He pulled out his cell phone, debating for just a second before he sent a message to the rest of the bears. He could deal with the bullshit later if it turned out not to matter, but hewasn’t about to risk Lauren’s safety.Ran into trouble. Found my mate. She needs help. The old cabin. Come get her ASAP. Armed trouble in the trees. Be careful. Make sure she’s okay.
He made sure it went through and turned the damn thing off to he wouldn’t be distracted by or given away by any pings or dings. Plus he didn’t want to waste time explaining himself to Simon and Ethan and the rest of the mother hens at the Lodge. Finn put it out of his mind and instead focused on picking up the scent of the remaining drug runners. He headed toward where he’d hidden the bodies of the fuckers who’d crossed him the day or so before and figured the others would probably surface around the same part of the trail.
Finn adjusted his grip on the rifle and eased off the main trail to move through the trees with some concealment. The bear’s agitation increased as they got farther from Lauren with each step, until he almost couldn’t hear the world around him. The very distant sound of helicopter rotors distracted him for a heartbeat, and he searched the sky for a sign of whether it was trouble for him or someone else. Sometimes Shotgun called in airborne surveillance, but the trees and clouds made that a little unlikely, at least based on what Finn knew.
He retreated deeper into the trees and breathed deeply, hoping for any hints of those drug dealers so he could get the fuck out of Dodge.
When he finally caught the scent of unwashed men and the metallic undertones of the drugs they smuggled, it came from an unexpected direction: back toward the cabin, down the trail toward where the bear trap first injured him. Where he’d met Lauren the first time. Finn moved faster than was probably wise, given his still-sore leg, but he wasn’t going to risk those fuckers moving toward the cabin and eventually finding Lauren. The frigid air burned his lungs as he concentrated on breathingdeeply so he arrived in better shape than the probably out-of-shape fuckers who’d been hiking around looking for trouble.
The bear growled in annoyance as they had to bypass the cabin by heading down the slope, trying to pick up the trail with certainty so he didn’t have to confront the drug runners before sending evidence to Shotgun for him to handle. Plus he needed to confirm they weren’t Shotgun’s cops after all.
Finn scowled fiercely as his boots slid in the snow and the steep incline of the hill dropping away from the trail. Those fuckers would leave him with wet socks and frozen toes, on top of dragging him away from a naked and willing woman. A very excitable, curvy, adorable woman who happened to have the other half of his soul, who responded to every single touch and kiss and word. And she practically melted and caught fire at the same time when he growled a little and playfully smacked her ass.
He needed to get the fuck back to the cabin to figure out exactly how much fun they could have with that.
Finn squinted against the glare of sun on the snow covering the trail headed down to the meadow where he’d stashed his pack before hitting the bear trap. Had it really only been three, four days? How the fuck had the world changed so much in less than a week? He shook his head and dragged his attention back to find out where the fucking drug runners hid. They had to be close; he smelled them. It grew stronger every time the breeze shifted or he moved around a tree. The whole world held its breath.
He gripped the rifle and took a GPS coordinate to send to Shotgun. Maybe a starting point was good enough. Not that Finn wanted to endanger getting Lauren’s charges magicked away by half-assing what Shotgun would actually want in order to put in the effort to clear her record. He started to climb the hill to the pristine white meadow, certain the drug runners worked theirway down the trails to try and find their friends, and hoped Lauren stayed put in the cabin. He probably should have told her two hours instead of one.
LAUREN
Lauren hunkered down near the fire and tried to keep her fingers from freezing solid. The satellite phone hadn’t done what she expected and didn’t end up connecting to anything, no matter how long she listened, but it wasn’t clear whether it was her fault or the satellites were behind clouds or maybe solar flares got in the way. That was a thing, wasn’t it? Solar flares affecting GPS?
The longer Finn didn’t return, the further and faster her thoughts spiraled. She’d almost gone out to look for him at least half a dozen times, even going so far as to step outside and walk a few feet toward the trails, but inevitably she lost her nerve and retreated to the safety of the cabin. She wasn’t brave even on her best day, and if someone like Finn thought he would be back in an hour and wasn’t…who the hell was Lauren Tucker to try and show him up?
Still, though. She didn’t like it. She’d steeled herself to try the phone again when the damn thing blared an alarm that nearly stopped her heart. She grabbed it up as fast as possible to keep it from making more noise and maybe proving someone occupied the cabin, and dropped it twice as she tried to answer or silence it.
The second she hit a button and the ringing stopped, a gruff voice snapped, “All right, asshole, what thefuckis your problem, sending a message like that? Zoe is out of her fucking mind and that meansIam having a shit day, so?—”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she blurted out. Lauren gulped for air and retreated away from the blustery corner near the door. She didn’t quite whisper but she definitely didn’t shout like the man who’d called the phone. “I don’t know where Finn is.”
The other end of the call silenced, not that Lauren could have heard anything over her pounding heart. Her hand shook as she touched her forehead, turning in a circle to see whether Finn had miraculously reappeared. It sounded like he’d reached out to his friends after all. Did that mean he was in trouble? But how had he even messaged them without the phone she held?
“All right, let’s start over.” The man on the phone took a gusty, deep breath that made Lauren feel like he stood right in the room with her. Noise surrounded him, like he stood in the wind, but at least his words came through somewhat calmer than that first opening salvo. “I’m Simon. What’s your name?”
“L-Lauren.” At least he used the name Finn had given her as someone to trust, so she didn’t feel quite as bad about talking to the guy. “Did you hear from Finn?”
“He sent a message but his phone is off now. It’s fine, I’m sure it’s just bad reception.”
Her eyes narrowed as she frowned at the cabin wall and one of the busted-out windows Finn tried to cover with a tarp. Except that Simon guy shouted something about a woman named Zoe being upset by whatever Finn messaged when she first answered the call, so his claim about everything being fine didn’t add up. Of course, Finn also claimed everything was fine when he left, but it didn’t sound like it.
“Where are you now?” he asked, still too loud into the phone. It made her heart jump with every word, too close to being yelled at by her mom and teachers and boyfriends and bus drivers and just everyone in the world who didn’t have time for Lauren being too sensitive.
“The cabin,” she said. She looked around, as if an address would magically appear, and tried not to cringe. “By the park, near—near the town. There’s a road and it goes into the trees and when it curves, there’s…”
“I know which one,” he said.
Her teeth clicked together and a knot in her throat made it more difficult to breathe. She felt smaller than she had in a long time, since being arrested and marched in front of a judge and a courtroom full of scoffing rich people. Her shoulders hunched forward and she waited for him to just tell her what to do. That was how it usually worked.
Some kind of argument happened in the background, the wind and noise too much for her to pick out individual words, but the end result was a woman speaking into the phone instead. “Hi, honey. My name is Kira. Simon is…having a rough morning. We’re on the way to get you but it might be a little while. Are you safe where you’re at?”
It should have reassured her, except in Lauren’s experience women could be meaner than men. They were just better at hiding it under smiles and fake concern. She wasn’t going to let her guard down. She almost would have preferred the predictable barking and threat of the guy, but at least it was still over the phone and they couldn’t shake her in person. She just had to make sure she left before any of them got there. They’d blame her if anything happened to Finn, and if he wasn’t there…she didn’t have a reason to stay, did she?
“Lauren, honey. I need to know if you’re safe.”
She jerked back to the present, and cleared her throat a few times so it wouldn’t sound like she was about to cry. Other people hated that and she couldn’t ever explain why she wanted to cry, sometimes it just happened. “Yes. I am.”
“Good. We’re very glad to hear that, and we’re all very excited to meet you.” The woman took a deep breath, another conversation happened, then she added, “It’ll take us a bit, but…”
