Sweet Montana Boxed Set 1-5

by Lisa Mondello

  She recalled the words Nash had said to her about using anything and everything for survival. She had nothing. Her phone was gone. But she did have her purse which was wrapped around her shoulder. It was difficult to move but she had to try. Was it still there? Did it fall off?

  She had to fight. Pretty soon air that was trapped in this little pocket she was in would be gone. She couldn't hold her breath long enough to climb out.

  She fought the packed snow and wiggled her arm to her purse. Yes, it was there. She fumbled around the fabric until she felt her zipper. After carefully and painstakingly unzipping it a few inches, she managed to get her fingers inside her purse so she could rummage around. She had settled somewhat on her side which made it easier for her to move the few items inside her purse around. If she had settled in the snow upside down, there was no way she’d be able to move.

  She fought the pressure of the snow as her lungs began to protest. Then her fingers connected with her hairbrush. It wasn't a big brush, but was strong, and maybe she could use that as a tool to dig her way out. She had to try something. She knew from reading about avalanches that finding someone in the snow was the first and most difficult thing to do.

  She wiggled the brush out of her purse, not caring about whatever contents spilled out with it, then she stuck the brush in the snow with all her might. Tears stung her eyes and burned her cheeks against the cold ice crystals of the snow packed around her. There was light above. She didn’t know how she knew but she knew there was. If she wasn’t buried too far down she could make an opening.

  But as she pushed through the snow with all her strength, she wondered if her arms were long enough to reach the surface. For all she knew she was buried ten feet down.

  But when the snow was easier to push through, she knew she was close. And then she’d reached the surface and a rush of fresh air filled the little pocket she was in.

  She breathed in deep to fill her lungs, although it was hard to do with the snow pressing against her. She wanted to weep with joy. But she had to dig out.

  There was sunshine above her. She hadn’t been wrong. The more she dug, the more sun filled the space around her. She breathed in a deep lungful of breath and then rested for just a few seconds.

  “Nash! Can you hear me, Nash?”

  Just the act of yelling his name seemed to drain her of all her energy. She listened intently as best she could. She heard nothing but the occasional fall of the branch or clump of snow falling to the ground.

  The snowmobile was most likely buried. She couldn't hear the engine any longer. She had to get out of the snow. She was her only chance of making it. With the rest of the strength she had left she clawed her way through the snow in painstakingly small strokes until she could move her leg and levy herself against a felled tree and push herself up. As soon as her head rose above the surface of the snow she paused and took several deep breaths of air. She counted her blessings at how lucky she was that she hadn't found herself compacted upside down.

  She looked around. “Nash! Where are you, Nash?”

  She frantically searched the blanket of white. It would've been easy for her to miss Nash had it not been for the fact that the snowmobile blades were sticking far enough out of the snow that she could see them. She focused her gaze in that direction and hoped that Nash was somewhere near there.

  With her energy spent, she lifted up to a stand and sank down into the snow as she walked through the drift toward snowmobile. And then she saw Nash’s jacket just near the surface.

  “Nash!”

  It took forever for her to get to him. It seemed like forever for her to climb over the felled tree between them. When she finally got to him, his face was buried in the snow along with half of his body.

  “Oh, no. Please no!”

  She pulled his torso up and finally his face was free of the snow. She wiped away the remnants of ice crystals around his face and saw his skin was ashen and his lips were blue. Was she too late?

  “Nash, stay with me. Don’t leave me, please!”

  Harper had enough first aid training that she knew the basics. She was the person on the other end of the phone. She was the person people called when they had a crisis. She’d walked hundreds of people through crises during her time as a dispatcher at the police station. But she never had to actually do any of the things herself. She didn't have a computer in front of her to give instructions. Instead she relied on memory and years of training and moved into action.

  She checked for a pulse quickly and felt one. Then she used her fingers to clear the snow trapped in his mouth. Half of his body was still buried in snow. It could be squeezing all the air out of him. But she had to try to at least get some air into his lungs if he had any chance of survival. His body was in such an awkward position that made her unsure that anything she was doing was helping.

  Still, she positioned his head as best she could, pinched his nose, and began breathing as she placed her lips over his mouth. She couldn't give him chest compressions in the position he was in. She snaked her arm beneath him and proceeded to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation again. After the third attempt, she heard him cough and then drag in a deep breath of air before coughing again. His eyes fluttered open and her heart leapt with joy.

  “Nash, just breathe. Don’t move. Let me get you out of here. Just focus on breathing.”

  His eyes fluttered as if he was trying to focus or perhaps shield himself from the sun that was glaring down on them. She hovered over him to shield the sun and that was enough for him to focus on her face.

  “We didn't die,” he said weakly.

  She chuckled nervously out of relief. “No, we didn't. I don't know how, but we didn't.”

  His smile was slow. But then he said, “I told you so.”

  Her laugh was loud and seemed to echo around them. “Just don't let it go to your head.”

  His smile grew wider as he pulled in a deep breath of fresh air. “Promise.”

  Sweet Montana Rescue: Chapter Seven

  In their weakened state, it took an excruciating long time to dig Nash out from underneath the snow where he'd been pinned by the snowmobile. But instead of being frustrated by the way the snowmobile hindered their efforts, Harper was thankful for it. If she hadn't seen the blades, she wouldn't have known where to even begin looking for Nash. If she hadn’t found him, he’d be dead right now. She was sure of it.

  But she had found him. She couldn't imagine what she’d do if she hadn’t.

  They rested just a little before they made the trek back up to the cabin. It wasn’t easy walking up the mountain. They had a long way to climb. But once they reached the road, they walked in the snowmobile tracks.

  Eventually someone would come to plow the road. One of the rangers at a nearby summit would have seen the avalanche. She was glad she’d told the chief that Nash was up at the cabin. Hank would eventually bring a team up here to check on him after the roads below were cleared. If the storm was as bad as she suspected it was, then the entire town was busy digging out. It would take a few days for them to swing around here with enough equipment to clear the road.

  After hours of climbing and walking and feeling she was frozen to the bone, the cabin came into view. Thank God, she’d found him. She couldn’t imagine having to walk inside that cabin without him. As they took each painstaking step up to the cabin, Harper shuddered to think of what she would've done if Nash had died.

  It was insane. She’d just met him. They’d known each other three days. But it felt as if she'd known him forever. She’d never believed in love at first sight. That was something for the storybooks and movies. But she couldn't explain away the intense emotions she had walking side-by-side with Nash as they reached the end of this harrowing day together. And she couldn’t imagine doing this with anyone else.

  * * *

  He'd almost lost her. Nash thought he was going to die this time. When he’d been buried under that snow and gasping for breath, unable to take in enou
gh to keep him from getting dizzy and losing consciousness, he actually thought this was his end. Not Carol this time. Not Harper. Him.

  He could handle that. But it made him crazy to think that Harper could've died.

  When he'd seen her car roll down that embankment, even from a distance, the memories of seeing Carol fall was as stark as a knife’s blade and hard to ignore. Harper wasn't Carol. They were two different women in two different situations.

  But he could've lost Harper today. And the thought of it made him paralyzed with fear. The cabin came into view and it was like manna from heaven. He was so cold and he knew she was too. She was already battered from her accident. Nash prided himself on being physically fit. But even he felt like he'd gone through a washing machine and been spit out. He could only imagine how Harper felt with all her bruises and aches. And still, she'd survived.

  And she’d been the one to save his life.

  He shuddered to think of how it would've been for her if she'd found him dead in that snow pile. She wasn't in love with him. Not that it was the same thing as when he'd found Carol. But he knew how it affected her when her parents died and she'd received the news that they were gone.

  People didn't recover from things like that. The idea that time healed all wounds was bogus. He knew that personally. Time didn't heal anything. It just covered it up with a thicker scar that made it easy to bury the hurt in order to get through the day.

  As soon as they walked to the door of the cabin, he slammed the door shut and they both collapsed to the floor.

  “We need to get these wet clothes off and get into a hot bath. You take a shower first. Get yourself warm and then I'll take a shower after you finish,” he said.

  “I love that you're being a gentleman. Trust me, it's one of the things about you that is most appealing to me. But you were the one buried so deeply in that snow. You almost died, Nash. And I know this water tank can’t possibly be fully heated. I won't take all the hot water and let you freeze.”

  “Stop it,” he said, hearing a bit of anger in his voice. “This is survival. You need to do what you have to do to survive.”

  She lifted her chin and her voice rose up just a notch to match his. “This is your survival, too. It's not just me anymore.”

  He sighed and slumped back to a sitting position on the floor. “I just want to hold you,” he admitted. “I’ve never been scared the way I’ve been since you've been here. Well, not in a long time anyway.”

  “Me too,” she said softly.

  “I don't like being scared. I don’t like being scared for someone else. That's why I like to be alone. I only have to worry about me and what might happen to me.”

  She reached up and touched his cheek. “But you're not alone, Nash. I'm here with you.”

  “That's what scares me the most. You almost died.”

  She smiled up at him. “But I didn’t. You said yourself it wasn’t going to happen and it didn’t.”

  He bent his head and looked into her eyes. His face was just inches from hers. He could feel her warm breath against his cold cheek.

  He couldn't take it anymore. He had to taste her lips. It had been driving him crazy ever since he'd walked into the dispatch office and saw her sitting there at her desk. There was absolutely nothing special about what she was doing aside from sitting there with those headphones on. And yet, his eyes had focused on her lips and he'd wanted to taste them.

  He’d resisted all this time and now it was too much. He had to know. He leaned in and brushed his lips against hers. To his surprise, she didn't pull back or seem shocked that he’d kissed her. That both thrilled him and terrified him.

  He wanted her to pull away. He wanted her to be stronger than he was because right now he had no strength to fight against the feelings that were coursing through him.

  When he pulled back he saw that her eyes were filled with desire and it made things all the worse. How do you walk away from something like that? Something so beautiful and innocent and intoxicating?

  “Just hold me, Nash. We’ll warm each other up by the fire and stay there. It's okay. I want this too.”

  He kissed her again, this time with more passion than he'd allowed himself to feel in years. He liked being in control, even in the world that seemed uncontrollable. And maybe that was why he was so drawn to Harper. He felt safe when he wasn't in control with this amazing woman.

  He got up from the floor and stripped off his jacket. Then he reached out his hand for hers. He marveled at the way her small hand slipped so easily into his larger hand. When she was standing beside him, he peeled off her jacket and let it fall to the floor. They rid themselves of the boots and walked over to the wood stove that was pumping out warmth because he'd stacked so many logs inside of it before they’d left earlier. Now it was burning strong.

  He grabbed one of the folded blankets from the sofa and spread it out on the floor in front of the wood stove where he'd slept these last few days. Harper crawled across the blanket like a cat and then curled into a ball with her face toward the fire. He grabbed another blanket and pulled it with him as he fell to the floor beside her. Then he wrapped his arms around her and covered them both with the blanket.

  It had been a long time since he'd had a woman spooned up next to him, warm and soft and desirable. And yet it seemed so right with Harper to just lie there together and not push things further. He kissed her behind her ear and then whispered, “Are you warmer?”

  She made a soft sound, and then said, “I was warmer the moment I met you.”

  * * *

  Nash was still sleeping when Harper heard commotion somewhere down the mountain. She got up and ran outside to the porch, listened, and then ran back in.

  Nash lifted his head from the pillow. “What is it?”

  “I'm not sure, but I think there's some activity down the mountain. I think the plows are here to clear the road.”

  “That means one of the officers from the department will be there. If they manage to get through all that snow today, one of them should be able to get you home.”

  She looked down at herself. She was still wearing Nash's sweats. “I need to get changed.”

  “You’re not going down there yet. It could be dangerous,” he said, lifting up from the floor. His dark hair was sticking up on one side with bed head and his eyes were still squinty with sleep.

  “What do you mean? I’ve got to get their attention.”

  “I’ll go. I can take the truck.”

  “But the radio was lost when the snowmobile got buried in the avalanche.”

  “I can get their attention somehow. It’s not rocket science.”

  She chuckled. “I guess you’d know since you’re a scientist.”

  He nodded as sleep still made him groggy.

  “Will you be able to get down with the truck and get back up?”

  He nodded. “The snow is still high, but the snowmobile tracks are compacted. I’ll keep it in four-wheel drive and stay in the snowmobile tracks. I should be okay. Just get yourself ready for when I get back. I shouldn’t be gone too long.”

  “What about coming back up the mountain? How will I know if you get stuck?”

  “I should be able to get back up following the same path.” He smiled. “I'm pretty resourceful.”

  She gave him a smirk for his teasing. “I've seen that.”

  “I'll be back as quick as I can.”

  “Are you sure you don't want to wait and just have me go with you?”

  “I don’t’ want to bring you out in this if there isn’t anyone there. If I do get stuck on the way, I don’t want you out there again. You’ve been through enough adventure, don’t you think?”

  * * *

  Just walking out to the truck made Nash thankful he made Harper stay behind. She was going to have to venture out eventually, but at least he could test how bad the road was with the melting snow.

  He climbed into the truck and gunned the engine. The cab was already warm from
the sun shining on it, something that he welcomed because it meant he didn't have to spend time to warm the engine to get heat. He’d take it slow until he reached the point where the Avalanche landed on the road. From his estimation, the road was covered for about a quarter of a mile and would make it difficult for anyone to plow them out. But if he managed to get someone’s attention, at least they’d know both he and Harper were alive.

  Traveling down the road even in four-wheel drive proved to be challenging. Nash focused on keeping the tires in the ruts the snowmobile left, the path that he and Harper had walked up after the avalanche had hit. He needed to keep his eyes on the road to keep from swerving off the side. The risk of another avalanche was still high and it would be for a few days as the accumulation from the storm started to melt and compact.

  As he approached the big wall of snow that had fallen over the road and down the embankment where he’d turned and tried to outrun the avalanche, Nash rolled down his window and listened. And then he smiled. Whoever Harper had heard from the cabin was still there.

  He approached the big wall snow and stopped the truck, killing the engine. Then he beeped the horn three times. He waited a few seconds and then beeped again in the hopes that someone had heard him the first time and would give him a signal that he’d been heard.

  He heard the sound of a long deep horn blow, and he chuckled. They had heard him.

  He quickly climbed out of the truck and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Hello there. Can you hear me?”

  “I hear you,” someone called back. They were still a distance away, but closer than Nash had expected. They must have been working on the road all morning and Harper had just heard them.

  “I'm Nash Webber,” he called out. “I'm renting the cabin at the top of the mountain.”

  “Daphne Madison's place?” the person asked. He sounded a little closer. Nash looked up and squinted his eyes to see if he could figure out where he was coming from.