Dane's Storm

by Mia Sheridan

  I nodded. Something about letting Dane wash my hair felt overly intimate, vaguely dangerous. And yet the lure of clean hair was frankly too great. The lure of feeling halfway human again was too great. “Okay.” Dane took the water off the fire while I gathered my shampoo and comb.

  “Sit in front of me and tip your head all the way back,” Dane instructed as I knelt on the garbage bag I’d used earlier and he came up behind me. He put a dry shirt around my shoulders to protect my jacket and the back of my neck, and then began pouring the water over my hair. The wet heat felt incredible against my scalp and I moaned very softly. “Feel good?” he asked.

  “Ahh, yes.”

  Dane made quick work of using the shampoo to work a lather through my hair, using his fingertips to massage my scalp. I almost moaned again, louder and more blissfully, but held it back, instead closing my eyes and relishing in the sensations. I’d always loved my scalp being massaged. When we were first married, we’d taken baths together and Dane had washed my hair, just like this. I wondered if he remembered, wondered if this brought up memories of that time for him like it was doing for me. He’d been an unselfish lover, even as a young man, taking pleasure in pampering me as part of our foreplay. I didn’t realize until then how much I’d missed being touched. Dane’s touch had always melted me. Always. My stomach felt fluttery and my muscles felt languid, despite the frigid air. And despite that I’d been so tense only minutes before.

  Dane rinsed the shampoo out of my hair and then rubbed a small amount of conditioner through, massaging my scalp again, finally rinsing that out as well. He used the shirt on my shoulders to rub my hair dry, his hands gentle yet strong as I rotated my neck. I remembered back to the way my body had ached in agony after the crash and a wave of gratitude washed through me. I laughed softly, somewhat surprised that there was anything to feel grateful for in this situation. But there was. Oh, there was. Fire, loose muscles, clean hair . . . and not being alone.

  “What?” Dane asked, dragging the comb through my hair.

  “I was just thinking of the things I’m grateful for right now. I was being very optimistic—not like myself at all.”

  Dane laughed. “It only took being stranded on the side of a mountain in winter to bring out the Pollyanna in you?”

  I laughed, turning to him, momentarily surprised to see such softness in his eyes as he held and stroked a length of my hair. “I guess so. Who would believe it?” I angled my head so my hair was getting as much of the heat from the fire as possible, hoping it would dry quickly. It was too cold to leave it even partially wet when I stepped away from the fire.

  “Me, actually. The small blessings are what get you through situations like this one.”

  “Yes, I guess so.” I smiled.

  We ate our measly dinner, sitting in front of the fire as my hair dried completely. The sun disappeared, bathing our mountain in darkness. But the fire danced and flickered, melting the falling snow and casting shadows on the rocks surrounding us.

  We both began yawning at the same time and retired to our shelter with a bottle of cooling water to sip from during the night. We got under the blankets, shivering momentarily in the cold air. But soon enough, the warmth from the fire found us, our body heat combined under the blankets to form a comfortable cocoon, and Dane gathered me to him, holding me around the waist as had become our sleeping position. “We can take turns getting up to add branches to the fire to keep it going,” I murmured, snuggling in to him.

  “No, I’ll do it. You sleep.”

  I turned in his arms. “No, Dane—”

  “Shh, let me take care of you tonight, Audra.”

  I thought about arguing, but I could tell it meant something to him to care for me—perhaps after I’d cared for him for days as he healed, or simply because that was who Dane was—so I nodded, turning back around.

  “Thank you, stubborn woman,” he whispered teasingly in my ear, causing me to smile in the dark.

  As I drifted toward sleep, I thought about what Dane had said about recognizing small blessings in the midst of challenge, wondering if I’d ever managed to do that until now, wondering if I’d even really tried. Questioning if, in the end, those things helped, or made everything that much more painful because they were all you had.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Dane

  The storm raged for two days as we hibernated in our tiny shelter, leaving to add wood to the fire, eat the fast-dwindling, miniscule meals of rationed food, and to use the bathroom when desperate. Occasionally, we left to sit outside near the cliff where we’d spotted the plane before, wrapped in blankets, but still assaulted by the whipping wind and sub-zero temperature for as long as we could stand. Our second fire pit would have to wait until the storm died down. In the meantime, Audra would hold the People magazine in her lap and sketch distractedly in the blank spots. I wanted to look at what she was doing as we sat under a bleak winter sky, only each other and our roaming thoughts for company, but I didn’t. Something told me that to mention it would cause her to stop, and it seemed to calm her. Plus, she’d told me she didn’t sketch anymore but here she was doing just that. I hoped she’d tell me why she stopped. When we were so freezing, our teeth were chattering and our noses were bright red, we’d return to our cave-like space near the fire, snuggle together, our limbs still shaking, to sleep once more in an attempt to pass the time.

  I was thankful we’d both had a chance to bathe before the storm arrived or the ridiculously close dwelling might have been even more unbearable. Another one of those small blessings, I guessed. As it was, I slept with my nose pressed to Audra’s clean, smoke-tinged hair, reacquainting myself with the feel of her in the dark. We whispered about random things, telling each other the details of our current lives, but I wanted more. I wanted to talk about the subjects that really mattered between us. I wanted to bring up all the old hurts and study them in this safe and intimate space where it was only us. Where I could hold her as we spoke and learn all the secrets of her heart. But she changed the subject whenever I started venturing there, and that, combined with two days of very bleak conditions, was wearing on me.

  And realizations were rolling in, like the snow flurries surrounding us. I had thought my feelings for Audra were twisted and tangled—too messy to unravel. Too complicated to even try. But lying there with her, about as close as two people could be, up on a mountain in the midst of a churning storm, nothing was complicated. Nothing. There was only clarity . . . and the simple truth that I loved her. That I always had. Probably always would. And I still didn’t know what the hell to do about it.

  On the third day, the storm passed. I woke alone and crawled outside, stretching my neck and looking around, breathing in the crisp, piney air and noting that the fire danced gently, and no wind lashed at my face.

  The fire spit and crackled as I added the last of the branches we’d collected the night before. This would keep it going for another hour or two. We’d need to collect more if we wanted to stay warm, which I most certainly did. I’d actually slept surprisingly well the night before, with the now-familiar warmth of the fire seeping into our shelter, the reduction of the wind, and the soft heat of Audra’s body wrapped around my own.

  I had the brief thought that I’d be hard-pressed to sleep without her after this and the realization scared me. I’d admitted I loved her, if only to myself. But God, she’d broken me once. Destroyed me. And in so many ways, she was still locked behind those walls that had once kept me out, unwilling to step outside. Especially when it came to Theo.

  I stood, calling Audra’s name softly. I was certain she’d left the shelter a few minutes before me to go to the bathroom.

  The air this morning was bitter cold—it had to be close to freezing and I shivered, rubbing my hands together. I called Audra’s name one more time and then went to the break in the trees to call for her again in case she’d gone farther than normal. Normal. Jesus. How fucked up was it that anything about this situation was be
coming normal?

  Stepping through the trees, I noticed Audra standing near the edge of the cliff, looking out over the ridges and peaks below. I made my way to her, walking up next to her to stand at her side. “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey,” she said softly, her lips tipping slightly but her eyes remaining on the landscape. I turned back, following her gaze, letting the beauty of the white wonderland in front of us wash through me. The sky was a pale, hazy blue, fluffy white clouds floating by. And below, the earth was covered in a blanket of clean, shimmery white. Everything sparkled and glowed, catching lazy shafts of sunlight and reflecting them back in twinkling radiance. It was breathtaking and for a moment I stared in awe, understanding why Audra hadn’t wanted to take her eyes off it for even a second.

  “Do you believe in Heaven?” she murmured, her voice dreamy, soft.

  I turned to her, studying her profile. That small, sloped nose, red from the cold, her stubborn elfin chin, and the sweep of her black lashes. Lashes that made those almond-shaped eyes of hers look even bigger, softer. “Yes.”

  She turned to me then, tilting her head. “You do?”

  I put my hands into my jacket pockets, breathing out, my breath rising quickly into the sky. “You sound surprised.”

  Her delicate brows furrowed. “We just never talked about that.”

  “We never talked about a lot of things, Audra,” I said quietly.

  For a second she froze, an ice crystal among ice crystals, but then her shoulders relaxed and she shot me a smile, though it didn’t quite meet those expressive eyes of hers. “No, I suppose not.” She began to turn back toward our camp and frustration mounted inside me, so strong I almost stumbled.

  Enough!

  “Goddammit, Audra, don’t wall me out.”

  She stopped in her tracks and looked at me, stunned, with a bare trace of anger in her expression. “Wall you out? I’m hardly walling you out. I just wanted to admire the view for a minute. Aren’t you the one who talked about small blessings a couple of days ago?”

  I ignored her attempt to redirect, suddenly unwilling to skate around the subject. Not for one more ungodly second. “Do you believe in Heaven, Audra?”

  She laughed, a small, brief sound of pain that was snatched by the wind almost as soon as she’d made it. “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it. I’ll get back to you when I do.”

  “I think we should talk about it now.” I tried to say it gently, but she started to step away and frustration—resentment—raced through me. I reached for her arm, stopping her.

  “Oh, Dane, not now. Not here. Our lives are on the line. Don’t we have enough to contend with? Do you really think this is the place or the time?”

  “Maybe it’s exactly the place and the time.” I paused, as we stared at each other on this barren, white stretch of mountainside. “He was my son too, Audra. I should be able to talk about him. Especially with you. Of all the people on earth, I should be able to say his name and not have you turn away.”

  She sucked in a small breath, stepping back. I released her arm and she took another step back, creating more space between us, an ever-widening divide.

  “It will help, Audra,” I said gently. “We can help each other let go of some of that pain.”

  “It’s too late.”

  “It’s not, goddammit. Not if we decide it’s not. I haven’t been close to anyone like I was close to you. I want that again. I want—”

  “Bullshit. You haven’t been close to anyone? What about Winnie? What about your fiancée? Are you telling me you weren’t close to the woman you were going to marry?”

  “She wasn’t my fiancée. I never asked her to marry me. Do you want to know why?”

  She shook her head rapidly, turning from me. “No! I don’t care. I’m starving and . . . freezing and . . . I don’t feel like talking about this. Not here. Not now.”

  I followed behind her as she turned toward our camp. Her shorter legs took twice the time to do the work of trudging through deep snow, so I easily kept up with her. “I flew to Laurelton with the intention to ask my grandmother for her ring. But I was having doubts, reservations, and inside, I knew my heart wasn’t in it. I was only considering the possibility of marrying Winnie because it seemed like she expected it.”

  She tried to pick up her pace, her face rigid with panic. I didn’t care. She was going to hear this.

  “All I could think about was you. Fuck, Audra. I was considering asking a woman to spend her life with me, and the only woman I could think about was the one who’d let me go.”

  Audra stumbled and I reached out, steadying her by gripping her forearm.

  “And so I went to see you.”

  She halted, her head turning as her eyes widened. “You what? When?”

  I stopped in front of her. “I only wanted to see you in person—just to see you. I didn’t want you to know I was there. I just . . .” I looked off into the distance, pursing my lips. “I don’t know, I just needed to see you. To lay eyes on you after all those years.” I sighed, meeting her stricken gaze again. “You came out of your building, and you were with a young, blond guy. You were laughing, and I watched as he walked you to your car and you got in and drove away.”

  “That was . . . that was Jay. He works for me.”

  “I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t know if he was a coworker or boyfriend, and it didn’t really matter anyway. The timing . . .” He shook his head. “Anyway, what I did know in that moment, was that I wouldn’t ask Winnie to marry me, that I would never ask Winnie to marry me, and I broke up with her that night.”

  She stared at me, wide-eyed, but she wasn’t walking away so I rushed on. “I knew in that moment I would never love Winnie even half as much as I’d loved you. And she deserved more than that.”

  “Dane,” she said, her voice a broken whisper.

  “I went back to my grandmother’s and told her I’d changed my mind. She just looked at me for a minute and then said, ‘That’s all it took. One look at her is all it took.’ Somehow she’d known I’d gone to see you.” I sighed. “I don’t know, but she knew, and she was right. One glimpse of you, even from across the street, the sun already fading from the sky, and I knew.”

  “Dane,” she breathed, “neither one of us can expect to feel that same . . . intensity of first love. It isn’t fair, not to anyone else and not to us. It wasn’t right to compare what we once had with”—she waved her hand through the air—“whatever you had with . . . her.”

  “No. I made myself believe that for a while too, but that wasn’t it, Audra. I didn’t love you that intensely because you were my first love. It wasn’t that. I know that now. You weren’t just my first love. You were my once-in-a-lifetime.”

  She shook her head, gripping her sides as if in pain. “Why. . . why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you need to know. You need to know that I’m not trying to hurt you, Audra. I’m not trying to cause you pain. I want to be able to talk to you about what happened between us, because for me, those feelings aren’t in the past.”

  “It’s just this situation, Dane. It’s just”—she shook her head—“sleeping together every night, the high emotions of our predicament. It’s not, I mean, once we get back . . .”

  I gritted my teeth in frustration. “You can’t fucking tell me what I feel. I just thought it was too complicated to . . . hell”—I let out a harsh breath—“I didn’t know what to do. But the situation has made it clear to me that we’re worth fighting for. Things between us can be worked out. If you’ll just talk to me, Audra. You need to, I know you do.”

  She turned again and began walking. “God, Dane. You say you care about me, but you keep pushing me.”

  I stepped to catch up. “Because I should have then and I didn’t.”

  She laughed again, another garbled sound. “You should have pushed me? I didn’t need you to push me. I just needed you to . . . I needed you to be there.” She whirled toward me, stopping me su
ddenly as we almost collided. “You left me! All . . . all those days and I could h-hardly function but y-you just went about life—b-business as usual. And I saw it,” she spat. “I saw the l-look of relief on your f-face and I don’t think I can forgive you for it. You say you still have feelings for me, but you had feelings for me then too, and you were still r-relieved that he had . . . had . . . you were relieved. And every day that I looked at you, I s-saw that expression. I couldn’t look at you without remembering and I . . . I couldn’t stand it.” Her teeth were chattering and she was trembling all over, practically gasping through each word, and my heart rose to my throat and lodged there, stunned and wracked with pain to hear her talk about this after so long. But I’d pushed for it, hadn’t I? I’d pushed her, and as much as I wanted to walk away, to sift through the revelations of her confession, I didn’t have time for that. We were on a mountaintop, stranded, starving, and I had nothing to lose.

  I clenched my eyes shut for a moment, taking a sharp breath, and allowing my mind to go back there, to the first storm—the one we hadn’t survived. I shook my head. “I didn’t know what to do, Audra. I was trying to stay sane, to function, because you couldn’t. I was trying to pick up the slack so you didn’t have to think about any of that—so you could just grieve the way you needed to. And then I left you to do that.” Regret slammed into me, so strongly I almost sagged against the weight of the emotion.

  Yes, I left her.

  I’d left her alone because it was the easier thing to do.

  And then she left me.

  “But I wasn’t relieved that Theo was dead. I was relieved that you weren’t. When I saw you holding him, honey, my heart broke. I kept thinking of those long hours you fought to bring his body into the world. And all I could keep repeating to myself to make it bearable was, thank God I didn’t lose my wife too. Only, I did lose you, didn’t I?” Looking into her tear-filled, devastated eyes now, I could recall so vividly what her face had looked like that horrible morning. She’d looked pale, forlorn, destroyed, but I’d held on to the only thing I could, the relief that I hadn’t lost them both. That my girl was still there . . . fighting. Fuck. How did I miss that? What she saw in my expression . . . she hadn’t understood. And then I’d distanced myself emotionally, leaving her to fight alone. No wonder she’d lost all trust in me.