by Sasha Gold
He walked the two hundred yards to the plane, in no hurry to get to the crash site. Charlie ran along the bank, near the trees. Another task that he needed to do was to start a fire. A clearing along the forest would serve well enough. He’d haul timber out of the woods and set it alight. The pilot had stocked not a single flare on the plane, a fact that pissed him off. But there wasn’t a thing he could do about that now.
He’d simply have to make his own beacon.
As he approached the wreckage, he could see signs the wolves had come in the night. Massive pawprints surrounded the plane. Henry’s leg protruded from the door. The plane sat, precariously on the edge of the ice sheet, partly submerged in the seawater. Waves lapped against the fuselage.
Clay cursed when he saw the man’s remains. What the hell would he do now? When the search party arrived, they would expect to find five people, or at least the remains of five people. How could he keep the wolves from doing more damage?
Charlie came to his side. The dog didn’t like wolves and Clay knew he wouldn’t go anywhere near the plane or the pilot’s remains. Charlie whimpered.
The plane lurched and slid a little more into the water, the ice scraping the fuselage. Waves slapped the metal and rocked the wreckage from side to side. For a moment, Clay wondered if the whole plane would slip into the sea.
Charlie growled. His hackles rose along his spine. A small animal darted from the plane and raced across the snow toward the trees and Charlie took off in hot pursuit. Clay could have called him back but decided against it. Let him have his fun. The critter was probably a marten and Charlie would never catch him.
Besides, he had bigger problems. Henry lay half in the plane and half out. The part that was inside probably looked pretty bad too. He considered his options. Getting close to the plane was risky. Yesterday the ice had creaked a little under his feet. Today it seemed to complain a little more. But he didn’t care for the idea of leaving a body to the elements.
Moving slowly, he edged towards the nose of the plane. Were there more animals on the plane? He leaned over to peer inside, but saw nothing. A shout jerked his attention away.
Victoria traipsed across the snow. Dressed in one of the immense sheep-skin coats from the hall closet, she moved awkwardly. Sydney walked with her. Both of them raised their hands and waved. “Good morning!”
Fury heated his gut. They’d left the cabin. He’d given them one fucking rule and they’d ignored it.
“We’re starving,” Sydney called.
He glanced down at what remained of Henry and saw the dead man through the girls’ eyes. Not something Sydney would take well, and something that would likely stick in her memory for the rest of her life. The wolves had started to pull Henry out of the plane but must have given up as the plane sunk further into the lake. Sydney had already seen a dead person. She didn’t need to see a dead person partially eaten by wolves.
“Stay back,” he yelled.
“I need my chap stick,” Sydney argued. “You’re not the boss of everything. I’ve already seen the dead guy.”
“Son of a bitch,” Clay muttered, and shoved Henry part way back into the plane. The sudden motion made the fuselage rock unsteadily. The plane’s nose lifted and reared up.
Out of reflex, Clay retreated. “Get back!”
The plane upended and slid on the edge of the ice. The ice buckled, collapsing beneath the weight of the plane. The wreckage creaked and groaned as it rolled toward the water. Clay watched as the sea swallowed the small aircraft. It sank into the depths, disappearing in seconds. The water gurgled and sloshed over the ice.
Pivoting, he moved quickly, grabbing Victoria in one arm and Sydney with the other. The rifle knocked against his back as he lifted them and strode across the snow. Both let out surprised yelps, but neither struggled, probably because he held them in a vise-like grip. Adrenalin always made his response more fierce and primitive. He wasn’t sure if they stood on ice or solid ground, but he need them away from the ice’s edge.
When he set them down, they stared at him in shock.
“I told you not to come out here,” he snarled.
Victoria shook her head. “But we’re together. What would bother the two of us?”
She looked around as if searching for any sort of threat, but the only animal around was Charlie who sniffed a snow bank near the cabin.
“How is anyone going to find us if the plane is gone?” Victoria asked.
“We’ll have to light a bonfire.”
“What did you do with the pilot’s body?” she asked.
“He went down with the plane. Which is fine. It’s better that way.”
“Why is it better that way?”
Jesus, this woman. Was she going to make him explain about wolves in front of Sydney? “We don’t want a dead body lying around. That’s why.”
Victoria’s eyes widened. “His family won’t have anything to bury.”
He bit back a sharp reply. Anger scalded his blood. She’d defied him. Questioned him. Doubted him. Civilians were always the root of fuck-ups. They weren’t trained. They didn’t work together. They couldn’t gauge risk. Worst of all, he couldn’t discipline them.
His blood heated with anger. In the midst of his fury, he stared at the way she looked at him, her eyes wide, her lips parted. He needed to protect her but wanted to fuck her too. The crash, the wilderness, being close to Victoria… all these things had cut back his priorities. They’d been reduced to primitive drives. Sex and survival.
“Back to the cabin,” he said from between gritted teeth.
“You don’t have to get so mad” Sydney grumbled.
He gestured to the cabin. “Move.”
She spun around and began walking back. Victoria studied him for a moment longer. He wondered if she might argue, but she said nothing. She turned and trailed Sydney. When they arrived at the cabin, they stomped the snow from their boots and went inside, followed by Charlie.
Ross stood by the fire and looked at him in alarm. “I told them not to go.”
“Good job, Ross,” Clay said.
Ross smiled at the praise, but Victoria and Sydney both shot him heated glares as they shed their coats.
“Nobody,” Clay said quietly, “will leave the cabin area without me.”
“We were coming to you.” Sydney hung her coat on the rack by the door.
“You should know better.” He directed his anger at the girl. “You live in Alaska.”
“We live in a neighborhood,” Ross said. “She doesn’t know better.”
“Now you do. We have wolves and if we’re here much longer we’ll have bears.”
“Much longer?” Victoria asked.
“Who knows how long we’ll be here.”
Ross lifted his brows. “Wow. Really?”
“Have you heard any search planes over head?” Clay asked.
Sydney drew a sharp breath and Victoria gave him a chastising look.
“I have school on Monday,” Sydney said in a small voice.
“Yeah.” Ross’s smile widened. “We’re going to be missing school.”
“Remind me to write you a damn note,” Clay muttered.
Victoria shook her head and turned to the kitchen. Under her breath she muttered a few words complaining about his demeanor. He eyed her as she walked away from him and moving quickly came up behind her.
“You need to follow protocol, Victoria.” He cupped her shoulders, keeping his voice low. “I’m not fucking around here. You and I are the adults here, but I’m the leader. What I say goes and you’d better follow orders or we’re going to have a lot more to worry about than the kids picking up a few swear words.”
He felt the tension radiating across her shoulders. He shouldn’t touch her. Not when he wanted her so damn badly, but this was something more. He needed her to be safe even more than he needed her by his side or in his bed. When this time at the cabin was over, when help finally came, she might walk away hating his guts, but she�
�d walk away unharmed. The children too.
And if it meant being a son of a bitch to make sure of that, he was just the man for the job.
Chapter Nine
Victoria
They ate breakfast, an odd combination of food they found in the pantry, protein bars and preserved pears, pudding and bottled water. The children grumbled about the selection, but Clay reminded them how lucky they were to have found the cabin. Sydney and Ross grumbled again when Clay told them they needed to help him create signals to alert search planes.
Before they left the cabin, Clay spoke to Victoria.
“You stay in the cabin and plan lunch and dinner. There’s a pump in the wash room. I think the water’s clean but to be sure, I want you to boil it.”
She nodded. “How long?”
“At least a minute. Three would be best, do you have a watch?” He rolled back his cuff. “Do you need mine?”
The watch was the type of watch that had extra dials and looked like the type divers wore.
“I have one in my bag. You think it might be a while before they find us?”
“We should assume that.”
The cabin sat on a rise, tucked amidst a grove of spruce, and when Victoria looked out the window she could see them working below. First, they built a giant “Help” sign out of saplings they dragged from the forest. Next, they piled wood for a bonfire, she assumed they would light that night if help still hadn’t arrived.
While they worked, Victoria boiled several pots of water. She searched the pantry and decided on pasta for lunch. There were dozens of packages of noodles and jars of spaghetti sauce. When Clay and the children came inside, she had lunch ready.
They devoured everything she made along with several bowls of popcorn. Trudging through the snow, hauling saplings and firewood, had worn the children out. After lunch, Clay told them to go rest for a while. Ross told him he wasn’t tired and when Clay put on his boots and coat and went back to work, the boy followed along with Charlie.
The day passed without a single airplane passing overhead. Victoria tried her best to comfort Sydney as she grew increasingly distraught.
That night at dinner Clay talked about looking for a road, or town.
“If help doesn’t come tomorrow, I’m setting out to look for a town or road,” he told her after dinner.
“Can I go?” Ross asked.
Clay shook his head. “I’ll go by myself.”
Ross frowned. In a day’s time, the boy had started to regard Clay with respect, even awe.
No one spoke for a long moment and the only sound in the cabin was the crackle of the flames in the fireplace. The logs shifted, sending a shower of sparks, hissing up the chimney. Victoria’s chest tightened. Clay might leave them? Set out on his own. The idea filled her with cold dread.
“How far would you go?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“I don’t want you to go.” Her voice cracked. “It’s a bad idea.”
“You can’t leave us,” Sydney added. “What if they come when you’re not here? What if you get lost or something attacks you or there’s a storm.”
Her voice rose as she spoke and her eyes widened with terror. “We’ll do whatever you say, Follow your orders. But you have to stay with us.”
The corner of Clay’s mouth twitched. He sighed. “All right. I won’t leave. Not for now.”
Later that night, as Victoria lay in her bed, and Clay in his, she whispered into the dark. “Promise me you won’t leave.”
“I promise.”
For the next week, they waited. Ross and Clay worked outside gathering wood. They kept the fire in the den burning all the time. Clay discovered a house at the edge of the lake which appeared to be meant for seaplane. This made Victoria wonder how far from civilization they were. If the owners came and went by plane, the nearest road or town might be a hundred miles away or more.
Victoria tried to keep busy inside the cabin. Clay made breakfast every morning, usually pancakes and tinned ham, and she prepared lunch and dinner. By the end of the second week, she mastered bread making. When Clay and the children came in the door, they always marveled at the wonderful aroma of the freshly baked loaves.
She started a list of the supplies she used from the pantry. Somehow, when they left the cabin, she’d find a way to replace what they’d consumed.
One day slipped into the next. During the day, they acted almost like a family, she and Clay playing the parents to Sydney and Ross. They worked to keep the bonfire by the lake lit at night. They’d have to start all over after a heavy snowfall. At night, when she crawled into her bed and he into his, she felt his presence a few feet away. Sometimes they’d talk about the day or their lives back home. He never said anything flirtatious. Never made any move.
One night, when the children trudged off to bed immediately after dinner. Clay told them they were allowed an hour of reading and then he’d come for the candle.
“And you,” he said to Victoria. “Are coming with me.”
“Where?”
He took his coat from the rack by the door and lit a lantern. Charlie got to his feet and looked at him expectantly, wagging his tail. Clay slipped the collar on and smiled at her.
“It’s a surprise. Get your boots and coat on.”
The warmth in his eyes sparked a response inside her. She did as he told her and followed him out into the dark night.
He walked down a path towards the woods. It was worn with the boot prints of Clay and the children’s boots and led along the trees. She’d never walked on the path and couldn’t imagine where they were going. Usually he didn’t go outside at night. Walking ahead of her on the narrow path, he held Charlie’s leash in one hand, the lantern in the other and the rifle slung over his shoulder.
Shortly a pool of water came into view. An odor, a slightly acrid smell, hung in the air. Lifting from the surface were small tendrils of steam.
“A spring,” she said with surprise.
“We found it today. I made the kids keep it secret so I could surprise you.”
The spring was small, no bigger than a backyard swimming pool. Rocks surrounded the water. Even in the scant moonlight, Victoria could see the bottom of the pool since the water was crystal clear.
“I made Ross take a bath. He was smelling a little ripe,” Clay muttered. He gestured to a flat rock that held a bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo and a pile of towels.
Victoria smiled. The cabin had a primitive bathroom a few steps off the back door. The washtub used water heated on the stove in the kitchen. The tub spanned two feet, at most, and Victoria had to stand to wash. Shampooing her hair was such a chore.
What would it be like to sink into a warm pool of water? She moaned softly.
Clay coughed and cleared his throat. “By now both of us would have been in Napa, if the plane hadn’t crashed. Maybe.”
“Maybe,” she said softly.
He wandered away to give her privacy.
A pang of sadness stabbed her heart. Getting by day-to-day, in a cabin that had no electricity or other modern comforts, kept her busy, but she still had a lot of time to think about her life back in Napa. She had friends from school and friends who worked at the hotels her mother owned, but she mostly imagined her mom and how she would be beside herself with worry. Grieving for a daughter who still lived.
She worked for her mom and they locked horns plenty about design and interior. Superficial stuff, now that she thought about it. She wished she could somehow tell her she was okay. And that when she got back, they wouldn’t squabble about silly things like dining chairs, or chandeliers.
Clay had a family too and his step-father was ailing. How hard that must be for him to be stranded, not knowing if the man lived or died? Clay talked about his sisters, Lauren and Vanessa, all the time. He told her about losing his mom at fourteen, but he didn’t say much about his stepfather. She knew there was more to that story.
The man ran the cabin with discipline,
getting kids out of bed early. Making them work outside, mostly to supply wood for the fireplace, the kitchen stove and the bonfire. He insisted on regular mealtimes. Insisted on people following the rules. But at the end of the day, he held all of them together, offering words of encouragement when needed and a subtle correction when warranted.
And she was grateful. He was a gentleman. Kind to her and the children. Her chest warmed and she suddenly wished she had the confidence to wrap herself around him, coax him down for a kiss, or even slip into the water with him.
He wandered off, taking Charlie and the lantern with him. She bathed, quickly so as not to keep him waiting long. The warm water soothed and refreshed her, and she dreaded getting out. The night air was freezing but, thankfully, there was no breeze.
When they got back to the cabin, Clay went to the children’s room to confiscate the candle. Usually, Victoria heard complaints, especially from Sydney, but this time there wasn’t a single word of argument.
Clay returned a moment later, frowning. “They’d fallen asleep with the candle burning.”
A jolt of alarm ran down her spine. The risk of fire always lurked in the recesses of her mind. They’d been very lucky to find the cabin and if a fire started and burned it down, they wouldn’t survive a single night.
“My God. The kids could have been asleep and a fire could have started. With them sleeping. In the…” She babbled and then suddenly couldn’t say a single word. The blood drained from her face.
He shook his head. “Don’t freak out, Victoria. We won’t leave them at night again. If you want to take a bath in the spring, you’ll have to do that during the daytime.”
She nodded. “Yes. Fine. We can’t leave them again.”
He grimaced. “You can bathe with Sydney.”
And just like that he made her smile too. He teased her as they got ready for bed, both undressing in the darkness of their room, telling her that he was going to hold a contest for the worst-smelling inhabitant of the cabin.
“Everyone likes to blame poor Charlie for being smelly,” Clay grumbled. “I think it hurts his feelings. Poor guy.”