Lost Creek Hollow i know what i was feeling, but what was i thinking

Luke was decidedly less than pleased to see them and Mordecai could hardly fault him for it. If anything, his wounded aggression towards their presence was a positive — he still had enough of a fight him in to tell them off in any assortment of languages. But it was Harlyn's arrival that tore him from his surveying, the flurry of her footfalls prompting him to momentarily turn his back to the outside world as she broke from cover to join them. If anything it seemed that she read into Luke's behavior more than any of them, that message loud as clear as she told them to back off. Mordecai, feeling that he had been wise not to crowd Luke to begin with could not help but respond defiantly for an instant, curling a lip in her general direction. But he relented in the display and cleared from the area further, a chuff calling Ilya to do the same.

He settled, executing a turn to draw Harlyn and Luke back into his line of sight in spite of the timberline that could have easily swallowed them. He wouldn't leave, not at all certain that their second in command would be willing to even let her near. And of course there was still the nagging edge of whether or not the cougar would linger beyond their line of sight, lurking somewhere in the snow flushed scenery. It rested on his mind as heavily as what would transpire next, all of which he was hard-pressed to imagine in the first place.