Cover Me (Elite Force #1)(53)
Author: Catherine Mann

Wade squinted against the sun, peering deeper at the woman with shoulder-length dark hair, the same color as Sunny’s—without the sapphire streak. She also appeared to be a couple of years younger than Sunny, but he knew threats could come in any age range, any size package.

“And the driver?” Wade asked, tightening his hold on her against gale-force winds. “The guy with her?”

“Ryker Everett, twenty-two. I’ve told you about him before.” She leaned into his back. “He’s the one who runs a snowplow business with his father and twin brother, Flynn. Ryker’s married with a kid on the way. A laid-back, free-spirit kind of guy. He’s a big-time conspiracy theorist, but seems to be all talk, no action. But like I said…”

“You’re questioning everyone now. Not a bad idea these days.”

The brakes squealed, rocks and icy chunks spitting from behind the tires. The truck stopped a foot shy of the snowmobile.

The passenger-side door flung open. Misty leaped out, surprise stamped on her face.

“Sunny? Oh my God!” Her voice carried on the wind with a guttural sound that would have cued him in to her deafness if Sunny hadn’t already told him.

Wade felt Sunny shift behind him, saw the blade of her knife reflect the sun’s rays before she sheathed it again. She bolted around him and scrambled along the icy road toward the snowplow. Misty palmed her way along the truck’s quarter panel, staying as far from the road’s edge as possible. Meeting at the snowmobile, the sisters hugged each other, holding so tight their arms sunk into layers of winter clothing.

He kept his eyes on the other guy just past them. Ryker Everett, Sunny had called him. Everett slid from the truck, attention locked on the two women across the hood without intruding on the moment.

Wade studied the hulking Paul Bunyan wannabe in front of him and figured out one thing about the guy fast. Ryker Everett might be married with a kid on the way, but the man standing a few feet away had some hefty feelings for one of those two women. With the sisters still hugging tight, Wade couldn’t tell which one the fella stared at with his heart planted firmly on his wind-worn sleeve.

But he intended to find out.

Sunny cupped her sister’s face, tears streaking down her cheeks and glinting as they froze. “I’m so glad you’re all right. I was worried about you.” She turned to the guy still standing on the other side of the hood, shuffling from boot to boot. “Thank you for taking such good care of her, Ryker.”

“Ryker?” Misty pulled back, then laughed. “You never could tell them apart. This is Flynn.”

The other twin? Did that change Sunny’s thoughts on whether or not to trust the man?

Misty cocked her head to look past Sunny. “Who’s that with you? Where have you been? Are you ’kay? I was so worried ’bout you.”

Sunny looked back over her shoulder at Wade, her hazel eyes relaying her uncertainty. He weighed the options and decided on the path that made the most sense.

Wade stepped forward, his fingers still wrapped around his 9 mm in his pocket. Just in case.

“I’m with a military rescue team. I helped Sunny when she got stranded up here. A lot has happened in the past few days.” An understatement, for damn sure. “Why don’t we all shuffle this conversation into the truck where it’s warmer?”

They had a lot to discuss and a limited amount of daylight hours left to reach the community where hopefully they would find some answers. He just prayed those answers weren’t going to plunge Sunny right back into harm’s way.

***

Truck jostling in a pothole, Misty grabbed the cracked leather seat in front of her as she sat in the back of the extended cab with her sister. The world outside the windows was pitch-black, no city skyline. Nothing but the moon, stars, and twin beams of the headlights streaking ahead. The dim glow of the dashboard cast the men’s faces in a spooky green glow as they talked to each other.

In the nine hours since they’d miraculously run into each other, she hadn’t been able to peel herself from Sunny’s side. The vehicle wasn’t handling as well in the dark, but both Flynn and the military guy, Wade, had insisted on charging all the way back home, no stops other than refilling the tank with the extra fuel in the back. The last few miles were the clearest and easiest anyway, the ones traveled most around their village, which she’d once thought to be safe and remote.

She could still barely wrap her brain around the fact that so many of their dear friends had been murdered. What a devastating loss for their community. And why? It seemed so arbitrary, those who hadn’t died. Unless their bodies simply hadn’t been found. She shivered again in spite of the blasting heater. She could have been one of those corpses in the ice, if not for her sister.

While she’d wanted to leave and resented some of the restrictions that came with living there, she’d never expected to be afraid of her own home. She’d been so close to Deputy Rand Smith on more than one occasion when she’d helped Sunny, or when he’d come farther up the trail to get someone. And she couldn’t help but wonder now if his trips all the way to the community had been for a different purpose, perhaps to touch base with an accomplice, someone who could be plotting new murders.

Tears stung her eyes every time she looked at Sunny. She hadn’t fully grasped until now how horrible it would have been never to see her again. Close on that thought followed the sting of grasping how deeply she’d felt betrayed over Sunny not returning to say good-bye.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she’d wondered if her sister had delayed returning on purpose, to keep her from leaving. Yet now that she looked back she saw what she should have known all along. Sunny wasn’t passive-aggressive. Sunny met life head-on. She’d been out there stranded in a snowstorm, with a mass murderer, and had come out alive.

With Flynn’s handsome face reflected in the rearview mirror, she could see from his jaw that he was still talking—even if she couldn’t hear him.

She nudged Sunny and signed for about the tenth time today. “What’s he saying?”

Sunny’s hands flew as she answered. “We need to check in with Flynn’s father, prepare him for the notifications about to come through.”

Misty kept her arms low, not wanting to draw attention to what they were discussing in case Flynn started watching in the rearview mirror. “What about Phoenix?”

Pain flashed across Sunny’s face. “We’ll talk to him. Then we have to wait and see. I think he probably always knew this day was coming. It’s up to him how to handle it.”