Page 38 of Snow River

Her heart was racing.She needed to calm down, so she went inside herself, to an image of a private pool surrounded by sheer rock, a haven she’d created for herself long ago.The deep water with its gentle ripples soothed her.

“Lila, can you give me a hand?”

Bear’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts.But her moment of meditation had worked.This time when she tried to step inside, nothing stood in her way.She walked into the house, which had the handcrafted feel of a hobbit’s home.A stone hearth and a wood pile took up one entire wall.Whatever fire had been keeping the place warm had gone out some time ago; the place was chilly, barely above freezing.

Paulina lay on the floor, with Bear crouched next to her.He was checking her pulse with a finger on her neck.A blanket covered her.Either she’d collapsed while wrapped in it, or Bear had draped it over her.

“She’s alive,” he murmured.“But unconscious.Can you get the fire going while I get her into bed?”

“Of course.”Lila knelt and collected bits of cardboard from a box set next to the hearth.An old tin can held boxes of matches.Before she’d come to Firelight Ridge, her experience with starting fires had been limited to campfires on Girl Scouts trips.

When she’d arrived here in chilly April, her friend Daniel had taught her how to start a fire in a woodstove; she assumed the same principles would apply here.Warm up the chimney first, so the cold air wouldn’t snuff out the fire before it got going.Set two cut logs next to each other, with space between so an updraft would develop.Place small bits of kindling between, and lay a few across the logs.Give your flame a gentle push with an extra breath or two.Once the fire was crackling, meaning it had reached the wood, feed it more wood.

It made her sad to think of Daniel, the plow truck driver and smoothie maker who had died in an avalanche about a month after she’d arrived in Firelight Ridge.It was a reminder that people really did live on the edge out here.You did your best to survive and prepare, but life could turn in a split-second.

When the fire was crackling in a way that Lila found deeply satisfying—she’d done that!—she got up and joined Bear.He sat on the edge of Paulina’s bed, which was a platform built out from a wall.He’d pulled the covers over her, so all Lila could see was her pasty face and faded red hair.

Paulina was vain about her hair, refusing to let it turn gray.“I’m a redhead in my heart, and I’ll stay a redhead until I die,” she’d told Lila once.Lila had been helping her apply her favorite henna hair dye after Paulina had sprained a muscle.

Oh Paulina.So strange to see her drained of her usual prickly yet ethereal energy.

“What happened to her?”Lila asked softly.“Do you think someone was here?”

“I don’t think so.I don’t see anything out of place.Maybe a stroke?Her heart rate seems fine.Pulse is weak but steady.Airways aren’t constricted.EMT training,” he added, when Lila gave him a curious glance.

She didn’t doubt it.Bear knew how to handle most situations.

But maybe not this one.He was scratching at the back of his neck, looking mystified.“I’m not sure if it’s better to bring her into town where someone can take a look at her, or stay with her until she wakes up.”

“You could go into town and I can stay here with her.Find Ani, she can help.”There were other medically informed people in Firelight Ridge, but Lila trusted Ani the most.

Bear frowned.“I don’t know.If I’m wrong and someone was here, they could come back.Maybe you should go and I’ll stay here.”

“You’ll be much faster.”She’d borrowed Bear’s truck before, but she wasn’t used to the icy road conditions the way he was.“I’ll be fine.I got the fire going, didn’t I?”

Reluctantly, Bear nodded.“All right, but I’m going to leave my hunting rifle with you.I’ll go grab it from the truck.”

A shudder ran through her.Guns terrified her, and had ever since the track meet shooting that she’d warned her friends about.The images that had poured through her head…terrifying.

He must have sensed her fear.“Don’t worry, I won’t load it.It’s just for show.Sometimes all it takes is for someone to know you can defend yourself.”

“But I can’t defend myself.They could walk right up and grab it from me and turn it on me.”

“Which is one reason it won’t be loaded,” he said dryly.

Fair.

He left it propped by the doorway, then a few moments later she heard the rumble of his F-250 leaving the property.Lila pulled up an upholstered footstool next to Paulina’s bed.

The quiet felt immense, but not empty.Maybe to someone else it would, but to Lila, it vibrated with the accumulated energy of a highly creative person who had spent the last forty years here making art.Once Paulina had found her niche here in the Alaskan wilderness, she’d clung to it with all her heart and soul.She’d told Lila that her family—sisters, a brother, an ex-fiancé—had begged her to come back to California, but she’d refused.

A log collapsed in the hearth, making Lila jump.She stepped across the bare plywood floor, on which Paulina had painted swoops and swirls of moss green and buttercup yellow, all faded now.

Lila crouched and used a poker to maneuver the log back into the heart of the fire.While she was at it, she added two more, until the fire was really roaring.It would take a while to heat up this space, with its high ceilings and many windows.Paulina had chosen aesthetics over heat efficiency, that was obvious.

How did Paulina pay for things like windows and stone hearths?She sold her art, but very reluctantly, and only on a small scale.Very occasionally, she held an exhibit at the Caribou Grill, which had the most wall space in town.But Lila couldn’t imagine that she made a living that way, let alone enough to buy her painting supplies.Maybe she had a family trust fund.

Something about Paulina didn’t quite add up, but Lila couldn’t put her finger on it.All this explosion of talent and brilliance, confined to a tree house in the middle of the wilderness—it made Lila sad.

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