Page 17 of Scent of Peril

He was jealous of the K9’s ability to fall asleep on a dime.

“We’re making good time.” He checked his compass again. “We have a little less than three miles to go.”

“Three miles.” She let out a low groan. “I hope Teddy can hold up for that long.”

He rested against a tree trunk. “He seems to be doing pretty well. I haven’t noticed his energy lagging the way it did last night.”

“Not yet, but we’ve covered a lot of ground already this morning. Hopefully, these breaks will help hold him over until we can reach the campground.” She sighed and stifled a yawn. “I’d give a lot for a large cup of coffee.”

“Ditto.” He tried not to think about how hungry he was. The protein and granola bars hadn’t been as satisfying as he’d hoped. Better than nothing, of course. Still, he found himself dreaming about coffee and breakfast.

The sound of a phone ringing startled them both. Teddy barely opened one eye, then closed it again.

“We have cell service!” Jess pulled her phone from her pack and showed him the screen. “My brother.”

“Put it on speaker,” he suggested.

“Hi, Chase. You’re on speaker,” Jessica said. “Can you hear me?”

“Where have you been?” Chase sounded upset. “What’s with you taking off with Logan without saying anything?”

Logan hid a wince.Way to get on Chase’s bad side.

“My fault, it was supposed to be a quick flight,” Jess said. “Logan spotted a section of plane on the mountain. We went to grab it and ran into some trouble.”

“Don’t tell me Logan crashed his plane,” Chase sounded incredulous.

“Only after someone took a shot at us as we were taking off,” Logan interjected. “I’m sorry about all of this. It wasn’t my intent to put Jessica in danger.”

“Shot at you?” Chase echoed.

“It’s a long story.” Jess pinned him with a dark look. Clearly, she hadn’t wanted Logan to mention the gunfire. “We’ll fill you in when we meet up with you at the campground. Logan says we’re shy of three miles away.”

“That’s fine. We’re hoping to be there in about an hour,” Chase said. “The highway is drifted over in some spots, so we’ve had to go slower than usual.”

“We’re giving Teddy a badly needed break,” Logan said. “We’ll do our best to make good time from here on out.”

“That’s fine.” Chase paused for a moment, then said, “Stay safe, you two. We’ll see you soon.”

“Sounds good. Thanks, Chase.” Jessica hit the button to end the call. “Now he’ll want the whole story once they pick us up.”

He grimaced. “Sorry. I hate to say it was a knee-jerk reaction to him accusing me of crashing my plane.”

“He knows you’re a good pilot, Logan.” She rolled her eyes and stroked Teddy’s fur. “It wasn’t that long ago that we rushed in to rescue him and his son, Eli, from the kidnappers on the Wind River Reservation.”

He nodded. Chase Sullivan could be intimidating, but he was also a genuinely nice guy. Logan was glad to have been able to lend a hand when Chase needed it.

“I guess we should keep going.” With a low groan, Jess stood. “Chase and Shane are going to beat us to the campground as it is.”

“That’s true.” He stood as well. Teddy was the last to move. The dog lifted his head, huffed out a sigh, and lumbered to all fours. Then the K9 stretched for a long moment as if dragging out the break for as long as possible. Yet as soon as Jessica moved forward, Teddy straightened and trotted to keep up.

The dog had more personality than some of the people he knew. He let Jess set the pace, and they pushed forward for another hour.

“Poor Teddy,” she said, when they stopped to rest.

“He’s doing fine.” Not that he was the dog expert she was. “I think he senses the end of the hike is near.”

She gave Teddy some water, then shared the last of the water bottle with him. He gratefully downed what was left. He tucked the bottle into his pack, thinking about the end of their trip being a mile away. As much as he was glad they wouldn’t have to spend another night camping on the mountain, he had to admit he would miss spending time with Jess. She was the best travelingcompanion he’d been with, and under better circumstances—like when someone wasn’t trying to kill them—he’d love to do this again.

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