by Cathie Linz
“Testing your night vision, Sergeant?” Prudence inquired from behind him.
Immediately on alert, Joe pivoted like the warrior he was, ready to do battle.
“Whoa there,” she said with a startled smile. “It’s just me. Not the enemy. What’s the matter? Couldn’t sleep?”
“What are you doing out here?” he growled.
“I was enjoying the peace and quiet while I could. There isn’t much of that with five sixth-graders around.”
“You should hit the rack,” he told her. “We’ve got an early start tomorrow.”
“The kids seem to make you nervous,” she noted, showing no signs of returning to her tent as he’d suggested. “Why is that?”
Joe wished he knew. But ever since the helo crash, kids freaked him out. Not only the sight of them, but also being responsible for them.
He’d first noticed the problem when he’d visited Curt and his new wife up in Chicago over a liberty weekend. Holding Curt’s daughter, Blue, had made his knees tremble. Him, who’d always been good with females, from toddlers on up to grandmas. He’d always had a way with women and had never had any problems with kids. But that was the old Joe, the one that had gone up in flames along with that helo.
“Not everyone is good with kids, ma’am,” Joe said stiffly.
“That’s true,” Prudence agreed. “But with you it seems like it’s more than that.” She paused, giving him the chance to speak up if he chose to. He didn’t. “I meant to tell you that somehow your journal got picked up with Keishon’s and Rosa’s by mistake. It wasn’t until I was reading it that I realized it was yours. I should have guessed from the writing. Why do all Marines have such small squiggly writing?” she inquired in a teasing voice.
“Squiggly?” he repeated in disbelief, his shoulders straightening at what he perceived to be a new insult against his beloved Marine Corps. “There is no such word.”
“There most certainly is,” she assured him, dropping onto a large flat boulder in order to gaze up at him and at the sky.
“Fine, ma’am,” he growled. “I’m not going to argue with you about it.”
“Why not?” She turned to flash a grin at him in the moonlit darkness. “You argue about everything else with me.”
“Only because you’re wrong most of the time. Ma’am.”
“You really don’t have to continue saying ma’am to me,” she told him. “I know it’s only a facade of politeness that you don’t mean a word of.”
“So now you’ve added mind-reading to your other skills?” he said, moving closer to the boulder.
“What other skills might that be?”
“Besides the ability to aggravate me, you mean, ma’am?”
“Yes, besides that ability, Sergeant.” She tilted her head up to look at him, now that he was so near. Her shoulder-length hair tumbled over her shoulders. She was wearing black sweatpants and a red sweatshirt with sheep on it.
“You seem to be a good teacher,” he allowed grudgingly.
“You’re too kind.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“And you’re too good-looking,” she stunned him and herself by saying. “No doubt you’ve been told that as well.”
“Not put that way, no.”
“Put what way?”
“As if it were a sin.”
He was sinfully good-looking, that much was true. The real reason she was out here was that she’d had the most disturbingly erotic dream about him. And that wasn’t like her at all.
But then she hadn’t been feeling quite like herself from the moment Joe Wilder had walked into that conference room back at the base. She couldn’t believe she’d just told him he was too good-looking. She hadn’t meant to. The words had just kind of slipped out.
There was something about talking to him in the darkness that made her forget her reservations. Which was a dangerous thing for her to do. She couldn’t forget who he was. Not for one minute.
She might not be the enemy, but in a way he was. He was the enemy to her peace of mind, to the future she had planned for herself. A future without a too-sexy Marine with too-blue eyes playing any role in it.
“I think I will head back to my sleeping bag,” she noted, hastily getting to her feet before realizing that he was now standing so close to the boulder that she almost slammed into him.
His hands automatically shot out to prevent her from stumbling over the uneven ground beneath their feet. “Steady there,” he said.
It was an order she silently repeated to her own heartbeat, which was racing out of control. Powerful crosscurrents of emotion swept over her until her entire body was alive and flushed. She forgot to breathe, forgot to think as the immediate world skittered away. Her universe telescoped inward until it contained nothing beyond the intimate circle of his arms.
Then she was suddenly set free.
“You’d best get back to your tent, ma’am,” he said in that ultrarespectful voice that Marines used.
Instead of arguing, she merely nodded. What had just happened? His touch had created a response she could neither understand nor control.
Hurrying back to her tent, Prudence paused in the entryway to look over her shoulder. Joe was walking away from her, a solitary figure melting into the darkness. Then he was gone.
But the vivid memory of his touch remained with her throughout the night.
The next day was blustery, cloudy and cool. Joe had checked the weather forecast before leaving the base and while there was a large storm out over the Atlantic, they were expecting it to continue north along the coast and not come inland.
Something about the sky made him uneasy. Maybe it was just the VCRs getting on his nerves, but he didn’t think so.
He tried to keep the pace brisk, but Prudence insisted on stopping—to look at wildflowers, to take pictures of a waterfall, to explain an ecosystem. As it was, they barely managed to make camp that night before the rain hit. Joe dug a channel around the base of the tents, making sure it ran downhill to prevent flooding.
As he shoveled the dirt, Joe had a bad feeling about the weather. The air had turned decidedly colder. He only prayed that the rain wouldn’t turn to snow.
His prayers were not answered. The rain turned to snow a little after midnight. There was nothing he could do. He couldn’t get the VCRs moving in the dark, even with flashlights. They were simply too inexperienced for him to take the risk. They’d have to wait until first light.
So Joe sat up and waited while the others slept. He planned on getting everyone up and breaking camp at dawn. He hadn’t planned on opening the tent to half a foot of snow! Half an hour ago there had only been an inch or two.
There was no way they’d be able to make the descent in this. Swearing under his breath, he ordered all the boys to get dressed in as many layers of clothing as they had. “Two or three loose layers are warmer than one tight layer. And then wrap flannel shirts around your heads,” he ordered, before tossing a plastic garbage bag at each of them. “Then rip those open and tie it around your head like this.” He used Sinatra as an example. “Stay here while I go get the girls.”
The snow was coming down so hard it was difficult to see more than a few inches ahead. Heading for the girls’ tent, Joe found Prudence had already gotten the girls up and dressed. She held a cell phone in her hand. “I can’t get a signal.”
“Even if you could, there’s no way anyone could come rescue us in this weather. Did you have the girls put on several layers of clothes?” At her nod, he said, “Good. Do you have anything you can tie over your heads? Hats or scarves or extra shirts? Put them on, fast. And if you don’t have gloves, use extra socks on your hands. We’ve got to find some more permanent shelter as quickly as possible.” Joe yanked the map out of his field jacket pocket and jabbed a finger at it. “According to this, there’s a cabin not far from here.”
“Is it time to use that survival stuff you told us about?” Keishon asked.
“Affirmative,” Joe
replied.
“Do you know no two snowflakes are the same?” Rosa said, entranced rather than afraid of the snowfall. “The number of combinations are infinite.”
Joe knew one thing that wasn’t infinite—his ability to get them to safety.
The next two hours were the longest in his life. Only his years of training kept him moving forward as if he was utterly confident of their ultimate location. The snow had obliterated the surrounding terrain, making familiar landmarks look utterly foreign.
Then he saw it…the bright red metal roof of a cabin.
Chapter Five
Prudence had never been so cold in her entire life. The fierce wind turned the snow into icy pellets that assaulted her face with stinging frequency. Her eyes were watering as a result of the unforgiving gusts of wind buffeting them. She was blindly following Joe, who was at the front of their group while she brought up the rear to make sure none of the kids in between got off track. The visibility was now so poor that they all had to hold hands in a human chain.
The snow was accumulating in drifts that went well beyond the tops of their hiking boots. Frostbite was a real concern—none of them were dressed for a surprise late-spring blizzard. They needed to find shelter immediately.
And if anyone could do that, Joe Wilder could. She had complete faith in his abilities. Marines were great at inspiring confidence and Joe was no exception.
It wasn’t until Prudence bumped into Rosa’s back that she realized the group had come to a stop. A second later, she saw it—a cabin.
Thank heavens. Prudence wiped away a tear of relief before it froze on her numbed cheeks. Her legs were trembling from the energy required to trudge through the heavy layer of snow.
Inside the cabin, the relief from the bitterly stinging wind was immediate. As the storm howled outside, she quickly took stock of her surroundings. Their new home was basically one large room with a huge stone fireplace directly to her right. Two folding chairs leaned a little drunkenly near the hearth.
Straight ahead, against the back wall, there was an old-fashioned metal sink and a red hand-operated pump presumably to pump the water from a well. Shelves nailed to the wall above held a few rows of cans. In the opposite corner an open door led to a rudimentary toilet.
The place was dusty, but critter free as far as she could tell. At least on first sight. She’d have to thoroughly check it for spiders later. It was hardly the Ritz, but in their hour of need it appeared that way to her.
“While I start a fire, you kids get those wet boots and socks off,” Joe ordered, heading for the small jar of matches perched on the mantel. “Prudence, check their feet for frostbite.”
“I hate ssss…snow,” Keishon wailed. “I’ve never been sss…sooo cold in my life.” Her chattering teeth made her stutter.
Leaning down, Joe made fast work of starting a fire, using the pages from the notebook journal Prudence had given him as kindling before adding some of the larger logs stored beside the hearth. He’d noticed there was a sizable woodpile outside, covered with a blue tarp so they should be in good shape, providing the chimney wasn’t clogged up. It wasn’t. Finally something was going right.
Turning, Joe methodically checked the remaining VCRs’ feet to make sure there was no sign of frostbite. He inspected Gem and Sinatra’s fingers and toes. They were lucky. Only early stages, which were manageable. Nothing horrible. Something else going right.
The cabin was cold enough that you could see your breath, but the fire would warm things up. That was the first order of business. To get them warm.
As for him, the chill gripping his body had nothing to do with the outside temperature. If Joe thought being stuck in the tent with the VCRs was tough, that was nothing compared to the inner panic he was experiencing now.
Where before he’d just been along for the ride, so to speak, now he was responsible for the group’s safety in a very real, very immediate way.
The morning was spent getting everyone warm and eating granola bars for a late breakfast. Joe and Sinatra were in charge of getting rid of cobwebs and spiders.
Prudence’s muffled shriek from the far side of the cabin sent Joe racing to her side, his arms cradling her as she practically threw herself at him.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, his defenses on high alert as he rapidly searched the room for something that could have frightened her so badly. All he saw was a spider heading out the crack beneath the front door.
Shuddering, she whispered, “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m not fond of spiders. I’m fine now.” Quickly pulling away from him, she smoothed her hair away from her face and recovered her usual confident demeanor so the kids wouldn’t know she was spooked.
But it took Joe some time to recover from the feel of her clinging to him like seaweed.
After Prudence found an old-fashioned straw broom and swept the floor, they unpacked and spread their sleeping mats and sleeping bags in front of the fireplace in a semicircle.
“Are you using your Marine techniques to size up the situation, sir?” Sinatra quietly asked Joe.
Joe had already run through the entire gambit—there was enough firewood to last them maybe forty-eight hours, enough food for that long if they were careful. After several attempts, he’d finally gotten more than murky brown water to come out of the pump. If they boiled the water over the fire, it should be okay for drinking.
But there were so many unknowns—the length of the storm, the reliability of the fireplace, the possibility that one of the kids might get sick after their exposure to the cold. When he’d shivered his way through Winter Survival School with the Marines, the topic of protecting kids had never come up.
Not kids, he hastily reminded himself. Vertically challenged recruits.
Ah, hell, who was he kidding? One look at Rosa’s trembling chin as she asked if they were going to die was worse than a sucker punch in the stomach.
“No one’s dying on my watch,” Joe fiercely declared, his jaw clenching with emotion.
“That’s right,” Prudence agreed. “We’re going to be fine. So stop worrying, sweetie.” Prudence gave Rosa a reassuring hug. “We’ll be okay.”
“We don’t even have to call in the Marines,” Sinatra said, gazing at Joe with absolute trust. “We’ve got our own Marine here to help us. He got us to this cabin, didn’t he?”
For some reason, Sinatra’s utter confidence in Joe hit him as hard as Rosa’s fear.
“You’d think if someone built a cabin up here, they’d have neat stuff in it like big-screen TV and a VCR,” Pete noted, wiggling his cold toes in front of the fireplace.
Of course, to Joe’s way of thinking he already had a VCR—five of them to be exact. Five vertically challenged recruits. And now he was stuck with them. In a freak snowstorm.
Okay, this scenario stunk. But he could do this. He’d been in worse situations.
Yeah, but none of them had given him this sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“This isn’t a resort hotel,” Joe growled. “This is a rangers’ cabin meant for emergency use. I’m going to go out and get some more firewood.”
Stomping his way through the snow, Joe kicked the drifts out of his way. The heat of his anger should have been enough to melt the four-foot drifts. And that anger was directed at himself.
He’d had a bad feeling about the weather yesterday morning. He should have acted on that feeling. Should have trusted his gut. Should have called an early halt to this ridiculous wilderness adventure and sent them all home.
Then those kids would be home in their own bed tonight, safe and warm.
Regrets. God, he was an expert about regrets, about if only’s. If only he’d been on that helo, he might have been able to do something to prevent the accident that had killed three of his fellow Marines. If only, if only, if only. The words beat into his brain like a drum that wouldn’t stop.
Gritting his teeth, Joe picked up the logs one by one, until his arms were full. Even then he was in
no hurry to go back inside. But there was no sense in risking further damage to his already mildly frostbitten fingers.
There was also no sense hiding outside. The guilt was inside of him and there was no running away from it. It was as much a part of him as his cold-numbed face and his disillusioned eyes. There was no escaping it.
“This cabin is even better than our tents,” Sinatra said that evening as they all sat around the fireplace, carefully roasting the six squashed marshmallows that Prudence had found in a Baggie at the bottom of her backpack.
“At least it’s got a john,” Gem acknowledged.
“A head,” Sinatra reminded him. “In the Marines they call it a head.”
“I’m not in the Marines,” Gem said.
“What if they don’t find us and the food runs out and we have to eat someone?” Pete asked out of the blue.
“That’s not going to happen,” Prudence assured them.
“And if it did we’d eat you first, because you’re the fattest one,” Keishon said irritably.
“I’m not fat!” Pete shouted. “And I thought you were a vegetarian.”
“For you I might make an exception,” Keishon sniffed.
“You’re a bloodthirsty bunch,” Joe growled, the pounding in his head made worse by their arguing.
“Talking of bloodthirsty, let’s tell ghost stories around the fire. I’ll go first,” Pete declared.
“I think it should be a round-robin story, with each person telling a part of the story,” Rosa stated and the others agreed. “But you can still go first,” she graciously told Pete.
“It started in this very cabin,” Pete said in a dramatic voice. “Aliens landed one night and caught a bunch of campers, sucking the life out of them until they were dead. Ever since then, they’ve haunted this cabin.”
“The aliens?” Keishon asked.
“No, the dead campers,” Pete replied in exasperation. “They’ve haunted this cabin—”
“Why?” Rosa interrupted him to ask. “Why this cabin? Why don’t they just roam the mountainside where they were camping? It would make more sense if you had them killed here in the cabin and not just haunting here.”
