Page 58 of Montana Rain

“Stay here,” Cole said, guiding me into the little shadowy hole.

“Cole, wait,” I hissed, but he was gone, back down the hill. The cabin was still visible through the trees. We weren’t far, but Cole was right. We didn’t need much; we just needed enough. There was no way for us to run with my ankle like this, and Cole couldn’t carry me all the way up the mountain. Or down it.

Shattering glass sounded from down the hill, and seconds later, Cole was back, fitting himself into the small space beside me and pulling me into his arms. “I messed up the snow a bit on the path,” he said. “So it’s less obvious.”

“Still pretty obvious though, right?”

I felt him nod.

A shadow passed through the glimmering firelight in the windows. “Oh god.”

They really were there. They’d found us all the way out here. “I didn’t think they’d get here this fast,” Cole whispered, barely above a breath.

More sounds of destruction, and I leaned closer to him, sharing his warmth. The storm might be over, but it was still after dark in the snow. Cold sank through me, and soon, I was shivering uncontrollably.

“We’re going to freeze,” I said, barely able to get the words out through my chattering teeth.

“No,” Cole said. “We’re not. They’re going to give up before that. We’re going to be okay, Rayne.”

His determination would have to be enough for the both of us.

“We should have just let them find it.”

“No.” Cole’s breath tickled my ear. Another ear-splitting crash came from down the hill. “The drive is the only bargaining chip you have. If they take it, they can still assume you’ve seen it and try to kill you. If you have it, at the very least, you have the power.

“Besides, this asshole needs to get taken down. I don’t like how the Bureau is going about this, but if these guys can get away with killing people like this, there’s no incentive for them to stop.”

“Yeah.”

I wished doing the right thing felt easier when people were trying to kill you and wouldn’t think twice about it.

Voices echoed up from below. “Doesn’t look like anything, but they’re probably close.”

“No,” another one said, echo going faint. “It’s been a few hours. Fuckers heard the tap. They’re long gone. The guy is FBI, so he’s not dumb, unfortunately. We won’t find them now, and I’m not about to go searching over an entire mountain in the dark. If they freeze, good riddance. We’ll check everywhere around here again, because I don’t want to come back. Maybe wait a while and see if they show up.”

“Should we torch the place after?”

“I wish.” A laugh. “I don’t think Antonio wants to get a phone call asking if we can start a fire in fucking Montana. If it spreads? We’d be in deep shit. They care about stuff like that here.”

“How can a fire spread with this much snow?” The second voice got fainter and disappeared with the door closing behind him.

“The one good thing about this,” Cole said quietly, “is that they’ll leave a path. They have no reason to hide their trail. We might be able to get out of here. But we need to wait until we’re absolutely sure they’re gone and far enough away that we won’t run into them.”

I nodded.

If they were going to wait around inside, we couldn’t move. All we could do now was hope we didn’t freeze before they left.

Cole turned me toward him and held me against his body. It wasn’t the same as huddling under blankets, but it was better than nothing. The outcropping hid us from the wind. Otherwise, we’d be screwed.

“You never told me what you wanted to do when you get out of here,” he whispered, breath warming my cheek.

“I don’t know.”

“Sure you do,” he teased. “Tell me.”

My voice was muffled by the way we were pressed together. “I agree with you about the food, but I want pizza. A giant fucking pizza. Or a big bowl of ravioli. And I want a bath. A long one that I can just soak in for a while and forget about ever being cold.”

“Is there room for me in this bath?” he asked.

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