This was fast and full of intention.
They knew where Jack and Steph were, or at least they thought they did. The meadow would be too exposed, which meant getting the sleds was no longer an option.
“This way.” Steph turned sharply to the right.
His feet paid the price for every step. The cold had long ago seeped through the two pairs of wool socks and into his skin. The frozen ground found every nerve ending it could and made use of them. He kept moving. Pain meant his feet were working, and working was what he needed them to do.
The circulation had returned to his hands in full, painful and welcome in equal measure. His wrists burned where the twine had bitten into them, but he could deal with it. And he had the rifle.
He kept up with Steph and didn’t ask where she was going.
She was taking them deeper into the timber, angling away from the open ground, away from the meadow,toward the densest section of trees. Smart. The snowmobiles couldn’t follow in tight timber. Every trunk between them and the snowmobiles was a problem the poachers had to solve. She was multiplying the problems.
He watched her move through the trees and tried to find the words he hadn’t found before the engines started.
I need to tell you about Celeste.
Now they were running again, and talking about Celeste wasn’t going to happen. Talking about anything but what they had to do to get out of this alive wouldn’t happen. But it would at some point. At some point, he needed to tell her why he overreacted the way he did.
You were dumb, Swisher. Dumb, and the cost might be losing Steph.
Not that he really had her to start with, but he couldn’t deny his feelings and knew she was feeling things too. Deep down, Jack knew Steph wasn’t the type to kiss someone unless she meant it.
Being with Steph isn’t an option, anyway.You’re broken, Jack, and she deserves better. He hated to admit that, even to himself, but he knew it was true.
Whether they had a future or not, explaining why he was dumb—why he was a total jerk—was important. He’d been terrible to her. What kind of person did something like that? What kind of man? If Jack looked at her now, he was certain his embarrassment would show.
Steph wasn’t looking at him, though. She was running. Not quite a sprint, but close to it. Jack struggled to keep up, but keep up he would.
Becky had been right all along. Steph was truly a winter warrior. He knew that now. And that was part of the problem.
He couldn’t be with someone who ran toward danger instead of away from it.
He knew it the way he knew most things that were simply true about himself. Not as a choice. As a fact.
A branch caught his shoulder, and he pushed through it, coming up even with Steph.
She didn’t look at him. Her eyes were on the trees ahead, reading the terrain, moving with the efficiency she brought to everything out there. Definitely a warrior.
A stubborn warrior. The stubbornness had shown through since their first conversation. Not the day he’d saved her from the out-of-control car, but from a phone call a couple of months earlier, when he’d reached out to introduce himself and suggest their respective running clubs plan an outing or two together.
That first conversation told a lot about Steph and her stubbornness and dedication, not to mention her loyalty to her running club and to herself.
If he’d remembered that conversation before telling her to go hide and let him play the hero, he would’ve known she would do what she thought was right. What she thought was best. She didn’t see herself as wrong.
Viewed plainly, without all the emotion clouding things, her actions were justified. Steph assessed the situation, put a plan into motion, and it worked.
And what did he do? His “thanks” came in the form of calling her careless. Jack knew why she was furious. He’d treated her like a foolish child.
She was anything but.
The engine sounds shifted. Both machines had moved west, which put them between the timber and the road. He tracked the change without breaking stride and lookedat the back of Steph’s head and understood she had already read it.
She adjusted their direction, heading deeper into the trees. The engines were still loud but no longer gaining. The timber was doing its work.
He wanted to talk to her, tell her he understood why she was angry and that she was right to be angry, but now was certainly not the time. Maybe that was convenient. He wasn’t sure anymore what was convenient and what was cowardice.
Their speed wasn’t an all-out sprint, but it was still fast. Too fast for the condition of his feet and the closeness of the trees. She slowed as the ground climbed and the trees grew denser, the canopy closing overhead. His feet found a section of bare ground under a stand of large pines where the canopy had kept the snow thin, and for a dozen steps, the cold eased. Not enough, but noticeably.
