Cold River by Carla Neggers Page B

realize—”
    “No. I didn’t call your name, Hannah.”
    She frowned. “Maybe no one did.”
    Sean settled in alongside her, more out of suspicion, she thought, than any protective impulse. “Why did you run out to the trail after you were hurt?” he asked.
    It was Bowie who answered. “Because she thought I’d knocked over the debris on her and was getting away, and she took off after me. Hannah has a temper, in case you haven’t noticed. She controls it most of the time. Most people don’t realize what a hothead she can be.”
    Hannah took no offense. She had been mad. “Come on, Bowie. I can at least get your first-aid kit out for you.”
    He started down the lane toward his van. Except for the dark green of the pines and hemlocks, there was no hint of color in the landscape of gray sky, bare trees, granite headstones and endless snow.
    As she headed back down the lane, Sean stayed close to her. “Why did you come here alone?” he asked.
    “I wasn’t about to ask Reverend McBane to escort me.”
    Sean inhaled sharply. “All right.” His tone was even. “Why did you come at all?”
    None of the fight eased out of her. “I heard Poe barking.”
    “You could have called the lodge.”
    “To get you or one of your brothers to check out a barking dog with me?”
    “You knew it was Bowie’s dog.”
    “Exactly.”
    Sean narrowed his gaze on her injured cheek. Hannah remembered that as a smoke jumper he was trained in emergency medical care. “You should get some ice on that bruise,” he said. “On your wrist, too.”
    “My main problem right now is that I’m freezing.”
    “Ah. Just what you need, the cold weather stiffening your spine even more.”
    She smiled suddenly, in spite of herself. “I’m being combative. Sorry. You raced across a bone-cold cemetery to my rescue. Thank you. If it’d been a particularly mean raccoon or ghost—”
    “Whatever it was, Hannah, we’re all going to want to know what really happened out here.”
    “Because it involves Bowie. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t care.”
    She picked up her pace and went ahead of him, but she realized he just had to lengthen a couple of strides and he’d catch up with her. But he didn’t, and as she approached thevan, her head was throbbing. She felt a little unsteady on her feet and made herself take a couple of deep breaths as she stood behind Bowie at the passenger door.
    Without looking at her, he said, “What’s on your mind, Hannah?”
    She rubbed her fingertips over her bruised wrist. “I guess we were lucky we didn’t break any bones.”
    “Go back to your car before you get frostbite.” He glanced at her, the swelling on the side of his face reaching his eye now. “You look as if you’ve spent some time out in the wind today.”
    “I hiked up to Drew’s cabin this afternoon.”
    Sean stopped at the end of the lane, and Hannah was aware of him eyeing Bowie for his reaction.
    Bowie merely shrugged and stood up with a small black bag. “Cold day for a hike.” His black lab was up and barking again. Bowie tapped the window. “Poe. Settle down. You know Hannah. She’s a friend.”
    She noticed he didn’t mention Sean.
    Bowie set the bag on the passenger seat. “How’d you do up on the mountain?”
    “It wasn’t easy seeing Drew’s cabin. Devin gave me good directions, but no wonder it took Drew forty years to find that old cellar hole. It’s in the middle of nowhere. There’s no trail—nothing but woods and more woods.”
    “Yep.” Bowie unzipped the bag and pulled out a large bandage, tearing it open with his teeth. “Drew must have had an idea it was on that part of the mountain, or he just stumbled upon it one day.”
    Sean was silent, as still and stiff as a man could be, Hannah thought, and not crack into pieces. She watched as Bowie tossed the packaging into the van and secured the bandage to his cut face. It looked as if the worst of the bleeding had stopped. She assumed if anything