Page 103 of Out of the Cold

Ricky had done a dumb thing. He’d done other dumb things and gotten away with them, like Gabe had. Like many people had. And then his luck had run out.

Now he didn’t see the eighteen-year-old Ricky. He saw the two of them getting ice cream at the water park for his ninth birthday. He saw Ricky in a suit before his first formal dance, and crying over a skinned knee on the playground. He was coaching Ricky through math homework after Teresa had called him, at her wit’s end. They were on their first overnight camping trip, when Ricky asked his advice about inviting a girl to a dance and then kept him up for hours with question after question about girls and sex.

Years of memories, but not as many as there should have been.

They would have to be enough. He needed to treasure each one, and he could only do that if he forgave Ricky and himself. And he needed to. It was time, and it was the only chance he had of being with Lucy.

If she’d still have him.

He stared at the sky, waiting for the muscles in his back to release. When he felt marginally better, he tried to move.

He groaned aloud as pain sizzled up his back and down his legs. He fell back, panting.

He had to talk to her before she left, and he hoped that he wasn’t too late. Come to think of it, he had to live through the night. Luckily, he was on dirt and pine needles rather than snow, and he was dressed warmly with a hat and gloves. But the ground was frozen, and his body was getting cold fast.

***

The number of thingsshe’d brought with her had somehow multiplied. Books, clothes, and shoes were piled in every room, and somehow she had to get them back into boxes and bags and into her car. Fortunately, she’d made a good start earlier today when Gabriel was away.

She turned on the radio and smiled as one song ended and a Patsy Cline one began. A good match for a heartbroken last night in a lonesome mountain cabin. She sang along as she moved her clothes into suitcases and wondered how she’d get through tomorrow.

When she looked up again, it was fully dark and there were no lights in Gabriel’s cabin. She’d seen him leave for his hike hours ago, and he still wasn’t home. Strange that he’d stay out after dark, but he was an experienced hiker. He knew what he was doing.

An hour and a half later, there were still no lights in his cabin.

Something didn’t feel right. She called his cell phone and land line and got no answer, then stepped out onto the front steps. All was silent but for the lonely creaking of trees in the wind.

Without consciously making a decision, she started walking toward his cabin, creating and discarding reasons for his absence. At the door she stood for several seconds, feeling foolish even as her worry grew. She knocked softly and waited. Hearing nothing, she knocked louder, waited, then turned the knob.

It was pitch black, as she’d expected, and cold, which she had not.

Quickly she checked his bedroom, knowing he wouldn’t be there. A nearly empty thermos of coffee sat on the counter and his laptop waited on the kitchen table. The woodstove held a trace of warmth, but opening the door, she saw the fire had burned down to only a few coals.

A chill that had nothing to do with the cold traveled down her spine. Gabriel would never let the fire die. If he’d known he was going to be gone for so long, he’d have stoked it before he left. She did so now, feeding enough logs to keep the stove going most of the night.

Was there a simple explanation she wasn’t considering, something other than an accident that could account for his absence? His truck sat parked in the driveway. She scanned the camping gear that lined the far wall of his bedroom. He had several bedrolls and tents, but they were all stacked precisely where they always were. The enormous pack he used when backcountry hiking was there, as well as the extra satellite phone he bought after he gave her his.

There was only one explanation—he hadn’t intended to be out this late.

Sweat prickled under her arms at the thought of him somewhere in the woods, hurt and cold. It was almost impossible to imagine, but she couldn’t stay home and hope she was wrong. She had to do something. She should be able to follow his trail, as it hadn’t snowed since last night. If she wasn’t able to find him, she’d call Search and Rescue.

Moving quickly now that she’d made the decision, she dug a first aid kit out of his pack, then went back to her own cabin, where she threw a bottle of water, protein bars, the satellite phone, and hand and foot warmers into her backpack. She pulled on her snow pants, hat, and mittens, fastened her snowshoes, and strapped on a headlamp.

Hilde was watching her every move, body tense with the desperate hope of a late walk.

“Come, Hilde,” she said, clipping her leash to her belt.

Outside the sky was clear, the stars and moon stark above her. She could clearly see where Gabriel’s tracks mingled with hers down the driveway and along the path to the clearing, where they branched away to the left.

The forest deepened here. The evergreens, thick with needles and rimmed with snow, blocked out nearly all the light from the stars and moon, and now only her headlamp lit the way.

Even in daylight, being here could be unnerving. At night, it was terrifying.

She stopped, her breath fast and light from nerves. Her heart pounded like the thud of an axe into cold wood as she stared ahead into darkness that held only more darkness.

She made herself move again, confident that Gabriel had to have come this way. She made it as far as the clearing on that one certainty, and there she stopped.

Each direction was equally possible. This must be how Gabriel felt the day he went looking for her. Only her problem wasn’t snowfall but the fact that she and Hilde had been on each of the trails this week. She couldn’t make out his tracks from theirs, especially with so little light.

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