In the Clear by Tamara Morgan

Author:Tamara Morgan [Morgan, Tamara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Best Friend's Sister, Beta Hero, Brother's Best Friend, Christmas, Winter, Holiday, Novella, Short Story, Romance, Contemporary Romance, Search and Rescue, Love, Hero is Madly in Love with the Heroine, Unrequited Love, Crush
ISBN: urn:ean:9780991050000
Publisher: Tamara Morgan
Published: 2013-11-11T08:00:00+00:00

# # #

She almost missed it.

The flash was so small it was barely noticeable. The snow was coming down thick enough now that cars had to have their headlights on or risk being unseen amidst the swirls of fluffy white snow, and a car pulled into the parking lot with its brights on high. Lexie had to look away so that her eyes didn’t over-adjust, which was when she noticed the tiny silver medallion, almost like a jewelry locket, wedged next to the passenger side door.

Fletcher’s compass.

She touched the brakes, cursing as the wheels locked. It would be a treacherous drive home if she waited much longer, but there was no way she was releasing Fletcher into the wild without his navigation system and good luck charm, no matter how much they might rely on GPS these days.

She turned the car around and parked again, this time behind a small turnoff so Fletcher wouldn’t come running the moment he saw her car. Pocketing the compass, she pulled her scarf tight around her ears and ventured into the cold.

And cold it was. Not city cold, where buildings and cars brought the temperature up a few degrees and made everything a grubby mess, but mountain cold, the overspread trees the only thing standing between her and the afternoon sky. It was hard to imagine Fletcher’s backpack containing enough blankets to keep him from freezing in this stuff overnight.

She approached the rescue site cautiously, not wanting to interrupt. As he’d mentioned this being a missing person situation, the gathering of vehicles and people appeared to be their base of operations, a sort of mobile rescue center for the men and women initiating the search. The people—ten in all—stood gathered around a heavily mustachioed older man in what looked like a ranger’s outfit, many of them taking notes, all of them shuffling anxiously.

This was a bad place to be lost, that was for sure. Further up the hill, Mt. Spokane was a popular ski resort, but down here at the bottom, the forest stretched off for miles in every direction. Unofficial cross-country skiing tracks were located down here, and prints of several long, heavy skis went up one well-marked path.

That wasn’t where the group’s attention rested, though. They were focused on several sets of roundish prints heading into the woods—right next to a sign clearly marked Trail Closed.

Lexie shivered and wrapped her arms tighter around herself. It was all too easy to imagine herself in that situation, lost and scared, leading the way with yet another well-meaning attempt gone wrong. It was a good thing she kept her athletic endeavors well within the confines of yoga and Zumba, where the gym’s well-lit and fully staffed interior kept her away from any major harm.

She must have been louder than she thought, crunching along in the snow. Fletcher’s head—a good half a foot above everyone else’s—turned her direction. With a leap, she vaulted herself behind the larger of the two truck trailers.

No need to make this a bigger deal than it already was—no need to draw Fletcher away from his task.

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