Page 3 of A Mountain Man Christmas

“How much longer is this flight going to take?” she grumbled.

The man next to her tapped his chin. “We should be touching down in less than an hour.”

“Great, because I want to remain in this seat for the next hour.” Rolling her eyes, Lyla unbuckled her seatbelt and rose to her feet. “I need to use the bathroom.”

What you need is sleep, said a voice in the back of her mind, but she dismissed it instantly. She’d get some rest once Theophilus Hill got what was coming to him.

She turned into the aisle, heading toward the back of the cabin…and froze in her tracks.

“You,” she snarled.

The man she was glaring at had on a dark suit that complemented his even darker beard. He was big, almost too big for his seat. A chill traveled through Lyla’s body, filling her with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. She’d found him!

She reached underneath her coat for her handcuffs. There was nowhere for Hill to escape. She’d slap the cuffs on him and…

Wait a minute.“You’re not…you’re not him.”

The man she’d been about to arrest blinked at her; his gaze traveled to the gleaming handcuffs, returning to her face in an instant.

“What in blazes is going on?” he demanded crossly.

Lyla felt the heat rise into her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, sir. It’s just a misunderstanding. I thought you were—”

Before she could get the rest of the words out of her mouth, a violent shudder rocked the plane, knocking Lyla off balance. She lurched forward, landing with a grunt on the man’s lap.

“Hey!” he protested.

But Lyla wasn’t even paying much attention to him anymore. Gaps of surprise traveled in waves across the cabin, and she knew exactly why. They hadn’t just hit a patch of turbulence. Something was wrong with the plane.

“What the hell just happened?” a passenger yelled, echoing her thoughts.

She gripped the nearest armrest she could find. Around her, other passengers were doing the same. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a woman in a gray shirt rising to her feet, a pink fanny pack strapped to her waist.

“I’m a nurse!” the woman yelled to someone Lyla couldn’t see.

A few seconds of chaos passed—or was it minutes—and then another tremor nearly knocked her back into the aisle.

“We’ve lost our wings!” someone cried.

“Oh, God, we’re all going to die!”

And Lyla did not doubt that one bit. Quicker than she could blink, the plane dipped, and it dawned on her that they were nosediving toward Earth. Her heart slamming into her throat, she dared to glance away from the panicking passengers and out the window. The sky was almost as blue as it had been minutes ago. And the clouds…

No, those white shapes creeping into her line of sight weren’t clouds. Lyla’s breath caught in her throat as realization dawned on her.

What in the world…?

They were mountains.

Flames streaked past the window, and a loud beeping filled her ears, drawing her attention back to the cabin. They were still going down, picking up speed. Lyla’s grip tightened on the armrest. She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to shake the gnawing realization that the trajectory of her life, just like the plane, was about to come to a sudden, violent end.

Chapter One

Present Day

Oh, Look, it’s Theophilus Hill…Running Down the Hill

There were many items on Lyla’s ten-page bucket list. Getting marooned on a snowy mountain wasnotone of them.

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