“Thank You, God.”
“Amen.” He pulled her body toward him across the ice. Slowly she came closer, until finally her fingers touched his. He dropped the scarf. He grabbed her hands and squeezed them as hard as he dared. She squeezed him back. He crawled backward, keeping one of her hands clenched tightly in his, until he was confident they were close enough to shore. Then he stood, carefully took the backpack and slid it over his shoulders. “Can you stand?”
“I think so,” she said. He helped her to her feet. She took one step and fell against him. Tears caught in her voice even as she struggled to smile. “Maybe not.”
“It’s okay. I’ve got you.” He looped one hand under her knees and the other under her shoulders. She slid her arms around his neck. He lifted her up into his arms and cradled her against his chest. The movement was so instinctual, it was as if she’d always been there. His throat felt tight. “The biggest danger right now is the cold. We don’t want hypothermia to set in. We’ve got to get you somewhere warm, and fast.”
She didn’t answer. Her head fell into the crook of his neck. He pulled her tighter into his arms and looked up at the steep snow bank ahead of him. Thick woods filled his view. He ran up the hill. The sky grew darker. His legs sank deep into the snow. He stumbled over hidden rocks and buried roots. Branches pressed against them. He felt Theresa’s body shudder against his. Then her arms slipped off his neck.
“Hey, Theresa. You stay awake for me. Okay?” He tilted her face toward him. He brushed his lips against her cheek. It was as cold as ice. She murmured something softly. He held her tighter. His mouth brushed hers, feeling for the heat of her breath. Then her arms slid up around his neck again and he felt her kiss him back. The kiss deepened as he cradled her body against him, like two survivors clinging to each other for warmth and life.
Then she pulled back, her eyes fluttered open and he realized with a jolt that he’d just kissed her.
“Hey, you just focus on staying awake and alive for me, okay?” he said. His voice choked in his throat. “Hold on to me tight. I need you to stay with me.”
His eyes scanned the trees as the blowing snow whitewashed the world around him into a series of unfamiliar shapes. He clenched his jaw, turned right, and followed the shoreline, praying with every step he’d see something he recognized.
He could feel Theresa’s grip slipping again. Her body was growing limp in his arms. How much longer could they survive? How much longer could she make it? Desperation battled with determination inside Alex’s core. God, please help me save her.
He stumbled out of the trees, tripped and nearly fell onto a set of steps buried beneath the snow. He’d found a path. He turned and followed it up through the trees. A building loomed ahead of him. He ploughed on. He ran up a flight of wooden steps and onto a porch. He shifted Theresa’s weight just enough to grab the door handle and, when it didn’t turn, kicked the door hard enough to break the flimsy lock. The door swung open. Thank You, God. They stumbled out of the snow and into the gloom of a huge open-concept cottage. Ceiling beams arched high above his head.
The Cedar Lake community was so tight-knit he had no doubt he’d be forgiven by the owner even before he apologized. For now, he wasn’t sure whose cottage this was. He set down Theresa down gently on a thick fur rug in front of a huge stone fireplace.
“Thank you.” Her voice slipped out, barely more than a whisper.
He grabbed an armful of blankets and quilts off the sofa and quickly draped them around her. Then he knelt, eased her gloves off her hands and took both her hands in his. He raised them to his lips, kissed her cold skin and then gently massaged the feeling back into them. They warmed under his touch. “Can you wiggle your toes?”
“Yes, my boots are pretty waterproof. So are my gloves.”
Her voice seemed to grow stronger with every word. “The only place water really seeped in was the hole in my ski pants. The rest of me is more damp than soaked.”
“You should still change out of those clothes as soon as you can. I’ll search the bedrooms for something for you to change into.”
“I’ve got a change of clothes in the backpack,” she said, and there was something so very practical and obvious about her saying it that he almost laughed. “There’s food, too, and fire-starting papers. Duct tape, too, which I can use to patch up my ski pants. The backpack is waterproof and everything inside is all in waterproof pouches, so it all should still be dry. I hope.”
He shrugged the backpack off his shoulders, thankful she’d had the tenacity and quick thinking to grab it when they’d left the Rhodeses’ cottage. She was incredible. He felt for her boots under the mound of blankets and helped her untie the laces. “Okay, once you’re ready I’ll make us a fire. Then we can regroup and hopefully figure out where we are.”
“I know where we are. Some of Paul Wright’s relatives bought it. The kitchen and study walls have been knocked out, but the overall bones are still the same.” Her eyes rose to the ceiling above. “This used to be my cottage.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later she was standing in the entranceway of what used to be her downstairs bedroom, changed into clean dry clothes, watching as Alex knelt before the fireplace coaxing a flame to life. The backpack had kept the T-shirt, yoga pants and socks in her backpack dry. Her heavy-duty waterproof gloves and boots had kept her fingers and toes from freezing. They were safe. They were warm. There was so much to be thankful for. Yet, as she stood in the doorway of the room that was once hers, looking out across the room at the man she’d once loved, the weight of everything she’d lost was so much she was almost crushed by it.
This was the room she’d planned to get dressed for her wedding in. Her mother had bought a special, antique full-length mirror and a vanity for the occasion. Her father had installed a special hook on the back of the door for her wedding dress. Her beautifully carved wooden hope chest, which had lived at the end of her bed at home for as long as she could remember, had been brought up weeks before the wedding and sat in the corner of the room. Her mother had already started filling it with early wedding gifts and cards.
Theresa leaned against the doorframe. Sure, the new owners had made some changes and renovations. She couldn’t blame Alex for not recognizing it at first. Her bed, vanity, hope chest and mirror were long gone, presumably sold in the bankruptcy auction, like so much else in her childhood. But if she closed her eyes she could almost see the room as it once was. She could still remember the delicate smell of her wedding dress, fresh from a final cleaning and fitting, the gentle rustle of it as her door had opened and closed, and the softness of the fabric beneath her fingers.
“Hey, you okay?” Alex’s voice snapped her back into the present. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
He was kneeling before the fire on one knee, a silhouette, ringed by the golden light of the fire, like the shadow of a past she’d lost long ago. He’d shed his winter gear, too. Blue jeans and a simple long-sleeved T-shirt outlined his strong form. He’d somehow managed to keep every bit of the lithe form of his youth while adding to it the strength and confidence of manhood.
An unexpected flush rose to her cheeks as she remembered the spontaneous kiss they’d shared outside in the snow.
“I’m fine. Thank you.” She scooped her wet, cold and soggy clothes up into her arms.
“Good.” A charming, boyish grin crossed his face, sending the warmth from her face spreading down over her chest and setting off sparklers in her heart. “I was worried for a moment that I’d lost you.”
She crossed the dark floor toward him. People said that places tended to seem smaller when you revisited them as adults. But, in that moment, it was as if the room lengthened and stretched with every step she took. Alex seemed close and yet so far away, as if she were walking through a dream and if she stepped too close he’d disappear.
“I figured we’d warm up, get something to eat and make a plan,” Alex said. “The electricity’s not working, the phone’s dead and I couldn’t pick up a signal on either my cell phone or the CB radio. But we can boil some water on the fire and make up some of the dried soup you packed. I don’t see anything that resembles a trunk here either, but it doesn’t look like Castor and his crew have tossed this place. I vote we rest here for a bit, wait for the snow to die down and then continue to my cottage on foot. Hopefully the Wrights have skis or snowshoes or even a snowmobile I just haven’t found yet. Do you know which part of the Wright family bought it?”
“Paul’s aunt and uncle, I think. But it was years ago.”
She frowned. She didn’t know who now slept in the room that was once hers, who stared up at the ceiling she’d once stared at, or if they knew every creak of the floorboards like she once had. This cottage was no longer her favorite place in the world. Just like the man kneeling in front of the fireplace was no longer the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with. Just like the heavy mid-February snowstorm that was wreaking havoc on the lake when people should be looking forward to spring, everything was different from how it should be.
“I’m hoping that Castor will wait out the storm, as well, and resume his search for whatever he’s looking for once the snow dies down.” Alex frowned. “I’m sorry. I owe you an apology about the safe house. I had no idea we’d be ambushed.”
“No, you don’t need to apologize.” Theresa dropped to her knees on the rug beside him. She set the wet clothes beside her on the floor. “You made the best decision you could. You had no idea that it could be a trap. As for my hunch about following the markings I’d seen in the car, well, they’d have sent us straight to the rocks in front of this cottage. Maybe even the same rocks I crashed the snowmobile on. And it’s pretty clear Zoe and Mandy aren’t here either. I don’t think it needs to be a competition about who’s the most wrong.”
“Thank you,” he said, with a mild smile. “But we still have no idea who Castor is, how he knew where we’d be heading, or what he’s looking for and is seemingly willing to kill indiscriminately for. We also still don’t know where the police are. I’m certain that Daniel called them after I contacted him about Castor and his goons attacking you at the Rhodeses’ cottage, and the longer we go without seeing any sign of the authorities, the more worried I am.” Concern tinged the depths of his blue eyes. “We still don’t know where Zoe and Mandy are.”
Guilt stabbed her heart. He was in pain. The situation was terrifying. Their lives had both been threatened. Now was no time to allow the attraction to him that still nipped at the edges of her heart to take hold or let herself think about what might have been.
She stood, scooped the wet clothes back up again and turned her attention to the fireplace. The new mantel was huge, and the Wrights had covered the old brick with stone. Still, the rest of the cavernous fireplace she’d spent countless nights curled up in front of was the same comforting shape and size it had always been. She slung her jeans and T-shirt over the far end of the mantel, then reached to hang the sweatshirt. Her shin smacked hard against something sharp. She tripped and nearly cried out in pain. The clothes slipped from her hand. A heavy, old-fashioned poker and broom sat on the edge of the fireplace and she’d just smashed her shin right into it.
“What happened?” In an instant, Alex had leaped to her side. He scooped the wet sweatshirt up from the floor.
Heat rose to her cheeks. She rolled up her pants leg. Already she could see the red welt of a bruise forming. “I just hadn’t expected that to be there.”
Alex nodded. She watched as he hung the sweatshirt out across the mantel in front of the fire and felt the flush in her cheeks burn hotter. An odd tension spread across his shoulders. He knew it was one of his old sweatshirts. She knew it, too. They’d both known all this time and neither of them had said anything about it. Yet there it was, hanging in front of them. Like a reminder of everything they’d lost and everything they still weren’t able to talk about.
Without even thinking she took a step back and sat, expecting to drop onto the comforting softness of the couch. Instead, the back of her thighs hit the hard edge of an unfamiliar wood-edged chair, sending her tumbling onto the nest of blankets still lying on the floor. She could feel laughter bubbling out from the back of her throat, even as tears of frustration tumbled from her eyes. The whole situation was crazy. She was stuck in the cottage that used to be hers, with the man whose heart she’d once thought was hers, in a storm that none of the forecasters had managed to see coming.
“I expected my old couch to be there.” She wiped her hand over her eyes, brushing away tears that could have been from frustration or laughter, she couldn’t tell. “Just like I didn’t expect that brush and poker to be where my shin wanted to go. It feels like I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole and into some alternate universe...”
Her voice trailed off. Alex sat down on the carpet beside her. He pushed the blankets aside in a casual, languid way that looked like he wasn’t even thinking about where they were going, and yet somehow still managed to drape them over her legs. His shoulder bumped lightly against hers, as if his arm couldn’t decide whether it wanted to wrap around her. Everything inside her wanted to nestle into his side. Neither of them moved closer.
“You said this whole thing felt like looking into some other, alternative reality?” Alex said. “I know that feeling. When that screen opened up on my computer and I saw you sitting there, in my old sweatshirt...” His voice trailed off. He chuckled. “For a second, I didn’t know what to think.”
“Sorry. I was cold. Zoe grabbed it from a drawer at your cottage and threw it at me. I slipped it on without thinking.”
“It’s okay,” he said softly. “I didn’t say I minded.”
His shoulder bumped against hers again. She looked up. His face was so close she could see the deep gray line circling the blue of his eyes. “Honestly, I hadn’t seen it in years. I stormed home the day we broke up. I haven’t been back up here since. Not until today. I couldn’t handle the memories.”
Firelight flickered on his face, outlining the strong lines of his jaw. There was something so intense in the depths of his gaze that she bit her lip and had to look away.
Something she’d told her therapy clients time and again tripped across her mind. Sometimes the hardest thing to get over is something you never had to begin with. When relationships were damaged and broken beyond repair, when people died, and when dreams were dashed, those left wounded didn’t just grieve for what they’d lost. They cried for the life they’d hoped for but would never get to have. They mourned the graduations, weddings, anniversaries and celebrations that would never happen. They hurt over the close relationship with a sibling, spouse, parent or child they’d never experience. Despite the number of times she’d told people this, and how well her brain had internalized it as truth, somehow she’d never felt the full sting of it until right then, in that moment, sitting in front of the fire beside Alex.
Pain welled up inside her, pushing tears to the corners of her eyes. Their hands shouldn’t be inches away but not touching. They should be holding hands. There should be wedding rings on their fingers. They should have children, a home and a cottage of their own. They should be looking forward to celebrating their nine-year anniversary in August, instead of sitting there in awkward silence like strangers. The life they should’ve lived had somehow been broken and lost, and there was no way to get it back. She buried her face in her hands and blinked back the tears before they could fall.
Alex’s hand slipped onto her shoulder. He rubbed her back gently in between her shoulder blades.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,” he said. “When your parents lost their business and you lost your home, I should’ve been there. I should’ve stood by you and been the kind of friend you deserved.”
>
She felt his hand slide up the side of her neck. His fingers ran slowly through her hair, then brushed along the side of her face. Her head fell against his shoulder, and she felt his lips brush over the top of her head. Then she tilted her head up toward his and his mouth found hers again with a sweet, simple kiss that reminded her of how young they’d both once been and all the possibilities that had spread out before them. Then he wrapped both arms around her and pulled her into a hug. She pressed her face against the soft, warm fabric of his shirt. If only she could stay here in that moment, with her eyes closed and the fire burning. If only she could let herself pretend, just for a moment, that they were still the people they used to be and that everything they’d had hadn’t really been lost.
“I just wish you hadn’t pushed me away like that,” he murmured. “I was so hurt by how you ended things and broke our engagement, the only thing I knew how to do was withdraw and disappear.”
“What?” She opened her eyes and pulled back out of his arms. “What are you talking about? I didn’t push you away, and I definitely didn’t break up with you.”
“Yes, with all due respect, you did,” he said. Something firm moved over the softness that had been in his eyes just moments before. “You told me your parents had decided to cancel parts of the wedding and then you nagged me about not having a job.”
“Because a twenty-one-year-old man who’s about to be married should have a job!” Her voice rose. “It was one thing to get married when you had a full scholarship that included an internship and campus accommodation. It was a whole other thing when you dropped all that on a whim and expected we’d just figure things out as we went along. My parents couldn’t afford the wedding we had planned. They had no way to pay for it. You’re the one who demanded I give you the ring back.”
Rescue at Cedar Lake Page 10
