Page 123 of Tangled up in You

“We’re snowed in,” Mark said. “And I have a feeling it’ll only get worse.”

She looked around them and finally processed it was really coming down out there.

Oh, fuuuuck.

CHAPTER 13

JESSE

Jesse stared at the landscape, trying to process this development. “Snowed in?”

“Yeah,” Chris said. “Nearly a foot fell overnight and there’s more on the way. We can’t risk moving right now.”

She shivered and Chris noticed. “Get dressed. I left your clothes in the sleeping bag.”

She dug around and found them, quickly pulling them on. Her shoes, which they’d left to dry near the fire, were still damp. Mark handed her two plastic bags to don over her dry socks.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” she said.

He pointed to their right. “Don’t go too far from the tent,” Mark warned as she climbed out between them. “We’ll look away, but if you go too far you might get lost. Toss snow over it. That way’s downslope from us. We’ll get snow to melt for drinking water from the other side.”

“Okay.”

She did just that, shivering by the time she returned to the tent. “No coffee this morning, huh?” she joked.

“Afraid not,” Chris said. “The camp stove, coffee pot, and mugs were on the mules.”

“And the coffee,” Mark said.

“Hey! I have instant!” She dug into her pack and held up the envelopes. “How about this?”

“We don’t have a way to warm it,” Mark said as he took one from her, “But we can drink it cold.” He dumped it into his water bottle and swirled it around until it looked like it all dissolved. Then he took a sip. “I’ve had worse,” he joked as he handed it to her. “But it’s something.”

She took a swig, wincing, but she agreed it was better than nothing. She passed it to Chris, and the three of them took turns drinking. Mark reached to their left, grabbed more snow, dumped it into the water bottle, then set it in front of the fire with the other two water bottles, but not close enough to melt the plastic, to melt the snow.

“Probably not a great idea to use more of that until we’re ready to move on,” Mark said. “Don’t want it working against us.”

“What about breakfast?” she asked.

He handed her a piece of a protein bar, one of theirs. “At this rate, our food can last us six days.”

She stared at him. “Sixdays? You think we’ll be stuck out here that long?” Her heart hammered in her chest as she truly started processing their situation.

Mark slung an arm around her and it felt right leaning against him. “I hope not.”

“Are we going to die?” she asked.

“No!” Mark said, hugging her closer. “Don’t think like that.”

She stared into his face a moment before looking at Christopher. “Well?”

He winced, but at least he was honest. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I hope not.”

“Dude, what thefuck?” Mark yelled, making her wince.

“I’m sittingrighthere,” she said, trying to turn her ear away from him without losing contact with him.

“Exactly, she’s sittingrighthere, Chris!” Mark said. “Why worry her?”

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