Twelve Across Read Online Free Page A

poncho handy. She d just have to make a dash for it. Hadn't she done the same often enough in New York when a sudden downpour soaked the streets?
    Diligently she reread the directions to the trapper s cabin. Peering through the windshield, she located the break in the woods behind and to the left of the chimney. Without dwelling on the darkness ahead, she tucked the paper back in her purse, dropped the purse to the floor, turned off the lights, then the engine. After pocketing the keys, she took a deep breath, swung open the door and stepped out into the rain.
    Her feet promptly sank six inches into mud. Dumbly she stared down at where her ankles should have been. Equally as dumbly she tugged at one foot, which emerged minus its shoe. She stuck her foot back into the muck, rooted around until she d located the shoe and squished her foot inside, then drew the whole thing up toe first.
    After tottering for a second, she lunged onto what she hoped was firmer ground. It was, though this time her other foot came up shoeless. Legs wide apart, she repeated the procedure of retrieving her shoe, then scrambled ahead.
    She didn't think about the fact that the comfortable leather Elats she d loved were no doubt ruined. She didn't think about her stockings or her pants or, for that matter, the rest of her clothes, which were already drenched. And assuming that it would be a quick trip to the trapper s cabin, then a quick one back with help, she didn't think once about locking the car. As quickly as she could she ran around the ruins of Victoria s cabin and plunged on into the woods.
    An old logging trail, Victoria had called it. Leah could believe that.
    No car could have fit through, Eor subsequent years of woodland growth had narrowed it greatly. But it was visible, and for that she was grateful.
    It was also wet, and in places nearly as muddy as what she d so precipitously stepped into from her car. As hastily as she could, she slogged through, only to find her feet mired again a few steps later.
    As the minutes passed, she found it harder to will away the discomfort she felt. It occurred to her on a slightly hysterical note that dashing across Manhattan in the rain had never been like this. She was cold and wet. Her clothes clung to her body providing little if any protection.
    Her hair was soaked; her bangs dripped into her eyes behind glasses whose lenses were streaked. Tension and the effort of wading through mud made her entire body ache.
    Worse, there was no sign of a cabin ahead, or of anything else remotely human. For the first time since her car had become stuck she realized exactly how alone and vulnerable she was. Garrick Rodenhiser was a trapper, which meant that there were animals about. The thought that they might hunt humans in the rain sent shivers through her limbs, over and above those caused by the cold night air. Then she slipped in the mud and lost her balance, falling to the ground with a sharp cry. Sheer terror had her on her feet in an instant, and she whimpered as she struggled on.
    Several more times Leah lost a shoe and would have left it if the thought of walking in her sheer stockinged feet hadn't been far worse than the sliminess of the once fine leather. Twice more she fell, crying out in pain the second time when her thigh connected with something sharp. Not caring to consider what it might have been, she limped on.
    Hopping, sliding, scrambling for a foothold at times, she grew colder, wetter and muddier.
    At one point pure exhaustion brought her to a standstill. Her arms and legs were stiff; her insides trqmbled; her breath came in short, sharp gasps. She had to go on, she told herself , but it was another minute before her limbs would listen And then it was only because the pain of movement was preferable to the psychological agony of inaction.
    When she heard sounds beyond the rain, her panic grew. Glancing blindly behind her, she ricocheted off a trqe and spun around, barely saving herself from yet