Page 51 of Undoing His Innocent Enemy (Hot Winter Escapes)

She shoved the goggles down, twisted the accelerator and drove the machine out of the garage. She turned on the GPS tracker attached to the machine’s handlebars.

Three hours, the route said.

But somehow she knew it would take her a great deal longer to leave this cabin, this forest, and her time with Logan Colton behind. Maybe even for ever.

As she headed south, following the route round the lake, past the place where they had huddled together waiting for the wolfpack the night before, she felt a part of her heart being torn away, and left behind her bleeding in the snow...

She arrived at the outskirts of Saariselkä nearly four hours later. Night was already closing in. The lights that lit the resort town made the snow-covered streets sparkle. She was exhausted, in mind and body and spirit, as she pulled up to the hotel where she had been working before she’d left two weeks ago to photograph the lynx. But as she turned off the ignition and dragged her camera box out of the saddlebag, she noticed the flashing lights of several police cars and one of the forest ranger’s trucks parked by the entrance.

Odd.

The region only had a small police presence, and the nearest station was over two hours’ drive away. She didn’t think she’d ever seen a local cop in the town the whole six months she’d lived here.

She trudged to the hotel’s entrance, but as she ripped off her head coverings on entering the building, the warmth enveloping her, she spotted a tall man with dark wavy hair standing by the reception desk flanked by a couple of policemen and the local ranger. His voice hit her first as he remonstrated with the cops.

Recognition streaked through her. ‘Kieran?’ she gasped. What on earth was her oldest brother doing in Lapland?

He swung round.

‘Cara!’ He rushed towards her, then grasped her arms, the wild panic in his eyes making her touch his cheek. To soothe. Kieran was a rock, he never got over-emotional, but right now he looked a wreck.

‘You’re here, you’re okay,’ he murmured as the police followed him across the lobby. As well as a middle-aged woman, who began to snap photos with her phone.

‘What’s wrong, Kieran?’ she asked, frantic herself now. ‘Is it Mam?’

‘No. Are you mad?’ He swore, the panic turning to fury in a heartbeat. ‘It’s you. We’ve been searching for you for days now. You didn’t call Mam for two weeks. We were frantic.’

‘But I told her, I was taking time out to work on my portfolio,’ she said, her mind reeling.

She usually called her mammy once a week, but she’d missed the scheduled phone call before. It had never occurred to her that her family would take on so.

‘But where have youbeen?’ he shouted, his fingers digging into her biceps, as if he was scared to let her go in case she disappeared. ‘They found no trace of your vehicle and you haven’t been back here in over two weeks.’

‘Miss Doyle...’ The older of the two policemen—who had a bold silver strip on his dark blue snowsuit—intervened. ‘We began the search two days ago, at your brother’s request. We were about to bring in the army,’ he added in perfect English, despite the Finnish accent. ‘Can you tell us where you have been residing over the past sixteen days? Have you been kept against your will?’

‘No, I... No, I haven’t been kept against my will,’ she said, evasively, remembering Logan’s request. She didn’t want to reveal his whereabouts. To anyone.

But then the policeman frowned and her brother said, ‘Then where the hell have you been, Cara? Because we know you haven’t been here.’

‘I... I can’t tell you,’ she managed. Her brother swore, while concern darkened the policeman’s penetrating stare.

‘Why can you not tell us, Miss Doyle?’ he asked again, in that patient tone.

‘I just... I can’t say, but I was fine. Really. It was my choice.’

‘Cara, this is nonsense,’ her brother announced, his temper igniting. Although she didn’t blame him. He must think there was something up.

‘Mr Doyle, you must remain calm,’ the policeman added. ‘Your sister is well and found. These are just follow-up questions that—’

‘Were you with Logan Colton, the sole heir to the Colton empire?’ The probing question shot out of left field, but the guilty blush had suffused Cara’s face before she could even register it had come from the woman who had been hovering nearby and was still taking photos.

‘I... I’m not answering that,’ Cara blurted out, then realised how incriminating that sounded. Her answer only seemed to encourage the woman—who Cara suddenly realised had to be a reporter.

‘What’s he like, Cara?’ The journalist clicked an app on her phone then shoved it in Cara’s face, her eyes glowing with excitement. ‘Is his home as stunning as they say? Ishe? You know he hasn’t been seen in public since he was a boy of ten? And he witnessed his parents’ brutal murder.’

‘Get away with you,’ Kieran announced, trying to shield Cara from the woman’s aggressive questioning, just as the policeman took her other arm.

‘Miss Doyle, let us take you to a more private place,’ he said, but as he led her away she knew it was already too late. The reporter was dictating the exclusive story into her phone—throwing out words like ‘billionaire recluse’ and ‘kidnap victim’ and making Cara want to fold in on herself and disappear.

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