A Night Without End

Had she really tried to swipe him with the knife? Or had she sat up groggy the way she’d claimed, and before she’d gotten her bearings, he’d attacked? Sean was no longer certain. The facts didn’t add up.

“How did you get here?” he asked. “Why did you kill the old prospector?”

Carlie didn’t answer. Once again she’d slipped into unconsciousness. Had she been hurt in the fight with Jackson? Sean’s suspicions might be diminishing but they didn’t vanish. Two of his friends had encountered this woman—and both of them were dead. Still, he’d been so ready to blame her for Jackson’s death, he hadn’t checked to see if anyone else was near.

Perhaps both she and Jackson had been attacked. If she hadn’t killed Jackson, then the person who had could be after her, too. The killer could be outside on the mountain, getting away even now.

Sean knelt beside her and covered her with a spare blanket. When she moaned and turned her head to the side, he spied blood and a nugget-sized bump three inches above the base of her neck, and he winced. So that’s why she’d passed out. Had she sustained the injury while fighting Jackson? Or had someone else hit her? Either way, she probably had a concussion and shouldn’t be left to sleep. He shook her shoulder, trying to wake her up. Not even one long eyelash fluttered. But the bleeding had almost stopped.

As he stood, his hand brushed a piece of plastic that must have slipped from her pocket during their struggle. Curious, he read the name on the driver’s license. Carlie Myer. Bill’s wife—no, widow, he corrected. Absently, he slipped her license into his pocket, pleased he’d confirmed her identity, but found it odd she carried no purse or backpack.

Sean considered untying her, believing he’d misjudged the woman. But first he’d look around.

Deciding there was little more he could do for Carlie until she awakened, Sean took more careful notice of the mine. Jackson’s supplies, camp stove and tools were neatly stacked along one wall. Dishes cleaned and set out to dry from breakfast indicated the prospector had eaten alone.

Exiting the mine carrying Jackson’s body, Sean knelt and gently set Jackson’s body down. He searched the hard-packed earth but saw no signs of struggle, no footprints in the dirt. Normal sounds of the forest had returned. Arctic warblers fluttered in the willow thickets, crickets chirped and Dall sheep grazed in the high grasslands.

Through the first flutters of snow, he looked below to the town of Kesky, population one-hundred and two. They had a bank, a post office, a church, a grocery and hardware store and a one-roomed schoolhouse. In a town that size, a stranger would be noticed, especially an attractive woman. He doubted she’d passed through Kesky without being spotted. Had someone followed her up the mountain?

He and Jackson employed twenty men to work the main mine. None of the miners would have allowed Carlie to make the rough climb to the Dog Mush unescorted. Maybe she’d come up with Jackson. But why?

Unfortunately, she hadn’t divulged in her letter the reason she’d been so intent on coming to see Sean. When she awakened, he intended to get some answers.

He returned to the cave, lit an oil lamp and examined the unconscious woman again. She displayed no other signs of injury. Her face was unnaturally pale, but neither cut nor bruised. Her chest rose and fell with rhythmic precision, and from the way she’d fought, he doubted she had any broken limbs.

She let out another groan and turned onto her side, tilting her neck at an odd angle. Hoping her sole injury was the bump on her head, Sean did his best to make her more comfortable, untying her hands, folding a blanket to pillow her head.

He should have known Bill wouldn’t have let himself be hogtied by anyone less than a beauty. But did those lush lips and dark eyelashes hide a mystery that could get a man killed?

Staring at her wouldn’t give him the answers he needed. Nevertheless, he felt compelled to study her lightly tanned skin, her straight, no-nonsense nose and lips that hinted at passion. No wonder his friend had fallen in love and married so quickly.

Sean forced his gaze away. Although he wasn’t hungry, he primed and lit Jackson’s stove and set water on it for coffee to boil, again wondering why she had come to Alaska to see him.

He’d have to be patient until she could tell him. Sean knew how to be patient. He could track an animal for miles. He could spend months working a vein in the mine. He could certainly wait for the answers this woman could supply.

He had no doubts she’d had a rough time. And with that knot on her head, no doubt when Carlie awakened she’d have one hell of a headache.

A cool gust whipped around the corner and into the cave, and Sean shivered as if a dark cloud clutched at him. Shaking off the eerie portent, he added coffee to the pot. He wouldn’t let his grief or his temper or his heart rule his decisions. He’d keep an open mind until he possessed the facts. Pondering over the best way to learn the truth, his gaze again turned to the unconscious woman. One way or another, she was going to tell him exactly what had happened—if she ever woke up.

Chapter Two

Carlie’s head pounded and pain stabbed behind her eyes, yet a sense of urgency forced her to open her eyelids. She needed to…She had to…Had to what?

Where the hell was she? She lay on a sleeping bag inside a fair-sized cave. The mouth-watering scent of coffee tantalized her stomach, which made embarrassingly loud noises.

“How’s the head?”

At the sound of a deep baritone, she craned her neck. Pain shot down from her nape to her back. She gasped and fought through the swirling tunnel of blackness to study the man hovering over her.

Although he’d asked how she felt, he didn’t look particularly concerned. Actually, he leaned aggressively forward, straining the fabric of his shirt, appearing as if he couldn’t decide whether to help her or hit her, but perhaps that was because he was blurry around the edges. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them again, willing herself to focus. This time he came in as clear and crisp as a focused camera lens. The combination of his gray-eyed stare, harsh cheekbones and five-o’clock shadow caused her to tremble. Even his thin lips drawn in a tight line seemed judgmental and disapproving.

She had never seen him before. Who was he?

She tried to sit up and discovered her wrists were numb. Clenching and unclenching her fingers, she forced the blood back into them. After flexing her arms, she realized her gun had been removed from her holster, and a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach kicked in. A cop never gave up her weapon.

Something was wrong. And it wasn’t just the odd circumstance she’d found herself in. She was wearing ugly boots, a heavily padded olive jacket and khaki slacks. And cold seeped through her thermal underwear into her bones. Thermal underwear? Where had that thought come from? Her eyes widened as a flurry of snow fluttered just behind the strange man. Snow! It didn’t snow in Tampa, Florida.

“What happened? Who are you? Where am I?”

His eyes, as enigmatic as a wolf’s, darkened. “I already told you—”

“You did?” His words implied they’d already had a conversation. She drew an unsteady breath and tried to remember, but the pain in her head was taking its toll. Why didn’t she know this man? Lord, with those hard gray eyes and the lightning rush of her pulse whenever he looked at her, she didn’t know how she could have forgotten him. He had a fierce way of staring that made her feel like he was sizing her up as prey. Yet he held so still, and she sensed if she made one wrong move, he would pounce.

Damn it. Why couldn’t she remember?

She and Harry, her partner, must have been working a case that had gone down wrong, but she couldn’t recall any details, and a tight knot slowly formed in her stomach. “We’ve met before?”

One eyebrow cocked in skepticism. “You don’t remember me?” he asked very deliberately. “I’m Sean McCabe.”

His icy flash of doubt annoyed her as much as it confused her. “Carlie Brandon.”

“Brandon?” He shook his head and let out a long, low whistle of disbelief. “There’s no need to lie. I’ll try and help if I can.”

Lie? She’d told him the truth. The knot tightened another notch. Yet, despite her memory loss she tried to remain calm. Maybe he wasn’t the enemy.

In the haunting gray light of the cave, she could see a tight expression on his lips, and she realized he’d told her almost nothing about her situation. He seemed tense, a leashed force of taut muscles primed to spring if she made the wrong move. As a frisson of dread swept through her, she fought to keep the rising fear from her voice. “Could I have some water, please?”

When he didn’t hesitate to pour water from a canteen into a tin cup, she sagged against the sleeping bag, relieved. He didn’t seem to want to mistreat her. And when her numb fingers couldn’t hold the cup, he raised it to her lips with a hand that looked as if it had spent a long time in the wilderness. She’d always noticed a man’s hands. Indicating he worked with them for a living, his hands were large, the palms and pads of his fingers callused, the fingers long and without adornment. But then she didn’t need the lack of a ring to tell her this man wasn’t married. She couldn’t imagine any circumstance where he would share himself with a woman.

Although he eyed her steadily, he seemed uncomfortable around her, as if unsure whether to treat her with consideration or hostility. Her injury and weakness seemed to irritate him almost as much as it did her.

The water was cold, surprisingly refreshing, as if it had come straight from the refrigerator. She doubted politeness would soften him up. Still, she tried. “Thanks.”

Her words had no more effect on him than they had on the rocky walls around her. Still, she was aware of his intense scrutiny, the subtle aura of power he radiated as he completed the ordinary task of screwing the cap back onto the canteen and tossing it onto a pile of camping gear.

“I need to know what happened here.” His voice echoed darkly in the tomblike chamber. “Why don’t you tell me your real name—for starters.”

At his words, confusion settled in the pit of her gut. He acted as if he was giving her a test, as if he knew her name and that she’d been lying to him. Had a lunatic taken her captive? He’d said he’d help, had given her water, then sharpened his tone as if she were a habitual liar. For all she remembered, he could have been the one who’d caused the pounding at the base of her skull.

Her inability to recall her circumstances wasn’t just inconvenient but downright alarming. She didn’t recognize the partially covered body just outside the cave. Most likely, she’d been working a case and ended up here, but she hadn’t an inkling where here was or of how to play out her situation. Worse, her partner might be just around the bend, either hurt or injured, and depending on her to get them out of here.

Why couldn’t she remember? “I’m not lying. I have identification in my…”

But she wasn’t in uniform. Wild, speculative thoughts coursed through her. She must have been drugged. Taken somewhere. She reminded herself that Harry must be looking for her. If she could just stay alive, help would arrive. She swallowed hard and forced her gaze to the man looming over her. He looked hard and about two seconds away from doing her bodily harm.

Dizzy from the pounding headache, she was in no condition to fight. Actually, even if she’d been perfectly healthy, she would have been no match for two-hundred-plus pounds of lean, angry muscle. So she had no intention of provoking his anger.

Her mouth was still dry, but she was reluctant to ask for more water, preferring that he keep his distance. “What do you want with me?”