Page 49 of One Last Chance

He slowed, coming out the other side, and spotted the cabin seated on a rise above the river. Small but cozy, with a front porch and a scenic view.

He understood the allure.

Parking away from the cabin, he took off his helmet and looked around. “Hello?”

Peyton’s four-wheeler didn’t appear to be parked anywhere, but maybe she was out stalking some wolves or something.

He went up to the cabin, knocked on the door, and when no one answered, pushed it open.

A sleeping bag lay on the wooden bunk, rolled out. Camp gear—a stove, dehydrated food, a watertight bag for clothes—so Peyton was around.

He’d just have to wait for her to return, see if she knew where to find Sparrow.

He stepped outside, stood on the porch, his hands to his back, stretching, watching the river?—

“Good try, but I’m not in there.”

He paused at the voice. “What?—”

“Keep your hands where I can see them.”

Gravel crunched to his left, and he looked over to see a woman—a hurt and bleeding woman—with a bear gun trained on him. Blood ran from a wound on her head, or at least had run—now it stuck her hair to her face, the blood dried and dark on her cheek and neck. And she limped, dragging her foot. And a sling around her neck with a binoculars cord held her arm close to her body, her left hand gripping her pistol. She wore canvas hiking pants, boots, a blue thermal shirt, and he put her in her late twenties, maybe early thirties.

He cocked an eyebrow. “You do know that you probably can’t kill me with that.”

“I can hurt you. And then I can take your bike and leave you here.”

Oh. “Okay. Listen, I don’t know who you are, but you’re clearly hurt. Let me help you.”

Her eyes narrowed. She blinked at him.

He started to turn, to lower his hands?—

She shot at him. Maybe missed purposely, but the bullet chipped off wood from the pillar beside him.

“Sheesh! Are you crazy?”

“Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“I’m . . . Listen, I’m nobody. I came out here to find Peyton Samson.” He took a breath. “Do you . . . um . . .” He took his eyes off her to scan the area. “Peyton! It’s Axel! Shout if you’re here!”

“Axel?”

He looked back at the woman. She’d swallowed, her gun hand shaking.

And then, right then, he got it.

Or at least, hethoughtso . . . because she wasn’t a fifty-year-old woman dressed in a bear skin.

In fact, she looked more like she’d beenmauledby said bear.

“Sparrow?”

And right then, even as she nodded, her legs gave out, and she collapsed onto the dirt.

CHAPTER6

Please let her be right. To have heard the truth and not just what she hoped.

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