of a tree. Then, blackness.
BLOODY HELL.
Lying immobile in the snow, Ty watched the overturned sled being dragged away at full tilt by the dog team until they disappeared around the next bend. Half the supplies he and Kate had put on board had come loose and were strewn across the trail for several yards. It took him nearly an entire minute to catch his breath and get control of his limbs, but he was relieved to find that nothing felt broken. He fumbled to his feet in the four-inch-deep slush and looked around.
“Katie?” He hiked back a little ways along the trail, shouting her name. Apprehension mounted when she didn’t shout back. There was a fallen limb in the middle of the path, and Ty felt sure that it had been buried in the snow before the sled had struck it and driven it up into the air, throwing them off. Thank God it hadn’t impaled either of them. Still, where was Kate?
He didn’t spot her until he doubled back. His blood ran cold when he caught sight of her gray sweater and jeans at the woods’ edge. She lay crumpled beneath a tree, motionless. Ty was used to chemical rushes—he was practically addicted to them—but the panic surging through his body stopped him dead in his tracks. Fear wrung the air from his lungs but Ty commanded his muscles to work, broke through the paralysis and into a sprint.
“Kate!” He slid to a sloppy halt beside her still body. Ty could taste copper in his own mouth when he spotted the trickle of scarlet running across her pale skin from her mouth to disappear into her hair. He was transported in a single breath, ripped back in time twenty-five years and nine thousand miles to a warm summer day, a beach outside Sydney. He saw his little sister’s hollow expression, her vacant eyes as blue as the ocean. He felt his own life fracture and scatter all over again as he stared at Kate’s white face.
“Kate. Katie.” He yanked his gloves off and tossed them aside. Taking hold of her jaw, he searched for signs of life. He just about died of relief when he felt a pulse beating in her neck, strong and steady.
“Katie.” He smoothed her hair off her face and wiped the blood from her skin as best he could. He lost himself for a moment to overwhelming emotions—relief and fear and gut-wrenching guilt, a lifetime of stale grief made fresh. He lowered his face to her shoulder and concentrated on her breathing. Each exhalation calmed him, rooted him back in the present. Kate was alive, but she wasn’t necessarily safe. Not out here, not if she was hurt.
Just as Ty began conceiving a plan for how best to get her to the safety team, her eyes opened.
“Oh thank Christ!” he boomed into the sky.
“Ty…” She sounded groggy, but she was okay. She was okay.
“Bloody hell, Katie, you scared me.”
“Where are we?”
He looked around, needing a second to recall there was a world beyond the face of the woman he’d just nearly lost. “The dogsled trail.”
“Right… And the dogs?”
“A long ways away now.” He stroked her hair, still frantic. “How do you feel? Is anything broken?”
She frowned. “I’m not sure. Let me try and stand up.”
“Careful.” Ty thought he might pass out himself, she’d given him such a fright.
“Ow,” she said, making it to kneeling.
“What?”
“Just bumps, I think. Nothing major… Oh God!” She stood up in a flash.
Ty whipped his head around, scanning for bears and avalanches. “What?”
“The equipment—the cameras! Do we have any cameras?” She looked overwrought. Unbelievable.
“Jesus, I don’t know. The sled dumped about half our stuff. Worry about it in a minute—let’s make sure you’re okay.”
“I am. I feel fine.” She touched her lips and studied the blood on her fingers, made an irritated face and wiped it on her jeans.
Ty saw her arms shaking faintly beneath her sweater and he slipped his jacket off. “Here.”
She took it, still distracted. “Thanks. What a mess.” Her calculating eyes scanned the area, telling him she was already back in work mode.
“Are you sure you’re okay? Do you feel any bumps? You could be concussed.”
“I’m fine. Let’s just get ourselves assembled.” She trudged toward their jettisoned supplies.
Ty, however, didn’t want to regroup just yet. Sense had been knocked into him by the incident. It had whiplashed his brain, sending the fear that had been niggling at the back of his mind for a very long time crashing to the forefront, demanding his attention. This ridiculous project—this stupid TV show—had nearly killed his best friend.
Beneath the subsiding shock, primitive synapses burst to life in his chest. Possessive ones. Their energy jumbled with the fear and guilt, making Ty’s blood run fast and hot—faster and hotter than even he was comfortable with. He watched Kate’s body working, already recovered from its trauma, and an instinct rose inside him, sharp and insistent. It burned through the angst and replaced it with other urges—urges not just to protect and shield this woman, but to possess her, to take her. To tear away that lone wall that kept them from being everything to one another.
A SHORT DISTANCE AWAY, Kate took a deep breath and made an inventory of the items she could see. She pulled Ty’s proffered jacket on, glad for the warmth and for a reassuring layer of protection. She needed to turn her attention back to the show, because in truth, the accident had scared her witless. She’d grown plenty used to adrenaline rushes since she’d taken this job, but this was a thrill too far—the closest she’d ever flirted with a major injury in all the time they’d been doing this. Too close for comfort. Even Ty seemed disturbed, and that in itself was scary.
More than a mere mortal, however, Kate was first and foremost a professional. No way she was going to stand around wasting time now that the damage had already been done. One of the cameras had been pitched in the accident. Kate unzipped its padded case and breathed a sigh of relief to find it in one piece. The show would go on.
“Good news, boss.” She held it up to show Ty, but he didn’t respond.
Ty’s eyes seemed to be looking through her, his energy even more intense than usual. His boots sloshed as he walked to her. She watched him swallow deeply, expression fraught as though he were unraveling.
“Yeah, Ty?”
He swallowed again, his eyes darting back and forth between hers. Something fierce was brewing behind the deceptive blue-green calm.
“It’s okay. We’re both okay,” she began, but his face told her the words weren’t registering. His arms rose and encircled her, cautiously at first, then he pulled her tight against his chest. One broad hand cupped the back of her head, pressing her face into his neck, the other fisting the oversize coat.
“Dear God,” he said, his mouth pushed so hard into her hairline that it sounded as if his voice were coming from inside her skull. “I never imagined I’d come so close to losing you.”
“I’m fine, Ty.” She tried to pull away but his embrace was tight and needy, so she let him hold on. She’d never seen him like this, so rattled. It embarrassed her a little, intimidated her a lot…. His breaths came fast and shallow, and Kate returned the hug with her free arm, hoping to calm him. “It’s okay.” She rubbed his back, an upright version of what she did when his insomnia drove him into her bed.
Ty’s body loosened. His hands released their death grip and he let her go, stepping back a pace and staring at her. His eyes were round and unfocused. Kate caught the corner of his mouth twitching.
She zipped the camera back in its bag and set it aside, looked nervously up at Ty. “Are you okay?”
Shaking slightly, his hands cupped her shoulders,