Twelve Across Read Online Free

compensated for by the racing of her pulse.
    A little voice inside her screamed, turn back! Turn back! But she could ri t turn. She was hemmed in on both sides by the woods.
    She stared at the water before her. Beneath the pelting rain, it undulated as a living thing. But it was only a puddle , she told herself. Victoria would have mentioned a stream, and there was no sign of a bridge, washed out or otherwise.
    Cautiously she stepped on the gas. Yard by yard, the car stole forward.
    She tried not to think about how high the water might be on the hubcaps.
    She tried not to think about the prospect of brake damage or stalling.
    She tried not to think about what creatures of the wild might be lurking be~ neath the rain-swollen depths. She kept as steady a foot on the gas pedal as possible and released a short sigh of relief when she reached high ground once again.
    There were other puddles and ruts and thick beds of mud, but then the road widened. Heart pounding, she squinted through the windshield as she pushed on the accelerator. The cabin had to be ahead. Please, God, let it be ahead.
    All at once, with terrieying abruptness, the road seemed to disappear.
    She d barely had time to jerk her foot to the brake, when the car careened over a rise and began a downward slide. After a harrowing aeon, it came to rest in a deep pocket of sludge.
    Shaking all over, Leah closed her eyes for a minute. She took one tremulous breath, then another, then opened her eyes and looked ahead.
    What she saw took her breath away completely.
    For three weeks shed been picturing a compact and charming log cabin. A chimney would rise from one side;
    windows would flank the front door. Nestled in the woods, the cabin would be the epitome of a snug country haven.
    Instead it was the epitome of ruin. She blinked, convinceqd that she was hallucinating. Before her lay the charred remains of what might indeed have once been a snug and charming cabin. Now only the chimney was standing.
    "Oh, Lord, " she wailed, her cry nearly drowned out by the thunder of rain on the. roof of the car, "what happened t"
    Unfortunately what had happened was obvious. There had been a fire. But when? And why hadn't Victoria been notified?
    The moan that followed bore equal parts disappointment , fatigue and anxiety.
    In the confines of the car it had such an eerie edge that Leah knew she had to get back to civilization and fast. At that moment even the thought of spending the night in a fleabag motel held appeal.
    She stepped on the gas and the front wheels spun. She shifted into reverse and hit the gas again, but the car didn't budge. Into drive..
    into reverse.. she repeated the cycle a dozen times, uselessly. Not only was she not getting back to civilization she wasn't getting anywhere, at least, not in the Golf.
    Dropping her head to the steering wheel, she took several shuddering breaths.
    Leah Gates didn't panic. She ha ddt done so when her parents had died.
    She hadn't done so when hqer babies had died. She hadn't done so when her husband had pronounced her unfit' as a wife and left her.
    What she had done in each of those situations was cry until her grief was spent, then pick herself up and restructure her dreams. In essence, that was what she had to do now. There wasn't time to give vent to tears, but a definite restructuring of plans was in order.
    She couldn't spend the night in the car. She could ri t get back to town.
    Help wasn't about to come to her, so.
    Fishing the paper with the typed directions from her purse, she turned on the overhead light and read at the bottom of the page the lines that she d merely skimmed before. True, she d promised Victoria that she d deliver the letter to the trapper, Garrick Rodenhiser, but she d assumed she d do it at her leisure. Certainly not in the dark of niglit-or in the midst of a storm. "
    But seeking out the trapper seemed her only hope of rescue It was pouring and very dark. She had neither flashlight , umbrella nor rain