Page 41 of Undoing His Innocent Enemy (Hot Winter Escapes)

He should not have left her here alone. What if she had gone swimming without him? Surely, she wouldn’t be so foolish? But even as he thought it, he imagined her face, that sweet grin splitting her features the day before as she’d managed to spend longer in the freezing water.

He charged back to the garage—the panic choking him—and checked that all the snowmobiles were still there. All four were accounted for.

Even so, his breathing continued to accelerate. Where was she? It would be dark soon. What if she had got lost? She had no idea where she was. The lake could be treacherous, the forests even more so. The bears hibernated at this time of year, but sometimes there could be one—sick or injured that could not hibernate and would be starving, desperate for food. And then there were the wolves that hunted in packs on the other side of the gorge. They never ventured near the house, but what if they had spotted her and come to investigate...?

He dashed outside as the sun dipped beneath the treeline. The brittle daylight had turned to the glow of twilight. He found her tracks, veering away from the trail he had taken to the drop zone that morning. But the boot prints had already frozen. She must have left hours ago.

Visions of her broken bloodied body, lying in the snow, or floating frozen in the water, made his lungs contract, his breath seize in painful gasps.

‘Cara?’ he rasped, but barely any sound came out, the shout trapped in his larynx.

The silent screams drew him back to that night, so long ago, as he stumbled through the snow, his legs so heavy he felt as if he were being sucked back into the terrible nightmares that had all but destroyed him once.

Instead of the quiet crunch of his boots, all he could hear was torrential rain, hitting the broken sidewalk in waves. The dirty water washed over his mother’s pale face, and red blood spread across the starched white cotton of his father’s dress shirt, like the fingers of a corpse. The heavy weight on his back a burden he couldn’t shake. Stifling. Suffocating.

The screech of an owl jerked him back to the present, forcing him to focus. To lock the nightmares back into the recesses of his mind where they belonged. A shape appeared in the distance, through the trees, and stood up.

‘Cara,’ he murmured, his voice a rasp of sound.

Not broken...whole.

The fear released its stranglehold on his throat, the trapped air expelling from his lungs, but as he charged towards her, needing to hold her, to make sure she was real, she was his, she was safe, he spotted the camera in her hands. And the frantic fear became a rush of fury.

CHAPTER TEN

‘LOGAN,OVERHERE!’ Cara shouted, and waved.

She’d seen him return ten minutes ago, the snowmobile crossing the lake, and had struggled not to stop what she was doing instantly and rush to the house to greet him. Like a lovestruck fool.

He’d been gone the whole day. And she’d be damned if she’d give him the satisfaction of knowing how much she’d missed him.

Observing the owl and its nesting area, taking shots to document its habitat and flight paths, had managed to keep her mind off the feeling of rejection, of loss. Mostly... But she couldn’t ignore the leap of exhilaration in her chest—or how much it scared her—as he trudged towards her.

But as he got closer, the exhilaration downgraded considerably.

He looked like he had when they’d first met. Maybe because his head was bare, the waves of dark hair dancing in the breeze, and without the balaclavas she could see the hard line of his jaw, the brittle expression.

‘Hi,’ she said, tugging down her face covering as a shiver racked her tired body.

She’d been out in the forest for a couple of hours and had noticed the discomfort a while ago. But each time she’d contemplated returning to the empty house, she’d decided to stay a little longer. The pictures she’d taken weren’t great, but they had felt important somehow. A declaration of intent. A chance to regain her purpose after ten days of indulgence.

‘You’re back,’ she added inanely, because he hadn’t responded, the fierce expression on his face starting to bother her.

‘You are freezing.’ He grasped her arm and turned, dragging her back towards the house. ‘How long have you been out here, putting yourself in danger?’

What the hell?

‘Logan, let go.’ She jerked her arm out of his grasp, almost dropping the camera. The sense of loss she’d been ruthlessly controlling all day was joined by a spurt of resentment, and fury. ‘I wasn’t in any danger. I’m less than a kilometre from the house. Not that you’d care anyhow—you’ve been gone all day who knows where.’

The minute she’d said the words, she wanted to snatch them back.

Really? Could she sound any more clingy?

Before she had a chance to contemplate the depths of her humiliation, though, or how he had managed to turn her into this pathetic creature she didn’t even recognise, he bent and scooped her onto his shoulder.

‘Logan, damn it, put me down,’ she cried, thumping his broad back as he stamped back through the snow. Her fury quickly outpaced her humiliation as she kicked and twisted, but to no avail. The man was as strong as a damn ox—and twice as arrogant.

He had carried her like this before, the first time they’d been ice swimming, and she’d secretly loved it then, his strength, his determination and the playfulness beneath.

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