at Luke. Tears poured down her cheeks.
Dear God, please don’t let him hurt her. Help me save her.
Thunder rumbled in the skies above them. Luke held Nicky’s gaze, steady and solid. “It’s going to be okay, Nicky. I promise.” The determination to keep her safe pulsed through his veins. It had been a long time since Luke had found himself at the wrong end of a criminal’s knife. But the instincts that he’d once learned as a teenaged runaway had never left him. Luke turned to face her captor. His hands rose in front of him. His palms were open. But his body was tensed for a fight, if it came to that. “Let her go and no one needs to be hurt.”
Silence filled the clearing—punctuated only by the sound of Nicky’s ragged breath and the light patter of rain. The hunter’s grip loosened just enough that she could crawl on her hands and knees, then he yanked Nicky’s head back. She winced, but didn’t give him the satisfaction of whimpering. Her eyes hadn’t left Luke’s face for a moment.
Luke stepped forward. “This is your last warning.” His fingers tightened into fists. “You so much as bruise her skin and I will take you down.”
Lightning flashed and then the skies opened. Heavy rain pelted the ground. The man tossed his head back and laughed. Nicky kicked back hard. Her heel caught her captor hard in the gut. Luke charged. He caught the masked man by the throat and tossed him to the ground. Within seconds the hunter had sprung back to his feet. The knife blade flashed in his hand. But before Luke could even raise his hand to land a blow, the man took off running through the woods.
For half a second Luke watched him go, fighting the urge to chase him down. Instead, he dropped to his knees beside Nicky. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
“I’m okay.” She raised her face toward him. Her hair fell tangled and wild over her face. Rain and tears ran mingled down her cheeks. “I don’t even know what happened. I walked into the campsite and he just jumped me from behind.”
He helped her to her feet. Nicky’s fingers ran down her muddy limbs as if she was taking inventory. “I didn’t even think he wanted to hurt me at first. It was more like he wanted to scare me. But when he laughed at you like that—”
The roar of an engine filled the air.
“No!” Nicky took off running through the trees. Luke pelted after her. The forest gave way to a slab of granite rock. In the water below, a small boat was speeding away from the island. She sank to her knees. “He just stole our boat.”
“The keys were in the ignition.” The words slipped through her lips and into the pouring rain as little more than a sigh of frustration. It had never even crossed her mind the trespasser might still be on the island. Let alone that he’d attack her and steal their boat.
“It’s going to be okay.” Luke squeezed her shoulder. His fingertips touched just below her shoulder blade. It was the kind of simple gesture that would seem natural coming from a close friend or colleague. But as Luke’s fingers brushed her aching muscles she could feel her body relax. There’d always been something about the simplest touch of his hand that had made her feel safe. Back when she’d been young enough to think she needed a guy in her corner and foolish enough to believe it would be him.
Another flash of lightning forked through the sky, followed by the rumble of thunder.
“Of course we’re going to be fine.” She gripped the hood of her raincoat with both hands and pulled it up briskly. “The Hunter obviously got here in some kind of boat. Canoe probably. Maybe a kayak. All we have to do is find it and use it to get back to the mainland. The first priority, though, is getting off this rock. We don’t want to get caught out either on the lake or in the trees while there’s a risk of lightning. Fortunately this island has caves.”
They picked their way back through the empty campground and then hiked through the forest into the center of the island. Finally they reached a place where a gaping hole cut deep into the side of the rock. They stepped into the mouth of the cave and out of the rain.
Luke glanced into the darkness. “How deep does it go?”
“Pretty deep. But it also gets really steep and narrow. We boarded it up a few yards in to stop anyone from going too far. Rumor is, though, if you go deep enough you’ll eventually come out somewhere on the coast.”
“You’ve never tried?”
“Never wanted to. It’s pitch-black down there and turns into almost a sheer drop.” She shivered. Sometimes they’d take campers right up to the barrier and turn off their flashlights, just so they could experience how dark the world could be.
Luke leaned back against the damp, stone wall. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even think for a moment that whoever I saw running into the trees back on the mainland would ever come to the island and threaten you.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Why would you?”
“Because I saw a man in hunting fatigues outside the lodge when it was on fire, and then one attacks you here now. You don’t see an obvious connection there?”
She sighed. Just because she used to buy his stories, didn’t mean she was just going to agree with whatever theories he came up with now. “A lot of people wear hunting fatigues up here. It’s like someone from the city seeing two people in suits in the same day.”
“But you can’t discount the possibility someone is actually trying to hurt you or Camp Spirit. Look, if the person running through the trees is linked to this, he might have been heading to Ace Sports Resort—”
“Or to the highway. Or to someone’s cottage. Or it could’ve just been another trespasser. We do get a lot of them.” Including apparently you.
Nicky slid down the wall and sat on the floor. “Neil is very competitive and I don’t like how he runs the place, but that doesn’t make him a criminal. Also, I don’t see how the lodge catching fire and a trespasser on the island could be connected. Two very different things happened in two completely different places.”
“On the same day.” Luke sat opposite her. “I just think it’s too convenient to be a coincidence, don’t you?”
“You sound like a reporter.” She reached behind her neck and parted her hair down the middle. Then she twisted each half around her fingers to wring out the water. A deep, soft chuckle coaxed her eyes back to his face. “What’s so funny?”
Luke looked down. “Sorry. Just seeing you do that gave me a flash of déjà vu. I always remember you having these long, curly pigtails, and you were always fiddling with them. It was cute.”
She paused, her fingers still in her hair. Did he remember how he used to take her pigtails in his hands and gently tug her toward him until her lips met his? She stuffed her hands into her pockets. Well, she wasn’t that girl anymore. “Grab any dry leaves or twigs if you can. I’m going to build a fire and see about drying us out.”
There were waterproof matches in her jacket. It didn’t take too long before they had a fledgling fire burning. Flames crackled softly. A long pause spread between them punctuated by the sound of rain lashing the trees, thunder sounding in the distance and the drip of water running down the cave.
“You sure our best option is to look for the Hunter’s boat?” Luke asked. “There’s no chance someone will come looking for us?”
“No.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. George would’ve. But the only other person on-site now is Trevor, and he probably won’t realize there’s something wrong until sometime tomorrow. Have you ever met him?”
“Trevor?” Luke turned his face toward the sheet of rain. “Years ago.”
“Well, Trevor’s just kicking around for a few weeks, trying to scrounge up enough to go traveling