Page 9

T he fire was dwindling as Andy cleaned up the dishes after they had soup and crackers, and the room was beginning to turn chillier already. Only two more logs were sitting in the big brass box next to the fireplace, which wouldn’t get them through the night.

Outside, the whiteout condition persisted.

“I’m going to get us some more firewood.” Andy didn’t want to wait any longer.

Denny should be helping. But Andy didn’t trust him to uncuff him, and he didn’t believe he could get any logs loose, either.

"Are you sure? I can do it." Monica was getting ready to leave the couch where she’d been resting her back.

"No. I'm feeling much better." Andy didn't want her to hurt her back further; his ankle was nearly normal.

Walking in deep snow might be an issue, but he could do all right as long as he could follow the trail she had made earlier while in her bear coat. He went outside, shut the door, and stripped off his clothes. Then he shifted into his bear, glanced back at the window, and saw her watching him.

Unfortunately, the path she had created was nearly obliterated by all the fresh snow. He lumbered toward the woodpile, rose on his hind legs, and swiped at the top layer of snow. Then he slammed his paw into the logs, something he'd never done before. Hell, it hurt!

He hated that she’d had to do that earlier. She’d made it look so easy.

He knocked two logs free from the frozen woodpile. Now he knew what she had gone through! He knocked four more logs free. While he was at it, he wanted to get as many as possible. He certainly didn’t want Monica to have to get any more.

The heavier polar bear’s weight on his injured ankle was starting to bother him though.

He still had to carry all the wood back to the cabin.

He freed four more logs and began carrying them back to the house.

At least Helen and Denny were confined so they couldn’t see him shifting into a polar bear, or that that was how he was getting the logs loose.

Once he began bringing the individual logs to the house, Monica came out to get them.

He wanted to tell her to stay in the cabin.

He would carry them in after he moved them to the front porch.

He had carried more than half of them to the porch when he heard something coming through the woods.

A cougar? Wolf? Maybe some of his people or Monica's?

As shifters, they could see better at night than humans.

But then flashlights headed their way up the drive.

He considered the distance to the cabin.

Could he make it in time to shift and dress before anyone saw him shifting?

He didn't want to risk it. None of their kind could shift in front of non-shifters without having to turn them or eliminate them, depending on who had seen them.

If they were fellow law enforcement officers, he couldn't kill them. He headed around to the side of the house to see what was happening. Monica was watching him. She looked sharply in the direction of the road covered in snow.

The lights were more visible now. Three separate flashlights or headlamps wavered in the dark as they drew closer.

She grabbed another log off the porch and Andy's clothes, then ducked back inside the cabin. She slammed and locked the door.

Andy was still watching to see who it was when he saw three men in the blowing snow, one in forest camouflage, wearing ski clothes, ski masks, and goggles, none of whom were in law enforcement gear. They could be hikers who had gotten lost and seen the lights on inside the cabin.

Then one of the men called out, "Hey, Denny, it's just us."

All three men were carrying backpacks. Andy wondered if they had picked up the ransom money from Pierre. Then again, maybe they weren’t even aware of the kidnapping plot. But why would they be trekking to the cabin in a blizzard that wasn’t Denny’s if they weren’t involved in all this?

He assumed they were not the good guys if they were meeting up with Denny. Andy feared Denny would warn them that they were walking right into trouble.

Monica dropped the log and Andy's clothes on the floor inside the cabin and locked the door. She immediately grabbed her scarf that Andy had been wearing around his foot and wrapped it around Denny's mouth to keep him from calling out if the guys approaching the cabin were bad news.

She had done it just in time before one of the men approaching the cabin called out Denny's name. This was so not good. There were three of them, and Andy was still outside in his polar bear coat.

She grabbed a hat and stuffed it in Helen's mouth, then raced to the bedroom at the end of the house.

Once there, she unlocked the window, but when she tried to push it open, it was frozen shut and wouldn't budge. Frustrated and anxious, she had to go out the back door and take Andy’s clothes to him.

She didn't want to leave the house when both she and Andy would be outside in more danger. But she needed Andy inside, wielding a gun.

She grabbed his clothes beside the front door and raced to the back door. She opened it and headed outside and around the back of the house to where she'd seen Andy go. He approached the corner as he heard her, but he shook his bear head at her. Did he want to stay outside and fight the men?

All right. She headed back inside and dropped his clothes off near the fire. Then she locked the door and grabbed both her gun and his. She holstered his and kept hers in her good hand.

Through the curtains on one of the living room windows, she surreptitiously watched the three men grow closer. She sure hoped Andy didn’t get himself shot!

The men’s faces were covered with ski masks and goggles to protect them from the blowing snow, so she had no idea what they looked like. She sure wished she could notify her fellow agents about their predicament and get more backup.

The three men ended up on the porch.

The one who had called out before yelled, “Hey, it’s me, Wendell.” He tried the door but found it locked. “Hey! Denny!”

Monica was standing with her gun readied. If they broke in, she wouldn’t have a choice but to shoot at their lower extremities. She couldn’t allow them to take control of the situation.

“Go, try the windows. Look and see if you can locate them,” Wendell said.

“Where the hell would they be if not in the cabin?” one of the other men said. He wore a purple hat, which seemed incongruent with his camo clothes.

“Drunk and sleeping it off? Just go look,” Wendell said.

The other two men left the front porch and began trudging through the path toward the woodpile. “It looks like he was headed in that direction,” the one man said.

“Yeah, around the end of the house,” the other said.

“If he got hypothermia and died out here, the money is ours,” Wendell said.

The others laughed. The two men moved around the end of the house and suddenly cried out in fright.

Perfect, Andy thought as the men about shit their pants when they saw one big polar bear coming at them. Both men wore heavy ski gloves to stay warm, and they weren’t prepared to shoot at him if they were armed, thankfully.

He lunged at the closest man, knocking him down. Andy closed in on the second man before he could backtrack and get out of there, though he had nowhere to go unless he could get into the house. Andy struck him on the back of the head, and the man fell to the ground.

Andy glanced at the other man, but he was out cold too.

Andy dragged the last one he took down to the back door.

Thankfully, Denny and Helen couldn’t see him from where they were secured to the bar poles.

But he wanted to get the unconscious men to the back door.

He and Monica would secure him as soon as possible.

Wendell was still an issue. He yelled from the front porch, sounding stressed. “What’s wrong, Teague? Lionel? Shit!”

Your buddies won’t be able to help you, Wendell .

Andy returned to the end of the house to move the other guy. He grabbed him by his parka collar, pulled him around to the back side of the house with his teeth, and left him on the deck.

Andy peered through the double glass doors and saw Monica waving at him. She was holding her gun, ready to shoot if Wendell tried to come in through the front door. It was all quiet outside. Andy suspected that Wendell wanted to learn what had happened to his cohorts, but was afraid to investigate.

“Teague! Lionel!” Wendell’s voice was coming from the other end of the house. He sounded a lot more panicked, not so happy-go-lucky that they’d brought the money for the ransom to Denny if they had .

Andy was confident Wendell would have a gun out, and he didn’t want to face him head-on and get shot. He still had to help Monica confine the other guys.

He ran around to the other end of the cabin and then to the front, desperate to reach Wendell before he moved to the back of the house and saw his cohorts passed out.

Wendell suddenly cried out, right at the corner of the house. Andy figured he’d gotten a shock when he witnessed his buddies knocked unconscious on the back deck. He might believe they were dead.

Wendell backed up and then turned as if he were going to run away. He was carrying a gun like Andy assumed he would be. Wendell saw Andy charging him, and he nearly fell back into the snow. Polar bears could leap six-foot hurdles. Andy just had to jump far enough before Wendell shot him.

Behind Wendell, Monica raced toward him. “Drop the gun, or I’ll shoot!”

Andy slammed into Wendell, knocking him over. Wendell’s gun went off, the round shooting into the dark sky. Wendell scrambled to use his weapon again, but Andy struck him in the head, knocking him out.

“I’ll put your clothes on the back deck,” Monica said to Andy.

He growled at her and followed her back to the deck. She headed inside and then came out with his clothes.