Cameron raised his brows a hair, wondering if he'd read Faith wrong. "A swinging singles place?"
She chuckled. "Not sure about the swinging part and there are a lot of couples… working couples."
"Ah. Just sounded kind of interesting." He winked and she grinned back at him. But again that strange feeling of possessiveness washed over him, of not wanting to hear that a ton of single guys were hitting on her where she lived.
Trying to quash the unreasonable feelings bubbling up inside him concerning Faith, he led her into the barn where Charles was harnessing one of the teams. "If you can, Cameron, just copy what I'm doing. I'll check to make sure you've done it right after I'm finished here."
Cameron strode across the floor and began harnessing the first of the dogs, but they were so excited about running, they wiggled and thrashed about so wildly, it was hard to do the job right. In the oddest way, Cameron knew the feeling of wanting to run so badly, he could taste it. As if he was a runner in a competition, and yet he'd never been interested in competitive sports before.
Nikki poked her nose at his bare hand and gave him a warm wet kiss on the cheek while he was working on aligning two of the males. "You get to be on my team, Nikki."
Faith rubbed one of the dogs between his ears. "Looks like you have a new girlfriend already." She raised a brow, her lips curving up slightly.
Cameron gave her a small smile in return. No way was a pooch stealing his interest away from the tanta lizing woman.
"At least they're well fed and had a little rest." Charles hitched the first team to the sled.
When his dogs were ready, Charles came over to check the harnesses Cameron used on the team, then helped him to hitch them to the sled. "A couple of tips. When we start out the team, you say, 'Hike.'"
"In the movies they hollered 'mush.'" Cameron wondered if that was another Hollywood-ism.
"The sound is too soft, not a distinct enough command for the dogs. Make a loud kissing sound to get the dogs to speed up. 'Gee' means turn right. 'Haw' is for left turn. 'Whoa' means stop. 'On by,' to pass another sled team or some other kind of distraction. And just remember, to the sled dog, you're the leader of the pack."
Cameron didn't need to be told that. Dogs naturally seemed to want to please him, and these even more so. Plus, now that he had come to an agreement with the leader of the pack, Cameron was it.
"Also, we don't talk while we're sledding, unless giving orders."
The dogs were so hyper, the air felt electric with their zeal—ready to run, ready to gratify their masters. The thrill of the impending trip electrified Cameron's blood and in the worst way the craving to run with them grew.
"Faith will ride with me up ahead, so I can show the way, and if you take a spill, she'll be safe," Charles said.
Cameron's jaw tightened. He couldn't pinpoint why he was feeling so acutely possessive of her when he knew Charles wasn't interested in anything but her safety. Although no matter how much he tried to crush the feeling, the stirrings of wanting to protect her nearly strangled him.
"He's at a campsite located twenty miles northeast of here that will take us about three hours to reach. That's where Trevor is planning to be for the day and overnight. I've packed lunches, dinner, and food for the dogs for the trip."
"Good," Faith said, but the unsettled sensation that raced through Cameron's blood hadn't gone away, he had to admit, and he barely heard what Charles was saying.
Despite realizing how crazy the notion was, Cameron had the most awful urge to rip off his clothes and run through the snow, not as a naked human, but as a… wolf. As if something alien possessed him, or someone had slipped him a drug that was making him feel so strange. And yet the vivid dream he'd had during the night reminded him he'd felt the very same way before and then it was as if he had stepped into his dream and made it real.
He thought back to Charles's comments about this very matter. How had Charles known how he'd feel? Cameron's attention shifted to the way the dogs were bouncing around, which stirred his own compulsion to get on with business.
Faith climbed into the heavy canvas bag filled with wool blankets on Charles's sled and she looked warm and cozy, but most importantly, safe. He should have been satisfied. She looked over her shoulder at Cameron and smiled—sexy and sirenlike. He wanted her on his sled, and he couldn't conceal the annoyance he felt as he glowered at Charles.
Charles looked from Cameron to Faith and gave a slight shake of his head.
Cameron felt he could drive a sled well enough and that Faith's safety wasn't an issue, but he gave in to the older man's decision. Cameron climbed onto the two ski-like blades attached to the bottom of his sled and grabbed hold of the horizontal bar in front of him, his body tensed for the new experience. The dogs continued to bark, their muscles taut like tightly coiled springs, readied for when he gave them the magic word.
Charles glanced back at him. "Ready?"
Cameron bowed his head slightly and lifted it. Charles's eyes widened. Then Charles turned and yelled to his team, "Hike!" and his dogs took off.
Cameron shouted, "Hike!" and his team yanked the sled in the direction Charles was moving. A rush of adrenaline instantly flooded his veins. Losing his balance, Cameron quickly compensated for the sudden movement by crouching a little and gripping the bar tighter.
The sleds sped across the snow with a soft, creaking sound, away from the resort, down an unplowed road, the snow-laden spruces and pines stretching out to them on either side of the road. The dogs barked, bellowed, and yelped starting out the trip. But as they journeyed onward, they grew quiet, all business, the crisp sound of the sled runners whooshing, no noisy sputtering engine roar like when they rode the snowmobiles. The dogs' booty-covered paws thudded gently on the snow while their frosty breaths wafted in the air.
Every bump shot through the blades and up Cameron's legs to his hands, every dip, making his heart drop and rise again. Exhilarating. Then Charles picked up the pace and they practically flew over the snow. Cameron was glad his mask and ski glasses protected his face from the bitter cold wind.
One of the dogs turned and nipped another, and Cameron immediately yelled, "No, Trigger!"—glad Charles had introduced him to each of the dogs by name earlier. The dog instantly minded. "Good dog!"
As soon as he said the words, the whole team perked up. He smiled. The team was a dream to work with.
Then Charles made a sharp turn ahead of him onto a narrow path through the forest. Cameron tried to copy the maneuver, but he nearly tumbled off his sled. So much for thinking he could keep Faith safe. Quickly shifting his posture to lower his center of gravity, he regained his balance and again wished he was running alongside the team on his own power.
The soothing whispered sounds of the skis crunched on the snow, but everything otherwise was softly silent, filling him with awe as he thought about his friends and the next step he would take if Trevor didn't have any clues for him. He was sure Lila was right, that the police wouldn't do anything unless something clued them in that his friends were in real trouble.
But an hour and a half into their journey, Charles suddenly called out "Whoa!" and stopped.
Up ahead, a tree had fallen and blocked the path. Charles checked it out, while Faith climbed out of her snug sled bed and joined him. Cameron crunched on the snow to reach them as Charles had gone into the woods a ways. He looked up at Cameron and pointed to where the tree had been cut, the tree over forty inches in diameter and branches spread out several feet in every direction. "Recently," he said, touching the trunk. "Still warm from the chainsaw blade." He looked up at Cameron. "Can you smell who did it?"
Chapter 10
CAMERON TOOK A DEEP BREATH, SAMPLING THE BREEZE, BUT he didn't smell any sign of who might have cut down the tree in their path. "Did you get a whiff of cologne or aftershave or something?" he asked Charles as Faith took a deep breath, her chin tilted up.
Charles shook his head at Cameron as if he was hopeless.
Not sure why Charles should think he would smell something when the old man couldn't, Cameron glanced around at the woods, looking for tracks in the snow. Boot prints could be seen all over the place. "We have axes, right? We could cut the tree up to clear the road."
"Would take too long. Too much work. We'll go another route. Through there." Charles motioned to a narrower path.
Cameron didn't like it. They had switched from a major unplowed road, to a smaller one, and now just a trail, from the looks of it. "Are we being railroaded?" Cameron asked, wondering if they were being forced to take this route for some sinister reason.
Rubbing his chin, Charles stared at the downed tree. "No reason I can think of that someone would do such a thing. We don't have to go, if you don't like it. We can always return to the resort."
"No, I want to see Trevor," Faith said, frowning. "As long as this trail will get us there, I'm all for it. Don't you think it'll be all right, Cameron?"
He studied the trail. "If Charles thinks it's all right, it's fine by me."
Charles headed for the sled and everyone took their places and then they were off again. Only this time the woods reached out so close to the trail, they sometimes touched Cameron, calling to him, every shadow as the day drew on, every whisper of movement, a bird startled by their presence, fluttering off, the breeze making the branches tremble, a rabbit bolting from underneath a spruce close to the trail. Instead of riding down the man-made path on the sled, he wanted to explore the woods on foot, smell the scents of animals and plants, identify everything with his senses that seemed to be so much more highly attuned.
Conquering that urge, he continued to follow Charles and avoided thinking of anything but what he had to do when they reached Trevor. After half an hour on the trail, they came to another downed tree, cut in the same manner, only it had been sawed down earlier. Charles peered into the forest and didn't say anything for several minutes.