Page 120 of Tangled up in You

“We’ll worry about them once we warm her up.”

“What are you going to do?” Mark asked.

He pulled on his pack, and Mark realized he also carried his foldable saw. “Collect wood for the fire. We’ll need a reflector, too, but we’ve got to get her warmed up. I’ll work my way there with wood.”

They both looked up at the sound of an osprey’s cry somewhere overhead.

And they both said, “Oh,shit.”

Not because of the bird, but because they finally processed it was starting to snow.

CHAPTER 12

CHRISTOPHER

Goddammit, what the hell else can go wrong?

Maybe he shouldn’t test the universe by asking. They were rapidly losing daylight, they had to warm Jesse, and there was a pissed off, bear-sprayed sow out there somewhere. He hoped the mules were okay, especially since much of their supplies were on them, but right now he was more concerned about Jesse dying.

He wasn’t certain his pulse rate would ever return to normal after this.

Unfortunately, there was a lot of damp wood around and the earlier rain and falling snow wasn’t helping matters. If he’d been paying better attention he would have noticed that earlier.

Except he’d had other things on his mind, like how they could proposition Jesse and not end up fired.

Then he was distracted by not becoming a steaming pile of bear scat.

That’s what happens when I let myself dare to dream we’ve found our perfect unicorn.

By the time he gathered enough wood and dry tinder to lay a fire, and returned to the area he’d told Mark about, it was less than an hour from dark. Which would come earlier than usual,between the overcast skies and their position on the back side of a mountain.

Plus, it was snowing harder, more than a dusting but not white-out conditions.

Yet.

Mark had erected their tent and situated Jesse inside with their sleeping bags wrapped around her, and had cleared a spot for the fire and set up a makeshift reflector using one of their emergency blankets and tent poles from Jesse’s tent.

“Please go get the mules,” Christopher said as he dropped the wood and shed his pack. “I’ll build the fire. You’ve got your gun and mine’s on one of them. I’m also out of bear spray. My spare cans are on the packs.”

“Yeah.”

Chris peeked inside the tent at Jesse. “Hang on, sweetie,” he said. “I’ll have a fire going shortly. Don’t lay down, okay? Stay sitting up. I need you to stay awake.”

She nodded, her hair soaking wet under his own toque that he’d pulled on her head when changing her. She’d lost her knit cap and glasses in the river.

Up until an hour or so ago the idea of the three of them getting naked together in a sleeping bag wasn’t the worst fantasy.

But not under these circumstances.

Mark set off while Christopher focused on building the fire. At least in this way luck was on his side. In ten minutes, he had a good blaze going and had helped Jesse out of the tent to sit in front of the fire while he secured the reflector and foraged for more wood.

He’d just finished this task, and processed that it was fully dark, when he heard noises.

He grabbed his hatchet. “Mark?”

“Yeah.” He emerged from the dark, looking…

Uh-oh.“Where are the mules?”

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