Signs of Life
A Holiday Romance
Sloane Reynard
This book is dedicated to Valerie Frank, one of my closest friends for almost 30 years. She died earlier this year and I will miss her for the rest of my days.
Thanks to Laura Sutton for her boundless encouragement and support.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
About the Author
Chapter 1
Somewhere along the way, Corinne Wade had gotten lost, in a few senses of the word.
In the literal way, yes, but also in the figurative. She had no idea where she was in the scheme of her life, or where she was going, or even why she should go anywhere. With her father’s death, all ambition to move forward in her career and personal lives had fled, leaving behind a bleak mental landscape where not a lot mattered. She was aware of a persistent sense that she ought to care about what she was doing professionally, she ought to care about whether or not she’d try to find a man to create a family with, but it all seemed so damned pointless.
But for the sake of satisfying that lingering sense, Corinne had decided to attempt something to jog herself from her funk. She’d give herself one last hurrah, one last permitted wallowing in her misery, and then she was going to launch into a determined effort to regain some enjoyment from life. After this week, she would no longer be allowed to stew in the angst that had pervaded her life in recent months. Her father would not have wanted that for her, especially not because of him.
So, yes, she was lost. And she had a plan for digging herself out of that emotional pit, so she had that going for her. Being literally lost would not ordinarily be a problem, except for a few undesirable factors: she hadn’t realized her error until she was at the top of the wrong mountain, she was nearly out of gas after driving for hours and hours, and in the midst of the worst snowstorm she’d ever experienced.
Not only was visibility nearly zero because of the thick-falling snow, but her cell phone reception was nil so her GPS was useless. As if that were not enough, the wind was so strong she half-expected a gust to blow her right off the cliffside that she at that moment was inching along. Whose idea was it to build a road on the very edge of a plummet to infinity?
The better question, perhaps, was ‘whose idea was it to drive to the top of a huge mountain a week before Christmas when a storm threatened?’ The answer to that was far less satisfying, at least as far as her irritation was concerned, because it was her. She was to blame for that bit of foolishness. Christmas had never been her favorite time; their small family kept shrinking every year until it was just Corinne and her father, and with his death a few months earlier, now it was just her alone.
Increasingly desperate for something to distract her from her loneliness and grief, she had rejected all offers from various friends to join them for the holidays. A sub-tropical celebration of ornament-decked palm trees with the Tarbells, partying up a storm in Georgia, was not to be borne, nor was any well-intentioned quality time with the masses of Stockards to be found in Ontario. It would all just remind her too much of what she’d had and lost, and throw into relief that, while she was loved and welcomed by her dear friends, she wasn’t truly one of them, always the outsider awkwardly shoehorning herself into their midst instead of belonging by right of birth and blood.
She was the last Wade, and truly alone.
Now more than ever, because it felt like no other creature was to be found on the whole of the mountain— she hadn’t seen a sign of life in an hour, though to be fair, she hadn’t seen anything but swirling cascades of snow and the interior of her rental car for that hour, either. The directions had been so simple, she hadn’t felt the need to write them down— ‘turn onto Mountain Road and follow it to the very top’— but what she hadn’t counted on was that there’d be two Mountain Roads, and that she’d mistake one for the other, as she had discovered the last time her phone had had reception and she’d been able to check GPS.
And now the needle of her gas gauge was hovering over ‘E’, she was nowhere near anywhere, and things really weren’t looking good.
Well, she thought wryly, she’d been looking for a distraction from her gloom. This certainly was distracting.
Over the following, increasingly tense hour, she was very glad when the road left the very edge of the mountainside to head inward, away from certain death by falling toward slightly-less-certain death by simply freezing. The road narrowed to a path, and then a mere track, trees clustering so closely that their branches scraped along the sides of the car as she passed between them.
If I survive this, there goes my deposit, she thought with annoyance. The damage to the car’s paint would be extensive.
Finally, she reached a point where even the tiny sub-compact she’d crammed herself into was not small enough to wend between the narrow gaps in the trees, and drew to a halt.
Then, while she pondered her options (which consisted of whether or not she dared to keep the car running for the meager amount of heat wavering from the vents or conserve gas for some future moment when, presumably, she’d be able to drive elsewhere) the choice was taken from her when the engine sputtered, hiccupped, and died.
The gas gauge needle was officially past— long past— ‘E’.
Corinne slumped in her seat. No, she had one more choice: stay in the car, in whatever heat it would be able to retain, and hope for the best. She was dressed warmly, had a few bottles of water and snacks. The storm couldn’t last forever, could it? She was strong. She’d likely be able to weather— hah— it out. Or she could leave the shelter of the car, roll the dice, and take a chance that someone actually lived up her in the middle of nowhere.
It was nearly impossible to believe, but it was barely past noon. She’d left Widow’s Vale (and what an awful name that was, had no one considered changing the name to something less morbid?) at daybreak. She was supposed to have arrived at her rented cabin by mid-morning, taken an hour to acclimate herself to her surroundings, unpack, then have a nice lunch before perhaps taking a hike or building a snowman.
Instead… yeah.
Not even one in the afternoon, and nearly as dark as full night. No one around for miles and miles, no one expecting her, no one to know she was in a pickle.
This could be it, she thought, and didn’t feel as dismayed by the idea as one might expect. On a certain level, she knew that in itself was alarming: she was confronted with death and the most she could muster in response was ‘so, this is happening’. But the numbness that had been creeping up on her since her father’s passing spread a layer of apathy over most of her reactions, and this one was no different.
Corinne gave a mental shrug. What would be, would be. Her lone memory of her mother was of her singing those words. The future’s not ours to see, her mother had sung. Que sera, sera. She wasn’t going to get worked up over something she couldn’t change.
What she could change was what she did next. If she decided not to remain in the car, to find some shelter, how to go about it? Pack her pockets with the supplies she’d brought, bundle up as carefully as possible… did she dare to blow out the car battery by leaving the headlamps on, to illuminate the way as far as the light would throw?
No, she thought, best to conserve what she could. Already the vents were beginning to blow out air more cool than warm, so she shut off the ignition and huddled deeper into her coat. The stressful drive, and sudden end to the need to stay alert, left her abruptly e
xhausted and she had to fight to keep her eyes open.
But hadn’t she heard that it was bad to sleep when hypothermic? She was still plenty warm, at the moment, so perhaps she should indulge her desire to sleep while it was still safe to do so.
She burrowed down into her coat, sliding sideways so she could bring her knees up and curl tighter. After making sure her hands were tucked up into her sleeves, she closed her eyes and let herself relax.
She had barely closed her eyes when there was a clattering, scratching sound outside the car and Corinne jerked upright in alarm. The interior of the vehicle had fogged up a bit and she had to scrub her forearm against the window to see outside.
There was a lion on the other side of the glass.
Corinne sucked in a shocked breath. No, not a lion, she saw when her brain decided a lion was a ridiculous thing to find on a godforsaken snow-covered mountain in Vermont and she had to come up with a better alternative. A dog. But a very lion-like dog: huge, golden-brown, with a big fur ruff around its neck. Beautiful, in a dangerous sort of way, but she still wanted to give him a scritch.
After a fraught moment of prolonged eye contact, the lion-dog sat back on its haunches— becoming, somehow, even taller— and gave her a big doggy smile, panting and revealing long ivory fangs. Corinne couldn’t help but smile back. She had never been particularly good with people, but dogs had always treated her kindly. She was about 87% certain he was friendly and wouldn’t try to hurt her.
The lion-dog stood and romped through the snow until he was about ten feet from the car, then stopped and turned to look back at her. Giving a yip, he ran another ten or so feet away before turning back once more, yipping again. When she just sat there, watching, he almost seemed to sigh before jogging back to the car. He rose to hind feet, placing immense paws on the door and his big furry face right up against the window and woofed deeply, then let his claws rake down the side of the vehicle as he got back to all four paws.
Definitely not getting my deposit back on this, Corinne thought ruefully.
The dog began his odd dance once more, trotting away and barking, looking back at her, and finally she realized he wanted her to follow him.
Did she dare? The car was already becoming uncomfortably cold and he seemed too well-cared-for to be a stray, so somewhere in the winter wonderland out there was his owner and, presumably, a warm place to wait out the storm.
Might as well. What did she have to lose? She’d just prolong the inevitable, remaining in the car. At least she’d get to pet a dog— or a lion, or whatever the creature was— before she croaked.
With trepidation, but also a sense of inevitability, Corinne gathered up her scant hoard of supplies— maybe she could return at a later time for her luggage?— sucked in a breath, and opened the door.
A cold blast of air, swirling with fat snowflakes, slapped her in the face and drove away any lingering bit of warmth she’d been hoarding inside the car.
The dog bounded up to her the moment she emerged, up on his hind legs once more to plant his paws on her shoulders and swipe his tongue up her cheek.
“Eugh,” Corinne laughed, pushing him away. “It’s nice to meet you, too. I hope you don’t mind if I don’t greet you back the same way.”
Fortunately, the dog didn’t seem to mind. With a bark, he ran off, stopping and looking back to make sure she was following.
“Yes, yes, I’m coming,” Corinne told him as she began her slog through the knee-high drifts, feeling very relieved she’d worn tights under her jeans and tall, sheepskin-lined boots in addition to her warm parka. She hurried to wrap her scarf around her head, leaving only her eyes uncovered, then yanked on her gloves.
She followed the dog for… a while. Her gloved hands were too clumsy to dig out her phone and check the time, which passed differently when all she could see around her were swirling flakes and the snow-caked trunks of the surrounding trees. Plus, she was positive the dog’s path was in no way linear, instead snaking around like a long word written in cursive.
It went counterintuitive to everything she knew made sense, but… she had to place her trust in the dog, to get her somewhere safe, or else some unfortunate hiker would find her in the spring, half-decomposed. The thought perversely made her laugh as she pictured herself, sprawled out, tongue lolling out of her mouth, with Xs in place of her closed eyes like in cartoons.
The dog, attracted to her laughter it seemed, bounded back and launched himself at her with a joyful bark. It knocked her back into a waist-high drift.
Unfortunately, her booted feet remained where they were, embedded in snow, with the result that her ankle wrenched as she was knocked off balance by 150 pounds of lion-dog. It startled her into a shout of pain. The dog licked her other cheek— in apology?— before bounding off again.
Corinne lay there, breathless, while the dog leapt away, snapping at falling snowflakes. Lost on a mountain, car out of gas and snowed in besides, in the middle of a fierce storm, and now her ankle was done for. Things were looking, somehow, even worse than they had been earlier. She began to laugh again, helplessly, heedless of the cold seeping through her clothes, at the ridiculous turn her life had taken.
“You’re pretty lighthearted for someone about to freeze to death,” commented a male voice.
Chapter 2
Corinne tried to jackknife to a sitting position but just ended up thrashing around in the snow before flopping gracelessly to her back.
“Uh,” she said intelligently.
A man stood there, and as she stared upwards, he bent at the waist to loom over her, looking down into her face, or what little was revealed of it through the mummy-wrapping of her scarf.
His face was uncovered, and what a face it was: sculpted, symmetrical perfection in male form, with an unrealistically perfect jaw and a busted nose that in no way detracted from his masculine allure. As if that weren’t enough, he had raven-dark hair and blazing green eyes, somewhere between jade and emerald, and when the hell had Corinne’s inner monologue begun to sound like a trashy romance novel? She didn’t use gemstones to describe people’s eyes. Ever.
But if there were a person to inspire her to the practice, it was this guy. She’d lick his face, that was for sure. Wow. Suddenly, the months since she’d broken up with her last boyfriend, Kyle, seemed far more numerous. It had been… over a year, she now recalled. Fourteen months without any sort of sexual proximity with a man. And the last time had not precisely been fantastic. She recalled it involved the usual lackluster efforts on Kyle’s part and her decision to stop pretending she was enjoying those efforts.
The intervening time had been spent either caring for her father in his last days, or mourning his loss, both things dampening her libido to the point of nonexistence, and in her misery, she hadn’t cared in the slightest. Had even considered that perhaps it had fled permanently. Not like she needed it, that was certain.
At that moment, at the flare of lust in her belly— and lower— Corinne realized that her sex drive had not disappeared, had only been hibernating until the right person roused it from slumber. She’d once thought the handsome face of a high school crush to be perfection in male form, but… boy, had she miscalculated.
They stared at each other for an endless, silent moment, during which Corinne’s breath became more and more ragged, until the dog ran up and tackled the man into an adjacent snow bank.
“Leo,” the man complained, “you have the worst timing.” He shoved the dog off and got to his feet. “And the worst breath. Remind me to brush your fangs when we get back.”
He seemed none the worse for wear despite his tumble to the snow thanks to the dog— Leo— so Corinne had that going for her, at least.
Corinne floundered to her feet— well, her foot, balancing on the uninjured one— and saw that he was just about her height, which was nice for a change. Well-built, too, in a way his heavy parka could not be entirely responsible for. She stood there and stared mutely at him for another little while
. The falling snowflakes caught in his hair like diamonds, even tangled in his eyelashes, and for a moment she contemplated tackling him into a snow bank much like Leo had done only minutes earlier.
“Are you a woman?” he demanded abruptly.
Corinne jerked back, feeling almost as if he’d struck her physically. She was not precisely shocked at the question— she’d heard it many times, or a comment about how hard it was to tell her sex because of her height— but she’d just been in the midst of a nice little fantasy involving peeling his jeans off, and to have the reminder of her lack of feminine charms barked at her without warning was jarring.
“Yes,” she replied, striving for calm but achieving irritated and hostile. She tugged down her scarf to reveal a face that, while plain, was still recognizably female.
He said nothing in reply, but looked oddly relieved. It made Corinne wonder if he had nefarious plans for a woman, and it was convenient that she happened to be one, but… she was no shrinking violet. She could handle herself. If he tried anything she didn’t like, she’d flatten him, probably with one punch.
Though, she had to admit as she watched him dust snow off the narrow hips so beautifully showcased by his snug jeans, if he tried something she did like, she’d probably still flatten him… with her enormous body.
Hahaha, she thought, more than a little angrily, like that’s going to happen. The man looked like a model in a cologne advertisement, where the men wore underwear with the designer’s name woven into the waistband and topless women curled themselves around the men’s feet.
“So,” she said hoarsely, then gave a little hem-hem to clear her throat. Focus, she admonished herself. “I—”
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