Read Online Smoky Mountain Setup by Paula Graves - Free Book Online Page A

settled down on a bed of quilts and pillows that had been warming by the fire while they’d gathered supplies, her back to Landry.
    He tucked the Kimber in the borrowed backpack and sat down beside her on the makeshift bed. “We should sleep back to back,” he said, glancing at her quilt-covered form.
    “Knock yourself out,” she murmured.
    He stretched out beside her and covered himself with a quilt, as well, easing back until his body collided with hers. “Sorry.”
    “Shut up and go to sleep, Landry.”
    Stifling a smile, he tucked the quilt tightly around him and closed his eyes. There were only a few scant hours before morning, and they both needed as much sleep as they could muster.
    But he had a feeling, no matter how few hours remained between him and dawn, this was going to be one of the longest nights of his life.
    * * *
    D AYLIGHT WAS STILL an hour or two away, nothing more than a faint gray glimmer in the eastern sky, when Olivia woke. The fire had died down to warm embers, allowing a bone-aching chill to settle over the cabin’s front room. Only the solid wall of heat pressed against her back kept her from shivering and burying herself more deeply beneath the two quilts covering her from chin to toe.
    The hot body behind hers shifted and uttered a familiar groaning sound that made her breath catch in her throat.
    Landry.
    “You awake?” His voice was like rumbling thunder, muffled by the quilts.
    “I am.”
    He shifted, turning over until he was practically spooning her. “I think my fingers fell off during the night. Can’t feel them.”
    She rolled over to face him. His green eyes met hers with sleepy humor, and she felt something hot and tight release inside her, allowing her to breathe deeply again. “You’d better find them,” she said with the hint of a smile. “You’re going to need them.”
    He brought his hands out from beneath the quilt and touched her neck. His fingers were like ice.
    She batted them away, laughing despite herself. “Stop!”
    “Cold hands, warm heart.”
    Her smile faded. “We need to hit the road soon.”
    He sighed. “If we can find the road.”
    They ate a breakfast of protein bars and left the cabin while it was still mostly dark out. As Olivia had hoped, once they got past the clearing around her cabin and into the woods, the snow was thinner on the ground, thanks to the shelter of the trees overhead.
    “Keep an eye on the trees,” she warned as Landry fell into step behind her. “Limbs can snap without a lot of warning.”
    “Duly noted.”
    She’d tasked him with hauling the crude travois she’d fashioned from a rake handle, a hoe handle and a canvas tarpaulin, which she’d loaded with the supplies she’d packed into a waterproof duffel in case they had to find shelter before they reached their destination.
    “What is our destination, exactly?” Landry asked as they headed deeper into the woods.
    “Well, for tonight, I want us to reach a place called Parson’s Chair.” When he didn’t say anything else, she turned to look at him. “No comment?”
    His green eyes narrowed as he met her gaze. “I come from Georgia. I have no standing to make fun of strange place names.”
    She smiled. “It’s a tall outcropping that kind of looks like a tall, straight-backed chair, hence the name. But beneath the chair is a large cave that will give us shelter if we can reach it by nightfall.”
    “And if we can’t?”
    She turned and started walking faster, tugging her jacket more tightly around her. “Let’s just make sure we do.”
    * * *
    P ARSON ’ S C HAIR WAS near the top of Fowler Ridge, the southernmost peak of the two mountains that flanked Perdition Gap. On a warmer day, with good weather, Olivia could reach the outcropping within a three-hour hike. She and a couple of the female agents at The Gates had made the hike several times over the summer.
    But climbing the winding natural trail in subfreezing temperatures, with a slick carpet of snow