SHIVER (47 page)

“By the looks of the rules, we aren’t going to eat until we locate a few geocaches,” Mac said. “It’s getting late. I suggest we divide up into pairs. No sense in being stupid. There will be protection against the unfriendlies if we stay in numbers. Tern, you pair up with me—”

“What?” Robert scoffed. “No way do the old man and the broad get to pair up.”

“Who the hell are you calling a broad?” Tern asked. “Talk like that is going to get you hurt.”

“I’d love you to try it, babe.” Robert cocked his brow at her in challenge, then turned back to Mac. “And who the fuck put you in charge?” he sneered.

“Age and wisdom, you little shit.” Mac stood over Robert, who at least had the survival instincts to back down. “Now—”

“The little shit has a point,” Gage interrupted. “No offense, Mac, but you’re older and the women are weaker—”

“Hey,” Tern spat.

Gage ignored her objection and continued, “We should keep the strength ratio as close to even as we can for protection.”

“Draw names,” Lucky said. “Luck of the draw.”

“I’ll get some paper and a pen.” Nadia once again rushed back to their cabin. She returned, wrote everyone’s name on a piece of paper and tore them into slips. “Gage, can I borrow your hat?”

Gage took off his ball cap and handed it to her, being careful not to get too close to Tern.

Nadia put the names into the cap and one by one drew out a name.

“Robert with—” she reached for a piece of paper “—Mac.” She tossed the names into the fire and glanced around waiting for objections, when no one said anything she drew again. “Lucky with, oh, me.” She smiled at Lucky, and then faced Tern. “I guess that leaves you and Gage.” She mouthed a sorry.

Sorry didn’t begin to cover it.

Tern couldn’t look at Gage, but felt his irritation from behind her where he’d waited for the return of his hat. Of all the people to be paired up with, Gage was her last choice. Everything had seemed to go wrong since she’d entered the hangar this morning.

“All right then,” Mac said. “Let’s divide up and see what we can find. Does everyone have a weapon?” He answered their nods with a short one of his own. “Fire three shots with a full second between each shot if you get into trouble.” He motioned with the paper that had the geocache coordinates on them. “Leroy, you and Nadia head south over that hill. Tern, since you’re more mountain goat than human, you and Gage head north. By these coordinates, looks as though you might have some ice to navigate. Be careful. Robert and I will head west. I suggest we only give ourselves two hours. Find what you can in that time frame, then reconvene back here.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Got it?”

“I need a minute.” Tern grabbed Nadia’s arm and dragged her toward their cabin. “What the hell was that all about?”

“What?” Nadia wrenched her arm free.

“Pairing me up with Gage? You know he’s the last man I want to spend time with.”

“Sweetie, it was the luck of the draw.” Nadia continued ignoring Tern’s scoff, “You need to find out what happened between the two of you anyway.”

“Nope.” Tern folded her arms over her chest as if that would help protect her heart. “If he couldn’t tell me then, I don’t want to hear it now.”

“Yes, you do. It’s been eating you up inside.” Nadia cocked a hip. “Ever think that maybe this is fate?”

“Fate isn’t this sick.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It paired me up with Lucky.” A smile she tried to hide gave her away.

“As if that wasn’t who you wanted to be with anyway.”

She shrugged. “He’s the most fun of the bunch. There’s an unfair ratio of men to women, and since they’ve all had a taste of you, it’s up to me to protect myself from being passed around,” she said, tongue in cheek.

“You bitch.”

Nadia laughed. “Come on, get over it, and let’s have some fun. Think of the havoc you can cause Gage. Get back at him for his mistreatment of you.”

“Right.”

“Hey, you wouldn’t mind if Lucky and I hooked up, would you?”

“Uh…” Did she care? There was a part of her that still cared deeply for Lucky, and she wasn’t hiking down that trail again. But Nadia and Lucky? He’d break her heart. “Be careful, Nadia. He isn’t the kind of man who sticks around.”

“My favorite. Use ‘em and abuse ‘em.” Nadia gave a sly smile. “Time for the games to begin.”

Tern hopped onto a smooth boulder that had been tumbled and spat out by the glacier. The air coming off the ice chilled her to the bone every time she stopped to catch her breath. As long as she kept moving the cold didn’t sink in.

The glacier nestled blue in a valley of black spruce with craggy outcropping. The crystal clearness of the lake lay below, topped by a sky so azure it was almost white. Not even a jet stream marred the translucent sky. It felt as though if she focused just enough, she’d be able to catch a glimpse into Heaven.

The only thing to ruin this moment was the man trailing behind her. Gage cocked the shotgun again.

“How many times do you need to check that thing? It isn’t like the bullets are going to disappear.”

“I don’t like this.”

“You could have stayed in camp.”

“That’s not what I meant. This whole set up. It doesn’t feel right. Having no contact with the outside world concerns me. What if someone gets hurt? A week can be a long time to wait for help to arrive.
If
it arrives,” he grumbled.

“Afraid of a little adventure?” Tern taunted. They’d only spoken a few words on the hike toward the glacier. Nothing that wasn’t absolutely necessary.

“I’m not afraid.”

She turned and gave him a long look. He’d been afraid of her.

“I’m not afraid of you either,” he said, reading her expression correctly. It irked her that he could still do that.

“Riiight.” Like he wouldn’t have agreed to this ‘little adventure’ if he’d known she was going to be along. She dismissed him and started climbing again, her feet sliding to a hard stop when he grabbed her arm and swiveled her to face him.

“I am not afraid of you,” he repeated through strong, white teeth.

She studied him, eyes bright green, flashing golden specks from within, his nostrils flaring. She moved in closer and laid her hand on his chest. His heart hammered under her palm, and he swallowed hard.

“You’re so afraid of me you can’t stand it,” she whispered, slinking closer, until their bodies touched from breasts to thighs. His eyes smoldered over and his lips parted.

“Your very bones melt when I get close to you,” she continued. “The blood runs hot in your veins, and you want to do wicked things with me. You’re scared to death of what I can make you feel.” She let that sink in before she stepped back.

His hand fell from her arm as though in defeat.

“Don’t worry, Gage, you’re safe from me. A man dumps me like you did and there isn’t anything more that I want from him.” She left him there, hoping his mouth gaped open as he salivated after her. She almost turned back to relish his expression, but knew she’d lose ground if she did. Instead, she consulted her GPS. The geocache had to be around here somewhere.

While the GPS coordinates got them close to the cache, it didn’t put them on top of one. The excitement of the hunt replaced the twisted pleasure of messing with Gage.

Served the deadbeat right.

Six months she’d waited for him. And nothing. She was disappointed in herself that she still gave a damn. She should have been able to turn off her feelings like a faucet. But then she’d never been so deep before.

Tern mentally shook herself and concentrated on finding the cache. The light bouncing off the glacier hurt her eyes. So she reached into her front pocket—where she’d stored her sunglasses when they’d been in the darkness of the trees—and put them on. As she did, it cut the rays of the sun and allowed her to see the sharp corner of something square. As far as she knew, Mother Nature hadn’t gotten around to perfecting the square.

She hiked up a few more feet and knelt down on the icy crust. The coldness melted into her jeans, but she didn’t care. Someone had chipped a small cavity in the ice of the glacier and set a five gallon cooler into it. She dug around the edges and pulled the cooler free. She pivoted the handle, which acted as a lock, and opened the top.

Moose steaks, smoked salmon, many different kinds of cheeses, and a bottle of wine. Hot damn. Her mouth watered. Whoever was running this game was one smart cookie. Encasing the cooler in the ice of the glacier kept the food from spoiling and animals from sniffing it out. She liked the way he thought and couldn’t wait to sink her teeth into one of the steaks.

“What did you find?” Gage’s tall shadow fell over her.

“The mother lode.” She shared a real smile with him this time. When he returned it and held out a hand to help her up, her traitorous heart flipped-flopped. “You’re cooking tonight.”

“It’d be my pleasure to feed you.” He pulled her to her feet and kept pulling until she was pressed up against him. “And you’re right. You scare the shit out of me.” His hand came up and framed her face, the other anchored behind her back keeping her close. “But I scare you too.”

Before she could utter a protest, his lips seared hers. Heat erupted between them and flushed her body with enough warmth to melt the glacier they stood balanced on.

Damn, she’d missed him. The way their bodies naturally curved together, the way her insides liquefied in readiness for him, and the way his body hardened to steel. She’d loved his body. Roped with muscle, strong and flexible, she’d loved lavishing attention on his body for hours. Her fingers itched to touch his skin again, feel his flesh hot against hers as he—

“I’m not the only one who wants to do wicked things,” he murmured, his voice husky with arrogance. He nipped the skin below her ear, and licked the sting.

Her fingers curled into fists, and she pushed him. He slipped on the ice and fell on his ass at her feet.

She stood over him, enjoying the view. “The wicked things I want to do involve sharp implements.” She brushed her hands over her clothes as though that would erase his touch. “I found the cache.
You
can carry it back to camp.”

Trying to look as if she wasn’t running away, Tern took her time and carefully watched her footing as she descended the ice. She could hear Gage cussing behind her as he struggled with the cooler and his slippery toehold on the glacier.

Serves him right for putting the moves on her after all this time. Like he had to disprove her earlier statements of fear. There was no way in hell she was afraid of him.

A shiver caught her by surprise.

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

Photo by: Kelli Ann Morgan

Tiffinie Helmer is an award-winning author who is always up for a gripping adventure. Raised in Alaska, she was dragged ‘Outside’ by her husband, but escapes the lower forty-eight to spend her summers commercial fishing on the Bering Sea.

A wife and mother of four, Tiffinie divides her time between enjoying her family, throwing her acclaimed pottery, and writing of flawed characters in unique and severe situations.

To learn more about Tiffinie and her books, please visit www.TiffinieHelmer.com

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