Page 1 of Undoing His Innocent Enemy (Hot Winter Escapes)

CHAPTER ONE

CARADOYLEEXHALEDSLOWLY, allowing her breath to plume in the icy air. She lifted the camera she’d spent a small fortune on and watched the lynx in the viewfinder as it prowled across the powdery snow.

She had been trailing the female huntress for over a week—in between shifts as a barista at a resort hotel in Saariselkä—but today she’d got so many exceptional shots excitement made her heart rate soar. Which was good because, with the temperature plummeting to minus thirty degrees this morning, she couldn’t spend much longer out here before she froze.

A shiver ran through her body as the camera’s shutter purred through its twenty frames per second. Even with six layers of thermal clothing she could feel the cold embalming her. She ignored the discomfort. This moment was the culmination of six months’ work doing crummy jobs in a succession of Lapland hotels and resorts, all through the summer and autumn, to pay for her trip studying the behaviour of the famously elusive wildcats for her breakout portfolio as a wildlife photographer.

The lynx’s head lifted, her silvery gaze locking on Cara’s.

Hello, there, girl, you’re grand, aren’t you? Just a few more shots, I promise. Then I’ll be leaving you in peace.

Cara’s heart rose into her throat. The picture in her viewfinder was so stunning she could hardly breathe—the lynx’s graceful feline form stood stock-still, almost as if posing for the shot. Her tawny white fur blended into the glittering landscape before she ducked beneath the snow-laden branches of the frozen spruce trees and disappeared into the monochromatic beauty of the boreal forest.

Cara waited a few more minutes. But the lynx was gone.

She rolled onto her back, stared up at the pearly sky through the trees. It was almost three o’clock—darkness would be falling soon, with only four hours of daylight at this time of year in Finnish Lapland. She had to get back to the skimobile she’d left on the edge of the forest so she didn’t disturb the wildcat’s habitat.

But she took a few precious moments, her lips lifting beneath the layers protecting her face from the freezing air.

It only took a few heartbeats though to realise her body temperature was dropping from lack of movement. It would be no good getting the shots she’d been working on for six months through summer, autumn and finally into the short crisp winter days, if she froze to death before she could sell them.

She levered herself onto her feet and began the trek back to the snowmobile, picking up her pace as twilight edged in around her.

Feck, exactly how long had she been out here?

It had only seemed like minutes but, when she was totally focussed on her work, time tended to dissolve as she hunted for that single perfect shot.

At last, she saw the small skimobile where she’d left it, parked near the hide she’d been using for weeks.

She packed the camera away in its insulated box in the saddlebag, aware that her hands were getting clumsy, the piercing cold turning to a numb pain.

Not good.

The delight and excitement at finally capturing the creature she’d been trailing for months began to turn to dismay though as she switched on the ignition, and nothing happened. Annoyed, she went for option two. Grabbing the start cord, she tugged hard. Again, nothing, not even the clunking sound of the engine turning over.

Don’t panic...you’re grand...you know the protocol.

But even as she tried to calm herself and continued yanking the cord, all the reasons why she shouldn’t have followed the lynx so far into the national forest, why she shouldn’t have stayed out so long, bombarded her tired mind.

Eventually, she was forced to give up on starting the snowmobile. Her arms hurt and she was losing what was left of her strength, plus sweating under the layers of clothing only made her colder. Maybe the engine had frozen—it had been inactive here too long. She should have left it running, but she hadn’t expected to stay out so long and fuel cost a fortune. She fished the satellite phone out of her pack.

There was no phone signal this far north, and no communities nearby. She knew there were rumours of some reclusive US-Finnish billionaire, who lived in the uninhabited frozen wilderness on the far side of the national forest in a stunning glass house few people had ever seen or located... The resort workers whispered about him because apparently there was some tragic story involving the murder of his parents, and the fortune he had inherited as a kid before he disappeared from the public eye. But whatever the details were, they hadn’t reached Ireland, and she couldn’t rely on stumbling across some mythical Fortress of Solitude in the middle of nowhere—which could be hundreds of miles away. If it even existed at all.

She tuned into the last signal she’d used.

‘Mayday, Mayday. I’m in the n-national forest about f-forty miles north-east of Saariselkä. My vehicle won’t start. Please respond.’

Her eyelids drooped, the strange numbness wrapping around her ribs and slowing her breathing, as the last of the sunlight disappeared. She continued to broadcast as her energy drained.

If she could just sleep for a minute, she’d be fine.

No, don’t sleep, Cara.

Just when it seemed the situation couldn’t possibly get any worse, she felt the first swirl of wind, the prickle of ice on her face.

What the...?

There had been no suggestion of a snowstorm today in the weather forecast or on the radar. Because she’d checked.

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