A Night Without End

Her head spun. Her stomach refused to settle. And she wished he’d stop staring at her as if she were an exotic animal in a zoo. “How do we know each other?”

Before he answered, voices and several dog barks from outside the cave interrupted. A new voice echoed through the cave. “Sean! You want us to bring the sleds into the mine or leave them out—”

Three men entered the cave. The first man was huge as a grizzly bear and looked as if he’d never used a razor. His black beard must have been a foot long. He towered over a slender youth who wore neon-green ski gear, goggles on his forehead and five earrings in his left ear. The third man looked ordinary enough, except when he scowled at her, she spotted a gold front tooth.

From somewhere in her mind came a saying about women searching for husbands in a state where men outnumbered women eight to one. The odds were good but the goods were odd. Even with the knot on her head she couldn’t have dreamed up an odder assortment of men.

All three visitors took in Jackson’s body beneath the blanket and then their hostile gazes settled on her. At the anger and accusations in their faces, she wanted to lie back down and close her eyes, but she forced herself to remain sitting upright.

The man with the long beard pointed at her and spoke with a harsh growl. “Marvin said my brother killed his murderer.”

No wonder the man eyed her with such hostility. He was Jackson’s brother. Automatically, she looked for a similarity in features—but she had no idea what the man she’d supposedly killed looked like.

As if sympathetic to her plight, Sean placed himself between her and the intruders and sat on a crate by the camp stove. “I was mistaken, Roger.”

“Hell of a mistake,” chided the man with the gold tooth. “We could have all walked into a trap.”

Carlie kept quiet, her gaze flickering from the other men to Sean, who’d clearly taken charge. He had a stillness about him, a calm that spread outward from his center, which reassured her.

But Roger, Jackson’s brother, was clearly incensed. And while the gold-toothed fellow seemed to find her predicament diverting, the twenty-something kid in the ski clothes looked none too happy with her, either.

The kid tossed his goggles to the ground and unzipped his ski jacket. “Want me to call—”

“Why bring in outsiders?” Roger muttered through his beard as he peered at her with a scowl. “We should string her up right now.”

The man with the gold front tooth turned his head and spit out a stream of tobacco juice. “I’m not hanging no female.”

“There will be no vigilante justice on this mountain,” Sean said with an authority that sliced through the argument and had the men looking at their feet. “If she killed Jackson, she’ll get the justice she deserves.”

The men settled around the stove, forming a circle that closed her out, their argument swirling around her like a tornado. Amid the shouts, an aura of great stillness surrounded Sean. He did not shout. He did not shift from foot to foot or clench his fingers. And he didn’t just take up space, he controlled it.

Exhausted, she lay back in the blankets, bunching the material in her fists. Sean appeared to be in charge and inclined to protect her from the others.

But who would protect her from him?

AFTER TYLER UNZIPPED his ski jacket, he poured coffee, and Sean glanced at Carlie. Although he caught an alert gleam of speculation in her expression, the effort to hold up her head was costing her. Fatigue crept in around the edges of her eyes and her mouth drew into a tight line of pain. She’d clenched her jaw, but after she caught him watching her, she’d forced her features to relax, as if admitting to pain was a weakness. He couldn’t help but admire her mettle. She was strong, this woman, and he’d long ago discovered that strength often hid powerful passions. He couldn’t help wondering what kind of passions simmered beneath her surface. He also wondered if she thought she’d told him the truth.

She required medical treatment, but first, he had to think of the best way to calm down Roger. Jackson’s brother had one hell of a temper. He loved nothing better than a good fight. Next to fighting, he liked shouting, but once he settled, he had a good heart. And he never held a grudge.

Sean wished he could have a few moments alone with the man. From his clenched fists to the tight cords in his neck, Jackson’s brother appeared as if the grief bottled up inside him was ready to burst. But short of a fistfight, Sean had no way to ease Roger’s grief, fearing even a few kind words might set off Roger in front of the others.

Tyler set the coffee back on the stove, but not before shooting Carlie a look of angry speculation. He, too, had liked and respected Jackson, who had been popular among the men, not just because he was an old-timer and one of the partners in the Dog Mush, but because he had the habit of adopting strays, the lost, the lonely, the forgotten. So even the irreverent Tyler held him in high esteem, and his anger at his murderer was fully justified in his eyes.

Sean next glanced at Marvin. His normally gold-smiling visage was tight, as if having difficulty holding his poker face. Sean had his work cut out for him to defuse the men’s anger. Carlie was a stranger; Kesky’s inhabitants held a natural distrust of outsiders that was common in small towns and more prevalent in the Alaskan wilds.

Not liking the way all three men glared at Carlie and fearing their hostility could erupt into violence, Sean squatted back on his heels and accepted a cup of coffee. “When I called Marvin, I thought she—” he jerked his thumb at Carlie “—was dead, too.”

“Too bad you were wrong.” Roger’s dark brows drew together as he stared at his brother’s body.

“Why did she kill Jackson?” Marvin asked, his gambler’s eyes assessing Carlie with an interest that made Sean’s protective urges kick in.

“She isn’t going to tell,” Tyler said with a superior smirk that he probably thought made him appear worldly but instead revealed a hurt young man trying to be brave after the recent loss of his father in a hunting accident. “I’ll bet she’s claiming she didn’t even do it.”

“I’m not sure she did,” Sean said. At his words, the woman relaxed her body and eased her head back onto the sleeping bag.

Roger finally broke the tense silence. “Care to explain that, boss?”

Three pairs of male eyes locked on Sean as if he had the cabin fever that makes a man insane after spending too long indoors during winter. They all needed time to look at the murder more rationally. Calmly, he sipped his too-hot coffee, relishing the liquid as it burned his tongue.

“Those pretty eyes are playing havoc with your thinking,” Marvin said before Sean replied. “There wasn’t nobody up here except the old man and the girl. Who else could have done in Jackson?”

“There isn’t anyone else here now,” Sean stated with cool logic. “But suppose someone attacked both of them?”

“What are you implying?” Roger asked.

“When I first came into the cave, she looked dead. Maybe our killer made the same mistake.”

“Jeez.” Tyler shook his head in disgust. “I’m not believing my ears.”

“Is that what she said?” Eyes narrowing, Roger clenched and unclenched his fist.

Sean kept his gaze on the men, yet he was very aware of the woman on the sleeping bag. She’d been remarkably quiet during their discussion, not once interrupting to defend herself. He couldn’t fault her judgment and he respected her ability to realize that right now, remaining silent was the better part of valor. If she moved so much as an inch, they’d know it. But she wasn’t trying to escape. Instead she stared at him with pain-filled eyes edged with hope.

He softened his tone. “Look, all I’m saying is that Carlie was injured, too. Other possibilities exist. And I want to look into all of them.”

Tyler nodded. “That’s a good idea.”

“You aren’t the law,” Marvin challenged Sean without quite meeting his eyes.

“I should be in charge,” Roger muttered. “He was my brother.”

Sean ignored the interruptions. “Jackson practically raised me from a boy. I want to find his killer just as badly as you, maybe more. But I refuse to jump to any hasty conclusions.”

“Seems to me you’re jumping over backward to give the pretty lady the benefit of the doubt,” Roger complained.

Roger should know better. Jackson’s brother was well aware of Sean’s debt to the old prospector. He’d never forget Jackson’s patience as the man taught him to trap, hunt and solve word problems for school. When a restless boy had complained of homework, it was Jackson who had explained the value of an engineering degree, who helped Sean focus on the future instead of dwelling on the past. Sean would never forget the love Jackson had freely given to a homeless boy. Nor would he forget that Jackson deserved justice.

“She’s even got blood on her sleeve,” Marvin added. “What more proof of murder do you need?”

Tyler pointed rudely at Carlie. “What don’t we let her speak for herself?”

Sean stared the kid down. “She has a knot on her head the size of a goose egg. And she can’t remember anything that happened.”

Tyler’s eyes widened. “Wow! You’re saying she’s got amnesia?”

“How convenient,” Marvin muttered. “Ten to one, she did it.”

“We’re not betting on a poker game here,” Sean admonished him.