SNOWBOUND WITH A KILLER

Called in to work with a patient, therapist Theresa Vaughan didn’t anticipate being held hostage by a killer in a snowbound lake cottage...or rescued by her former fiancé. But now bodyguard Alex Dean is the only thing standing between Theresa and certain death, and her patient—who was supposed to be under Alex’s sister’s protection—has disappeared. Alex can’t fail on this mission, or in the eyes of the woman he once loved, so he has to convince her to trust him. With his sister’s client missing, a blizzard raging and a killer closing in, he must make a choice. Will he look to the future and focus on locating the missing charge...or remember the past and save Theresa?

He had to get to her.

He looked up the cliff. “Theresa? I’m on my way up.”

No answer. Snow fell heavily, and the wind beat against him. For every step, he slid back three. Where was she? A shiver of fear brushed his spine. “Theresa? You there?”

All he heard in response was a scream for help that filled his heart with dread. Theresa was in danger.

“Hold on! I’m coming!”

He scrambled to the top, his heart pounding like a fist inside his rib cage. He tried to get around the car that hovered over the cliff, but he couldn’t catch his grip.

“Alex, help!” Her voice floated on the wind.

He grabbed the twisted bumper and hoisted himself up onto the hood. The unstable car groaned beneath him, and he knew he’d have only one shot to save himself. He leaped for the branch above him at the same time the car plunged into the frozen lake.

And then he heard it. The deafening, unmistakable sound of a gunshot.

Dear Reader,

I love writing about the characters that inhabit the small town of Briggs, Idaho. They never cease to amaze me, especially the children.

Each time I sit down to write a new book, I think I know my characters inside and out, but somewhere during the course of writing their story they take on their own identities. Suddenly, the past I carefully designed for each character doesn’t meet their needs, so they up and change it. What’s even more surprising is when they change a secret desire I clearly thought they needed. Most of the time, it turns out to be something completely different than what I’d planned.

That’s the writing process…at least for me.

This story took on a darker tone than most of my books, with a deeper meaning. I wanted to delve into betrayal and loss, but I never expected to also take on abandonment, forgiveness and, eventually, acceptance.

That’s not to say all the humor is gone. It’s not. But this time, it’s wrapped in a bit more drama than I had originally intended.

I hope you enjoy A Cowboy in Her Arms as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Please come visit me on Twitter, @maryleoauthor, or at Facebook.com/maryleoauthor, and while you’re there, please sign up for my newsletter.

All my best,

Mary

MAGGIE K. BLACK is an award-winning journalist and romantic suspense author with an insatiable love of traveling the world. She has lived in the American South, Europe and the Middle East. She now makes her home in Canada with her history-teacher husband, their two beautiful girls and a small but mighty dog. Maggie enjoys connecting with her readers at maggiekblack.com.

Rescue at Cedar Lake

Maggie K. Black

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak.

—Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7

With thanks to my amazing agent, Melissa Jeglinski, my wonderful editor, Emily Rodmell, the whole Love Inspired team and the incredible group of other Love Inspired writers who encourage me onward in the battle to turn stories into words.

I am very grateful to be surrounded by so many strong and talented women. You inspire me.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Dedication

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

ONE

Alex Dean fixed his sharp blue eyes on the screen of his Ash Private Security laptop and prayed hard for his stepsister, Zoe, to answer the secure video call. Winter winds howled through the trees outside and shook the frost-covered windows of the Dean family cottage. A storm was coming. The video call kept ringing. He ran his hand over the back of his neck where sandy blond hair brushed the collar of his leather jacket. Where was she?

Zoe wasn’t just family. She was a colleague and fellow bodyguard who’d joined him in helping their boss, Daniel Ash, create Ash Private Security. Despite being four foot eleven, she was every bit as strong and savvy a fighter as the rest of the team. Not to mention her assignment had been a very simple one—to bring a stressed-out university student up to the remote shores of Cedar Lake, Ontario, for a weekend of quiet studying. Not a high risk assignment by any means. The twenty-year-old client, Mandy Rhodes, came from one of the high-powered families they’d grown up knowing because their families all had cottages at the isolated lake. She was also the second cousin of their close friend Joshua, who was overseas completing his final few months of military service.

But after the initial check-in call yesterday, Zoe had fallen out of contact. He hadn’t been able to get through to her last night. Then, when Alex had called again this morning to give her a heads-up that a vicious, unexpected storm now threatened to wreak havoc on the roads and send power lines crashing down, Zoe still hadn’t answered. Cedar Lake had never had reliable cell phone service, though. Even the state-of-the-art Wi-Fi hotspots on their laptops had glitched far too often. So he’d driven up in person to double-check everything was okay—and found the cottage empty.

Empty and yet oddly tidy. There were no signs of a struggle. Or that Zoe and Mandy had ever made it there. Instead, the rustic space where he’d spent his childhood summers almost looked like it’d been gone over by a professional cleaning service. Something he might’ve taken comfort in if Mandy’s parents hadn’t warned them she was so stressed out about university that the last time they’d let her come up alone to study, just a couple of weeks ago, she’d left her family cottage in such a bad state they weren’t about to let her travel up alone again. And he’d never known Zoe to be anything close to neat.

Unlike Theresa Vaughan.

He winced as his ex-fiancée’s captivating green eyes suddenly flickered across his mind. Theresa was the only person he’d ever known with the compulsion to leave every place she touched more beautiful than she’d found it—something some of the other kids on the lake had teased her about. The stunning brunette’s wealthy family owned the large cottage at the mouth of the lake. Their romance had first blossomed as teenagers when he’d been watching with his buddies from a cottage window as a thunderstorm capsized her sailboat. Her harness had gotten tangled in the rigging, trapping her underwater. While the other kids had laughed, oblivious to the danger she was in, Alex had pelted down the shore, barely pausing to kick off his shoes before he’d leaped off the dock and swum to her rescue. She was now a trauma counselor and psychotherapist who also worked with Ontario Victim Services, and remained the one and only person Alex had ever pledged his foolish heart to—even though she’d broken that heart and called off their engagement just days before the wedding.

The computer beeped. He looked up. The call had timed out. He hit Redial. Alex drummed his fingers on the table. The call icon circled on the screen. Was a suspiciously clean cottage all it took to distract him with thoughts of Theresa? Despite putting eight and a half years between himself and that summer, the memory of losing her still ached like an old scar at the edges of his heart. This was why he hadn’t been back to the lake since that day, no matter how many times his family and friends had urged him to come. Every inch was a minefield of unwanted memories, from the huge rocks in front of her cottage where he’d proposed, to the apartment over the boathouse—where he’d thrown the returned engagement ring so hard it had gotten lost under the floorboards.

The call to Zoe stopped again. He hit Redial for a second time. Then his head dropped into his hands, and he shoved his sore memories to the furthest reaches of his mind. It would only be a matter of time before the impending storm took out the power lines and cut off road access. If he didn’t leave soon, he could be stuck there in the cold, remote cottage without power for days. His sister and their client’s safety mattered. Nothing else.

“Hello? Alex?” A voice filled the air. Puzzled. Female. But it wasn’t his sister’s. No, this voice was both sweet and strong like the first coffee waking him up in the morning. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

He blinked. “Theresa?”

He looked up at the screen. Theresa sat on a chair in front of his sister’s laptop with a slightly concerned look on her face and the snow-filled windows of a different cottage in the background. Long dark hair tumbled around her shoulders in the kind of disheveled, messy way he’d always found adorable. A question hovered in her deep green eyes. She was engulfed by a giant red sweatshirt with “Canada” embroidered across it in big block letters, but because of the way the fabric fell it almost seemed to read “and.” Hang on. Wasn’t that one of his old sweatshirts?

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Where’s Zoe and Mandy?”

“Not here.” Theresa said. Her nose wrinkled. “I’m guessing Zoe hasn’t managed to call you yet. They left me at Mandy’s family’s cottage and went for a drive to find a cell phone signal and pick up some groceries about an hour ago. Mandy is supposed to be hitting the books and staying offline. But once we got here, she was really panicked about not being able to surf the internet or get a cell phone signal. So I told Zoe it might be best not to make a video or use the laptop around her. Zoe said it wouldn’t be a problem, that you’d understand, and she’d call you this morning to explain. I got out the laptop after they left. When the call kept ringing and ringing I figured it might be important.”

He sighed heavily. “It is.”

“And I presume Zoe didn’t tell you she’d brought me in on this?”

“No, she didn’t.” He crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair. He wasn’t sure what he thought of his former fiancée making decisions that impacted an active operation, especially if it kept him out of the loop.

Zoe and Theresa had reconnected at Christmas, after Theresa and Samantha, a journalist she was working with, had been violently threatened. That had been the first thread that had relinked Alex’s life to Theresa’s. Since then there’d been even more. His best friend, Josh, was now engaged to Samantha, Alex was going to be their best man, and he’d already been warned that Theresa was invited to the wedding. Josh was also joining Ash Private Security when his tour of duty was up and had made it clear he thought Theresa’s unique perspective on crime victims would make her a strong asset to their team. Both Zoe and Daniel agreed and had already asked Theresa to advise on a few clients.

So far, all Alex had said on the matter was that he was fine with it and they all had his blessing to work with her. Just as long as he didn’t have to see her or talk to her until he was ready.

Now, ready or not, here she was.

“I don’t understand why Zoe needed to bring you in,” he said, “just because our client’s dealing with a little bit of stress.”

“Not everyone’s able to just shrug away stress and ignore it.” Her arms crossed, too, mirroring his stance. “Mandy’s not in a good place right now. She’s emotionally frazzled. Remember, both her brothers are a lot older and very successful.”

Mandy’s twin brothers were a year older than Alex, and had always been arrogant, athletic and entitled. True, as adults they’d done well for themselves. Emmett now owned a string of fancy car dealerships. Kyle was a local politician.

“Being under pressure is part of being young,” he said. It was hardly a crisis.

“Maybe,” Theresa went on. “But her parents are pretty overprotective and I’m getting the suspicion that there’s something more going on. Not that she’s been willing to open up to me about it yet.”

Well, Mandy’s breakdown would have to wait until the storm was over. He got why that kind of stuff might matter to a psychotherapist like Theresa. But it didn’t make much difference to his mission to get everyone home safely. His temples ached as his brain tried to translate everything she’d told him into a workable solution. There were several different towns in the area Zoe could’ve driven to. His options were to wait for them to get back, try to go find them, or just get somewhere with a functional cell signal and try to call Zoe again.

“And you’re at Mandy’s parents’ cottage now?” he confirmed.

“Yeah, Number Eight Cedar Lake, on the far side. Not one of her brother’s properties. I know originally the plan had been for us to stay at your family’s cottage. But Mandy was getting too stir-crazy and said she wanted to be somewhere familiar, so I suggested we move over here.”

Which now put her over forty-five minutes away by truck in weather like this. Though, if the early winter had been colder and the lake had frozen over properly, he could’ve grabbed his snowmobile from the boathouse and been there in fifteen minutes. But, as it was, the risk of hitting a thin patch in the middle was just too high. He ran his hand along his jaw, oddly thankful he’d shaved that morning. Theresa had never liked him in a beard.

Enough talk. He had to make a decision. “Where’s your car?”

“Back home. Zoe picked me up from the bus station.”

“Well, I’m sorry to cut your weekend therapy session short, but there’s a really bad storm coming. Several inches of snow falling this afternoon followed by a bunch of freezing rain tonight. Her parents asked us to bring her home. Emmett called my cell phone, berated me for even letting her come up here without running it by him, and threatened to come up and collect her himself personally if I didn’t bring her home right away.” Then he’d called back a second time and left a voice mail message saying that he’d sue Ash into the ground if anything happened to Mandy. “You two can talk while we drive or pick things up again once we’re out of harm’s way. But a storm this bad could take down whole trees, killing the power and blocking off the roads. I’ll drive around the lake to join you. Then, as soon as Zoe and Mandy get back, we’ll all head out together.”

“I can tell you right now that Mandy won’t want to leave here if she thinks this is something her family is forcing on her,” Theresa said. Her voice was gentle, but there was still an edge to it that made him envision her heels digging into the floorboards. “She wants to be up here. Granted, she wasn’t prepared for losing her phone and internet connection. But that doesn’t mean she wanted to go home. This is Canada. Cottages withstand winter storms all the time. A few quiet days studying by candlelight and heating soup over the fire is probably the best thing for Mandy. More importantly, she needs to be able to decide for herself what happens next. Not to be told what to do. Or pressured into a dangerous drive on short notice.”

“I hear you, but that’s not your call to make,” he said. “Her parents hired Ash Private Security to look after her. They didn’t trust her traveling alone and they don’t much like the idea of her being cut off from the world in a dark and cold cottage.”

“Not even if she thinks it’s what’s best for her?” Theresa asked.

There was the distant hum of a motor outside and it took him a moment to realize it was coming from Theresa’s end of the call. Sounded like Zoe and Mandy were back. Thankfully.

“She’s twenty.” Alex’s eyes rolled. “She doesn’t know what she wants. She’ll probably change her mind the moment we’re on the highway.”

Theresa frowned. Okay, he probably shouldn’t have put it like that. But she was the last person who was going to convince him that what someone thought at twenty was a deciding factor in what they would or wouldn’t do. When she called off the wedding she’d been twenty, he’d been twenty-one and the argument had been such a mess he still wasn’t sure how it had happened. He’d told her he’d decided to drop out of university because, while a full scholarship was great and all, he wasn’t sure he wanted to study medicine. She’d said something about her parents having money problems, and that he needed to grow up, step up and be more responsible. The next thing he knew she was dropping the ring back into his hand.

“Look, I’m not trying to start a fight,” Theresa said. “Zoe tells me you’re really great at the whole bodyguard thing. I’m just asking you to take the time to think through how you’re going to talk to Mandy about this. This is no time for you to just charge ahead and not think about the consequences.”

By which she meant what, exactly?

There was banging and rattling behind her like someone trying to get the porch doors open. He looked past her, but all he could see were the shifting silhouettes of figures behind the glass.

“Hang on,” Theresa said. “They’ve probably locked themselves out. I’ll let Zoe know you’re on the call and then she can take over talking to you.”

“Great. Thanks.” He was almost positive Zoe would side with him.

Alex watched Theresa’s hair swish and fall down her back as she walked toward the door. Her wool socks padded softly on the hardwood floor. The sweatshirt swamped her slender body down to her jeans-clad thighs. A long breath left his lungs. Even more than eight years later and through the unflattering lens of a laptop webcam, she was still every bit as beautiful as she’d always been. Theresa paused at the patio door. There were three figures standing at the large glass doors, all of whom were too big to be either Zoe or Mandy.

They exchanged words he couldn’t quite make out. Then Theresa’s back straightened so sharply it sent fear coursing down his own spine.

“Hey!” he called, hoping the volume on the laptop was up high enough that she could hear him. “Is everything okay?”

The distorted sound of the men shouting crackled through the speakers. They started banging on the glass. Worry now pooled at the base of his spine. Did she have anything to defend herself with? His eyes scanned the room. A fake antique bayonet and decorative sword were crossed over the mantel, but even at a glance he could tell how useless they would both be in a real battle. But she might be able to barricade herself in a room upstairs long enough for him to help her plan an escape.

“Theresa! Listen to me!” His voice rose. “Don’t panic. I can help you protect yourself. But you need to do exactly what I say.”

Theresa took a step back, but her head didn’t turn. The shouting grew louder and more vulgar, with the demand that she open the door. The glass windows and doors rattled and shook like an earthquake.

“Theresa!” He forced his voice to stay clear and calm even as he battled the fear beating in his chest. “I need you to listen to me. Step away from the window. Walk backward to the laptop. Then grab a piece of furniture. Heavy but something you can lift. A small table. A chair.”

She wasn’t listening. Her eyes darted to the weapons above the fireplace.

Dear God, please help me protect her!

Her hands struggled in vain to pull the antique weapons down from the brackets holding them.

“Theresa! Please! Listen to me!”

Oh Lord, please, save her life.

The patio door splintered. Theresa turned and ran toward the laptop. But she’d barely taken a step before the world exploded behind her. Wood splintered. Glass shattered. Wind whipped through the open doorway, hurling snow in with it. Three men ran through in winter jackets, blue jeans and ski masks.

Armed with shotguns.

A scream ripped from Theresa’s lips. Her fingers reached toward the keyboard.

Someone grabbed her from behind. The laptop fell to the floor. It landed on its side and for one helpless moment Alex could see nothing but muddy floorboards and boots. Then Theresa’s head hit the ground. A gloved hand pushed her against the floor.

Theresa’s panicked face filled the screen. Her terrified eyes met his.

* * *

Theresa’s lungs ached with every breath. A hand gripped the back of her head pushing the side of her face into the floor. A knee pressed hard into the small of her back.

Alex’s eyes met hers through the screen of the fallen laptop. She could hear the men searching the cottage. Things were being tossed off shelves. Furniture clattered and fell. Male voices shouted and swore. She kept her eyes locked on Alex like a lifeline. Alex leaped to his feet, still holding the laptop in one hand while he dialed his cell phone with the other.

“Stay strong, Theresa,” his voice filtered faintly through the speakers. Fear filled his blue eyes, making something inside her own chest ache in pain. “I’m coming for you. I promise.”

A boot landed hard on the laptop, stomping it over and over again until the screen died. Alex’s face disappeared. She was alone. Theresa closed her eyes and prayed. Lord, help me. Please. Whatever this is, please keep Zoe and Mandy safe from it. Thank You that Alex knows I’m in trouble. But please, keep him out of danger.

His cottage was a good forty-five minutes’ drive from here. The nearest police station was more than an hour and a half away. Even if Alex came for her, would she even be here when he arrived? Would she even still be alive? Panic filled her throat pushing tears to her eyes.

Mandy had seemed so anxious and distracted about something. Did it have something to do with these men? If so, how had Theresa missed it? Dealing with victims of violent crime was a huge part of her work and yet she’d never imagined Mandy could be linked to something like this.

“Castor!” A voice filtered down from the second floor landing. “It’s not here!”

“Well it’s somewhere!” The man pinning her down shouted loudly. “Tear the place apart if you have to!” His hand jabbed in the direction of a small, wooden hatch, barely visible in the floor near the kitchen’s old-fashioned wood-burning stove. “Check the cold cellar. Check everywhere. If they’ve got it, they’ll have brought it here.”

A heavy man in a red ski mask yanked the hatch open. “There’s nothing down there. Just wood and kindling.”

“Then check upstairs.” Her captor growled in frustration. Then he yanked her head back. His low, menacing voice filled her ear. “Where’s the trunk?”

“What trunk?” She tried to turn her head toward him but his grip held her tight. “Look, this isn’t my cottage. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We’re looking for a trunk!” Castor shouted, so loudly her ears rang. His mouth grew even closer to her face. The stench of stale coffee and cigars grew stronger as he leaned toward her, shifting his weight deeper onto her torso. “You know, a large, heavy, old-fashioned luggage trunk. Something big enough to hide a body in.”

Snickering came from the other side of the room.

“Again, this isn’t my cottage!” She could almost feel the defiance rising in her voice, battling back against the fear as her breath pushed its way out of her aching lungs. “I just got here this morning. I haven’t seen a trunk.”

Castor sat back, relieving just enough of the pressure on her torso to let her gasp a deeper breath. He turned and shouted more frustrated profanities at his two henchmen. For a moment, she was ignored again as they ransacked Mandy’s family cottage. She closed her eyes, prayers filling her heart as she listened and tried to focus on any tiny sliver of information she could glean. Castor called the other two Brick and Howler. Brick sounded angry and frustrated by the futility of the search. Howler barely spoke.

“Where’s Mandy Rhodes?” All too soon Castor was back barking in her ear again. “And that other woman she drove up with?”

A shiver of fear ran through her heart. How did he know who they were? Had they been watching them?

Lord, please keep Zoe and Mandy far, far away from here.

“I don’t know where they are. They went for a drive.”

“Where did they go?” Castor’s grip tightened. “When are they getting back?”

“I don’t know! They didn’t tell me!”

Her hands were yanked back. She heard the rip of duct tape tearing. Then she felt him bind her wrists together behind her. Castor stood and pulled her to her feet. She looked up at the tall, heavyset man, whose sneering mouth and dangerous eyes seemed to float unmoored through the holes of a ski mask. “You’d better not be lying to me.”

“I’m not. I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

Castor leaned in so close that his face was inches from her, making it difficult not to turn away from the stench of his hot breath. “What if I threaten to kill you, slowly and painfully? Would that help you remember?”

No. But it would make her even more determined to not go down without a fight. She head butted him, as hard as she could. His head snapped back as her forehead cracked hard against his jaw. He let go of her. She turned and sprinted across the wooden floor toward the shattered remains of the doorway. Melting puddles of snow seeped into her socks. A bracing winter wind brushed her face. A sharp pain filled her skull as Castor’s rough hands grabbed her hair and snapped her backward. “Now I’m really going to make you hurt.”

Lord, please. I need You now...

“Come on, dude! This is a waste of time!” The rail-thin masked man the others called Howler snorted loudly from the corner of the room. The sound that was halfway between a laugh and a snarl. He waved his shotgun in their direction. “This wasn’t the job I signed up for. You want her dead? I’ll kill her. Bang. Right now. No problem. Or if you can, kill her quick so we can move on. Whatever. You said we’ve got a trunk to find. All I care about is getting my cut of the money. And I don’t wanna not get my money just because we’re stuck here waiting while you punish that finicky little princess chick for not telling you what you want to know!”

Finicky little princess? Theresa blinked as the words clanged like old bells at the corner of her mind. But before she could decipher the ringing, Castor shoved her across the room. He pushed her into the broom closet. She fell, landing hard on her knees among the mops and cleaning supplies. Castor stood over her. Blood seeped through the mouth of the mask. Her head butt had split his lip. “Fine. We’ll go find the trunk. But then I’m coming back and dealing with her when we’re done. She knows something. I’m sure of it. It’s in her memory somewhere. Even if she’s too useless to remember it.”

“Whatever,” Howler said. “Do whatever you want to do. Just after I get my money.”

The closet door slammed shut. Darkness fell. She heard a chair being scraped against the door.

“Brick!” Castor snapped. “Sit here. Watch the door. Shoot her if she tries to escape. But don’t kill her. I might need her later.”

There was a muffled argument and some more swearing that ended when Castor snapped that Brick would get an extra cut of payment at the end if he stayed behind to watch her, and a shotgun slug in the head if he didn’t. Then there was the thud of a body landing in a chair against the door. Castor and Howler’s voices faded away.

Theresa pulled herself into a seated position, slid a metal bucket behind her and scraped the duct tape binding her hands against the spout. It loosened slowly. Her socks were so wet and cold her feet stung. Theresa prayed hard, begging God to save her life and to protect Mandy, Zoe and Alex from danger. Then she took a deep breath and focused her mind on the criminals, pulling together the scraps of what she knew as if this was a file that she’d gotten through Victim Services.

These men were thieves. That much she knew. Castor and his lackeys were looking to steal some kind of trunk that he seemed to think she’d know about. But why? What could it hold that was worth ransacking a cottage over? Whatever it was, the henchmen were worried about running out of time and not getting their cut of the bounty. Castor had mentioned Mandy by name and knew about Zoe. So she couldn’t rule out that it had something to do with Mandy’s anxiety. But Theresa couldn’t be sure. Both Mandy’s older brothers were successful enough to have enemies.

Howler had called her a “finicky little princess.”

She closed her eyes and worked her duct-taped hands faster against the pail as the words pricked at painful memories buried so deep in the recesses of her mind that she had to ease them out slowly, bit by bit, like getting burrs out of her hair. She’d almost managed to forget that some of the kids at Cedar Lake had called her “princess.” They’d called her “useless,” too, and other things implying they thought she was too pampered and nonathletic to ever be one of them. She didn’t know who’d started it. But it’d definitely gotten worse after they’d seen her sailboat capsize in a sudden summer storm. She’d gotten tangled in the rigging and might’ve drowned if Alex hadn’t come to her rescue.

Back then, her parents owned a large seasonal equipment store on the highway north of Toronto. It sold boats, personal watercraft, sporting goods, barbecues and cottage furniture, along with whole rooms of decorative country kitsch. As a family, they’d always had the newest and nicest toys on the lake—sample models to trial, mostly. At the end of every summer, one of the other families on the lake, the Wrights, would host a huge team scavenger hunt. Afterward, Theresa’s mother would invite all the families on the lake over for barbecue.

That annual barbecue was also going be her wedding reception the summer she’d been twenty.

So, maybe there’d been some jealousy. Or the misconception that her family had more money than they did. But just before she’d turned twenty a warehouse fire had wiped out most of their inventory. The family then lost a long, hard court battle, in which, because the security cameras apparently hadn’t been working, the insurance company had accused her dad of setting the fire to cover some bad debts. So less than a month before her wedding, her parents realized they were probably going to go bankrupt and started making quiet plans to sell their business, cottage and home in a last-ditch effort to pay off their debts.

She could still remember the anxiety filling her heart as she’d gone to tell Alex. She’d been looking for a shoulder to cry on. Instead, he’d met her with the news that he’d dropped out of yet another university program, just tossing away a full scholarship and paid internship, as if real-world responsibilities didn’t even matter.

But that was just the way Alex was. He was spontaneous. But that day he’d been so full of blather that her sadness had turned to frustration. She’d said maybe they should postpone the wedding until he grew up enough. They’d fought. He took the cruel taunt that the other kids made about how she seemed to think she was royalty and aimed it at her heart with an added sting: should’ve known better than to fall for such a finicky little princess like you.

She’d handed the ring back, feeling too hurt to even cry. And that had been that.

“I’m done waiting.” Brick’s voice snapped through the closed door. “I’m cold. This is stupid. I want my money. I’m going to go find the thing myself. But I don’t know my way around this stupid lake and Castor thinks you know something. So you’re going to help me, whether you want to or not.”

The cupboard door flew open. With one desperate tug she yanked her hands free. Duct tape tore. The bucket clattered behind her. She launched herself headfirst into Brick, knocking him back so hard he slipped and hit the floor. He’d taken off his ski mask, showing a square face with fat cheeks, thin lips and deep-set eyes. She pushed past him and ran down the narrow hallway leading to the cottage’s smaller back door. If she could just grab her boots and her gloves and make it out the back door she might be able to escape through the trees and find somewhere to hide.

A sawed-off shotgun blast sounded behind her. Splinters exploded in the wall ahead as a hunting slug struck the wood.

“You keep running, I’ll shoot you,” Brick said. “Castor’s made me put up with too much nonsense to stick me on babysitting duty. I need that trunk. I want my money. So, you’re gonna help me find it. Even if you’re bleeding and in pieces.”

Her stocking feet froze beneath her as her brain struggled to think. Even if she cooperated, he was likely to kill her eventually, unless she just went along with him until she found a way to escape. But if she tried to keep running, she had no doubt he’d shoot her on the spot. There was a thud on the roof above them, like a sudden clump of snow falling off a tree branch. The hot barrel of a weapon brushed against the back of her head.

“I don’t know anything about a trunk.” Her hands rose slowly. “But I’ll help you leave Cedar Lake if you promise not to hurt anyone else.”

“Nice try.” He snorted. “But I’m the boss now. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, but, either way, I’m not leaving this lake without what I came for. Castor said he was willing to pay me good to find this trunk. He’ll probably pay me double if I find it first. And if he gets mad at me for hurting you, I’ll just tell him it’s your fault for running away.” He spun her around and marched her back into the remains of the living room. “Now, you’re going to start cooperating. Because if ya don’t, I’m going to hurt you so bad you’re gonna wish I’d just shot ya.”

An ugly grin spread across his flat face. She closed her eyes and prayed.

A crash sounded from the low roof above. Brick swore. She opened her eyes in time to see a snow-covered form in jeans, a brown leather jacket and snowmobile helmet swing down through the open doorway. Brick grabbed her hard around her neck and yanked her back in a headlock, pressing her body back tight against his like a hostage. The tip of the sawed-off shotgun pressed into the soft flesh at the base of her skull just behind her ear.

“Look man, whoever you are, I’m just a guy looking for the same thing you are!” Brick shouted. “The trunk’s not here. We don’t have it and we don’t know where it is! So there’s no need for any problems. Just turn around and pretend you never saw us.”

“No can do.” The man in leather moved forward. “Drop your weapon, and I’ll let you leave. But you’re going to let her go.”

He pulled off his helmet. Her breath caught in her throat.

It was Alex.

TWO

Theresa’s jaw dropped as her former fiancé stepped toward her through the ransacked cottage. How was he here? It’d barely been twenty minutes since Castor and his thugs first attacked her. There was no way Alex could’ve driven around the lake in that amount of time, and the ice on the lake was hardly safe. Snowflakes clung to his body. Jeans and a leather jacket hung on his tall, muscular frame. A long scarf looped around his neck and hung all the way to his waist. His blue-eyed gaze brushed her face.

“Hey, Theresa.” He took another step forward with that casual saunter of his that always made it look like he was all joints and yet totally comfortable in his skin. Brick tightened his grip. Alex stopped. His hands rose slightly. But his smile never faltered.

What was he doing, strolling casually toward the armed man who held her captive like he was some action hero?

“Look, clearly your buddies have taken off and left you all alone without any backup. So how about you drop that shotgun and we talk this out?” Alex asked. Something she’d never seen before flashed in his eyes, an edge that was as firm and unrelenting as steel. “Because there’s no way I’m letting you hurt her.”

The wind outside grew louder. The cottage seemed to shake on its foundations.

“I’m the one in charge here!” Bravado and uncertainty pushed through Brick’s words in equal measure, and it wasn’t clear which one was going to win. “Me! Not you. Not Castor. Not anyone! I’m going to take her with me and find that trunk, and nobody’s going to stop me!”

Alex shrugged, and as he did his whole body seemed to shift forward in one smooth motion. “You sure about that?”

Panic crawled up Theresa’s throat. Alex was going to get them both killed. He meant well. He was a great guy. But was he really equipped to handle any of this?

The headlock tightened until all she could feel was the pressure choking the oxygen from her lungs. “Look, man! I’m not playing! She’s gonna die. I’m gonna kill her. You got that?”

“Loud and clear.” Alex leaped. In one quick motion he struck the weapon away from Theresa’s body and yanked Brick’s arm around behind him. Theresa fell free and stumbled forward. Brick yelped in pain. Alex wrenched Brick’s arm upward, using the pain and leverage to force him down onto the floor.

“Theresa, are you okay?” Alex stood over Brick. Concern filled his eyes as he searched her face. “Did he hurt you?”

She blinked. It had all happened so fast she’d barely been able to see it happening. But there Brick was, groaning on the floor, while Alex stood over him, keeping the huge thug down through pressure on his wrist alone. Her mind swam. This couldn’t be happening. She must be dreaming. Her former fiancé had always been an athlete, and Zoe said he excelled at his private security training, but she’d never expected...

“Theresa!” Alex’s voice rose. “Look at me. You’re in shock right now. I need you to focus. Are you hurt? Can you move?”

The word shock snapped her mind back like a jolt to the system. She spent a lot of her professional life explaining to clients that the surreal, frozen feeling people went through in a moment of crisis was perfectly normal. Not that knowing that had prepared her in the slightest for suddenly having her dashing ex come swinging in like an action hero.

“I’m okay. Not hurt.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Thank You, God.” A quick prayer slipped through his lips, then his eyes locked on her face again. “Check him for weapons. Then grab the shotgun. Point it at buddy here. And tell me everything you know about his friends, where they’ve gone, who this Castor he mentioned is and whatever trunk he thinks I was here to steal. Quickly.”

“There were three of them.” Quickly she patted down Brick’s jacket and the legs. No weapons. Then she pulled the shotgun from a puddle of melting snow and trained it on Brick. Still Alex didn’t loosen his grip. “They’re looking for a trunk. Castor and Howler left while I was locked in the closet. I don’t know where they went. This guy’s named Brick. Castor asked me if I knew where Mandy and your sister were. He mentioned Mandy by name.”

“Well, as long as Josh is serving overseas we can’t ask him what he thinks his second cousin might be mixed up in.” Alex’s mouth set in a grim line. “Josh’s grandfather was in the military, too. Maybe Mandy’s side of the family inherited some old war medals or weapons, or something valuable from his tour of duty. Because, for me, a military footlocker is the first thing that springs to my mind when somebody mentions a trunk. But Mandy’s brothers are pretty well-off. Maybe one of them was storing something at their parents’ cottage that was worth stealing.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Castor seemed to think I should know something about it, but I don’t. You and Zoe know Josh’s family better than I ever did. I wondered if the intended target was Emmett or Kyle, too, not that an old trunk is the usual place a guy who’s almost thirty would keep his valuables.”

“Did Mandy say anything at all that would shed some light on any of this?” Alex asked.

Theresa shook her head. “No. Mandy was upset, but nothing to make me think she was afraid, let alone of something like this.”

“Doesn’t mean she wasn’t.” Alex took a step back, but his grip on Brick’s wrist didn’t falter.

“Do you have anything to add to this conversation?” he asked. “How about you tell me what you know about who this Castor is and why he hired you?”

A gun blast shook the air.

“Theresa, get down!” Alex shouted.

She turned toward him. For a second the world froze as she saw the strength that shone in his eyes. Then time sped up again and suddenly it was as if everything was happening at once. Alex dropped Brick’s wrist and pulled Theresa to the floor, knocking the couch over in front of them like a shield. A second gun blast sounded, then a third and a fourth, shattering what remained of the windows and tearing up furniture. Brick leaped to his feet, yanked a small handgun from inside his boot and returned fire, momentarily seeming to forget about her and Alex. Only then did she realize she no longer had a grip on the shotgun.

“We can’t look for it now,” Alex shouted. “Something secure. Somewhere low. Any thoughts?”

“There’s a hatch under the floor.” She pointed.

They crawled toward the hatch opening. Alex kicked it open. They tumbled through onto the brick floor below. The hatch snapped shut behind them. Darkness filled the space. Alex urged her up against the very corner of the wall. Then his body covered hers. His heart beat against her back. He pulled a rough tarp over them. Bullets and shotgun blasts rained in the cottage above them, roaring like a hailstorm. Then the noise stopped. Silence surrounded them, punctuated by nothing but the sound of their ragged breaths, their pounding hearts and whispered prayers mingling in the darkness. Her legs cramped beneath her. Her arms were pinned tight against her chest. She started to stretch.

“Wait.” Alex’s breath filled her ear. “Not yet.”

And then she heard the footsteps, one set, walking slowly through the cottage, stepping on the broken glass, kicking furniture aside. There was swearing in a muffled male voice.

Then there was the slow creak of the hatch door opening above them.

Light filtered down through the hole. Fear filled her chest. Panicked prayers filled her heart. Then the hatch clanged shut again, the footsteps moved on and eventually silence fell. After a long moment, Alex unfolded his body and crouched. “Stay here.”

He forced the hatch open and looked out. And she heard him sigh heavily, then pray for God’s mercy under his breath.

She crouched up beside him. “Everything okay?”

“I think we’re alone. The cottage is a wreck.” He hauled his body up through the hole. Then he looked back down at her face. “Brick is dead.”

* * *

Alex searched the rest of the cottage quickly, while Theresa waited in the relative shelter of the storage hatch. He found nothing. Except for Brick’s corpse, they were alone. The cottage had been so totally destroyed it was hard to imagine the criminals having any motive other than causing damage. When he returned to the living room, Theresa had already hauled herself up and was sitting on the edge of the hatch with her legs still dangling in the hole.

Okay, not quite where he’d asked her to wait. But no harm done.

“They’re gone, whoever they were.” He reached for her hand, helped her up and then closed the hatch behind her. “I only saw one shooter and it was a fleeting glance at that. He was about six-three, I would guess, masked, with square shoulders.”

“Sounds like Castor.” Her face paled as her gaze ran to where Brick’s body now lay. “But that doesn’t make sense. Castor knew I was here, too. He should’ve gone searching for me. But he barely checked the hatch.”

“We were pressed right up against the wall in the shadows,” Alex said. “If it was Castor, he probably thinks you escaped somehow. Do you have any idea why he would come back just to kill one of his men?”

“I have no idea.” She shook her head but she was still looking at Brick’s body. “But if it wasn’t him, it means somebody else is running around Cedar Lake destroying cottages. This is my fault. I didn’t think to check inside his boots when I was looking for weapons, and then I dropped the shotgun. If he’d run instead of returning fire he might not have gotten shot.”

Gently, he took her by the shoulders and turned her away from the body.

“Hey, it’s not your fault,” he said. “You do know that, right? It was chaos. That gun was hidden pretty deep inside his boot. I might’ve missed it, too. You pointed out the hatch. If we hadn’t hidden in there, we might not still be alive, and we can thank God for that.”

She nodded and looked down at the ground. Her lips quivered. He pulled her into his arms and hugged her. She hugged him back. Somehow standing there with their arms around each other felt as instinctively right as breathing.

If someone had told him, even an hour ago, that he would ever hold Theresa in his arms again, he’d have laughed. But he’d loved her once, she’d been his friend and right now she needed him. Something inside him whispered that he wouldn’t be able to keep those old, lingering feelings at bay forever, but for right now, he needed to be stronger than his heartache.

“How are you even here?” she asked. “There’s no way you could’ve made the drive that quickly.”

“I took a snowmobile across the lake.”

“That’s crazy.” She pulled back out of his embrace. “It’s been a really warm winter. Or, at least, it was until recently. The lake never froze properly. There’s no way the ice is consistently thick enough for that to be safe, especially in the middle. You could’ve fallen through.”

He crossed his arms. She was right. It hadn’t been safe. It had been downright risky. But her life had been in danger. He’d taken a calculated risk in order to save her.

“It was fine,” he said. “I kept an eye on the shifts in the colors of the ice patterns, followed the channel markers and watched out for the buoys. I know this lake.” He looked down. “You’ve got duct tape on your sleeves.”

“Castor taped my wrists together behind my back.” She ran her hands over her arms self-consciously. “Fortunately, he did it over the sweatshirt and not on my skin.”

Part of him wanted to ask if he was right in thinking the sweatshirt was his old one, and if so, why she was wearing it. But something inside stopped him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “How did you get free?”

“I tore it loose on a metal bucket in the cupboard that they threw me in.” Her fingers picked at the duct tape. “I’m guessing you haven’t heard from Zoe and Mandy?”

His jaw tightened. Surely it couldn’t be a coincidence that gunmen decided to ransack Mandy’s cottage the same weekend that Zoe brought her up for a quiet study break, could it?

“No,” he said. “I tried Zoe’s cell phone again before I left the cottage but I couldn’t get a signal. I placed a really quick internet call to my boss, Daniel, on the laptop, though, and let him know what was happening. He said he’d keep trying to reach her and obviously that he’d also call the police and send them straight here. But considering the road and the distance, it’ll take the police a while to get here and we’ve got to get out of here, now.”

His eyes glanced at the shattered glass of the broken windows.

“Needless to say, we still have a lot we need to talk about,” he went on. “But not here. We’ve got to get somewhere safer and quickly. I don’t know who did this, but they could come back, especially if they think you’re connected to this secret trunk somehow. Grab your winter gear. I’m going to check out the body.”

He could see the desire to argue forming in her eyes. But she pushed it down.

“Okay, we’ll talk once we’re somewhere safe.” She ran for the back hallway.

He crossed over to the body on the floor. He’d always appreciated how focused Theresa could be when necessary. But he desperately wished Zoe hadn’t brought Theresa into it. Knowing this whole mess had put her in danger made everything harder. He crouched beside the body on the floor. Brick’s winter jacket and gear were a popular, mass-produced brand available from countless stores and told him nothing. He used the camera on his cell phone to take a picture of Brick’s face. Then he took the man’s wallet from his pocket, flipped it open and pulled out his driver’s license.

“Says his name is Kenneth Brick,” he called. “He’s from Port Hope, Ontario. Age twenty-three. Looks like he works as a cashier at a supermarket.”

“Never heard of him, and I’ve never seen him before.”

“Me neither.” Alex took a picture of the driver’s license, too, put it back in the wallet and set the wallet next to the body. “Should we?”

“One of his buddies said something that made me question if he was familiar with Cedar Lake.” She hesitated. “He alluded to an old nickname of mine.”

“Well, the kids around here had all sorts of stupid nicknames flying around, none of which were exactly original, so I wouldn’t take it personally. But they know who Mandy is, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some kind of connection to the lake. Let’s add that to the list of things we talk about later. Safety first. Talk second.”

She didn’t look convinced, but they’d paused here long enough and there really wasn’t time to draw this conversation out any longer. He grabbed the remains of a blanket and draped it over the body. When he looked up again, Theresa was standing behind him with a backpack in her hand.

He stood up. “What’s that?”

“My emergency kit.” She slung it over both shoulders. “It’s got a first aid kit, a change of clothes, duct tape, a fire starter, a CB radio and some snacks. Everything’s in waterproof bags, so it’ll be fine in the snow.”

He blinked—even though he knew better than to be surprised, considering it was Theresa. He waited as she slid a pair of snow pants on over her jeans and laced up a pair of winter boots. Then she pulled a heavy, hooded winter jacket on and zipped it up.

They ran for the back door and pushed out into the snow. It was already up to their calves and growing deeper by the second. She followed him down the driveway and into a small, wooden storage shed.

“The snow’s gotten bad.” Theresa shook the flakes from her hair.

“It’s going to get a lot worse,” Alex said. What had fallen so far was only a small taste of the deluge the forecast was predicting. He took the spare helmet off the back of the snowmobile and gave it to her. “My truck is back at my cottage. So, the plan is we head to my cottage, I’ll call Daniel with my laptop, fill him in and we’ll figure out our next move. Hopefully the power will still be on when we get there and Zoe will be sitting there with Mandy, waiting for us.”

He closed his eyes. Lord, I just pray that wherever Zoe is, she’s all right. She’s strong and she’s fierce. But she might be out in a snowstorm with a client I’m not sure I trust and killers on the loose.

When he opened his eyes, Theresa was looking at him. Strands of dark hair had slipped from the furry hood of her ski jacket. Even now, in the gloomy light of the shed, with flakes swirling like a meteor shower behind her, he had to admit he’d never seen anything like her. It was hard to put into words, but in a world of unstable and transient things, Theresa had always been like a tree, a willow tree, maybe, with roots so long and deep he knew if he just stayed close enough to her he could ride out any storm.

Until she’d cut him off, and left him rootless and drifting.

“I know you’re worried about Zoe.” Theresa’s hand brushed his arm. “She’s going to be okay. She’s smart. If she made it to town and saw the weather forecast before the storm hit, she probably just found a coffee shop or restaurant to ride it out in.”

“I hope so.” He waited as she put the helmet on then climbed on the snowmobile. Her long legs slid over the back of it behind him. She hesitated. Then her hands slid about his waist, in a gesture somehow both so familiar and foreign that he felt his brain almost short-circuit for a moment as he reached for the ignition. “Hold tight. This could get rough.”

The engine turned over.

A tall, broad-shouldered figure in a ski mask stepped into the open doorway, blocking their way to freedom. There was a small, automatic handgun in his hand. “You two aren’t going anywhere.”

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