Page 15 of A Mountain Man Christmas

That effectively shut her up. It was hours later, and both their stomachs were growling with hunger. Since Tristan had run out of food—and Lyla wasn’t about to share her remaining protein bars with her irksome companion—he’d decided to hunt. Theyboth sat crouched by a tree in the woods, watching a reindeer amble across a clearing, still oblivious to their presence.

Lyla had to admit she found their situation ironic. She was a bounty hunter, one of the finest—okay, maybe she was tooting her own horn here—but she’d never hunted animals before. Even more, she knew she’d suck at it if she tried. People and animals existed on different levels of complexity. It was easier to hunt people because she knew how people reasoned—at least for the most part. A reindeer was just a reindeer, Santa’s glamorized version of animal labor.

With his free hand, Tristan withdrew something from under his coat just then. A blade, she realized with a pang.

Has he been armed this entire time?she thought.

She must have spoken aloud because he suddenly glared at her. Lyla eyed the blade warily. He could’ve slit her throat at any point while she was asleep. She made a mental note to keep one eye on him at all times.

“How many more of those do you have on you?” she asked.

He cursed. “I should’ve tried harder to break these bonds. Then I’d be free of you.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

He lifted a brow in question.

“I’m not getting off this mountain anyway, right?” She shrugged. “I’ve got nowhere to go. I might as well follow you to your destination. And maybe I can make some sense of your…situation.”

He scoffed and looked away, his gaze fixed on the reindeer.

Lyla couldn’t help the curiosity that bubbled within her as she stared at him. Whatever was going on, whether this man was truly innocent or not, she wanted to figure it out. Or maybe she was simply hoping for proof of what she already knew: that he was the murderer this Angus person believed him to be. Sure, he claimed to be innocent, but the guilty rarely admitted it, even tothemselves. And Lyla was pretty good at figuring out that sort of thing. Well, usually.

She recalled what a fellow bounty hunter had told her once when they partnered on a mission: “You’ve got a pretty good nose for smelling bullshit. You could be a detective.”

Lyla had pondered it for a moment. Her colleague wasn’t wrong. “Maybe,” she’d replied. “But I think I want to stick to bounty hunting for now. In the meantime, I’ll avoid going near any bovine rear ends.”

Her colleague chuckled. “Sounds catchy—Detective Jensen, Bovine Dung Sniffer.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

Maybe it was time for Detective Jensen to take control.

“So why does Angus think you’re guilty?” she asked. “Assuming you aren’t, I mean.”

He ignored her question, which she’d kind of expected.

She decided to dig deeper. “You mentioned something about a family curse. What’s that about?”

When he stiffened next to her, she knew she’d struck gold.

“What’s the curse?” she pressed. “I mean, if it’s true, you should be able to share—”

“It’s none of your business,” he snapped.

That only fueled her curiosity, but Lyla decided not to press further. The right time would come. Theophilus Hill was old news now. She couldn’t even reach him if she wanted to. But now she had another problem to tackle.

Tristan raised his weapon. The curved blade caught the sun’s rays, nearly blinding her for a split second. It occurred to her just then that catching the reindeer might be a lot more difficult with their wrists still handcuffed. By the time they decided to strike, their prey would’ve sensed them.

Before she could voice out her concerns, the deer’s ears perked up. The creature glanced to one side, its eyes wide like it hadbeen caught in headlights, and promptly took off in the opposite direction, disappearing through the trees.

Tristan shot her a glare that said,If I starve to death, I’m going to haunt you.

“What?” Lyla said as they rose to their feet. “That wasn’t my fault. It just—”

“Shh!”

He moved so quickly that she had no time to blink before he clamped his cuffed hand over her mouth. Lyla started to protest but was interrupted by the sound of twigs snapping. A second later, she heard the crunch of footsteps in the snow, growing louder by the second.

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