Fate and Destiny

Ebooks 
Edition, License
Notes

This
 ebook 
is licensed for your
personal enjoyment only. This
 ebook 
may not be re-sold or
given away to other people. If you would like to share this book
with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each
recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or
it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your
own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this
author.

www.secondwindpublishing.com

Also by Claire
Collins

From Beckoning
Books

Images of
Betrayal

Fate

and

Destiny

Copyright 2008 By

Claire Collins

At Smashwords

Beckoning Books

Published by Second Wind
Publishing

Kernersville

Beckoning Books

Second Wind Publishing,
LLC

931-B South Main Street, Box
145

Kernersville,
NC  27284

This book is a work of
fiction. Names, characters, locations, and events are either a
product of the author’s imagination, fictitious or use
fictitiously. Any resemblance to any event, locale or person,
living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright  2008 by
Claire Collins

All rights reserved,
including the right of reproduction in whole or part in any
format.

First Beckoning Books
edition published August, 2008.

Beckoning Books, Running
Angel, and all production design are trademarks of Second Wind
Publishing, used under license.

For
information regarding bulk purchases of this book, digital purchase
and special discounts, please contact the publisher
at 
www.secondwindpublishing.com

Front cover design by Claire
Collins

Manufactured in the United
States of America

ISBN
978-1-935171-00-3

To those who helped me find
my own Destiny. Climbing the mountain is easy.

Finding it is the hard
part.

--Claire Collins

1.

I can’t die like
this.

The man reached across her
and flung open the truck door. With her last ounce of strength, she
opened her eyes and looked at him, trying to reach out and grab
him. The giant of a man shoved her through the door as her arms
flailed helplessly. Her numb body tumbled down the embankment from
the road. She couldn’t have stopped the momentum, no matter how
much she wanted to. Her body wouldn’t do as commanded and her mind
wanted to follow it into the dark, unfeeling place.

Pain shot through the fog
in her head as her leg cracked against something stuck precariously
from the snow.

I won’t die here. I won’t
die alone.

If determination alone
could have saved her, she would have risen from the snow and walked
down the mountain. Fate wasn’t on her side.

Determination gave way to
surrender as her head slammed into the landscape. Before her eyes
shut to protect any remnants of sanity, she saw the truck turn and
disappear down the road as barking from the hounds of hell erupted
around her.

With the temperature
dropping by the second, Andrew Greer slid as much as he walked,
risking broken bones with every step. The end of his scarf slipped
from around his neck, loosening enough to allow the demanding wind
access to his nose. He glanced back wistfully at the cabin. A
finger of smoke curling from the chimney beckoned to him, calling
him in that direction. Warmth. Security. Coffee.

Wrapping the coat tighter
around him, Andrew walked around the corner of the cabin. Across
the clearing, Shadow leisurely sniffed a frozen tree stump. It must
be nice to have a built-in fur coat. Although a pelt of fur ten
inches thick would not ward off the cold today.

He set his mind back on
getting the supplies from the shed as soon as possible before the
blizzard resumed its fury. He’d been snowed in for the last two
days.

Andrew cocked his head,
standing still, and listening. The vehicle passing on the roadway
sounded bigger than a snowmobile but it was hard to tell with the
sounds echoing from snow banks and carried on a howling
wind.

Assuming someone dared to
clear the road, a fresh batch of slick, wet snow and ice would soon
recover it, wasting the effort.

Piling the last of the
provisions in the cabin, he made one last trip around the edges of
the building looking for damage. Convinced the structure was sound,
he pulled the scarf down from his face, piercing the frigid air
with a long whistle. The sharp sound was an alert to Shadow that it
was time to go back to the cabin.

The stark trees mixed with
the full varieties of fir and rocks poked from the mounds of white.
The wind ruffled the dunes of snow. Dog tracks disappeared into the
forest, but nothing emerged from the trees at the familiar
call.

Keeping an eye on the edge
of the trees, he returned to the front of the little building,
calling the dog’s name. The wind stung more fiercely the farther he
went from the cabin.

Barking erupted from the
woods. 

“
Here I am working and
he’s out chasing rabbits.”

An uneasy feeling slithered
through his stomach at the fierce barking. He reached into his
pocket, his hand circling the Smith & Wesson .38 he carried for
protection in the wild. His feeling of security renewed, he pulled
the scarf tightly around his head and delved into the woods in
search of the dog.

The dense trees along the
path blocked some of the wind but not all. Icicles shook loose from
the tops of the trees. They rained down on Andrew as he dragged one
foot and then the other out of the snow. Bracing against trees
helped him wade through the white quicksand. He progressed about
twenty feet before Shadow appeared on an elevated patch of ground
where the snow was not as deep.

Instead of lumbering up to
Andrew and begging forgiveness for wandering off in the middle of a
storm, the dog sat down and whined; much to Andrew’s
discontent.

“
It’s about time, you
stubborn animal. C’mon Shadow, let’s go back inside.”

Shadow refused to budge and
whined again. He looked at Andrew, let his tongue lag to the side,
wagged his tail, but still refused to move. 

Logic failing, Andrew tried
again. “I put food in the cabin. How about a nice big bowl of warm
water?”

Shadow whined. Andrew
sighed, moving towards the dog.

“
Shadow, I’m too old to be
chasing you through the snow.”

At thirty-three, Andrew was
far from old, but the dog didn’t need to know that. Andrew could
not believe he reduced himself to using a guilt trip on the dog. He
also couldn’t believe it didn’t work. 

For every step he took
closer, the dog grew more excited. When Andrew was within a few
feet of the dog, Shadow began to bark again and turn in
circles.

Frowning, Andrew looked at
the dog.

“
Why are you being so
weird? You’ve seen animals in the woods before.”

Andrew followed the dog
through the snow, retracing the path the dog took to find his
master. Soon, they would reach the road.

Suddenly, the dog ran to a
large rock, urgently spinning in circles, sniffing and barking.
Curious, Andrew followed the crazy dog around the side of an
enormous rock jutting from the landscape.

Expecting to see an animal
carcass left by a larger predator, he began to pick apart the scene
in front of him, sorting out the vision in his mind between his
expectation and reality. His feet stopped moving.

A body lay crumpled against
the boulder. Tennis shoes, a pair of jeans, a leather jacket, and a
pale face. None of which belonged a few hundred yards from his
cabin. Andrew did not know this woman. He stood frozen in place,
disbelieving what he was seeing as the memory of another body in a
car flashed through his mind.

Morbid curiosity pulled his
attention to the body in the present, pushing away thoughts of the
body in the past. Feminine features and deathly white skin framed
by hair pulled into a ponytail. Long lashes graced high cheekbones
over the closed eyelids. A bright red slash trickled down from a
gash just below the hairline and flowed into a darker, drying patch
that was pooling near her ear.

He gripped a glove with his
teeth and yanked the leather from his fingers. He felt along her
frosty skin for a pulse, but the freezing temperatures quickly
absorbed the feeling from his hands.

He couldn’t find a
pulse.

With his heart thudding and
nausea rolling over him, he turned his face from the body. A furrow
marked the snow where the body had rolled down the embankment. The
hill sloped sharply up from the boulder to the road that led from
the lake, past his driveway, and down into the small town. The cold
and snow nipped at his nostrils and stung his eyes, reminding him
of the temperature.

There didn’t seem to be
much hope for the poor woman tossed carelessly against the rock;
however, there may be others still alive in a wrecked
car.

Regaining his ability to
move, Andrew climbed up the side of the hill to the road, slipping
on ice patches and steadying himself with his gloved hands.
Reaching the road, he glanced left and right. Nothing was there,
the vehicle he heard earlier long gone. Like the groove down the
hill, snow started to erase the tracks left in the deep, quickly
refreezing slush.

From the traces remaining,
a truck with snow chains covering the tires turned around on the
narrow road right at the juncture of the driveway to Andrew’s
property. His cabin sat far enough from the road and down the hill
that even in perfectly clear weather, passersby could not see it
from the top of the driveway. Deep snowdrifts still blocked the
road going up the mountain while the road heading downhill was
clear.

He stepped into the tread
pattern and his boot slipped. The road was turning into ice under
the snow from the exhaust of the truck that came up to his driveway
before turning around.