Ellie gunned the motor, launching them into the endless white landscape.
“Head left, toward my property,” Michael said through the intercom.
He knew every inch of the land, even covered in layers of snow. That gave them an advantage—one they sorely needed.
Because that was too close. Much too close. Ellie turned the snowmobile. They raced away from the house. As they neared the clump of trees that lined the back of her property, a gunshot rang out from behind them over the mountainside. Another. And another.
Ellie gunned the motor again and they wove behind the trees and down the mountain.
“You okay?” she asked.
“He missed me,” he said, panting. “You?”
“Fine.”
“I wouldn’t call this fine,” he said dryly. “What happened with the gun?”
“I hid it in the pantry, and the bullets were across the room. There’s no way he had time to find them when he was chasing you out.”
Michael frowned. “Now we know that Aidan has another gun.”
She had tied Aidan’s feet as best she could with the ribbon, but Michael had known it wouldn’t last long. And without someone to hold Aidan down, he wasn’t able to do much better with the man’s hands. But there was no way he’d keep Ellie in the house while he let go of Aidan. Both their odds were better when he wasn’t worried about her safety. Something had crossed her face while Aidan had spouted his threats at her, something Michael couldn’t quite read. She had looked...shaken.
Getting out of the house ahead of Aidan hadn’t been easy. Michael had held the man’s arms behind his back until he could hear the whir of the snowmobile motor. Until he was sure that Ellie could get to safety. He had managed to shift both Aidan’s wrists into one hand while he’d grabbed the ribbon, but tying a knot one-handed was hopeless. And, sure enough, as soon as Michael had moved, Aidan was already loosening the knots. Michael had bought them those precious few moments, enough to grab the scissors and get him out of the house, so he’d taken those minutes and run. And he’d made it. They’d gotten away. For now.
Thank you, Lord.
“A little further to the left,” he said, straining to see through the darkening landscape. “Up there, just past those trees.”
“I see them.”
“Watch your speed here. The boulders are hard to see when it starts to get dark.” If they drove over the back of one of the big ones and crashed the snowmobile in the fall, they’d have a whole new set of problems.
Ellie slowed the machine as they entered the forest that marked the boundary to Tang Ranch land. It was home, where Michael knew exactly how to navigate. Home. He hadn’t felt this surge of comfort from the ranch in a long time. He pushed that thought away and focused on the landscape.
“We need a plan,” he said as she wove through the trees. “We need to find a place to stop.”
He pointed to a large boulder sticking up into the trees and covered in white. “Right there. On top.”
The height would give them a good view of their surroundings. The falling darkness had one advantage: they could see the lights of any vehicle from much farther away. Ellie slowed to a stop on top of the large mound, then turned off the motor. The headlight flickered off. Michael could hear Ellie’s rapid breaths through the intercom.
“That was a mistake to go back,” she said quietly.
“You needed to try.” He did understand that part.
Michael climbed off the snowmobile and sunk into the deep snow. He pulled off his helmet and stretched his arms. His right biceps was throbbing from the fall on the steps, and Aidan had gotten a couple good jabs into his ribs that still ached. And she hadn’t even found what she’d come for. Or had she?
“Any sign of the go bag?”
Ellie took off her helmet and her bright curls sprang out from underneath, like they’d been waiting to escape.
“I found it right about when the alarm went off. I...” She blew out a breath. “I was scared Aidan would get a hold of it, so I left the bag in the closet.”
“You’re not going back in there.” The words came out more forcefully than he had intended. Michael laced his fingers behind his head and looked up at the sky. They weren’t going to get anywhere if he talked to her like that. “Please. Tell me you’re not planning to go back.”
She shook her head slowly. “At least not now. I grabbed a few things. It’s not much, but...” Her voice trailed off. She tugged off her gloves and dropped them in her lap, then unzipped the black ski shell he’d lent her. From the inside pocket, she pulled out a stack of twenty-dollar bills, two passports and an envelope.
“I didn’t get a chance to look at this,” she said, holding up the envelope. “A letter from Sean. I can’t tell you how much I wanted to find some sort of message from him those first few months after he was gone. Now... I’m not so sure.”
He just nodded, trying not to pry. The clouds had scattered and patches of sky were lit with distant sunset somewhere behind the mountains, turning the tops of the gray clouds shades of purple. Motors buzzed in the background, but he couldn’t see anything on their side of the mountain.
“How dangerous would it be to rest right now?” she asked, rubbing the back of her head.
Michael came on full alert. “Is your head hurting you?”
“Just a little.”
“We can rest,” he said quickly.
The adrenaline was still pumping through his veins, telling him to run, to get away from there, but he knew better than to listen to that. She had been running on empty all morning. If they didn’t rest soon, she was going to crash. Michael looked around at the opening through the trees, down the vast mountainside. It was cold but clear, at least, for the moment. If they were going to stop, now was probably the safest time. When they had shaken Aidan—at least for now. But first, he needed to get her somewhere safe.
“It’s getting dark,” said Michael. “We need shelter.”
“But we can’t lead Aidan back to your ranch.”
“Agreed.” He pictured his parents, his grandparents, Isabel and the new hires gathering in the main house for supper. How much would Isabel tell them about his conversation with her? “There’s a fire tower on the other side of our property, above the canyon. No one uses it during the winter.”
“How far?”
