Page 33 of Mistletoe and Mayday
He doesn’t respond, just continues with that laser focus. The trees thin ahead, revealing weathered logs through the branches. My heart leaps.
“Oh, thank God.”
“Thank my hiking experience.” Smugness creeps back into his tone.
“Do you practice being insufferable, or is it pure natural talent?”
“Says the woman who spent an hour ranking snow globes by ‘shake velocity.’”
The world’s getting fuzzy at the edges, like someone’s turning down the contrast. My ankle throbs, each pulse sending fresh waves of nausea through my stomach. Not the fun kind that follows tequila shots. The bad kind. The something’s-seriously-wrong kind.
Black spots dance across my vision. My fingers grow numb where they grip his shoulders, not from the cold this time.
“Sebastian?” His name feels strange on my tongue, too intimate after all the Mr. Perfect jokes.
“Hmm?”
“If I pass out...” My grip slips. The cabin stands right there, a dark smudge through swaying trees. So close. But my body’s staging a full rebellion against my brain.
His arm tightens as my hands fall away. “I’ve got you.”
Three simple words shouldn’t feel like a lifeline. Especially from a man who probably alphabetizes his spice rack. But they do.
“My snow globe—” The world darkens at the edges.
“Is safe. Unlike your priorities.”
That’s funny. Maybe I don’t completely hate him. At least he won’t leave me to freeze in the snow. Probably. He sacrificed a tie worth more than my plane’s navigation system to splint my leg.
Darkness closes in. I’m vaguely aware of the solid strength of his arms beneath me. Being carried by Sebastian Lockhart doesn’t feel nearly as humiliating as it should.
“Bailey.” His voice reaches me through thickening fog. “Bailey, stay with me.”
Ten
SEBASTIAN
Her body goes limp against me mid-stride, deadweight in my arms. My heart stalls.
“Bailey?” I brush damp hair from her face, fingers trembling despite my efforts to steady them. Her skin feels cool and clammy beneath my touch. Two fingers against her neck find a pulse—rapid but steady. The relief hits me, making my knees weak.
Wilderness survival courses teach you essential skills. How to build a fire from nothing. How to identify edible plants. How to treat hypothermia in hostile conditions.
What they don’t prepare you for is an unconscious pilot who won’t release her ridiculous snow globe even in unconsciousness. Or how to ignore that same pilot mumbling your name. Not Mr. Perfect or any of her other insufferable nicknames, but Sebastian.
The makeshift splint holds, but the swelling has doubled. She never once complained about the pain. Not a single admissionof weakness during all that incessant chatter about airport gift shops and glitter density and whatever else tumbled from her mouth. Just talked and talked, filling silence with everything except what mattered.
I gather her closer, adjusting her against my chest, careful of the injured leg. Her head rolls against me, that damned Vegas snow globe still clutched against her body like some plastic talisman.
Something twists in my chest when she mumbles my name again. This is basic decency. Concern for an injured stranger. Nothing more.
I need to get her to the cabin.
The snow reaches my thighs in deeper drifts, each step a battle against frozen resistance. My muscles burn, lungs aching in the thin air. With each labored step, Bailey seems lighter in my arms, like she’s fading. Like she might disappear if I don’t hold tight enough.
The cabin door appears frozen solid when we reach it, because, of course, it is. Because nothing about this catastrophe could be simple.
I shift Bailey in my arms, trying not to jostle her, and drive my boot against the wood. It groans but holds. Another kick and it surrenders with a crack that echoes through the surrounding forest.
