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

of our exact location. Either Silvertip Creek or Six Mile Creek. If we follow Six Mile we’ll end up at a rest stop, near the Hope Cutoff.”

Clay remembered that road, one that led to the small town of Hope. “So we have options for contacting civilization if we can get to either of those locations.”

“It’ll be a long hike. But yes. The rest stop has an emergency phone.”

“I hear the creek.”

It was wide enough to give Clay some pause, especially as it ran cold and fast like most creeks in Alaska. A slip in one of those could be deadly.

“Let’s go.” Clay broke his hesitation and stepped in. Summer followed.

“He’s coming, isn’t he?”

“Why?”

“You’ve gotten faster.”

“Maybe I just wanted to keep up with you.”

“Nah. You’re running like it matters.” Summer made her way across the creek with the calm aplomb of an Alaskan woman who’d done this many times before. Clay was still dealing with the shock the cold water was to his legs but continued on.

Then they were out.

“Up?” Summer asked.

The landscape in front of them rose dramatically to a lower mountain ridge that connected to a bigger mountain that loomed in front of them.

“Yes. Let’s go.”

They ran without talking anymore, both of them sweating at this point even in the mild temperatures.

“I really hope we don’t startle a bear. We should be making noise.”

“It’s a risk we have to take. I’d rather meet a bear than whoever’s at the other end of that gun.”

Summer turned and met his eyes before she kept running. “I don’t want to meet either.”

Summer ran like she was in the World Mountain Running Championships and victory was on the line. But there was so much more at stake than that here. The adrenaline coursing through her, it was all wrong. Running had never been a method of escape for her, she’d never run from anything. Always to something. Like her dreams.

Then again, hadn’t she been running from her past for years? Running from the memories of when her dream career almost came true?

She stopped when she noticed something in the trees. The light was changing, getting brighter. She turned to Clay, who was keeping pace well, even if he did seem winded.

“We’re almost out of the tree line. We need to head one direction or another along the edge of it or we’ll be back in plain sight again.”

“We need to stay out of his sight, that’s what’s most important right now.”

“That’s what I figured. So left or right?”

She waited for him to decide. Left took them toward Moose Haven; right took them back toward Anchorage. Neither place was close enough to walk to. On one hand, she guessed the killer might expect them to head toward the Hope Cutoff on the left, but then again it was impossible to know for sure what he’d be expecting. It wasn’t worth making a bad choice just to try to throw him off.

She looked left, thought about Silvertip Creek and Six Mile Creek. They widened toward the Hope Cutoff, near the Canyon Creek rest stop, and the land around the creek became steeper.

Summer glanced at Clay. Should she offer her opinion, treat him like they were some kind of team, them against a serial killer? Or wait and let him do the protecting?

“What do you think?” He turned to her.

Summer smiled. She should have known he’d ask for her input. Clay Hitchcock may have drifted into Moose Haven like so many loners who came to Alaska to work short-term jobs, but he wasn’t the same as they were. He was a team player, something she assumed had served him well in law enforcement.

“We need to go left, toward the cutoff.”

“Left it is, then. Keep going.”

Summer kept moving, careful not to trip on the roots that tangled on the forest floor. Her muscles were handling the climb fine, but her heart rate was pounding—mostly, she assumed, from the certainty that their lives were in danger.

“Where are we headed, specifically?” Clay asked after a minute.

“Do you want to keep going until we can’t run anymore? Or take shelter somewhere?”

“I think we’re better off taking shelter to rest after we’ve gone a decent distance. The town of Hope is within range of us technically but I don’t know if there’s a way for us to pick our way there on trails.”

“I’m not sure, either. I know we are headed that way but I don’t know how realistic it is to make it all the way to Hope.” Summer winced. “There’s bound to be a trail near the creek, at least a game trail, but that’s not very sheltered and I’m hesitant to stick next to a creek when it’s summer.”

“Bears?”

She nodded. “And of course neither of us has bear spray.”

“I’ve got my weapon.” He patted his side.

“What is that, a .45?” She raised her eyebrows. “So if we need something noisy to try to scare the bear away we’re set, but I’m afraid it’s not going to help with much more than that.”

“Okay, so we’ll take the route you mentioned. We’ll go as far as we can, take a rest and then decide where we should hike out.”

“You think he’ll track us for long?”

“I have no idea. I do know that as well as you know these woods we have a fighting chance. I’m not sure we would without you.”

Summer loved the way he smiled at her just then, like she mattered, like she was important. “Thanks, Clay.”

And just that fast, the moment was over. He nodded to the left, where they’d planned to go. “Let’s go, okay. He’s probably still back there.”

Summer was careful not to leave much of a trace as she picked her way through the spruce trees, between them, sometimes doubling back to mess up the trail, and showing Clay how to do the same, but never straying too far because time was still important and she couldn’t afford to waste too much of it on deception when they didn’t even know if the