Page 22 of Wind Valley

“Got my .22 handy.” Lachlan gestured for Maura to roll up the window.

“Wait. What? You brought a gun?” She cracked the window closed as she stared at him. “Why?”

“It’s the wilderness.” He gave her a serious look. “Don’t worry, I have extensive firearms training. I spend time at a gun range whenever I get the chance. Gun safety is very important to me.”

A shiver was starting deep in her insides. It spread throughout her body, making her fingers tingle and her breath stop in her throat. SS had carried a gun. Of course he had, because that was his job. But that didn’t explain his obsession with guns, the way he spoke about them, the way he used his superior knowledge of them to make her feel afraid and powerless.

She’d even gone to a gun range to see if learning how to shoot would make her feel safer. But panic had hit as soon as she’d seen all those people in t-shirts and ear protection, wielding deadly weapons as if one wrong move couldn’t kill someone. SS would also have the advantage when it came to firepower, she’d realized. She had to find some other way to fight back.

“Are you okay?” Lachlan was watching her with confusion and concern. “Are you not a fan of guns? I only brought one because we don’t know what we’re going to face out there. It’s basic wilderness survival.”

She made herself nod. He was right. If they ran into that wolf, and it was still in an attacking frame of mind, a weapon might be nice. Like a slingshot. Or a tranquilizer dart. “It’s fine,” she managed. “It’s a bit of a phobia, but I’ll get past it.”

She hoped. Then she remembered how SS used to pull his jacket back and caress the weapon that sat in the holster on his belt, and shuddered again. Maybe she could stay in the truck and let Lachlan and his .22 search for the wolf.

No. This was her life. Her adventure. She was the one Elias had told about the wolf. She wanted to be part of finding out what was going on. She was so tired of letting residual SS trauma control her life.

She trusted Lachlan. He said he knew how to handle his weapon, and that they needed to bring it. Trust him.

“Let’s go before it gets dark,” she said, and swung out of the truck.

12

The snowmobile that Gunnar had lent him was an Arctic Cat ZR 8000, with a long seat that could hold two people. It could theoretically go as fast as a hundred and fifty miles per hour, though Lachlan stuck to a moderate speed, which was still pretty damn fast when you were flying across the snow with the wind in your face.

Lachlan loved it.

While he usually liked to take his time and study things carefully—being a scientist and all—when it came to anything snow-related, he was a speed demon.

“Tell me if I’m going too fast,” he hollered to Maura. Her blue cashmere scarf was flying behind her and the nip of the cold wind brought bright color to her cheeks.

“I love it!” she shouted back. “How fast can this thing go?”

“You really want to find out?”

“Yes!”

He opened the throttle as far as it would go and they practically hydro-planed across the open snow field. Behind him, Maura whooped with excitement. The roar of the engine drowned out all the other sounds, other than the howl of the wind rushing past them. The world became nothing but the blur of up ahead, snow spray flying past them, and the blue, blue sky overhead.

He was shouting along with Maura, just a wordless “whoooo-hoo,” until a splatter of snow hit his face below his helmet, and he closed his mouth around the melting flakes. So alive. He felt as if they were dancing with it, all of it—the cold, the snow, the wind. Someone to play with, they rejoiced.

Having Maura snuggled behind him made it all the better. When he dared to take his eyes off the terrain ahead and look behind him, he caught a glimpse of her enraptured face, her sheer glee. This was another Maura, he thought, a part of her that hid behind her wary caution.

Sometimes you just needed to go fast with the wind in your hair to see things clearly.

He wanted Maura. And now that he knew the man on her phone’s lock screen was her best friend, and gay, she wasn’t as unavailable as he’d thought. But what about all those barriers she put up? He’d have to win her trust one way or another, and then maybe they could fly together even without a snowmobile.

Close to the edge of the clearing, he spotted the tracks of another snowmobile, crusted over into solid sparkling ice. He throttled down and veered that direction, causing Maura to grab onto his leg.

Not that he’d planned it that way, but he didn’t mind it, either.

“Tracks,” he explained as he steered toward them.

“Right,” she sighed. “Back to work. Can we go snowmobiling again sometime?”

He smiled to himself. Level one, unlocked. “Sure, anytime. You can explore a lot of territory on a snowmobile. Mine’s in the shop, which is why I have Gunnar’s. It should be fixed soon.”

“Sign me up for that.” Her blue eyes seemed to have captured twin stars in their depths. Lucky him, that he’d helped bring her this joy.

---