Trying to keep control, she simply nodded and climbed into the car. He took his cell phone out of his pocket and quickly dialed a number, issuing orders to Trista as Savannah drove out of town and up Red Mountain Road. She turned into the side road but stopped a short way in.
"The road is slippery from the snow yesterday and the rain we had early this morning,” she said, when he looked at her. “And we haven't got chains on."
He nodded, and they both climbed out. She breathed deeply, letting the scented but cold mountain air fill her lungs, hoping it would wash the heat and the smell of man from her lungs and her skin.
It didn't.
Even with the car between them, her senses were filled with his presence. She wasn't going to survive the entire day without touching him. Or begging him to touch her.
She glanced at the sky, silently swearing at a moon that was currently shining its cold light on another side of the world. Shoving her hands into her pockets, she began the long climb up the road. After a few minutes, he joined her, walking so close to her side that the warmth of his body caressed hers, yet not close enough that their arms were brushing.
And suddenly, she was aching for the simple pleasures they'd once shared—like walking up a mountain hand in hand. Even though it was so long ago, she could still remember the gentle way he'd twined his fingers through hers, the press of his palm against hers. The way he'd gripped tight, holding her upright as she'd slipped.
She blinked away the sudden sting of tears. Damn it, she had to stop doing this to herself. The past was gone. She needed to get over it—get over him.
Yet she very much suspected that in order to do either of those things, she had to sit down and talk to him. Ten years ago she'd run rather than confront him over his actions. That had been her biggest mistake. The years had not eased the pain or her feelings for him, because there'd been no true end between them. She needed that end to put it all behind her.
But even now, the thought of challenging him over what he'd done scared the living hell out of her. Because as long as she didn't go there, some small, stupid part of her could still believe that despite his words, despite the fact that she was just a means to an end, some small part of him really had cared.
And the mere fact that after all this time she still clung to that spoke of how much she now needed to exorcise those feelings if she was ever to get on with her life.
Now was not the right time to begin such a task, though. But was there ever going to be a right time? Somehow, she suspected not.
Once they reached the parking area at the top of the road, she led him across to the spot from which the car had taken off. He squatted, studying the ground, carefully moving leaves about with a pen he'd drawn from his pocket.
"Looks like it could have been a truck rather than a car,” he said, after a few minutes.
She frowned. “You found a track?"
His quick look suggested she should have found it, too, and that annoyed her. God, it wasn't as if she'd had the benefit of daylight.
She squatted beside him and did her best to ignore his warmth and rich, enticing aroma. “Where?"
He outlined what was little more than a wide smudge in the mud.
"No wonder I didn't spot it last night,” she muttered, then tilted her head as she studied the vague impression. There was something very odd about it. “They didn't have chains on."
"No, otherwise the imprints would have been deeper.” He glanced at her, navy eyes cool. Dangerous. That of a cop rather than a lover. “Why?"
She frowned. “Well, this road isn't surfaced, and because it's so steep, getting up here without them would have been pretty much impossible after the snow we had the night before."
"They could have had a four-wheel drive."
"Even a four-wheel drive can have trouble on a steep, slushy road."
He shrugged his acceptance of her comment. “Your point being?"
His curt tone had her fingers clenching. She flexed them, but it didn't do much to ease the annoyance. “The very fact that this impression is so faint suggests that the driver not only didn't wear chains, but he didn't, in fact, drive up here yesterday. The ground that was under the truck is drier, which is why he didn't leave much of an impression when he first sped off."
He ran his pen over the ground beside the faint impression. “It does seem firmer.” He glanced at her. “A good observation, Ranger."
His voice was patronizing, as if he hadn't expected something like that from her. The inner bitch rose to the surface, but she somehow managed to quell the instinct to snarl at him. “Meaning,” she said, her voice surprisingly even, “that our quarry was probably here before the snow had actually fallen."
He nodded. “It also suggests you might have heard him moving positions rather than actually trying to sneak up on us."
She rose, walked around the tire impression and then down the hill a ways. The air was noticeably colder this far away from Cade, but at least she could take a breath without every speck of air being filled with the enticing spice of his presence. “It also means we should be able to find more tracks. If he didn't have chains, he would have had little control going back down that road."
"If he'd hit something, we would have seen it."