Page 54 of Montana Rain

Leaning over, he tossed another log onto the fire before yanking the blankets over both our heads and plunging us both into darkness and pleasure.

Chapter 23

Cole

Seeing the nearly clear air outside was strange. Not completely clear, but the wind wasn’t howling, and it looked closer to a normal snowy day than the frozen hell that had been swirling around us for the last few days. Trapped in our own little bubble of the fire and sex and the slow, tortured pleasure I loved giving her.

Rayne was asleep in front of the fire, red hair flared out over our pillows like a waterfall. The blanket had slipped down a little, and I saw the bare skin of her neck in the glow of the firelight.

She had clothes on again, much as I disliked the idea. It was warmer.

The daylight was fading, and it was already getting darker outside. We’d been eating the dry goods I’d purchased, but it was time for us to eat some kind of hot meal, even if it was small. I had my coat, scarf, and gloves on, because being this far away from the blankets and fire was still frigid, despite no longer being quite as dangerous.

A chirp caught my attention.

The satellite phone where I left it resting on the table. “No shit,” I whispered.

One solitary bar of signal appeared on the screen. It was weak and fluctuated in and out while I was holding it, but better than nothing.

I found Daniel’s number and called it.

“He—o?”

“Daniel?” I stepped to the other side of the cabin in the bedroom since it was at a slightly higher altitude.

“Cole?” My name was again choppy, but I could hear him. “Is that you?”

“It’s me. First signal we’ve been able to get in days.”

“Hey, it’s Cole,” Daniel called to whoever was in the background. “Good to hear from you. One more day and we were going to dig our way to you.”

I glanced back toward Rayne. She wasn’t visible from this angle, but it didn’t sound like she’d woken. “Is it bad down there?”

“Probably not as bad as you, but yeah, we’re buried. The whole town is buried. We’ve got walled paths to get to the animals.”

Laughing once, I shook my head. “Sounds about right.”

“You guys okay?”

“As good as we can be. Rayne’s injured. Not seriously, but her ankle’s twisted. Generator burned out, so we’ve been using the firewood. I think I speak for both of us when I say we’d like to get out of here soon. Any progress?”

Daniel made a noncommittal sound. “We’ve made contact, but they’re not moving quickly. Because we were so sparing with the details, they’re not inclined to believe us and keep pushing for more information about ‘the source’—what we’ve been calling Rayne.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so. We’re not going to sell Rayne out when she didn’t do anything and is the victim. If the Bureau can’t get their heads out of their asses long enough to see we’re handing them a gift, they can go fuck themselves.”

“I told them pretty much the same thing,” Daniel said with a chuckle. “Let’s just say they weren’t big fans.”

“They say anything else?”

Jude’s voice was now with Daniel’s. “Mostly the same bluster with a dose of intimidation,” Jude said. It sounded like I was on speaker. “They said now was the time to tell them everything, especially if we had information about the case.”

“Tame for them as far as intimidation.”

“Oh,” Daniel said. “That wasn’t the threatening bit. It was when they told us we shouldn’t be messing around with this, because the people they’re hearing chatter from don’t fuck around. So ‘whoever’ we were contacting them about needed to be careful—or better yet, come forward.”

I swore under my breath. “Sounds about right.”

“They said they’d get back to us about the other thing, but they haven’t yet,” Jude called. “That was a couple of days ago. We wanted to talk to you and Rayne and make sure you were okay before reaching out again.”

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