by Lucy Lennox
And the clock was ticking.
After grabbing my emergency pack and GPS unit, I quickly called Xander and Bennett. Someone else needed to know we were out there in case I got lost or hurt trying to find them. There was no answer, so I left a message and quickly texted all three of their cellphones that I was heading out to find Oz in the woods around our cabins. I assured them I had my GPS and radio but might need transportation if it took too long to find him. If he’d been within shouting distance, I wouldn’t have been nearly so panicked. But at most he had a total of thirty minutes before frostbite became a worry in this weather, and I had no idea how many of those minutes had already been lost.
I stomped into my heaviest boots and clipped them into my snowshoes as quickly as I could before donning the rest of my gear and remembering at the last minute to grab my spare pair of snowshoes. I sent up a quick prayer of thanks that I’d taken a refresher mountain rescue course a couple of winters before with Xander and two other local guides. The four of us had become Haven’s unofficial rescue volunteers whenever hikers and cross-country skiers were lost in the area.
As I began my search, I stopped to throw bright orange markers down every so often to mark my trail. I hoped like hell it was overkill, but with the snow coming down as fast as it was, any footprints would be destroyed quickly. The ones Oz had left behind weren’t gone completely, but they were getting harder and harder to discern in the weak, flat light.
The snow was deep this far into the forest and came down in freezing clumps as I made my way as quickly as possible through the trees.
“Oz!” I shouted again and again. “Can you hear me?”
The silence of the forest was an eerie hush around me, and I tried not to let it twist my stomach in nervous knots even more.
My voice started to sound rough, and I worried it would give out before I heard the sweet sound of his response.
“Baby, please,” I whispered into the vast expanse of tree trunks ahead of me. “Where are you?”
The footprints I’d been following had gotten faint enough that I wasn’t sure if I was imagining them at this point.
I turned a complete circle, focusing as hard as I could to see any sign of the direction he’d gone.
“Oz! Answer me, dammit!”
“Jake?” It was muffled and weak, but I heard it.
“I’m here! Keep talking, okay? I’m coming to get you.” My heart was in my throat with a mixture of relief and dread at the condition I’d find him in. It had to have been at least a half hour since I’d started the search for him.
“Over here. I’m trying… trying to come…” His voice sounded tired and I was sure he was exhausted from the cold.
I moved in the direction of his voice until I saw it. A flash of red behind a stand of trees off to my right.
“I see you,” I shouted, throwing down another marker just to be on the safe side.
After covering the distance between us as quickly as I could in the snowshoes, I threw myself at him.
“Fuck,” I sobbed into his shoulder. “Oh god. Thank god I found you.”
“You came,” he said slowly. “That’s nice. Don’t get mad at Boo,” he mumbled, sounding confused. “Was watching her out the window… she saw something and ran off. Was worried she’d get lost.” He paused and said, “Where’s Boo, Jake?”
I pulled back to look at him, and through the gaps in the scarf he’d wrapped around his face, I saw the familiar signs of lethargy–an early stage of hypothermia.
Something moved beneath his coat and I quickly realized it was a trembling Boo.
“She’s right here, baby, and I’m not mad at her. I’m just so happy you’re okay. Let’s go back to the cabin where there’s a fire. Come on, we need to get you two warm,” I mumbled while I quickly transferred the dog to the inside of my own clothes and reached for my pack to get an emergency thermal blanket to wrap around him. I forced him to take a few sips of the warm water in the bottle I’d stashed inside my clothes, and then I knelt down in the thick snow to strap on the extra pair of snowshoes. I decided to talk to him about everything I was doing, to help keep him alert.
“Thank god you were smart enough to put your boots on,” I told him. “So smart, Oz. These are going to strap right on over your boots and help you walk back without sinking into the deep snow, okay? Stay with me, baby.”
“Jake?”
I looked up to see confusion in his eyes.
“What is it, babe?”
“Where’s Boo? I lost her. I thought I found her but she’s not with me.”
I blinked at him for a beat.
“I have her, sweetheart. She’s okay. You’re both going to be okay, I promise. Come on, we need to get you back home in front of the fire. Here, hold my hand and walk with me. It’ll take you a minute to get used to these big awkward steps, but I know you can do it.”
The walk back seemed to take us fifty times longer than the search for him had. He had such a hard time in the snowshoes, I had to match his steps and walk next to him with an arm around his waist. I didn’t bother picking up the markers I’d dropped and just thanked my training for making the return even easier than it would have been had I needed to pull out the GPS. I kept a babbling narrative going the entire time and stopped periodically to check him and have him answer questions.
By the time we got to Oz’s cabin, I was pouring sweat inside my clothes. I spared half a thought for the damp, shivering dog under my shirt. After an hour of the cold air stinging my skin, I was an uncomfortable mix of hot and cold. I couldn’t even imagine how Oz felt.
I pulled Boo out and gently set her on a pillow right in front of the fire while I stoked it up as quickly as I could and turned to undress Oz. He stared at me with a look of pure exhaustion; I knew he probably only wanted to lie down and sleep for days. His body would have been spending every ounce of energy on keeping him warm.
“I’m not cold,” he said calmly as I peeled the emergency blanket from his grip and began removing his hat, gloves and parka. “I’m fine.”
“Oz, you’re definitely not fine. You’re hypothermic and probably half-numb. That’s why you think you’re fine. We’re going to warm you up slowly, but I need to get you out of these wet clothes first and check you for frostbite. Can you sit right here on the sofa while I get your boots off?”
I ran for a stack of dry towels and placed them, along with two blankets, on the hearth by the fire while I pulled off Oz’s boots and thick socks.
“Where’s Boo?” he asked again. He’d asked me several times on our trek back, and it was scaring me. My medical training tried to reassure me the confusion was standard, but it was still nerve-racking to see it happen.
I pointed to the spot by the fire. “She’s right there. As soon as we get you dried off and warm, I’m going to make sure she’s dry and warm too. But since she was already against my skin the whole way back, she’s in better shape than you are right now.”
“Wish I was against your skin,” he muttered toward the fire. “’S not fair.”
I couldn’t hide the bubble of a laugh that came out. Hearing him pout was a reassuring indicator his brain was processing properly.
“If you want to be against my skin, then that’s what we’re going to do. As soon as I get some warm liquid in you, we’ll get into bed,” I promised as I pulled off his shirt and replaced it with a warm towel around his bare shoulders. “Lay back.”
“Get some warm liquid in me and get me into bed. Sounds wrong way around,” he said drowsily as I laid him down on the sofa and covered him with a warm blanket.
I grabbed an oral thermometer from my medical bag and shoved it in his mouth before working off his pants and adding more fire-warmed towels and blankets to his body.
It wasn’t until the thermometer showed a number above ninety, confirming only mild hypothermia, that I finally felt like I could breathe.
“You’re okay,” I told him, tossing the thermometer on the table. “You’re go
ing to be fine. We just need to keep warming you up slowly.”
“My feet hurt.”
“That’s a good thing. I don’t see any signs of frostbite, but everything is going to hurt like a bitch when you get feeling back. I’m going to grab you a hot drink and start some soup. Just close your eyes and rest.”
As I made my way to the kitchen, my phone rang. I hadn’t even noticed until then that there was no sign of Xander and Bennett.
“Thank fuck. Did you find him?” Xander asked in a rush.
“Yes, he’s going to be okay, no thanks to you,” I snapped. “Where the fuck were you?”
All I could think about was arriving back at the cabin with an injured Oz or, god forbid, not being able to find him and needing help before it was too late.
“It’s a long story. Lucky got pissed we took away his phone at dinner, so I lectured him about family time being important. It ended with the three of us powering our phones down for the rest of the night and we only just now turned them back on. I’m sorry, Jake. We’re on our way up the mountain right now, but it might take a while. The road is in terrible shape.”
I blew out a breath and felt my anger dissipate. “No. I’m the one who’s sorry. I was just scared. He’s fine. I checked him out and the hypothermia is mild with no frostbite. Turn around and go home. Be safe. The last thing I need is to be worrying about you guys getting stuck somewhere on the way up here.”
A pause.
“You sure? We’re happy to come. Could bring both of you back down to the lodge until the worst of the storm is over.”
“No, it’s too late. Just go back. We’ll call if anything changes. Keep the radio handy in case the phones stop working or something.”
“Will do. Take care of him, Jake. I don’t know what happened between the two of you here last night, but take care of each other, okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling my energy drain. “Of course.”
When I returned to Oz with a mug of hot chocolate, his eyes were closed, and Boo had jumped up to snuggle against his neck. The fire crackled and danced, throwing warm shadows across Oz’s pale skin. For the briefest of moments, I imagined we were together and this was a regular winter day where he was dozing by the fire and I was bringing him a warm drink before joining him on the sofa for a lazy afternoon. Maybe, just for today, I could let myself pretend.
“Oz, I need you to sit up a little so you can drink this,” I said quietly, sitting down next to his hip and reaching out to move Boo to my lap so Oz could straighten up without dumping her on the floor.
The tiny dog looked up at me and tilted her head before spinning in a circle and settling on my lap in a tight ball. I rested my hand on her to hold her still and noticed her sweater was damp. Oz opened his eyes and blinked at me.
“You okay?” he asked groggily. “How long was I asleep?”
I ran my fingers through his hair, dislodging the warm towel that had been covering his head.
“Just a few minutes,” I said quietly with a soft smile. “Can you sit up and drink a few sips of hot chocolate for me?”
Once I helped him straighten up and held the mug while he took a few sips, I asked him where he kept Boo’s extra sweaters.
“Top dresser drawer in my room. You need help?”
“No. Stay there,” I said. I picked up the dog and held her to my chest as I went in search of a dry sweater. The drawer they were in also happened to hold the sexiest fucking underwear I’d ever seen in my life. Just peeking into that drawer woke my dick up in a major way.
“Not looking at that,” I grumbled, rifling through the side with the tiny dog sweaters.
There were a million of them–all colorful and crazy. It seemed every holiday theme was well-represented, and there was even a collection of Pride-themed ones. When I saw the nice thick one that said Daddy’s Girl, I grabbed it and shut the drawer so I wouldn’t be tempted to revisit the other side.
I set Boo down on the bed and worked the damp sweater off of her before begging her to cooperate for the putting on of the dry one. She must have taken pity on me or been exhausted herself, because she only gave me the barest vibration of a growl.
When I returned to the living room with her tucked under my arm, I checked Oz’s temperature again and was happy to see it coming up a little. I quickly warmed up a can of soup and forced him to take several bites of it before he steadfastly refused to take another.
“I just want to sleep. Thank you for helping me, but you don’t need to stay. I’m sure I’ve wasted enough of your time.”
His tone was sincere–not snarky at all, and it nearly broke my heart. Did he really think I was going to leave him after this?
“You’re stuck with me, I’m afraid. I promised you some skin-to-skin time, too, remember? Let’s go get you into bed. I think it’s warm enough in there now.”
Oz studied me for a minute with those tired baby blues. “Really? You’ll stay and cuddle me for a little while?”
My chest was tight with emotion, and I wanted to claw at it to relieve the pressure. Instead, I brushed my thumb across one of his pale cheekbones. He looked tired and frail, and all I could think about was the fact that none of this would have happened if I’d invited him into my cabin the night before. If he’d been with me when Boo had run off, he would have told me he was going to look for her, and I could have helped him.
Half of me was devastated at how bad it could have been, but the other half was giddy with relief it hadn’t been.
“I will stay and cuddle you as long as you want, Oz,” I murmured. “Come to bed, sweetheart.”
Chapter 11
Oz
I awoke snuggled in a cocoon of warmth. Boo was pressed under my chin, but it seemed like I felt her wiry body hair against my legs too. Weird.
“Mm, baby bear, you’re warm,” I murmured to her.
A deep chuckle caused me to jump. “You too, shnookums,” the sleepy voice teased.
I opened my eyes to find myself curled into Jake’s bare chest with two very strong, very warm arms wrapped tightly around me. Our legs were pretzeled, and I realized quite quickly how close my morning wood was to his.
We were both in nothing but our underwear–he in black boxer-briefs and me in a pair of skimpy, barely there leopard print briefs I definitely had not been wearing when I went into the woods.
I looked up and narrowed my eyes at him. “Care to explain the underwear situation?”
Jake’s normally serious gaze was downright sheepish, and I couldn’t help but notice how fucking adorable he was with sleepy eyes and messed-up hair. Memories of getting lost and found began clicking together in my head.
“The woods,” I said faintly while I tried to piece it all together.
He nodded.
The fear returned as I was instantly transported back to the darkness of the forest as I’d searched for Boo. The relief when I’d found her had been nothing like I’d ever known before, but it hadn’t lasted long as I’d realized I couldn’t see the cabin anymore, not even the plume of smoke rising from the chimney. The snow had been so blinding that I hadn’t even been able to make out my own footprints. I’d tried to reassure myself and Boo that it would take just a few minutes to get back to the cabin, but the cold had leeched all the energy from my body within a matter of steps. There’d been nothing but darkness and the howling wind and Boo’s cold body pressed against my chest, and I’d been so fucking scared…
I’d fallen to my knees many times as I’d trudged through the deep snow in one direction or another, but I’d managed to get up each time. But that last time, my body had refused to obey, and I’d whispered to Boo through the collar of my coat that I was sorry. Then I’d sent a silent apology to Jake, because despite how rough things had been between us, I’d known he cared about me and he’d mourn the loss.
Just like I’d mourned the loss of what could have been. Maybe if I’d tried harder to talk to him… maybe if I hadn’t walked away the night before…
And again…
“It’s been dark outside for a while. I think you slept for a good ten hours. Gonna be up all night.”
Jake’s words brought me back to the present, though I still had a hard time processing what he was saying.
Jake was practically naked in my bed.
With me.
I blushed. Everywhere. “And the underwear?”
He batted his eyelashes in mock innocence. “Yours were cold, so I grabbed another pair from your drawer. Part of making sure you were warm and dry. I was just providing my complete medical services.”
“Let me get this straight. You replaced my boring white briefs with a pair of fancy ones for the sake of my health?”
His teasing turned heated. “Baby, there was nothing boring about those white briefs you had on.”
Fire coiled in my gut as his intense gaze speared into me. I swallowed around a lump in my throat.
“Oh,” I croaked, feeling my morning wood jump a bit in the tiny-as-fuck briefs.
Jake’s hand came up to brush the hair back from my face. I realized the hand had been nestled in Boo’s mane before that, and something about that made my heart kick up.
“How are you feeling?” he murmured in the still-groggy voice of just waking up.
“Wiped out. But finally nice and warm. Thank you.”
His fingers traced the edges of my hairline and the shell of my ear before smoothing across my jawline to my lower lip. I felt goose bumps break out across my body that had nothing to do with the cold.
“You scared me to death, Oz,” he whispered. “I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find you or I’d find you seriously injured or I wouldn’t be able to—”
I interrupted him with a kiss. In my mind, it was to stop him from tumbling himself down a worry well that wouldn’t do either one of us any good, but in reality, maybe I was looking for any excuse to taste him again.
