Chapter Five

Detective Jensen, Bovine Dung Sniffer

One might imagine that being handcuffed to an alleged murderer would be enough to make someone keep one eye open all night.

Lyla slept like a frozen log.

It was with a gasp that she awoke the next morning, not shivering from the cold as she had the past couple of days, but because her arm was pressed uncomfortably behind her back. It took her drowsy brain a moment to notice the arm draped over her torso, wrapped around her back. The feeling of cold metal against her wrist reminded her that she was wearing a handcuff bracelet. Ah, yes. She’d slapped the bracelet onto her wrist yesterday after slipping the other on the wrist of…

Shit!

Her eyes snapped open, and she found herself staring into Tristan’s sleeping face.

It was his arm draped over her, she realized with a chill, wrapped almost protectively around her.

He does feel warm… the sleepy part of her brain thought.

But she was pretty sure her cuffed arm had fallen asleep behind her back.

“Hey—get off me!” she hissed, trying to shove him off her. She snapped her fingers before his face. “Tristan!”

His eyes flickered open then, black as his beard, and her heart nearly skipped a beat.

He’s not Theophilus Hill, she reminded herself. He’s just a more handsome, possibly less insane version of him .

Those dark eyes narrowed, and he immediately took his arm off her, although their wrists were still bound together. “You were shivering and muttering in your sleep. It was getting annoying, so I did what I could to help.”

“I didn’t need your help,” she snapped. “And I don’t need you holding me like that. It’s bad enough that I’m handcuffed to you.”

“And whose fault is that?” he countered swiftly.

Lyla’s face grew hot despite the chill that swept into the cave. “It doesn’t matter. We’re getting these cuffs off today. There’s more light now.”

She gestured toward the cave entrance, from where pale sunlight steaked in, affording her a better view of his face. He looked somewhat like Theophilus Hill, except the coldness in his eyes was missing. This man looked less like he took joy in slashing senior citizens to bits and more like he was considering retiring himself. A faint glint filled his eyes. She noticed a grey streak in his hair that she hadn’t noticed earlier. There was some grey in his beard, too. If she had to guess, he was somewhere in his fifties. Maybe fifty-two or fifty-three.

A very attractive fifty-three , she thought, then immediately gave herself a mental kick.

She let her gaze travel downward. He had on a large fur coat that was probably handmade. It was hard to imagine that anyone actually lived on this mountain, but here he was, undeniable proof of that. He was clearly a survivor. A mountain man.

It was from the same fur coat that he soon withdrew two packets of food for them to eat. More breakfast. Reluctantly, she took one from him and ate, deciding his cold meat was a better option than her protein bars. Besides, he hadn’t poisoned her. Yet.

They ate in silence, which Lyla was grateful for.

“We need to move,” Tristan said suddenly. “By now, Angus’s men will have continued their chase.”

“I wonder what they’ll do to you when they find you,” she teased.

If looks could kill, she’d be a cadaver in forensics by now.

They left the cave and continued traveling downhill. In the morning light, Lyla could see the expanse of the mountain before them: snow and trees and rocks and even more snow. It was infinite, Tristan had said. No way off.

Just perfect.

They traveled for a while before Tristan said, “Here.”

He stopped in his tracks, pointing at a large, snow-covered boulder ten feet away. Beyond it, further down the mountain, she could make out more trees, even denser than the woods she’d been in yesterday.

He took his time searching for a smaller rock, tossing his options aside before finally holding up a jagged rock nearly the size of her head.

“This will do,” he said with a slight grin.

“I’m not sure I like that gleam in your eyes,” she said warily.

“I’m about to get my freedom,” was all he said.

With that, he held up his shackled hand and placed it against the boulder, forcing her to do the same. Lyla kept her wrist as far away from his as she could as he positioned the jagged rock to strike.

Tristan heaved with all his might.

Clink!

She blinked. “It didn’t work.”

“I can see that.” He scowled, his jaw clenching as he struck again.

Clink! The chain linking their wrists remained intact, with barely a scratch on it.

“Uh…I don’t think that rock is doing any damage.”

He cursed, a dangerous glint in his eyes as he brought the rock down again.

Clink!

“Jeez, you really are desperate to get away, aren’t you?”

Clink! Clink! This time, the rock came precariously close to her wrist.

“Careful with that! Are you hoping you’ll miss the chain and hit me?”

“Shut up, or I just might miss,” Tristan snapped. With a groan of frustration, he tossed the rock aside. “It’s not working.”

“Yeah, I think I figured that out like three attempts ago.” She lifted her cuffed wrist. “Looks like you’re stuck with me a little longer, Mr. Mountain Man.”

“You think this is funny?”

“Trust me, I’m enjoying being handcuffed to you just as much as you are,” she assured him. “We’ll have to figure out some other way to get these cuffs off.”

“Yes. In the meantime, I need to keep moving. I must get to Ariadne before…” He seemed to rethink whatever he’d been about to say. “I won’t allow anything or anyone to stop me, especially not you.”

Lyla groaned inwardly. “Fingers crossed; I won’t be legally insane by the time we take off these cuffs.”

***

“Who’s Ariadne?”

“She’s my sister,” came the hushed reply.

“Oh.” Lyla frowned. “How come you don’t live in the same village?”

“Shh!”

“I’m just saying. It seems a bit weird. Suspicious, even. I mean—”

“Are you trying to starve us both to death?”

That effectively shut her up. It was hours later, and both their stomachs were growling with hunger. Since Tristan had run out of food—and Lyla wasn’t about to share her remaining protein bars with her irksome companion—he’d decided to hunt. They both sat crouched by a tree in the woods, watching a reindeer amble across a clearing, still oblivious to their presence.

Lyla had to admit she found their situation ironic. She was a bounty hunter, one of the finest—okay, maybe she was tooting her own horn here—but she’d never hunted animals before. Even more, she knew she’d suck at it if she tried. People and animals existed on different levels of complexity. It was easier to hunt people because she knew how people reasoned—at least for the most part. A reindeer was just a reindeer, Santa’s glamorized version of animal labor.

With his free hand, Tristan withdrew something from under his coat just then. A blade, she realized with a pang.

Has he been armed this entire time? she thought.

She must have spoken aloud because he suddenly glared at her. Lyla eyed the blade warily. He could’ve slit her throat at any point while she was asleep. She made a mental note to keep one eye on him at all times.

“How many more of those do you have on you?” she asked.

He cursed. “I should’ve tried harder to break these bonds. Then I’d be free of you.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

He lifted a brow in question.

“I’m not getting off this mountain anyway, right?” She shrugged. “I’ve got nowhere to go. I might as well follow you to your destination. And maybe I can make some sense of your…situation.”

He scoffed and looked away, his gaze fixed on the reindeer.

Lyla couldn’t help the curiosity that bubbled within her as she stared at him. Whatever was going on, whether this man was truly innocent or not, she wanted to figure it out. Or maybe she was simply hoping for proof of what she already knew: that he was the murderer this Angus person believed him to be. Sure, he claimed to be innocent, but the guilty rarely admitted it, even to themselves. And Lyla was pretty good at figuring out that sort of thing. Well, usually.

She recalled what a fellow bounty hunter had told her once when they partnered on a mission: “You’ve got a pretty good nose for smelling bullshit. You could be a detective.”

Lyla had pondered it for a moment. Her colleague wasn’t wrong. “Maybe,” she’d replied. “But I think I want to stick to bounty hunting for now. In the meantime, I’ll avoid going near any bovine rear ends.”

Her colleague chuckled. “Sounds catchy—Detective Jensen, Bovine Dung Sniffer.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

Maybe it was time for Detective Jensen to take control.

“So why does Angus think you’re guilty?” she asked. “Assuming you aren’t, I mean.”

He ignored her question, which she’d kind of expected.

She decided to dig deeper. “You mentioned something about a family curse. What’s that about?”

When he stiffened next to her, she knew she’d struck gold.

“What’s the curse?” she pressed. “I mean, if it’s true, you should be able to share—”

“It’s none of your business,” he snapped.

That only fueled her curiosity, but Lyla decided not to press further. The right time would come. Theophilus Hill was old news now. She couldn’t even reach him if she wanted to. But now she had another problem to tackle.

Tristan raised his weapon. The curved blade caught the sun’s rays, nearly blinding her for a split second. It occurred to her just then that catching the reindeer might be a lot more difficult with their wrists still handcuffed. By the time they decided to strike, their prey would’ve sensed them.

Before she could voice out her concerns, the deer’s ears perked up. The creature glanced to one side, its eyes wide like it had been caught in headlights, and promptly took off in the opposite direction, disappearing through the trees.

Tristan shot her a glare that said, If I starve to death, I’m going to haunt you.

“What?” Lyla said as they rose to their feet. “That wasn’t my fault. It just—”

“Shh!”

He moved so quickly that she had no time to blink before he clamped his cuffed hand over her mouth. Lyla started to protest but was interrupted by the sound of twigs snapping. A second later, she heard the crunch of footsteps in the snow, growing louder by the second.

Something was approaching. Or was it someone ?

Before she could figure it out, Tristan pulled her behind the tree and held her close to him, his hand still covering her mouth. He was completely still, but she could feel his heart thudding against her rear chest. His breath was warm against the back of her neck. Lyla’s heart pounded in her chest. It almost made no sense to be afraid when she had no one after her, but the mere fact that Tristan was unsettled put her at unease. If this big man was scared, it was only wise that she should feel terrified, too.

The footfalls slowed as whoever was headed toward them drew closer. And then they stopped.

Lyla held her breath, remaining as still as she could, with her heart threatening to burst out of her chest. She couldn’t see anyone, but there was someone around here, alright. And that person had come here for them.

“Not…a…sound,” Tristan whispered in her ear.

Lyla was barely paying attention. She had suddenly become aware of something hard pressed against her bottom. A gasp rose in her throat as she realized what it was, but Tristan’s hand kept her from letting it out.

Stay still , she told herself.

It was hard to ignore what was going on. Tristan’s heart wasn’t the only part of his body she could feel throbbing. Lyla’s heart raced, but whether with fear or excitement, she was unsure.

The footsteps resumed but faded in another direction. Tristan and Lyla remained as they were. How long they stood there, she had no idea—perhaps a few minutes or several deliciously warm days—but he finally released her.

“He’s gone,” he said. “That must have been one of Angus’s men.”

Lyla let out a shuddering sigh of relief, although she wasn’t sure what exactly she was relieved about. “Yeah, probably.”

“We need to be quieter. We can’t afford to get caught.”

She didn’t even have the presence of mind to tease him. She nodded, refusing to meet his dark gaze. “Uh-huh.”

“Let’s go,” he told her. “We need to move quickly.”

“Right,” she said breathlessly.