Page 20 of Whiteout

She fixed herself a cup of coffee and peered out the window. Pine trees soared into a cloudless blue sky beneath a blanket of pristine white, but there was no sign of him.

Oatmeal congealed into a glob of wet cement.

Her coffee grew cold.

“He went for help,” she told herself.

Sinjin would never leave her here all alone.

Hours passed, the sun was high in the sky. Fearing something had happened to him, Breanna stepped out to the porch and screamed his name.

The silence that followed mocked her.

He left me.

Wrapped in a blanket, her head on her knees, she sat staring at the flames through her tears when she heard the knock on the cabin door. Not believing it at first, Breanna ignored the sound. Then it came again.

“Hello?” And again. “Hello?”

He’s back…Sinjin!

Still wrapped in the blanket, she jumped up from the chair and ran to the door.

It wasn’t Sinjin.

A portly man wearing some kind of uniform—a sheriff or maybe a ranger—and a cowboy hat on his head, stood on the porch. “Breanna Dalton?”

“Yes, that’s me,” she answered, somewhat baffled by how he knew her name.

Sinjin told him. Duh.

“Thank God.” He stepped inside. “We’ve been searching for you. You all right?”

“Yeah.” She smiled, the tension draining from her shoulders. “I’m fine.”

“Got a nasty-looking bump on your head there.”

Her fingers felt along her forehead. She’d forgotten all about it.

“C’mon, I’ll get you up to Dalton House.”

“Okay.” Taking her coat from the wall, she stepped into her boots. “Where’s Sinjin?”

“Ma’am?”

The man looked at her like she was speaking a foreign language.

“Sinjin. He brought me here.”

“Don’t rightly know.” He shrugged.

“Then we have to find him.”

Extending his hand, the man nodded, but Breanna could tell he was just placating her. He helped her into a big pickup truck with a plow fixed to the front. “It’s a miracle you found this place in the storm. When we found your car and you weren’t in it…”

“But I already told you, Sinjin brought me here. He was taking me to Dalton House, but there was a tree blocking the road and…I had a fever. He took care of me.”

“What does this Sinjin look like?”

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