair and dragged it to the front door, jamming it under the handle. “This will only buy us minutes. They’ll check the back.”
She thrust the snowshoes at him. “Then we’d better make the most of the minutes.” She shoved open the rear door, sat on the steps and strapped on the snowshoes. Within seconds she hopped off, Tanner took one more shot and did the same. Snow was falling steadily, the wind shrieking in the pines. Tanner faced Britta and pointed to the dense forest.
“Away.”
Britta pranced off, booties whisking through the snow. The dog knew Eli’s scent and she also knew they had gained as much distance from it as possible.
Tanner urged Mara ahead of him, their floundering first steps evening out as they found a rhythm with their snowshoes. Another rattle of bullets plowed into the trailer behind them, sending a piece of the solar panel whirling through the air. Her muscles in her back and shoulders tightened. The next bullets might find them.
Heads down, they soldiered on in Britta’s wake.
The subsequent shots were swallowed up by a whooshing sound. They jerked as an explosion split the sky, vibrating the snow under their feet. An orange plume of flame erupted from the top of the trailer.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“A bullet must have caught the gas line and the burning potholder added the heat.”
Her heart squeezed as the trailer that had saved their lives began to burn. Alice had risked so much to get them here. Mara hoped the falling snow would snuff out the flames before it was a total loss. Had Eli and Vinny been near the explosion? Were they dead? Wounded?
Tanner took her hand. “Might help us. Delay their pursuit if the explosion didn’t catch them. Let’s go.”
As she struggled along, he took the heavy pack from her shoulders, adding it to the one he already carried.
She didn’t argue. It was all she could do to maintain their rapid pace through the trees. Her thoughts churned in frantic circles. If Vinny and Eli hadn’t been injured, perhaps the explosion would make them worry about drawing attention, if there was anyone around in such tumultuous weather. There was no way they could stop to check on their pursuers. She clomped along, focused on putting one clumsy foot in front of the other, avoiding rocks and fallen branches swaddled in white. Her breath came in frozen puffs and the driving flakes cut at her cheeks. Tanner grabbed her arm when she foundered and, strangely, tugged her off their chosen path toward two towering crags.
“Wrong way,” she called over the wind.
Tanner ignored her comment and moved with purpose. Britta hesitated, ears cocked, waiting for Mara. Worried that Tanner was confused, she followed. Their unexpected segue was veering them nearer to the trailer, not farther away.
When they drew closer to a massive snow-covered ridge, he paused to pull off his snowshoes before propelling her toward a narrow, rocky gap. In a daze, she removed her snowshoes. What was he thinking? Leading them back toward Eli? Finding a hiding place amidst the rocks? Perhaps he’d gotten disoriented.
“Tanner,” she tried again, grabbing at his sleeve, but he put a finger to his lips and bent close until his mouth touched her cheek.
“Plan B.” He kissed her before he drew away.
A kiss? It buzzed a warm electric spark on her cheek. She hadn’t dreamed it. He had actually kissed her in the midst of the frightening chaos. Her heart pounded at the unexpected gesture. There was the tiniest quirk of a smile on his lips, though he seemed every bit intense and ready for an ambush. He extended his gloved hand to her.
Without hesitation, she took it. Did she trust him? She did. And she would follow no matter where he led her. It should have felt strange to abandon the guardedness that had been a hallmark of her life, yet it didn’t. Natural, that’s how it felt. As if she was following a path and a person God had provided just for her.
Mystified, she allowed him to guide her up, over the snow-covered granite humps. Britta kept pace as easily as if she was part mountain goat, but Mara’s boots slipped and skidded on the frozen rock. When they got to a high point, the wind nearly flattened her. Backs pressed to the rock, Tanner pulled out the binoculars.
The seconds scrolled past, long and tense as he searched the terrain. “I don’t see them.”
“Do you think they went back for their snowmobiles?”
“That would be my guess. If they escaped the explosion, they probably split up. One after us on foot, the other returning for a machine.”
Mara tried to get her bearings. “I can’t acclimate. Where are we? Which direction is the campground and B and B?”
“That way,” Tanner said, stabbing a finger northward. “But we’re going to make a detour in the other direction. Climbing over the rocks was the fastest way to get back to where we need to be.”
“A detour? Why?”
He didn’t smile, but through the falling snow she thought she detected that mischievous gleam again. “Later, we’ll talk. Now, we move.”
Conversation ended, they climbed on.
Threading their way between the boulders, they climbed over a rocky ridge and down the other side. By the time they’d made it over the rock pile, she was winded, fingertips rubbed raw. Her boots punched into a patch of thigh-deep snow, instantly icing her lower limbs. Wriggling only served to sink her further. She was trapped in a snowy cocoon.
“Tanner...”
“Coming. Watch,” he told his dog.
Britta scrambled up a fallen pine that had come to rest crookedly against another one. Nose quivering, she sampled the air.
He reached for Mara. “Hold on to me.”
She grabbed his biceps and he extracted her from the snow, hoisting her into his arms as if he was cradling a baby.
She hadn’t time to even protest her awkward position as he carried her to the lower part of the pine, settling her on the trunk where he strapped on her snowshoes. She could do it herself, but with her fingers sore and freezing, it was better to let him. After hauling himself from the snow, he perched on the trunk next to her and tied on his own set. Again he took out the binoculars. “They won’t suspect the route we’ve taken, but there’s the chance they might have spotted us crossing the rocks. I don’t see...”
Britta growled, low.
He jerked the lenses in the direction she was alerting. “Good girl, Britta.” With one hand he stroked her ears. “I see him. It’s Eli moving along the path heading away from the trailer.”
Her stomach somersaulted. How could he still be in pursuit mode? Didn’t the man ever slow? “Probably going for his machine?”
“No doubt.”
Their window of escape was closing. Again. It was as though she was in the path of a relentless avalanche, no matter which way she turned or how fast she fled, Eli was there. And not just Eli. Vinny too. Tanner was right. The two men had split up. Vinny was tracking them on foot. Two enemies pinching in from different directions. They’d be caught. Quickly. She was almost too numb to feel the despair.
“The plan will still work. We’ll head through the trees and backtrack to a spot about a quarter mile from the trailer.”
She swallowed the tears. “But how is that going to help?” They should be heading away in the direction Britta had first led them. Tanner had already hopped down from the trunk. She had no choice but to do the same.
Tanner either hadn’t heard her question or didn’t want to answer. He had some scheme in mind and he was still confident it would work.
If he was confident, she would be too.
Praying his plan B would work, she pressed on after him.
Tanner wished they had time to shelter in place in the purple shadows of the pine forest, but he didn’t dare. The winds might not be enough to completely obliterate their tracks and with Vinny no doubt on their tail, they didn’t have much of a head start unless they’d managed to throw him off by climbing over the boulder pile. Vinny could be radioing information to Eli who would return as quickly as possible or circle around to cut them off once he figured out what Tanner was up to.
The branches absorbed some of the tumult while they moved parallel to the trailer again, which he knew was confusing Mara. She’d chosen to trust, instead of confronting him.
Lord, please help me make this work.
He didn’t doubt that God heard his prayer, but he also knew God sometimes said no in heart-shattering ways, like He had with Allie. Tanner would never understand why she had to die, but he was coming to terms with the mystery of a God who both loved and said no. It could not be “no” this time, could it? A pointless question. His duty was to struggle on with Mara, no matter how impossible the odds.
Deep in his bones he knew he wouldn’t fail her, nor her brother, or Willow, Mara’s father, all the people who were counting on him to bring her home. God would give him enough, moment by moment, perhaps, but it would be sufficient. He didn’t know why it felt different than his bedside entreaties for Allie, but somehow it was.
They pushed on, stopping to check for signs of pursuit, wading along through the snow as if they were lumbering bears rudely awakened from their winter hibernation. Mara was dropping behind, fatigued. Britta looped back every few yards to encourage her with a tail wag or nose bump. Britta was tiring too, he could tell, and his own legs burned from the awkward waddling the snowshoes required. He decided he would up his gym quad workouts if he got back to Olympia.
Not if, when.
The hillocks of snow all began to look frighteningly familiar. Had he accidentally led them in a circle? Doubts swirled with the whirling bits of ice.
What if he couldn’t find what he’d hidden? He remembered the utter vulnerability he’d felt that day when he’d been stranded on the glacier, cold, helpless to change his destiny. How small and insignificant, a puny flesh and blood man against the massive power of nature.
Same crushing wilderness, no help in sight, but he wasn’t helpless now. Not even close. He had Britta and Mara and a lot more confidence in himself and the Lord. With gritted teeth he pulled out his phone and powered it on. By cupping his hands over the screen, he checked the GPS coordinates.
Correcting course, he led them to the hollow of three mighty oaks where the wind became more of a murmur than a scream. There, just under the snow-covered rock, was a corner of a blue tarp, lovelier than any sight he’d ever encountered. Relief warmed him from the inside out. He offered Mara a water bottle and drank from one himself before he filled his collapsible cup for Britta.
“All right. We can rest here for a few minutes before the next phase of plan B.”
Mara wiped the water from her chapped lips. “Which is?”
He allowed himself a satisfied grin as he savored the green of her eyes and the sparkles that coated her lashes. “Why walk when you can ride?”
Her utter confusion made him laugh. “Did you call for a cab?” she quipped.
He picked up a corner of the tarp he’d buried and yanked it aside, revealing the snowmobile from the trailer. “Voila.”
“Tanner! You’re brilliant.” She grabbed him in a hug that rocked him from side to side. His arms went around her, pulling her close, locking her next to his trip-hammering heart. He pressed his cold cheek against her head and her warmth eased into his frozen body. That kiss, the one he’d playfully pressed to her cheek, begged for a follow-up but it was enough simply to hold her close. He almost staggered when she let him go, staring at the machine.
“How in the world did you get it here?”
He chuckled. “Not so astonishing, really. While you were showering and cooking, it occurred to me that having all our assets in one place put us at a disadvantage, so I filled up the tank, hoped the storm would muffle the noise and drove it out here. I covered the tarp with snow and stored the coordinates on my phone so I could find it again.”
Her smile was more brilliant than sunlight on snow. “I am stunned by your cagey wilderness skills.”
He bowed. “I aim to please.” A clump of snow fell from overhead, startling them both, bringing them back to earth. “That’s still the risk. Once we fire it up, if he’s close, or Vinny is, they’ll know our location immediately.”
She shook her head. “They probably already do anyway.”
“I’d originally thought we’d travel by night, but I don’t think we can wait with Vinny behind us. Do you agree?”
“I do. I’m ready. Let’s roll.”
He quirked a brow. “Are you sure you’re not justifying again because you’re tired of snowshoeing hither and yon?”
Her grin lit up her face and his heart. “Hither is fine, it’s the yon that’s getting to me and besides, what could be better than you, me and Britta treating two killers to a taste of our exhaust?”
“I can’t think of a single thing.” He eyed the terrain. “You’re absolutely positive? Once I turn on the engine, the cat’s out of the bag.” And the noise would paint an even bigger bullseye on their backs.
She reached for his hand. “Do we have time for a prayer?”
Her hand, offered to him, tore open something in his heart. He’d prayed relentlessly for Allie, yet it occurred to him that it was the very first time he would pray out loud with another woman. Wrong, you can’t pray with Mara.
But his heart and soul disagreed with his brain. Slowly he took her hand. “Yes,” he said around a clog in his throat. “Let’s pray.”
She did the talking and he mumbled a fervent “amen.”
Less than a minute, but somehow it was perfect, humble gratitude, and faith-filled expectation. The tear inside him resettled itself and he had the strangest sensation of healing. In a daze, he climbed onto the driver’s seat, and she seated herself behind him. Britta squeezed in the space between them. Removing the key from his pocket, he hesitated. The stakes were huge. There was no turning back.
He felt the pressure of his dog against his back and Mara’s arms wrapped around his waist. Huge stakes indeed, he thought as he turned the key.
But the good guys were going to win this time.