Page 106 of Out of the Cold

“Okay. But we need to keep an eye out for the mountain lion.”

“I didn’t see any signs of one. You think there’s one nearby?”

She grimaced. “I saw one a little ways back. I think it was getting ready to attack us, but I threw a rock and she ran away.”

“Jesus.” She could have been killed while he lay here, helpless and unknowing. His stomach heaved and his skin went clammy, and for a second he thought he might be sick.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she said, putting a hand on his arm. “Nothing happened.”

“You should have gone back.”

“I couldn’t leave you out here.”

How had he turned his back on this woman? His love for her would have brought him to his knees if he hadn’t already been there.

“Do you know what I was thinking about as I lay here?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“I replayed every minute I’ve spent with you, starting with the day you stood with your hands on your hips while Hilde growled at me like I was going to be dinner. Then there was the agony every time I looked at the deck. I used to imagine you soaking in the tub, and it drove me crazy.”

She gave a watery laugh. “Seriously?”

“I remembered sitting with you after showing you how to build a fire. How your eyes forgave me even after I was such an ass.”

She looked up at him, and once again he was slaughtered by them.

“Gabriel...”

He cupped her face in his gloved hands and kissed the corners of her eyes. “I thought about how every day you tried something new. How you went farther from the house, first on the road and then in the woods.” He kissed his way down her cheek, tasting her salty tears. “First on the trail and then blazing your own trail. You and Hilde, every day.”

He kissed behind her ear, making her shiver. “I’d watch you from my window and think how I’d never seen anything lovelier. Every time I entered your cabin, you cracked my heart open a little more.”

He’d reached her mouth, so wide and generous, more often serious than not, but still so ready to smile. “I thought about the first time we had sex, when my craving for you started, and then when we made love, when I knew how lucky I was.”

He kissed her sweet mouth, full of the same wonder he always felt when he held her. She opened to him on a shuddering sigh, and he tasted her sweetness and generosity, her bravery and strength.

He pulled back so he could look into her eyes. “I thought I had to save you, when all along you’ve been saving me.”

She smiled up at him, everything she felt there in her gaze. “I’ve been loving you.”

He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to hers. “I love you, Lucy. I’m not completely whole yet, but I’ll get there, and I want to be with you, wherever that is.”

Her fingers threaded into his hair as she pulled him to her for a kiss that took him so far under he forgot his pain, forgot everything but her.

Then Hilde barked, and they drew apart.

“This is crazy,” she said. “We have to get out of here.”

“Right. Let’s evade death, then make out.” He grabbed hold of a low branch, grunting in pain. Lucy supported him on the other side, and together they slowly rose to their feet.

He was panting and sweating by the time he was fully upright.

“There’s a hot tub waiting for you at the end of the road,” she said, handing him one of her poles.

They were two miles, more or less, from home. On a normal day, he could have run it without breaking a sweat, but now it took everything he had not to howl at the torture of the first step. Being mauled by a mountain lion was probably less agonizing than walking in his current state. But he kept going, panting and grunting, dragging his body along, the image of them together in her cabin galvanizing him.

He’d never been in so much physical torment, and it was still the best day of his life.

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