Page 84 of Wind Valley

“Nothing. How could I?” She gestured with her chin at her hands, still tied to the roll bar behind her.

The quiet settled around them like a blessing. She dared to sit up and look around at their surroundings. To the left, a spruce grove marched up the slope. To their right, she saw nothing but snowfields, which were probably scrubby alders buried under feet of snow.

If she could get into that forest, maybe she could lose him. He was bigger than she was, but that meant he’d be dealing with more weight as he forged through the snow. If she could only get her hands free, maybe she could make a run for it.

“If you untie me, I can take a look,” she said. “I helped Pinky get his snowmobile going. That’s what he does, he collects old broken-down equipment and figures out how to fix it. I’ve learned a lot from him.”

“Shut up,” he growled. He flung open the curved orange hood of his Skidoo. “It’s probably just a loose fuse. It’s gotta be electrical.”

The hood blocked him, which meant he couldn’t see her either. As he tinkered with the engine, she furiously went to work trying to loosen the zip-ties around her wrists. Even though they were tied quite tightly, they went around her gloves. So kind of him, to allow her to die without her hands turning into blocks of ice. If she could just maneuver her hands out of the gloves…

She heard swearing from under the hood. Squeezing her right hand into its smallest possible shape, she twisted and pulled and tugged until…

One hand free. The cold air prickled against her skin. Next hand.

The hood slammed shut. “The fuck if I know…” he growled.

She slid her free hand into her pocket, hoping he wouldn’t notice. The other one was halfway out of her glove, and even as he stomped through the snow back to the driver’s seat, she kept working on it.

He focused on the ignition now, turning the key, listening for clicks. Did the twisting of her hand in her glove make too much noise? She stilled, but he didn’t notice the difference, so she kept going.

Her hand was almost free when a low growl made them both jerk their heads toward the forest. A gray wolf with deep amber eyes stood just at the edge, its head lowered, teeth bared in a snarl.

“Shit! Come on!” SS banged his fist against the dashboard of the Skidoo. “Go, you piece of crap!”

The wolf took a step toward them. Desperate, Maura tugged at her hand. She was a sitting duck tied to this snowmobile. And wolves probably like ducks. “Let me free!” she cried to SS. “Don’t be an ass!”

“Okay, okay.” He came over to her and slid a knife from its sheath. “Jesus, you already got one out.”

“Does that matter now? Come on. That wolf means business.”

He slit the plastic tie and her hand sprang free. She rescued both gloves from their zip-tie captivity and pulled them on. The wolf took another step, then another, picking up its pace to a steady trot, heading right toward them.

SS took up a fighting position in front of the snowmobile, his knife brandished in one hand. “Bring it on, wolf!” he roared. “Go big or go home!” He yelled at the wolf, who seemed unaffected by his stream of taunts and curses and kept loping toward him. If anything, SS’s yelling seemed to rile up the wolf. Maybe it confirmed his sense that his territory was being threatened.

Maura crouched behind the snowmobile. She couldn’t head toward the forest because that was where the wolf was. Going the other direction would leave her completely exposed. If SS got his rig going, he’d catch up with her in no time, especially because she’d be post-holing through the snow. But if she could knock him out right here…

She looked around for a weapon, but saw nothing other than snow. Could she pack some into a ball of ice and knock him out with that? Of course if she did that, there would be no one to defend against the wolf.

She’d rather take her chances with the wolf, she decided, and scooped up some snow.

As she was stepping around the rear of the snowmobile, icy snowball in hand, another sound caught her attention. She spun around to see a pair of dogs, then another pair, and another. They crested the slope, practically swimming through the chest-high snow. With a jolt of joy, she recognized them—Fiona, the lead dog, and Danny-boy, her mate. These were Lasse Ulstrom’s dogs, and they were doing their favorite thing on earth—pulling a dog sled.

But that wasn’t Lasse, that was Lachlan standing on the runners behind the sled.

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SS swung around too, and let out a yell as he caught sight of the dog team. “Get the fuck away!” he yelled. The wolf growled and snarled at the dogs.

Maura ran toward the sled as fast as she could, although “running” was the wrong word for her headlong dive through the snow. It was all she could do to stay upright and not end up face-first in the icy white fluff. When the team reached her, Lachlan called out, “Whoa,” and as the sled drew up alongside, he swung her up behind him.

As she found her footing on the runners, her arms wrapped tightly around Lachlan to stay steady, he called out, “Haw” to the dogs. They seemed more than happy to keep turning left until they were running away from the wolf.

It took all of Lachlan’s attention to keep the dogs focused on working together instead of panicking about the wolf. But Maura trusted that he’d manage them just fine, and allowed herself to look back over her shoulder.

The wolf was paying no attention to the dog team. Maybe he saw them as too big of a target. Maybe he perceived the dog team to be retreating away from his territory, and therefore no longer a threat. The large human, on the other hand, with that familiar machine that made the terrible sounds, that one kept yelling and screaming…and there was that other vibration that made him dizzy and disoriented, and he was pretty sure that human was the problem, the one who kept producing that awful sound and…

Maura watched open-mouthed as the wolf went into headlong chase mode. SS panicked and stumbled back toward his snowmobile. He tried one last time to start it, and this time, it worked. The engine roared to life. He opened the throttle wide.

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