Page 51 of Out of the Cold

“Good girl, Hilde.” Lucy let out a long breath and clipped the leash on. No more off-leash adventures until Hilde listened properly.

Movement at the corner of her eye made Lucy look up. She instantly froze as every hair on her body lifted. A bear, perhaps thirty feet away, stood watching them.

Hilde had spotted it, too. Her ruff rose up and she growled, so low it was almost inaudible.

Thank God Hilde was already leashed. Backing away slowly with her dog in tow, Lucy put more distance between them and the bear. It didn’t look threatening, and she didn’t see any cubs, but it was enormous. It watched them for another minute, then continued on into the trees in the opposite direction.

She was shaking and nauseous from adrenaline. That bear was gone, but what if there were others?

Stepping into her own tracks, she plowed in the direction of home through the snow. The cold burned her lungs as her breath sawed in and out. Now the quiet seemed ominous instead of peaceful, the silence of other living things hiding, waiting out danger.

Finally she smelled wood smoke, and soon the road came into view. She was safe.

Gabriel was outside chopping wood. He set a log on the stump and swung what she now knew was an awl in a clean arc through the air. The head lodged neatly about halfway through the log, then he used the awl’s handle to slam it the rest of the way. The two halves fell to the ground, joining a growing pile half-submerged in the snow.

He looked up and saw her.

She tried to wave, but she was so exhausted her arm didn’t respond to her command. Whatever force had propelled her home was fading away, and she was shaking and wrung out. She really, really didn’t want Gabriel to see her like this, not when she was trying so hard to seem capable.

Please don’t come over,she silently begged.

But something in the way she moved must have given her away. He dropped the awl and headed toward her, catching up as she neared her front door.

He frowned down at her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Her voice shook. She’d grown overly warm on the way back, but her body was cooling, the sweat chilling her. “I went out a little too far, that’s all.”

His eyes narrowed, and he looked her over, his gaze raking her from her knitted hat with the pompom on top to her snowshoes. “That’s all?”

She managed a nod.

He held her elbow as they headed for the side door. Hilde rushed in ahead of them, shaking her wet fur.

“Wait, I need to take these off,” she said, struggling with the straps of her snowshoes. Her fingers were frozen and clumsy. She was shivering, dismayed at the snow falling in drifts and clumps from her boots and clothes.

Bending down, he worked the straps loose and slid each snowshoe and then each boot off her feet.

She was feeling almost weightless now, and she’d started to shiver uncontrollably.

“Let’s get you out of this,” he said, unzipping her coat and pulling it off.

She held his arm as she stepped out of the snow pants, too weary and cold to care that she was left standing before him in skintight long underwear.

“No wonder you got chilled,” he said, sounding appalled.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re wearing cotton. That’s the absolute worst thing you could wear when you go out.”

“I thought this is what people wore. What else would it be for?”

“It’s fine if you want extra layers when you’re going shopping or carrying in wood, but not when you’re going to work up a sweat. Cotton stays wet, and you can get hypothermia in no time.”

Another thing she’d never heard about before that could kill her. How was she supposed to convince both herself and Gabriel that she could get by on her own when her ignorance was so vast and wide?

“I didn’t know,” she mumbled, so tired she could barely hold herself upright. “But you don’t have to get so mad.”

“I’m not...” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I’m not angry. But when I think what could have happened...”

---