Alaskan Mountain Pursuit Elizabeth Goddard (best short novels .TXT) 📖

Oddly enough, except on ridgelines.

Summer exhaled, managed to stop thinking so much, stop analyzing as she continued to hike through the trees. They broke through the tree line after about forty-five minutes of hard hiking, and then they were on the edge of the mountain, taking the trail that led straight up to the ridge, which they’d travel for another half a mile before reaching their family’s cabin.

It was the best possible place for a safe house because they could see the trail to it clearly over a considerable distance. Anyone coming would be obvious because the cabin sat at the end of a ridge. To approach it from any other direction, avoiding the path, would take climbing skills that few people had.

When Summer was up on the ridge her thoughts drifted back again, pounding in her heart to the rhythm of her quickened heartbeat.

Up here, what Jenna Hunt’s mom had asked for felt easy. Up here, she could feel alive, even now. The irony got to her, but she couldn’t explain it. How could someone who wanted control so desperately possibly feel the best up here, at the mercy of nature?

Because the ridgeline was a visible reminder that she wasn’t in control. That life wasn’t about that, wasn’t about risk management.

It was about...life.

Abundant life.

Summer stopped, there in the trail. Looked up at Noah, but he didn’t turn around. Turned back to Clay, but he just frowned like he was worried about her. “You okay?” he asked after she’d been staring at him for a minute.

Abundant life. Where had that idea, which felt almost like a correction to her thoughts, come from?

She looked out over the landscape of the Kenai Peninsula beneath them, breathing deep as she surveyed the green of the trees in the valley below, the ethereal blue-green of the river below and then Seal Bay off in the distance, and the town of Moose Haven.

Then her eyes looked out farther, to the next mountain range. Ridges, valleys, endless nothing, and Summer felt like she always did on a ridgeline. So very small.

You are so big, God. So much more powerful than I am.

The admission was the first prayer she’d prayed in years that hadn’t been asking for something, the first attempt at conversation she’d made with her Creator since she’d walked away from what she’d believed.

Summer started walking again. She didn’t want the men to have to wait for her, and she knew they must both be on edge with them so exposed at the moment, outside of the relative safety of the cabin’s walls.

But as she walked, she kept praying.

Did You remind me about that, about abundant life? Because I know You’re right. Life isn’t the point, not even living it to the fullest, though I think that’s better than not. But You want us to live to the fullest not just for those we’ve lost but for You. As a way to thank You for this world, for the ridgelines, for the valleys, for all of it.

Tears stung in her eyes. For innocence lost. A baby whose tiny feet had melted Summer’s heart, though they would never walk on earth. For the family she’d gotten back but had held at arm’s length.

For her relationship with Jesus. Which she’d pushed away or ignored for so long that it felt like a natural reaction. Much more natural than this looking around, praying, praising.

“Do you want to be made well?”

Summer recognized the quote, from somewhere in the New Testament. Jesus had asked that of a woman when He’d walked the earth.

Was He asking her that now? Or was her mind just recalling Scriptures it had known in the past?

Either way, Summer nodded, felt her chest tighten a little and then release, her shoulders feeling lighter than they had in years.

“Yes,” she whispered to God as she looked out over the mountains He had created. And still created her. “Yes I do.”

SIXTEEN

The cabin was the perfect safe house. Clay had seen as soon as they’d begun their approach down the ridgeline why Noah had been so sure they had the best possible location in mind. Egress would be almost impossible without detection.

He and Noah had talked while Summer was packing, working out logistics. Noah had a SAT phone with him, since regular cell phones wouldn’t get service this far from a tower, and he’d call the Moose Haven PD to keep in touch with the other officer there to see if any progress was being made. They both voiced the hope that maybe tampering with the gas lines at the lodge would be where the guy would mess up, that maybe he’d made some kind of mistake that would result in him finally getting caught.

But neither of them was counting on that, and they’d made plans for who would take which watch, what to do in case of several contingencies. Clay felt they were as well prepared as they could be. Having at least one more officer would have been ideal, but there just wasn’t the manpower to spare. Even two men were more than was practical, but this was Summer and no one was taking chances with her safety.

Ten feet from the cabin Noah stopped hiking and turned back. “Stay with Clay,” he told Summer.

She did so and Noah went inside to clear the building, though they had no reason to believe the killer would have been able to anticipate them coming up here.

Clay’s only concern was the fact that this cabin wasn’t a secret. Noah insisted it wasn’t extremely well-known, but the fact was that someone might know, and Clay didn’t want their location to somehow make it to the attention of the man who wanted Summer dead.

He had the uncomfortable feeling that he might be wrestling with some trust issues. But it was a valid question his heart couldn’t stop asking—Why was God letting Summer be stalked by this man? Why wasn’t He helping the police find his identity so they could eliminate the