Lara cursed the pleading look in Chloe’s eyes. She wasn’t a teacher. “I don’t instruct, Chloe—”
“Please. I’d like to learn,” Chloe pleaded.
She opened her mouth again to refuse, but gut instinct slammed into Lara. Maybe teaching this woman some basic moves might someday save her life. “I won’t be here very long, but I’ll teach you some basic self-defense stuff before I leave.”
Chloe looked relieved. “Thank you.”
“Are you headed out?” Lara nodded at the winter gear in Chloe’s arms.
“Yeah. I want to see if I can catch a few runs on the slopes before the blizzard gets here. We’re supposed to get pounded later this afternoon. Once the winds get too high and the visibility starts to suck, they’ll close the slopes.” Chloe looked Lara up and down. “You look dressed for the outdoors. Do you want to come along with me?”
“I actually don’t ski,” Lara confessed. “I rented a snowmobile for the day. The trails look awesome.” Not that she had any intention of following all of the trails, but the snowmobile paths were pretty extensive around the resort property.
If Marcus Colter won’t come to me, I’ll go to him.
“Be careful,” Chloe told Lara in a warning voice. “There’s a blizzard coming in later. Do you know how to handle a sled in mountain terrain? The trails are pretty easy, but it’s a little tricky on some of the steeper areas.”
“Absolutely.” Lara lied through her teeth. It had taken her a minute to realize that the “sled” Chloe was talking about was actually the snowmobile. Is that what they called them here? “I’ll be cautious, though,” she added to make Chloe feel better.
“Good. Have fun.” Chloe beamed at her. “Stick to the novice trails and come back before the storm hits.”
Lara hadn’t even known there was a storm coming in. She’d been too involved in her research and finding the exact location of Marcus Colter’s home. A snowstorm might actually work to her advantage. Obviously, she couldn’t drive onto Marcus’s property for no reason. But she could go out on a snowmobile and get accidentally lost, right? A storm comes in and covers the trails, and she ends up at Marcus Colter’s home without suspicion. Just a lame, ditzy tourist who gets lost in the mountains.
Perfect.
Lara smiled and waved at Chloe as they exited together and parted ways. Heading straight to her rented snowmobile, she yanked on her outerwear, anxious to finally accomplish the job she’d come here to Rocky Springs to perform. She had to. She was very quickly running out of time.
A few hours later, Lara found out that the challenge of actually riding the snowmobile on mountain terrain wasn’t a problem. It had been the unknown, the lack of knowledge of the area that had found her lying on her ass in the snow. Although she hadn’t been riding very fast, the pine tree had come out of nowhere when she came up over a slope, and she slammed right into the trunk of the massive obstacle.#p#分页标题#e#
“Dammit!” She rolled to her feet, annoyed with herself for rendering her only mode of transportation at the moment disabled. On impact, one of the skis on the front of the transport had broken, and she’d only veered off the trail a mile or so back, meaning she was still several miles from Marcus Colter’s home.
“Shit. Shit. Shit,” she muttered irritably to herself as she stared at the unfixable ski. “I guess I’ll be walking.”
The wind speed had increased, and the visibility had started to suck, which was one of the reasons she hadn’t been quick enough to avoid the tree. Snow came down heavily now, and her boots were already covered in snow nearly to her knees since she was off-trail.
Find my way back to the trail or continue on to find Marcus’s home?
Tearing off her helmet, she took a step toward the snowmobile that she’d flown off of only a few minutes ago. The muscle in her right thigh protested; she winced. She’d hyperextended her leg, the limb getting caught up on the snowmobile and stretched before she had finally been thrown off the vehicle. As she rubbed at the painful, large muscle without relief, Lara knew her safest option was to head back to the trail before it was covered in snow so she could find her way back to the resort.
Diving into the zipper pocket of her jacket, she pulled out her cell phone. “Of course. No signal,” she muttered under her breath as she fumbled to slip the phone back into her pocket. If she was in a no signal area, it should pick up as she got closer to the lodge. If the weather caused the outage, she was screwed.