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

the windows, feeling like he should give her a little space, though it was hard in a cabin this small. He glanced at his watch. Forty-five minutes since Noah had left. He’d said he’d return within an hour. Clay didn’t think Summer had noticed how much time had passed yet, so he left the subject alone. She didn’t need to add any worries about her brother to the ones he could already see she was carrying.

Although something had seemed to lessen that weight a little since the hike yesterday. She seemed different somehow, her face a little lighter. But she was still carrying a burden on her shoulders. Her past? The killer? Clay didn’t know which. But he wished he could fix it for her.

Instead he prayed, knowing God could handle whatever it was. And then he made her another cup of tea because it was always nice to do something tangible too.

She took the tea with a smile, then it flickered away into a frown. “How long has Noah been gone? It seems like it’s been a while.”

Clay hesitated before answering. He looked at his watch again. “Just short of an hour.”

“You’ve got to go look for him.”

“He’s not late yet.”

“He said within an hour,” she argued. “He wouldn’t have said that if he didn’t mean it.”

Clay shook his head. “He may have misestimated. He’d have had to hike back down to the tree line for firewood and that may have taken longer than he expected it to.”

Her expression made it clear she wasn’t comforted. “And he may have walked into some kind of trap.”

Clay looked out the window. The sky was a cloudless blue. After taking so long to get to the Kenai, the summer weather seemed to be showing off for them. The early morning chill was probably gone too. There was no visible reason it should have taken Noah longer than he’d planned.

But Clay wasn’t leaving Summer. That wasn’t even an option. And taking her with him back down the exposed ridgeline wasn’t a good idea in his opinion, either.

“You’ve got to find him, Clay.” Summer had come up behind him and he turned to face her, already shaking his head.

“I can’t, Summer. You’re my first priority.”

She didn’t argue but her expression made her thoughts clear. Another stretch of time passed. Noah was now half an hour later than he should have been.

“We’ve got to do something,” she muttered, looking at Clay with such a wide-eyed look of desperation that he nodded.

“I’ll use the SAT phone and call the Moose Haven Police. Maybe they can send someone up just to double-check.” It would extend the circle of people who knew where they were, which was something they’d taken great care to avoid, but it was the best option he had.

“Thank you.” Summer’s voice was quiet.

Clay made the call, gave them the location where Noah should be and also called Tyler at the lodge to let him know. It didn’t seem fair for him to be kept in the dark.

“Thanks, man.” Tyler’s voice was genuinely appreciative.

“You’d do the same for me,” Clay said.

“I would. You take care of my sister, okay?”

“I’m not planning to let anything happen to her.”

“I mean... I mean more than that.” Tyler sighed. “I’m trying to tell you if you want to pursue her, if you really do know everything that happened and you feel like you can treat her like she deserves, you have my blessing for what it’s worth.”

Clay smiled. Maybe a little late considering that kiss, but he appreciated knowing his friend wouldn’t have a problem knowing he’d fallen in love with his sister. He’d truly only been trying to protect her. “Thanks, Tyler.”

He hung up the phone and filled Summer in on everything except what Tyler had said about the two of them. It wasn’t the time for that.

He noticed her looking out the window while he talked and finally asked her what she was looking at.

“It’s so sunny...and yet, did you notice it getting hazier out there?” She sniffed the air. “And I smell smoke.”

Clay shook his head. “I don’t smell anything.”

She leaned closer to the window, then turned and walked to another one. “I’m sure, Clay. That’s where it’s coming from, the smoke. Look.”

He followed her and looked where she motioned. There was smoke, billowing from somewhere just behind the cabin. Maybe from the cabin itself.

Options seemed limited at that point. He ran through them, discarding them as he went. Bringing Summer with him to check out the fire was a bad option. Leaving Summer alone in the cabin was a bad option. Both of them staying in the cabin was a bad option.

If this wasn’t an accident, wasn’t a patch of dry grass that had sparked somehow...

The chances of it being a natural, accidental fire seemed slim. Lightning was rare enough in this part of Alaska, and when you added in the fact that the sky still had hardly a cloud, nothing that would indicate lightning...

If the killer wasn’t out there, Clay had no idea what had happened.

But if it was the killer, then he had them. Checkmate. Clay couldn’t let the two of them burn to death up there, knowing they hadn’t even tried to fight.

“Okay, Summer, listen to me.”

“This is really bad isn’t it?”

She had paled and Clay grabbed both her upper arms, gently but with enough firmness to get her attention. “I need you to look at me. I need you to stay focused and I need you to be the amazing, tough mountain runner you always have been and conquer whatever this situation is becoming.”

“Is he out there?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“But you’re going to go see.”

He nodded as he removed his weapon from his holster. “I’m going to leave this with you.”

“You can’t go out there knowing there may be a killer with nothing to fight with, Clay.”

“I can’t leave you without anything, either.”

“You have to. I’ve got bear spray, but you have one chance at eliminating the threat before it gets