Page 16 of Snowbound Threat

She hoped she would anyway.

“What now?”

Caleb wandered away from her, glancing at the bushes and trees around them. Looking at shoe prints ahead of them in the dirt. “I think he went that way. The trail continues down, and he might have just raced along blindly fleeing for his life.”

“Making a bad choice about which way to go?”

“It’s not for us to analyze.”

Ah. That was good, at least. She didn’t want to be judgy about it if her dad was on the run, fleeing from criminals.

“He’s running on instinct.” Caleb turned to her. “Any idea which way he wouldinstinctivelygo if he was out here?”

She tried to think. “He doesn’t hike with me. He goes hunting, but I have no idea what area that is. Maybe it’s nowhere near here.”

She was rambling, but when she had no idea how to fix this what was she supposed to do? She didn’t know what to say.

Caleb seemed to think she should have answers, kind of like Sheriff Cartwright. One day all of them had to realize that she didn’t baby her father or keep tabs on him everywhere he went.

Caleb’s head snapped around. Whatever he had spotted, probably some kind of animal, he could take care of it. She wanted to get a look at the footprints so she could see if they were her father’s shoes. Maybe it wasn’t even him that had come out here.

Wishful thinking didn’t make it so that he would be safe. But God could do anything He wanted—including save people.

She bent and looked at the footprints, seeing another two up the trail. Tessa moved toward them.

A gunshot cracked like a firework behind her, sending her off balance.

She tried to gain her footing and also turn around at the same time to find out what was happening. Instead, she slid down the embankment toward the drop-off and the steep slope below her.

Tessa kept falling.

As she slipped down the dark she screamed, “Caleb!”

Chapter Seven

Caleb spotted the man moving between trees, getting snagged on bushes. That one potshot had been designed to take out one of them.You missed.

But he had heard Tessa go over the edge, so maybe the guy hadn’t.

Caleb lined the guy up in his sights and squeezed the trigger. He saw the guy spin and fall. Hopefully he had repaid the favor.

He turned and tried to spot Tessa but couldn’t see her in the overgrowth that covered the cliffside. Not quite vertical, it was still seriously steep.

He grabbed a hold of the first tree trunk and picked his way down. Moving as fast as he could without losing his footing.

Careful not to make himself a victim of this day as well as Tessa or her father.

Caleb moved from tree trunk to tree trunk, bracing his weight each time so that he didn’t fall down the hill. His thoughts full of the sound of her scream. The feel of her hand in his. The knowledge that if she and her father were in danger, or if one of them was killed, it would be because of his case.

Because for some reason someone had involved them in it.

Caleb would never have done that, and when he found the person who had? They were going to have serious words.

He couldn’t even chase that gunman through the woods because he needed to save an innocent person. Someone who had been put in danger because of that envelope sent to the preacher with key information about this case. Information Caleb wouldn’t even have discovered if it wasn’t for what had happened today.

He wanted to call out to her but didn’t dare draw attention to himself if there was another gunman out here on the hill.

He wanted to be grateful for the information in the envelope, because it was his chance to take down Kessler. Meanwhile, he was setting that aside and choosing to go after her.