by Rebecca Rode
“If you feel like it,” I began, “y-you could lie over here by me. It’ll be warmer and the ground isn’t as r-rocky.”
“You sure you’re okay with that?”
I was. The realization was sudden and very, very alarming. I wanted him by me, needed him here. And it didn’t have all that much to do with the temperature. I nodded.
Micah settled next to me on his side, then closed his eyes.
He was still two feet away.
I chuckled. “Very funny.”
His lips tugged upward into a grin as his eyes flew open. “Just trying not to scare you off.” He moved closer, then settled in against me. After a moment, his arm slid across my waist, pulling me in tighter.
We lay face-to-face now, with just inches between us. Our legs touched all the way down, sending electricity to my toes. His eyes flicked to my lips. “Are you comfortable?”
It wasn’t hard to catch the double meaning. Lying in his arms was far more comfortable than it should be. “It’s not quite a bed, but I guess it could be worse. Although I’m still planning a serious tongue-lashing for Sofia when I see her tomorrow.”
“Don’t be too upset. I really think she meant well.”
“It’s not that,” I murmured. “I just don’t think Sofia will ever understand. You think I’m holding on to the past. I think it’s the other way around—the past is holding on to me in an iron grip. I don’t know if I can ever escape this crippling fear.”
Micah’s gaze filled with warmth. His hand tightened on my waist. “I know how it feels to open up like that, to love with your entire soul. To trust someone so completely, to give them everything.”
I couldn’t speak. That was it exactly.
“You think your mom never found love,” he continued, “but it sounds like she did. Several times. It just wasn’t returned the way she deserved. I found it once, and so did you. That doesn’t mean it can never happen again.”
“But it could end exactly the same way.”
“It could, but that’s just it. If you shut out every possibility of love, you’ll never find it. You’ll be right back where you were before. Actually, you’ll be worse off, because love is an incredible thing to miss out on.”
I stared at him, stunned. His gaze was locked on mine with a power I couldn’t understand, and tearing it away would have meant ripping something deep inside of me. He pulled his arm back and pushed back a lock of hair that had escaped my braid. As he stroked my cheek, a soft sigh escaped my lips.
He leaned down ever so slightly, pulling my face closer to his. I raised my chin, but he didn’t close the distance between us as I’d expected. He examined my lips for a moment, then tore his gaze away. “There’s something I need to ask you,” he whispered.
I swallowed back the disappointment. Maybe I had misread him. “What’s that?”
He removed his hand from my face and slid it around my waist again, pulling me closer. His mouth curved into a lopsided grin. “Did you know you snore?”
I giggled and gave him a playful shove. “It’s the Colorado air. Don’t tell anyone.” Then I settled in against his chest, letting the solidness of his body warm me. The heat danced between us like electricity.
Happiness trickled through my skin, filtering through the tissue and into the cracks in my heart, washing away the festering pain.
His voice was barely audible. “Wouldn’t dream of leaking your secret. No reason to worry about me.”
My body warmed pressed up against him, but somehow the cold inside me began to melt as well. Micah was wrong. I had plenty of reasons to worry about him, the main one being how he made me feel.
But as I slipped into a deep sleep, I realized I didn’t even care.
***
The flashlight was brighter when I awoke. No, that wasn’t it. Sunlight had begun to permeate our tiny cave. The flashlight still stood like a sentinel beside us, pointed at the ceiling, but its glow had long since died.
Micah had rolled onto his back at some point, and I’d awoken with my head tucked against his shoulder, my arm draped across him. His chest rose and fell slowly, quietly. He smelled faintly of evergreen and cologne. I could definitely get used to that. If not for the call of nature, I’d have pretended to sleep longer.
I carefully pushed myself up, keeping my leg slightly bent but moving quietly so I wouldn’t disturb Micah. His arm remained extended where I had lain, his hair smashed in the back, lips slightly parted. His expression was peaceful, almost boyish. I had an overwhelming urge to place my lips on his to wake him.
I shoved the urge away. He needed the sleep, and I had my own needs to tend to. I pulled out my phone to check the time. 6:54 a.m. We’d made it through the night. I powered it down to save battery life and began hobbling on all fours—well, threes, as I kept my leg extended—to the cave entrance.
The outdoors glowed a strange white, as if being diffused through a blanket. I scooted closer to see that snow had filled the entire entrance to the cave, cutting us off from the outdoors. We’d have to dig our way out.
Nearly 7:00 a.m. and no sign of a rescue team. Either Sofia and Tim had made it back but were forced to wait until morning, or—or something terrible had happened. If they’d gotten lost in the blizzard, they’d be in far worse shape than we were.
Fear tightened my throat. We had to get out and find them.
Alarmed, I began digging at the snow with my gloves. It refused to give way. I pounded with my fists. A tiny section gave way.
“Of course,” I muttered.
“Frozen?” Micah said groggily from behind me.
“Solid.”
Micah rubbed his neck, examining the snowy wall. “I bet we can still break through.” He kicked at it with his boot. It chipped, but only slightly. “Hmm. This may take a while.”
My stomach rumbled, and I wrapped my arms around myself. We hadn’t eaten since yesterday’s bagged lunch. “Where’s the lodge’s breakfast buffet when you need it?”
“At least we have plenty of water,” he said, still examining the snow. “It’s even frozen for our convenience.”
“Are you always this exasperatingly optimistic?”
“Can’t blame me. It’s not often I get trapped in a cave with a beautiful woman.” He kicked at the snow again, and tiny chunks of ice fell. He’d found a weak spot. “A woman who, might I add, is injured and completely dependent on me for her every need. It’s stoking my manly pride quite nicely.”
“Actually, there are some needs that uh, you can’t help me with.” Gravity had done a number on my bladder, and suddenly Micah couldn’t break through the ice quickly enough. “Here, let me assist in our liberation.”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
8
IT WAS HARD TO SAY without knowing the time—Micah’s phone had died completely, and like me, he didn’t wear a watch—but we probably worked for an hour before breaking through the cave entrance. We packed up and strapped on our snowshoes, then said good-bye to the cave. I gave our sleeping spot one last glance before we left. The place where he’d almost kissed me. It was strange—if he had done it, I probably would have felt a little used, maybe violated, in my moment of weakness. Maybe Micah knew that.
Or maybe our night together had changed his mind about me and he wasn’t interested anymore.
Micah carried me up the slope, sideways again, his powerful legs eating up the ground beneath us. I clung to his neck and tried to keep my leg stationary and told myself I didn’t notice where our bodies pressed together.
The morning sun already burned brightly, easily breaking through the shadows night had cast across the forest. Yesterday’s wind had been replaced by a deafening silence.
When he set me down, I looked around and frowned. I’d half expected to see a rescue team waiting outside or helicopters flying overhead. Something, anything. But we were completely alone. My worry meter went up another notch. Why had I allowed Sofia to go out in that storm?
“At least
it’s warming up,” Micah said. “Although I’ve never seen it heat up so quickly after a blizzard before.”
“Maybe it’ll make travel easier.”
He didn’t look convinced. “Maybe. I don’t like it though, not with all those avalanche warnings this week. You sure you don’t want to wait for the team?”
“No. We have to get back. If Sofia and Tim never made it—” I choked. I couldn’t finish that sentence.
He nodded. “I know. Okay, let’s do this.”
We found a somewhat secluded corner of the mountain so we could do our business separately. I had to hobble around on one foot. Then we met at the the slight depression in the snow that marked the trail and had a discussion. I refused to allow Micah to carry me all the way down the mountain, not even on his back. The last thing we needed was for him to reinjure his knee.
We tried using a tree branch as a walking stick to support my weight, but it simply punched through the soft snow. We didn’t have the time or materials to build a branch contraption for pulling.
We finally settled on him supporting my weight on one side, allowing me to hop along on the other leg.
It was slow and painful work. Snowshoes weren’t made for hopping, and the new snow absorbed the impact of each step. We stumbled over each other’s snowshoes often. Even when the system worked well, I had to stop every few minutes to catch my breath.
An hour into our travels, we reached a long, skinny clearing that was probably a meadow in the spring. I remembered coming through it yesterday—further proof we were headed the right way.
As I leaned against a tree and panted, Micah looked up at the sky and frowned.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I don’t like this. They should have come for us by now.”
“I know.” I took a deep breath, shoving away the edge of panic that threatened to take over. “I’m pretty sure this is the right trail.”
“I am too.”
“So what now?”
“We have a few options. Remember what the guide said? We can use branches to spell out SOS for the rescue planes overhead. But I haven’t heard a single one. We could be here for days.”
With no food, no water, a dead flashlight, and two basically dead cell phones. We had no chance. “Or we can keep going the way we’ve been going, at which rate we’ll reach the lodge tomorrow night. Maybe later.”
Hours after I was supposed to be on national TV with Susan Kerrington.
The thought seemed disconnected. What were six minutes of fame when Sofia could be in danger? And it was partially my fault. She’d been driven by a burden of guilt I could have worked harder to take off her shoulders.
Micah grunted. “We’d definitely have to spend another night out here at this rate.”
“Or,” I said slowly, “you can leave me here and go on ahead. Tell the lodge where I am and make sure Sofia and Tim arrived safely.”
He turned to face me slowly, his face somber. “I didn’t want to be the one to say it.”
My coat had grown warm and sticky from sweat despite the cold that constantly stung my cheeks. But a deep chill wriggled its way inside me, and I wrapped my arms around myself, summoning up what courage I had left. “I’ll be fine.” My stomach betrayed me by growling again, loud and long. I hadn’t eaten in almost twenty-four hours, and thirst stung my throat.
“There’s no shelter here. I should bring you back to the cave first.”
“After all that work? I think not. I’ll sit here and wait. It shouldn’t be more than a few hours.”
Micah frowned, then hesitantly stepped forward. The tortured expression on his face made me ache inside. He paused as we faced each other. He must have seen the longing in my face, because he slid a hand around my waist and pulled me tightly against him.
My heart galloped in my chest. His breath was hot against my face, and I looked upward to meet his gaze. His lips fell slightly open as he examined my face, my lips, my eyes. My soul. He looked torn, like he wanted to argue with me.
I felt my hand slide unbidden against his chest, then wrap around his neck. I tilted my face toward his. He paused. Heat surged through my chest as my eyes closed of their own volition. I pulled his head down as my lips found his.
He stiffened in surprise, but his lips curved into a smile, and he deepened the kiss. I clung to him as our mouths moved together, desperate and full of longing. My mind nearly exploded with the pleasure of it. His body pressed against mine. Every inch of it—legs, stomach, chest. We were so entangled I didn’t know what was him and what was me.
I was kissing Micah.
No, he was kissing me. Thoroughly, passionately, the sensation filling every crevice in my heart. This was beyond anything I’d experienced with Rhett and our many months together. One kiss and Micah had me completely undone.
And then he tore away.
I reached for him, but he had taken a step back. He lifted a hand to the back of his neck, staring at my lips. “That was—” He shook his head as if to clear it. “I don’t know what to say to that.”
“You, speechless?” I said with a drunken grin. The forest spun around me. All the blood in my body seemed to have settled at my feet, and I couldn’t move from this spot even if I’d wanted to.
Then I remembered what was about to happen. Micah was leaving. Soon I’d be in the forest by myself, and all I’d have would be the memory of his lips on mine.
“I can’t do this. I can’t leave you here alone.” He stepped forward and removed his gloves, then cradled my face in his hands. “I’ll carry you on my shoulders, in my arms, however. Just don’t make me turn my back on you.” He lowered his face to mine as the fire again swept through my body at his touch.
My body shook with weakness as he kissed me again. And again. There was nothing but him.
The ground seemed to tremble beneath my feet, and a dull roar sounded in my ears. It seemed the forest agreed on how earth-shattering Micah’s kiss was.
He pulled away and cocked his head. “What’s that?”
I murmured something incoherent and reached for him again, but he put a finger to his soft lips and went quiet. The ground still shook, and I realized it hadn’t been my imagination.
A roar like a distant tidal wave sounded across the forest. Except that was ridiculous. The Rocky Mountains were far from the ocean.
“Avalanche,” Micah hissed.
I stared at him, uncomprehending. He whirled to look behind him. I followed his gaze along the edge of the clearing. It extended up the mountain like a carpet of snow cutting through a forest, stretching far upward. The stubs of once-destroyed trees jutted out of the dirty snow like sharp teeth.
This was no meadow.
In a single motion, Micah swept me into his arms again and lurched forward, his expression filled with panic. It wasn’t until we lunged into the trees that I looked behind us. I shrieked and grabbed Micah’s neck more tightly.
He moved as quickly as his snowshoes would allow, but it wasn’t nearly fast enough.
A giant wave of powder, tree branches, rock, and dirt barreled down the mountain toward us, sending a cloud of white into the sky. There was no way we’d make it out of the way in time.
I had always laughed at movies that switched to slow motion during the dramatic parts. It felt so unrealistic. Accidents, bullets flying through the air, a knife making its descent slowly toward someone’s chest. It felt manipulative and ridiculous. But now, watching a tidal wave of snow and broken trees sweep down the mountain, it really did seem to move in slow motion. And Micah ran even more slowly, as if in a dream.
“Got to—get to—the trees,” he managed.
Just when it was about a hundred yards away, Micah seemed to gather all the strength in his body and gave a gigantic yell. He swung me through the air and threw me, sending me flying toward the timberline. I landed hard and rolled in the partially frozen snow, hitting the trunk of an aspen tree. That knifelike pain tore through my knee again.
&nb
sp; I turned to see a cloud of powder and trees rush past behind us. The avalanche dragged its spoils along the edge, pulling branches, logs with flailing roots, and rocks along like they were nothing. I pulled to my feet and hobbled backward, away from the terrible sound of splintering trees and cloud of dirty snow.
Micah, just steps behind me, stumbled. He yelled something and motioned me back. As he tried to stand, something flew through the air at the corner of my vision.
“Look out!” I screamed and threw myself onto the ground.
He turned to look.
A tree branch hit the ground, bounced, and hit him like a massive baseball bat. His yelp was cut short as the branch tossed him into the air, flinging him into a still-standing tree. He hit it hard, then crumpled to the forest floor.
9
SOMEONE WAS SCREAMING.
I could barely hear it over the groan of dying trees being ripped from the ground and hurled down the mountain, the rocks, mud, and snow their last companions. The ground continued to rumble as the avalanche passed us. My brain registered all of it while I stood there, staring at Micah’s form, and then my body finally moved.
I half hobbled, half crawled toward him, not daring to blink for fear he’d disappear. The man who’d cupped my face in his hands so tenderly just moments before now lay on the ground before me, pale and still, one arm twisted oddly beneath him.
The avalanche must have hit the valley below because the rumbling intensified for a moment. I wanted to cover my ears. Finally, the awful sound stopped and the earth went still once more.
My body trembled. This wasn’t happening. That branch was bigger than me, and the way it had hit him—
Panic crowded out all rational thought. He had to be okay. This couldn’t be real.
Focus.
I put a finger to Micah’s neck and leaned over to examine his broad chest. His pulse was there, and I felt a slight puff of air from his mouth. I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding and eased his arm out from underneath him, setting it gently across his chest. Then I ran my hands over his arms and legs to check for injuries.