SHIVER (46 page)

“Tern,” he said, in that same husky, deep baritone that had her insides clenching. “Seems you know all the players. Are you the one who sent the invite?”

Like she was a masochist.
“No. I’m just as surprised to see you as you are to see me.” She met his gaze and tried not to flinch. He didn’t look happy to see her at all. She’d bet he wouldn’t be here if he’d known she’d been invited on this excursion. It hurt knowing he hadn’t missed her the tiniest bit.

Deadbeat. He wasn’t worth her heartache.

Nadia bumped into her, and she grabbed a deep breath to introduce her to Gage, but Nadia greeted Gage with a hug. Then Tern remembered. They were both employed by the University. Nadia had been the one to suggest Gage check out her shop when he needed to do his Christmas shopping.

Tern didn’t like seeing Nadia in Gage’s arms. He smiled at her friend, his eyes crinkling up at the corners as they caught up with each other. Why couldn’t he have greeted her like that? She turned away before she gave in and kicked Gage in the shins or fell into a blubbering puddle at his feet.

Through the door of the hangar sat her white Jeep, beckoning like a rocketship. She even took a few steps toward it, before realizing what she was doing and stopped. She couldn’t back out now. Not with Gage’s eyes boring into her back. If she walked off, he would know how much he’d hurt her. But then, how did she spend a whole week with him in the wilderness and refrain from killing him, or worse, sleeping with him again?

A sandy-haired man, who looked as though he preferred spending more time in the air than on the ground, entered the hangar. “Folks, my name is Hugh, and I’ll be ready to take off in about five minutes,” their pilot announced. “We’ll be taking the DeHavilland Beaver tied up next to the dock. If you’ll carry your bags down there, I’ll get them loaded, while you take your seats.”

“Do we know where we’re going?” Robert asked, grabbing his pack and following the pilot.

“Everything will be made clear to you once we’re in the air.” The pilot shrugged. “Those are the instructions I’ve been given. Can’t have one of you with an advantage.”

How about disadvantage?

Tern sure as hell felt like she was at a disadvantage starting out. It didn’t seem like anyone else was carrying the emotional baggage with them that she was.

She caught Gage watching her from across the hangar and suddenly felt like a rabbit being hunted by a wolf. Her nipples tightened as something that felt like excitement shivered over her.

“Ready to take off?” Nadia broke through Tern’s connection to Gage.

“Nope.”

“Ah, come on, Tern.” Nadia flashed a smile and gave her newly darkened hair a toss. She’d recently exchanged her natural cinnamon for Tern’s raven coloring. Tern was still getting used to the change. “It’ll be fun. Once we get there and the games begin, you’ll forget all about Gage Fallon.”

Right. And they’d see stars in the arctic sky tonight too.

They climbed aboard and took their seats in the floatplane. Nadia sat in back with Gage, sandwiching Tern with Lucky on one side and Robert on the other. Mac sat up front with Hugh.

Fortunately, once they took off on the man-made Chena Marina and were soaring northwest into the brilliant blue sky, the noise in the plane was too loud to carry on a conversation without headphones and mics. Mac and Hugh were the only ones outfitted, which suited Tern just fine. There was too much back and forth going on inside her head to pay attention to anyone else.

Why had she let Nadia talk her into getting on this plane? There was no way that this trip could end well, other than winning and being named the best geocacher in the state. Regardless if she’d seemed a coward, she should have run from the hangar and left this crew on their own. The plane bumped along in a pocket of turbulence as though nodding in agreement.

She’d introduced all these people to the high-tech sport of geocaching, a treasure hunt where the participants used GPS to find hidden caches full of rewards that ranged from simple trinkets, to further instructions, and sometimes money. Damned if these people would prove that they were now better at the techie sport than she was.

After about an hour, the floatplane dipped, beginning its decent. She caught a view out the windows and anticipation replaced the foreboding that bubbled in her thoughts. A glacier-fed lake glistened like an expensive jewel below them, a color man would never be able to duplicate. Iced mountain tops, perfectly frosted by Mother Nature, crowded around the lake as though hoping to pick up any secrets it might whisper of time and space. Spruce ranging in colors of the darkest blue to green to black competed for room among the birch trees. A clearing revealed a nest of small cabins along the south bank of the lake, directly opposite the glacier that receded above the valley.

The DeHavilland skimmed the placid waters of the lake and came to a stop along the sandy bank near the cabins. Hugh powered down the Beaver and silence pressed in.

“Welcome to Nowitna Lake,” Hugh said, rolling up his hip waders and climbing out onto the float of the plane. He hopped onto the bank and secured the plane to a birch tree before wading into the water. One by one, they climbed out onto the floats and jumped to shore. Hugh unloaded their packs, tossing them the short distance. It was up to them to catch them or not. Tern seized hers just as it would have smacked her in the face. As it was, she stumbled back a few steps.

Hugh waded to shore, pulled out an envelope from his back pocket, and handed it to Nadia. “Here you go. Instructions are in there on the rules of the game. I’ll be back in a week to pick you up.” Once that was done, he didn’t waste any time in untying the plane, turning it around, and hopping aboard.

They watched, standing in a line, as Hugh took off. Tern wondered if they were all thinking the same thing she was.

Just where the hell were they, and what would they do if he didn’t come back?

“Well,” Mac said, hitching up his backpack on brick-like shoulders and grabbing his rifle. “The day isn’t getting any younger. I suggest we make camp and cook up some grub.”

They gathered their gear and headed toward the base camp just a few hundred yards up from the lake. The spot was breathtaking. Grasses so green it hurt Tern’s eyes to look at them were intermixed with wildflowers of blue bells, forget-me-nots, brook mint, and cowslips. The air was clean and crisp. Rejuvenating.

Tern breathed in a deep breath and slowly let it out. She’d been locked up too long in her shop this season getting ready for the tourists. It was actually unheard of for her to take time off from work during the summer. It was her money making season, but she had a good crew and she badly needed the break from commitments and responsibilities. The sun beat down with teasing fingers, tempting her into shedding her jacket.

The camp was made up of three small log cabins making up a half moon. Tern and Nadia entered the first cabin, while the men carried their gear into the remaining cabins. The small space housed two cots each. A shelf, hooks for clothes, an end table between the cots, and a wood stove for heating in winter. The bare necessities. It caused a smile to spread over Tern’s face, while Nadia frowned.

“This is it?” she asked, scanning the small space as though some modern day amenities would suddenly appear.

“Did you expect maid service?”

“Running water would have been nice.”

“There’s a pristine lake out front.” Tern gestured to the view out the door she’d left propped open for air and light. The little cabin only sported a tiny window, which wasn’t able to brighten the dark, rough-honed log interior.

“You’re enjoying, this aren’t you?”

“God, yes.” Tern rolled out her sleeping bag on one of the cots and then laid down on it. “I didn’t realize how badly I needed to get out of town until we got here.” She turned her head to gaze at Nadia, who fought to untie her sleeping bag. “Thanks for talking me into coming.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Nadia mumbled. “We still need to find a bathroom.”

“I’m sure there’s an outhouse in back of the cabins.”

“Eww, seriously?” Her mouth dropped open.

Tern laughed at Nadia’s staggered expression. “Come on, let’s unpack and then get something to eat.” She sat up and opened her backpack. As she pulled out her GPS, clothes, toiletries, extra pair of shoes, and pistol, she began to notice some things missing. And her stuff was always more organized than this. “Nadia, do you have everything you packed?”

“Hmm?” Nadia lifted her head from reading the back of one of the many steamy romance novels she was never without. “What?”

“I’m missing my satellite phone, mammoth bag of M&M’s, moose jerky…it looks like someone rifled through my pack.” Tern frowned.

Nadia dropped the book onto her cot and rummaged through her own backpack. “What the hell? My phone’s gone, too, so are my waterproof matches and the goodies I packed.”

Lucky knocked on the outside of the cabin. “Hey, the old man’s called a meeting.”

A shiver of unease settled into her bones. Tern looked at Nadia, and they silently followed Lucky to where the men were standing around a dug out fire pit with sawed-off logs for seats circling the area.

“Your things have been gone through too?” Tern asked.

“Seems to be the case with all of us,” Gage said, his jaw hard, eyes narrowed. “My satellite phone is gone, along with the food items I brought.”

The same was murmured around the empty fire pit.

“My first aid kit was taken, too, along with the MREs I’d packed,” Robert said.

“Didn’t the invite say food would be provided?” Lucky asked. “Aren’t you guys jumping to conclusions?”

“I think it’s damn right suspicious that all our food and emergency supplies were taken,” Gage fired back.

“Those of you who brought weapons were left with them,” Lucky pointed out.

“I suggest we start a fire,” Mac said, calling a halt to the bickering. “The temperature is going to drop fast, once the sun settles over those peaks. Then we’d better do an inventory of what we’ve been left with. Does anyone have any matches or a lighter?”

“My matches were taken,” Nadia said in a small voice and a few of the men shook their heads.

“I’ve got a lighter.” Robert reached into the front pocket of his jeans. “Gave up the smokes months ago, but can’t seem to give up carrying the lighter.” He looked at Tern as he informed the group of this little personal fact. Another of her complaints about him had been the cigarettes.

Gage broke the uncomfortable silence. “I’ll gather some firewood.” He headed for the trees.

“Good idea,” Mac said. “I suggest we all do the same.”

Tern and Nadia walked down to the lake to gather what they could find along the bank.

They returned with enough dry wood to feed a fire throughout the night. Robert started a nice blaze with the dried spruce moss Gage had brought back with the wood he’d gathered. Soon a pleasant snap and crackle was a comforting song to the breeze tickling the coin leaves of the birch trees.

Tern took a seat, reaching her hands out to the flames. She’d put her jacket back on as the temperature had indeed dropped when the sun, while not setting this close to the Arctic Circle, had dipped just below the high peaks of the mountains surrounding them. The breeze wafting off the glacier to the north plunged the temperature twenty degrees cooler than it had been when they’d arrived. They were in for a cold night.

One by one the players of the game took seats on the stumps. Nadia sat next to Tern, Lucky close on Nadia’s left. Robert on Tern’s right while Mac sat across and Gage remained standing, whittling a piece of diamond willow.

“This is much better,” Nadia said, reaching her feet closer to the heat of the fire. “But what are we going to do about food?”

“Nadia, let me see the envelope the pilot gave you,” Mac asked.

“Oh, right. I almost forgot about the game, what with all our stuff liberated.” Nadia jumped up and rushed to their cabin, returning quickly, and handing the envelope to Mac.

He opened it with a slice of his knife, bending the blade back into its case and slipping it into the scabbard on his belt. He shook out the folded pages, scanned them. “Well, it seems we aren’t just to have a race against each other to find the geocaches, but finding them will aid in our survival.” He passed the pages around the group.

“What?” Nadia jumped to her feet. “There isn’t any food?”

“Doesn’t seem like it. We either catch what we eat, or start searching for geocaches and hope they have the supplies these pages promise.”

“How the hell is this a competition?” Lucky asked, a scowl on his face.

“It’s a test of our survival skills,” Mac said, not looking unhappy about the prospect.

“That isn’t what we signed up for,” Robert added, though he didn’t seem adverse to the challenge presented either.

“We knew this was an extreme competition,” Mac said. “We all agreed by showing up to this little party.”

“I’m here to prove I’m the best geocacher in the state,” Lucky said. “That’s what I signed up for.”

“We already know who the best is.” Mac nodded toward Tern.

“Is there any food at all?” Nadia asked. “I’m starved.”