Page 41 of A Little More Forgiveness

The fast-falling flakes easily covered any tracks he might have made. Hell, Mitch’s were already fading in the short time he’d been gone.

“Nothing,” he shouted across to me as he went to search the barns. “Both empty.”

“You don’t think he’d have gone into the forest, do you?” I asked Mitch. “Or tried to go down to the lake?”

He shook his head, studying the swirling white. “In this weather? He’d be out of his mind to attempt such a thing.”

“Or pissed.”

“Fuck.” Mitch turned almost as white as our surroundings. “Wait here while I get the GPS phone and my gear.” He hurried inside, returning a few moments later, his face as white as a sheet. “He’s taken his bag, as well as his coat and hat.”

“Perhaps he’s thinking of staying in one of the guest cabins?” I reasoned, but as soon as the words came out, I recognized how ridiculous they sounded. After working on them yesterday, I knew they were totally uninhabitable. With no water or heat, there’s no way he’d think of staying in one alone.

“So there’s no other route into town other than the road out front?”

He shook his head. “Not by truck.”

“And by foot?”

Mitch’s eyes went as wide as saucers. “There’s an old hunting trail to the east, leading into town—a fork off the main trail into the mountains. I’ve used it a few times over the years, but the path is narrow and steep in places. I pointed it out to Leo while we were exercising the horses. It’s a difficult enough route in the summer, but in winter, in all this snow…” he trailed off and took in a shaky breath. “We need to find him in case he does something foolish.” If Mitch was nervous about venturing out into the forest, it didn’t bode well for Leo being out there on his own.

“This is solid and dependable Leo we’re talking about. He’d never attempt anything so reckless,” I reassured him, while also trying to reassure myself. I hoped to hell I was right, and Leo wouldn’t be so blinded by fury as to try to follow the trail, but anger made a man do unusual things sometimes, even when he knew rationally, he shouldn’t.

“We need to go now,” Mitch ordered and stomped out of the cabin. He did a check of the single-track road we’d driven in on forty-eight hours ago to satisfy himself Leo hadn’t walked in that direction, before heading back the way we came. This time he walked down the side of his home toward the trail located behind the cabin that led into the forest.

We didn’t speak, each of us scanning the area, hoping to spot Leo in the distance. He must have at least a half-hour head start on us by now, and may well be more than a mile away, despite the heavy snow hindering his progress.

As we walked, I wondered how on earth we’d gotten ourselves into this mess. Had it really only been a couple days since our arrival? It felt more like a couple of weeks since we’d been marooned here. So much had happened in such a short space of time my head spun. My original reason for coming here in the first place, to get Mitch to sign the contract, seemed like a hazy memory. Plus, the longer I stayed, the further from my mind the idea of him selling became. On paper, I owned 50 percent of everything around me, but in truth, this was Mitch’s home, and always would be, plain and simple.

Chuck and Norris loped off ahead of us, alternating between their noses being close to the ground, twitching, or up sniffing the air. I reasoned if anyone could find Leo, those two would.

Underneath the shelter of the trees, the snowfall lessened somewhat, and the cold white blobs floated lazily through the branches to land in our path.

After ten minutes of following the trail we both stopped. “Is that footprints?” I asked.

Mitch crouched down to get a better look. “Yep, and I’ve only taken this route on horseback, so it’s got to be him.”

“That’s a good sign, right? At least we know he came this way.”

Mitch nodded, straightened up, and took off at a faster pace. In my efforts to keep up with his long strides, I skidded and slipped on patches of ice more than once as we traipsed through the compacted snow. Almost jogging while wearing a thick jacket didn’t help either. The sweat poured off me, drenching my T-shirt until the material clung to my skin, but I gritted my teeth and kept pushing on. Luckily, Leo’s steps remained true, and the faster along the track we traveled, the more visible they became. We were gaining on him!

The forest abutted the meandering path on either side, getting thicker and denser the farther into the distance we went, until the landscape merged into a mass of brown and green and white in every direction, the scent of pine hanging sweet and heavy in the air. In any other circumstances, I might have enjoyed the scenery, but instead, I kept replaying the conversation I’d had with Mitch in the kitchen as I scanned the way ahead for any signs of Leo.

What on earth was I doing? I’d already flirted with Leo yesterday morning and had hardly begun kissing him when the dogs had interrupted us. And now, all kinds of alarm bells should be sounding after nearly kissing Mitch last night. Did I really want to risk getting involved with him too?

Had I not learned my lesson already?

Leo was supposed to be a fast and quick hookup once we’d gotten out of here and nothing more, yet now, I worried like crazy something may have happened to him. Add in that he undoubtedly heard Mitch say he was jealous of him, and my gut churned with anxiety. What if Leo was also jealous of me? What if he wanted Mitch as much as I was beginning to?

Things were getting way too fucked up, and if I didn’t rein in my impulses soon, they’d get completely out of hand, and I refused to make the return journey into the negative headspace I found myself in after being double dumped. If the three of us started something, I knew all too well how it would end, with me being rejected as the awkward third they didn’t really want. But, annoyingly, I also couldn’t shake loose the idea of having them both. Thinking of them taking turns to fuck me into the mattress made my body heat up and shiver with need at the same time. I shouldn’t want them, certain how things would turn out, but dammit I did.

We rounded a corner and Mitch’s strong arm suddenly swung out across my chest, pulling me up short and stopping me in my tracks.

“What is it?”

He tilted his head for me to look and I noted we’d reached a more dangerous section of the path, which narrowed considerably, clinging to the side of the rock, with a steep drop on the other side. If I’d have carried on walking, I’d likely have slipped, and the idea of falling over the side scared the living daylights out of me. I turned to look at Mitch, his breath streaming in the cold air from the exertion of trekking in the snow for the last hour.

“Look.” He pointed at a section of snow with a chunk missing, leaving a gap on the edge of the trail near a shiny patch of ice. The dogs crisscrossed the area in front of us, pacing and sniffing all around the rim where the path dropped off into the gorge below.

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