Page 15 of Snowbound Threat

He didn’t look at her. Tessa raised her brows, wondering what had inspired him to say that. It was a pretty bold statement for someone to make that she had only reconnected with today.

She didn’t know anything about who Caleb Rourke had been for the last twenty years—or however long it was since they’d seen each other last. But what he told her about becoming abeliever again in the last few weeks, since his injury, seemed to have settled him down from the boy she knew years ago.

He said, “Did the sheriff tell you to stay at the car? They usually do that.”

“That’s when I told him I was out looking with you.” She had referred to him as being one of Ian Rourke’s friends and seen the grateful look on Caleb’s face at keeping his name out of it. “Thank you for being out here with me. Even if it’s only because Pops stranded you.”

She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to cover for him without question. But he was here helping her without a comment about it—making her know that he thought she should be grateful. The way a lot of guys might have done.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, picking their way along the trail and going up the side of the hill. At the top, they would probably have a decent view of the valley and be able to see if someone was down there chasing her father.

The idea of running into dangerous people made her shiver.

But they had to figure this out.

She said, “If they wanted the information from the safe and that’s why they broke in, and why they took my dad, then maybe all of this is about those papers.”

He nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that, and I think you’re right. They probably didn’t want the information to get out. But I still have no idea who sent it, which means I have no idea who these people are and how on earth all this connects from Guatemala all the way back to your house.”

She was as confused as him. “This is a superly wild guess. But, what if it was your parents who sent that envelope?”

He glanced at her, and she saw in his eyes a look that was a whole lot like that little kid at church whose daddy hadn’t picked him up from nursery. The guy had been five minutes late, talking to someone in the sanctuary. But to a little kid it was an eternitywhen you were the last one to get collected after church service ended.

“You miss them.”

He snapped his head side to side. “No, I don’t.”

Okay, so she needed to leave that conversation alone. Kind of like her relationship with her father and calling it codependency, or enabling. Whatever people on the internet wanted to say it was just because they thought using psychology terms made everything acceptable because it all had a label. Maybe she just loved her father and didn’t want him to be alone.

He slowed to a stop at the top of the ridge.

Tessa wiggled her fingers from his, not wanting it to get awkward if they held hands for too long. She also didn’t want to get used to him. A man like Caleb wouldn’t actually choose her.

Things like that didn’t happen in real life.

“That’s a steep cliff.” He motioned to the terrain in front of them.

“The whole valley is a mess of drop-offs in this area.”

“You know the terrain?”

She pointed to the east. “I mostly hike over there, on the side where there are marked trails and steps to climb. Places where the path is taken care of.”

“And over here?”

“This part has a waterfall about a quarter mile from here. And a pretty steep cliff, thanks to a landslide in the spring. There was a big wildfire out here last year and it left the terrain all burn scarred, which makes it more susceptible to heavy rain moving the ground downhill.”

Caleb scanned the trees below them, and the way the ground dipped into a valley. She could see the edge of town on the right side, past the ridges she usually hiked when she needed some peace and quiet.

All summer those trails had been busy with locals and tourists, but lately it hadn’t been so bad. Pretty soon the weather would make it so that hiking wasn’t advisable. Trails would be closed for the winter so that people didn’t chunk up the dirt, or change the terrain with use.

“I don’t see anyone.”

His comment jogged her from her thoughts. She’d been thinking about this place in terms of her quiet, normal life and not in a way that had anything to do with her father possibly being injured and dangerous people chasing him.

She liked her life. Caleb’s wasn’t one she necessarily wanted to get used to. But right now, thinking the way a fed did might be what kept her alive in a deadly situation.

She turned around, scanning the trees behind them. Watching for something out of place. She came out here enough that she would surely spot something that didn’t belong, right?